Putting a Face to the Mini

Last week, we started our DM prep on our next D&D Acquisitions Incorporated 5e encounter with some fancy ruins terrain, but today we’re going to spotlight a challenging NPC mini selection.

So in Episode 2: Fun in Phandalin, the players descend on Tresendar Manor and the sudden disappearance of the Fellowship of the Golden Mongoose AI franchise. Omin Dran lost contact with that adventurer group some time ago, and he’s sent our party to the building ruins in Phandalin to find out what happened.

We 3D-printed this Ruined Scatter Terrain Set by Infinite Dimensions Games, so we think we’re solid on this terrain for our opening D&D encounter. Now we need to get all our miniatures picked out too…both the opening monsters and the discovered NPC.

Today, we’ll focus on our surviving NPC, Gildha Duhn, majordomo of the Company of the Golden Mongoose franchise. She was buried alive by fallen debris during the ambush and ultimately gets rescued by the party. This disoriented half-orc caster uses an acolyte stat block.

That brings us to the age-old question of miniature selection: if you’re forced to choose, do you pick the miniature based on its class or race?!

So if we go by class, this Medic by Brite Minis is the perfect pick. He’s part of their always-growing library of supportless NPC STLs you can access when you join their $5 monthly Patreon.

If DM Ben picks class over race, then resident painter Kimmy Utah’s final brush strokes were for a worthy cause. Throwing the Arm’s Length Rule out the window, if you really lean in and study this Brite Minis 3D-print, then a Medic label makes more sense. We just think he looks more like an Artificer Alchemist subclass and would be perfect here.

Now, if the Half-orc race is the more important attribute, then we have a plethora of pre-painted miniatures by WizKids to choose from here. 3DRPG usually doesn’t print what we call “Abundance Monsters” – stuff like Orcs, Goblins, Kobolds, etc., because we have plenty of those from WizKids booster boxes from our miniature collector days.

So, we’re leaning towards the Orc Mystic (Legends of Golarion) or Hobgoblin Warcaster (Demonweb) over the Red Hand War Sorcerer (Blood War) and Orc Druid (Dragoneye).

Dylan (Namyri’el) on Discord suggested going by whatever is more visually striking (orc vs human vs gnome | wizard vs sorcerer). Lastly, there is another way to break the tie between race and class when picking a miniature: is the NPC central to the story or more of a Star Trek “Red Shirt one-off?”

For example, DM Ben loves our goggle-wearing, potion-toting wizard, but Gildha Duhn doesn’t have a lot of big scenes after she gets rescued and reveals the hidden timepiece of travel component. Plus, she didn’t get a great look at her attackers and wants to run back to her remaining franchise friends back in Waterdeep. Hence, we went with the pre-painted Orc here. 🙂

Next time, we’ll feature the monster miniatures for this encounter: a wild pack of jackals led by a jackalwere boss.