Dragon Mage Enterprises
Lead Miniatures

Semtek - Karis and Kaochun

Karis is a Bard-Barbarian-Holy Liberator. In Dungeons and Dragons 3.5, Bards don't tend to wear the heavier armor (although they know how) because they are light combatants, and Barbarians don't tend to wear much armor at all. Thus, it wasn't until recently (when he got the Holy Liberator levels) that Karis was able to wear armor at all. He tended to use a spear - generally to devestating effect as he would set against a charge and then things would be stupid enough to attack him. He also used a magical shield that was given to him by the Demigod Semtek, after whom the campaign is named, and provided him with a magical armor effect.

What this meant in the practical terms of finding a lead miniature for the character was:

1. It had to be a male human miniature, or at least one that could be converted from elf to human without being dreadfully obvious.
2. It had to have light armor and, ideally, a kite shield.
3. Ideally, it had to have a spear.
4. It had to look good - Bards are very charismatic, and Karis is very persuasive, except when he's raging.

The Karis figure is wearing light leather armor over a tunic, and a cloak of resistance that he acquired after fighting with some of Fingul's minions. The cloak has since been improved. Like his cousins, Karis has dark brown hair, dark eyes, and tanned skin from living outdoors a great deal. The spear was made for him by Ahdosar and has the ability to store a spell in it. After a disasterous fight where he was mind-controlled and used the Poison spell that Renn had stored in it for him to use on Thiara, Karis tends to keep a Cure Serious Wounds in it.

Karis no longer dresses like this in battle, and has acquired heavier armor and a vicious sword now that he has Holy Liberator levels, so it's quite possible I'll be painting a new figure for him as I did for Thiara and Renn.

Karis has had two companions thus far - Conscience, an awakened border collie, who has left the party, and Kaochun, an Ork who has sworn to accompany Karis for a year and a day and assist him in his endeavours.

Kaochun is a big Ork, who uses a two-handed falchion and wears chainmail, and more recently, platemail. I have yet to see an Ork figure wearing platemail, and Kaochun is not a PC, so I painted one of the spare Ork figurines I had lying around as an after-effect of acquiring a fig for the Orc in the Tieval Yaneth campaign.

He is painted in red and blue (Karis's colors) and holding a two-handed sword. He is wearing chainmail and a big helmet to make him look more ferocious. Over his armor, he wears the cloak of resistance given to him by Karis, to help him survive.