Joulupukki

Last year, Finland inducted Joulupukki (aka Santa Claus) to their National Inventory of Living Heritage. The modern Joulupukki looks pretty much like the version of Santa Claus popularized by the advertising paintings produced for Coca Cola by Haddon Sundblom.

Joulupukki and his tontut.

However, there was a time when Joulupukki bore the literal appearance of his name—Yule Goat, and was said to have been an actual goat, or some kind of weregoat.

The concept of [were]goats bearing gifts is said to have come from the merging of Joulupukki with Nuuttipukki. Nuuttipukkit were Krampus-like figures who would make the rounds at the end of the Yuletide festivities. Some say they represent spirits to be appeased, while others say they drive off spirits who would otherwise overstay their welcome during the Yule.

Anyway, the Yule Goat is an appropriate subject for this time of year, but the post is really about weregoats (of which the Yule Goat is the closest thing in mythology that I could find).

There is only one weregoat figure that I am aware of. It comes from the Judges Guild City State Miniatures line. I'm not sure if there are any stats for this creature in any of the Judges Guild publications, but current homebrew D&D stats found on the internet seem to treat weregoats no differently from satyrs.

The Judges Guild weregoat happens to be one of my grail miniatures, but unfortunately Eisenwerk miniatures are near impossible to find. Thus I decided to make do with a proxy from the Ganesha Games Miniatures line produced by Alternative Armies.

This particular miniature is the mount from the Skeleton Undead Ram Rider (Hammer and Forge UDD007).

The creature is supposed to be a ram and not a goat, but the face is rather bovine, so it doesn't really look like either. I'll probably modify the horns to point backwards so that it is more goat-like, but I'm not sure there is too much else I can do about the head.