Howard the Duck

Back in the day, Archive Miniatures produced a number of duck miniatures sourced from Marvel's Howard the Duck.

I can't say that I've ever read any of the stories, but I am familiar with Howard from the covers of the old comics.

Howard the Barbarian

In any event, I've always considered him to be the inspiration for the Durulz race, which first appeared in miniature form from Martian Metals and Citadel. The first three ducks on the left are Martian Metals Armored Ducks (RuneQuest 7001). The lone duck on the right is a Citadel Duck Adventurer from the RuneQuest Adventurers box set.

I always wanted to make Howard part of my Duck Army, so I bought a cheap HeroClix Howard (Deadpool and The X-Force #035) on eBay a while back.

When I started to rebase the figure I noticed a couple of things that seemed to be off about the sculpt. Why was he wearing pants?  Where is his cigar? Was this some sort of effort to make Howard respectable?

I did some searching on Google, and found out that in 1977 Disney forced Howard to wear pants under threat of legal action. I didn't find out anything about the cigar, though I think this particular sculpt is the 2015 series version of Howard in which he doesn't ever seem to have a cigar.

Anyway, this was unacceptable, so I had to depants him and return his cigar.

The first problem though, is his body shape. This is very apparent when he is compared with the other duck miniatures.

To be clear: he has no butt to speak of.

Sir Mix-A-Lot would be sad.

I carved away his pants and sculpted a duck-butt out of Kneadatite.

I'll probably do a little more work on the modification because it still doesn't look quite right, but that's it for now.

Dungeon Meshi & Walktapodes

I don't remember food (or lack thereof) ever being a particular issue when playing tabletop RPGs, but it was often a mechanic used in computer RPGs (e.g., Rogue, NetHack, Ultima).

One of the methods of preventing death by starvation in the dungeon in rogue-like games was to eat the corpses of monsters that you had killed in the dungeon.

The manga Dungeon Meshi by Ryōko Kui is a humorous take on this concept.

The English language version of the manga is published by Yen Press, and I believe that two volumes have been released so far.

The translated version uses the original subtitle of the manga, "Delicious in Dungeon" as the title, but I would have personally used something like "Dungeons and Dining" as a play off of D&D, or "Dungeon Eats" which is closer to what "Dungeon Meshi" would translate as.

Some of the monsters cooked up by the adventurers include giant bats, giant scorpions, myconids, slimes, living armor, carnivorous plants, and basilisks.


In one episode, they kill a kraken, but unfortunately it didn't taste as good as Marcille envisioned.

The episode reminded me of an article by Bill Johnson printed in the Wyrm's Footnotes about cooking walktapus.

Walktapus is also an ingredient of the Everlast biscuits used as rations by the troops of the Broo King of Dorastor.

The walktapus of course, is a tainted chaos creature from Glorantha with a head like a giant octopus, and a man-like body. It has the ability to regenerate, and can release poison gas in the manner that a normal octopus would release ink.

I recently was able to complete my collection of walktapodes when I picked up an Archive Giant Octopus (Fantasy 5038) which was originally used as the head of the Archive Walktapus (RuneQuest 819).

I've had the body (which is the same as that of the Arduin Shadow Golem) for years, but was missing the head.

The following image is of the Archive Walktapus, the Martian Metals Walktapus (RuneQuest 7002), and the Ral Partha Walktapus (RuneQuest 18-402).

The Martian Metals miniature comes in two pieces like the Archive miniature, while the Ral Partha miniature is a single piece casting.

Lance & Laser also made a walktapus, but at ~2.5" in height it would have towered over my other octopodes, so I had no use for it. The Lance & Laser walktapus suffered the fate of the Archive walktapus, and now only exists as a [giant] octopus from Armorcast.

Vegepygmies

The vegepygmy was introduced in Dungeon Module S3 - Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. They are presented to the adventurers in the illustration booklet that came with the module as shown above. Apparently they grow from the bodies of humanoids killed by exposure to russet mold spores, but I don't remember ever discovering this fact when playing the module back in the day.

Despite developing from molds, some of them are described as being "splotched with patches of green chlorophyll", which I guess justifies their being vegepygmies, though in some later edition incarnations, they are known simply as "mold men".

There are not really many options as far as miniatures go for this obscure monster. Below, from left to right, there is the D&D CMG Thorn (Angelfire #25), a Ral Partha Moldman (AD&D Monsters 11-511), and two Citadel Runners from the Humanoids & Aldryami boxed set.

I'm not famiilar with the Thorn at all, but when I first saw the miniature, my first thought was that it was a vegepygmy. The moldman is (I believe) just the vegepygmy as it was known under 2^nd Edition AD&D. The Runners are Runequest creatures, and while these miniatures look more like baby bugbears, Runners are actually relatives of Gloranthan "elves", and akin to humanoid shrubs and bushes.

All of the miniatures with the exception of the Thorn are very difficult to find in my experience, so it will probably be hard to assemble a big group of these creatures as encountered in the module.

Dragonsnail

Dragonsnails are gigantic chaos-mutated pond snails that mostly sport one or two heads, and enjoy eating people. They inhabit the swamplands of Prax, in particular the Devil's Marsh, where they presumably originated.

Pictured here are two dragonsnail miniatures. The snail on the left is a Drakesnail from the Dreamblade CMG (Chrysotic Plague #20). The snail on the right is a Ral Partha dragonsnail from the Creatures of Glorantha boxed set (RuneQuest 10-402), also available in the Dark Denizens blister pack (RuneQuest 18-015).

The earliest dragonsnail miniature, however, was produced by Archive Miniatures, and faithfully replicates the artwork by Luise Perrin from RuneQuest 2nd edition (shown at the top of the page). It is a particularly difficult miniature to find, and remains high up on my hunt list.

All the available dragonsnail miniatures are two-headed versions, so anyone wanting a one-headed (or three headed) dragonsnail will have to make their own. Probably not too difficult to do using seashells available in any craft store.

I just quickly made a couple of mock-ups out of Elmer's-Tack, but when I have some time, I'll make up some proper one-headed dragonsnails.

Shake Your Tail Feather

Cursed for a transgression that is lost to time, the Durulz race has been described as humans cursed with duck-like features, or ducks cursed with intelligence and the loss of flight. Ducks are one of the signature races of Glorantha and of the RuneQuest game, and despite the persistent attitude that they are ridiculous, I rather like them.

Even though they are a rather obscure race, many manufacturers have made anthropomorphic ducks for gaming. Below are some of the miniatures that are part of my collection. From left to right, they are the Citadel Duck Adventurer from the Non Human Adventurers boxed set; a Ral Partha Duck Adventurer from the Non-Human Adventurers blister (18-014); A Chariot Duck with Sword (QAK2), and Young Egg Guard with Sling (QAK4), both from Magister Militum.



All of these ducks are suitable as Durulz in 1/72, even though the Chariot ducks are marketed as 15mm figures. Frankly, the egg guard are the only ones that I think would be suited for 15mm gaming, as the other ducks would be fairly close in size to many 15mm humans.