*Post 001*
Children of the All-Mother...
Introduction
Ever since getting my hands on a copy of Osprey's fantasy skirmish wargame Frostgrave, my mind has been racing with ideas for potential war-bands, terrain pieces and thematic scenarios. Somewhat of a spiritual successor to Games Workshop's classic skirmish game 'Mordheim', Frostgrave pits small forces of 8-10 warriors against each other amid the backdrop of a cursed, ruined city. Each war-band is lead by a powerful and unique Wizard with access to a wide range of varied spells and abilities that define your war-band's strategy on the table, and perhaps more importantly, its theme...
After eagerly digesting Frostgrave's 10 'Schools of Magic' (sets of magical disciplines from which a Wizard selects their spells) the description of one school in particular sunk its grimy claws deep into my imagination; The Summoner.
"Summoners work their magic by opening doorways to different planes of existence. Usually this is to bring forth creatures from these other planes to use as servants, although there are other ways to use this power..." - Frostgrave Rulebook
As an avid reader of weird fiction, the works of one H.P Lovecraft in particular, the mere mention of 'planes of existence' peaked my interest almost immediately. I found the concept of opening doorways into alien worlds and summoning forth the unwholesome, cosmic entities that dwell beyond seemed like a captivating theme which would open up a range of interesting modelling opportunities and allow me to indulge heavily in my macabre tastes in horror...
Black Goat of the Woods...
Like many hapless mortals in weird fiction, my Summoner would be a devotee to one of the sinister, cosmic deities of the Lovecraft Mythos. Whilst Cthulhu would have been an obvious choice of patron, as the most well known and loved of Mythos entities, I've never found him a particularly interesting or frightening character and wanted my war-band's theme to tap into something more personal. In the end the choice was clear... Shub-Niggurath, The All-Mother, Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young!
Above: Symbol of the Black Goat of the Woods...
Arguably the most extensively worshiped of all the Mythos deities,
Shub-Niggurath is a profane and malevolent fertility goddess who claims dominion over forests and all those who would make their home within their boundaries.
Growing up in a relatively isolated, rural village in England, I spent much of my formative years around dense and dark woodlands. During my frequent (often solo) rambles through local forests I quickly developed a liking for their eerie stillness and creepy atmosphere which would leave a lasting impression on me. To this day I maintain this sense of 'sylvan dread' and find forests to be an evocative and creepy setting, so Shub-Niggurath seemed an appropriate choice of dark patron for my Summoner and his retinue of fanatical cultists!
(She's also the ending boss of my all time favourite PC game, Id Games' seminal classic Quake, but that's a story for another time...)
The Beginnings of a War-Band
So without further ado, I give you the beginnings of my Frostgrave war-band, 'The Children of the All-Mother' in all their dark glory!
Above: The Children of the 'All-Mother' emerge skulking from the shadows... hunting for sacrifices to their dark goddess...
There where no shortage of great miniatures I could have used for this project, but
North Star Figures excellent multi-part cultists proved to be the perfect choice. Aesthetically speaking the pointed hoods and ragged robes could not have been more of a perfect fit, not to mention the wicked curved blades and fiendish angular crossbows.
Above: a close up of the cult's 'Zealots' (Men-at-arms); what they lack in combat prowess they make up for in a fanatical devotion that borders on suicidal... Ia Ia Shub-Niggurath!!
As these miniatures represented an organised cult, rather than a rag-tag collection of hired mercenaries, It was important to me for the war-band to look and feel like a cohesive group. As such I decided on the red and black colour scheme pretty early on to tie them together. The red and black combo just seemed to fit; being sufficiently grim for the theme whilst striking enough to look good on the games table.
As the red and black contrast so well, it was fairly easy to keep them looking neat, for the most part at least. Whilst by no means a fantastic paint job (they could do with some tidying up, and proper highlighting) I'm fairly happy with these miniatures as a decent 'tabletop quality'.
Above:Two of the cult's 'Black-Huntsmen' (Crossbowmen)... their barbed bolts dipped in a vile poison which renders their victims paralyzed, yet fully conscious (all the better as candidates for sacrifice)...
Whist I did want a measure of uniformity within the group, it was also essential that the different troop types stood out as distinct enough to be recognized when on the gaming table. Thanks to the nice variety of different hooded heads on the Frostgrave Cultist sprue I was able to differentiate the crossbow troops with these mask like half hoods.
Above: the war-band's 'Butcher' (Berserker) acts as the Summoner's personal honour guard. Having gained the favour of the All-Mother this initiate has been granted a taste of the coveted "Mothers Milk", a black ichor like substance whose mutagenic properties grant paranormal strength to its drinker...
This Butcher (Berserker) model started as an experiment to see how well the cultist-kit parts worked with a GW plastic kit and quickly became my favourite character in the Summoner's retinue. Whilst the cultists are slightly smaller in scale, the difference is not so noticeable as to be unusable. Personally, I think the exaggerated bulk of the GW Marauder body makes this model look quite intimidating.
The concept of the mutagenic 'Mothers-Milk' of Shub-Niggurath was taken from the Call of Cthulhu Role-play game, first appearing in the classic module 'At Your Door'. It's said to have been gifted directly from the All-Mother herself to her most devoted followers, warping the flesh of the drinker to give them supernatural strength and agility. I loved the idea of this sinister substance and want to explore it further as the war-band grows.
Above: 'The Wretched One' (Summoner)... a dark shaman-priest of Sub-Niggurath. This hunched creature is said to be able to commune directly with the All-Mother and call forth otherworldly entities from her divine realm...
Finally the war-band's leader 'The Wretched One', a classic GW 'Chaos Sorcerer' model from the 90s that I've had sitting in my bits box for years. His hunched form and gnarled staff fit the unnatural shamanistic look I wanted for the Summoner, whilst his robes mark him clearly as a member of the Cult and tie him in nicely with the rest of the war-band. I'm particularly happy with this miniature's base which makes up for his small stature, and helps distinguish him as the cult leader.
My Thoughts...
After writing this post it occurred to me that, whilst the war-band certainly feels like a cohesive whole, nothing yet really screams '
Shub-Niggurath'! In their current state, they could just as easily be generic devil-worshipers or chaos cultists, which I'm not particularly happy with. Whilst this will start coming together once I source some suitable mythos creatures for the Wretched One to summon, I feel it would do me good to revisit these cultists and add some more thematic details. Perhaps a few goat skulls? Maybe a
cult symbol of some kind daubed on their robes? I'll have a think in the coming weeks and share my thoughts....
Whilst I'm happy with the war-band as 'tabletop' quality (good enough to play games with) obviously there is some room for improvement on the paint jobs. As they stand most of the models have a basic base-coat, layer and wash applied, with some hastily applied (messy) highlights on the black robes. I think I'm going to go back to these soon and tidy them up to a higher standard with some more highlights and extra details.
What Next?
So what's next for the Children of the All-Mother?
Firstly the war-band is missing is a suitable apprentice model to stand alongside the Summoner. In games of Frostgrave your apprentice character is the only way of including another spell caster in your war-band's ranks. He or she represents a novice wizard learning from your war-band's leader, often younger and certainly more inexperienced. I'd like to start exploring the 'Black-Goat' aspect of Shub-Niggurath, so perhaps I'll look for a fitting beastman or satyr model to fill this role.
Obviously the Summoner needs creatures to actually summon onto the tabletop. The rulebook specifies rules for 'imps', 'minor demons' & 'major demons' that can be called forth by a Summoner, so I'll need to source and create suitable miniatures to represent these 3 tiers of the All-Mother's unholy spawn!
Finally my mind has been racing with ideas for terrain pieces that fit the war-band's theme. I've got a very vivid picture picture in my head of a seemingly abandoned town, deep in the gnarled forest where The Children of the All-Mother are said to dwell, so may well invest some time into bringing this to life...
So that's it for my first post; if you've made it this far then thanks for taking the time to read it! Feel free to leave a comment below if you have any suggestions, constructive feedback or questions about this project.
Oh, and until next time; Glory be to the All-Mother!!
