Why bother with a xorn miniature?
Xorns are another of those Dungeons and Dragons creatures which have been around since the beginnings of the hobby. These Elementals figure fairly regularly in the published literature, probably because they eat precious metals and gems, which will regularly put them at odds with the desires of the adventurers. Most adventurers, anyhow; I’ve always thought of them as funny dogs which just have very expensive eating habits. Like a dog that eats premium dog food, but it’s SUPER premium. Smart dogs, as well, which can speak. They largely aren’t dangerous, unless they are hungry and you have some food they can eat and aren’t letting them eat it. Fair enough, I say.
What about this mini?
This unpainted xorn mini pack consists of two different xorn miniaturess in different poses. The fact that it is medium sized like it should be makes me very happy, but the fact that the eyes came unattached and were virtually impossible to insert into the mini did not make me happy. Fortunately, they apparently realised what a bad strategy that was, and I understand that later print runs of this mini have not included the unattached eyes, which is really the only issue that I have with this mini, so I’m glad they fixed it. This mini is made by WizKids as part of their Nolzur’s Marvelous Miniatures line: Xorn #73350.
How useful is this mini, really?
Xorns are included in 10 published Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition books:
- Bigby Presents: Glory Of The Giants
- Monster Manual
- Out Of The Abyss
- Phandelver And Below: The Shattered Obelisk
- Planescape: Adventures In The Multiverse
- Princes Of The Apocalypse
- Quests From The Infinite Staircase
- Volo’s Guide To Monsters
- Waterdeep: Dungeon Of The Mad Mage
- Xanathar’s Guide To Everything
That’s nearly 1/4 of the published adventures, so you will be bumping into xorns fairly regularly if you play published adventures, and they are fun additions even if you homebrew like I do. It won’t hurt to have a xorn miniature on hand, and you’ll likely need one eventually.
But why are you doing this?
As usual for these videos, my aim is to provide good views of all angles of the miniatures featured along with accurate sizing information for them. As I already pointed out, the xorn miniature is on a medium size base as it is meant to be. In addition I would like to thank wildlife artist Sherrie York, the incredibly skilled reduction linocut artist, for graciously allowing me to use one of her reduction linocuts, Shivano Sunset, as the backdrop for my miniatures in the video. Check out her other reduction linocuts; she is likely the best linocut artist of our generation.