Why bother with a ki-rin miniature?
Ki-rin are cool. There’s even a ki-rin on the cover of Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse. Did it make the cover because Wizards of the Coast felt bad about taking away much of its usefulness? Maybe…
Ki-rin have been popular among higher level players for quite some time because of a cunning little workaround that these Celestials could do. True Resurrection is a spell which only clerics and druids in the party have access to. It allows people to be brought back from the dead if their body has been completely destroyed. It also allows the undead to be brought back as healthy, normal living people. Both good things, and both things which couldn’t be done with lesser spells. The issue though is that sometimes it is your cleric whose body is destroyed, or is turned undead. In those cases, your wizard, bard, or warlock (if they were at least 17th level) was able to use True Polymorph to turn a level 12 or higher PC into a ki-rin, which has the ability to cast True Resurrection. Clever stuff. But then WotC removed that ability in Monsters of the Multiverse, and at the same time changed the size if the ki-rin from huge to large. That was the most annoying part for me, because I had a huge-sized ki-rin miniature. So I just ignore the changes and play with the old ki-rin stats, since I have no large-sized ki-rin miniatures,
What about this mini?
The mini in question is made by WizKids as part of their Fangs and Talons blind booster box line, #33/45. The video covers some of the basics about buying blind booster boxes of miniatures from WizKids. I have found this to be a good source of miniatures, but there are some issues with it, including that the base sizes are not always the size they are meant to be.
How useful is this mini, really, if you don’t have that one specific need?
Ki-rin are included in these 2 published Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition books:
So, if you don’t make your own homebrew settings like I do, and don’t need it for your party’s desire to source that one spell, the ki-rin is not a miniature you’re likely to need. Certainly not in two different sizes.
As usual for these videos, the aim is to provide good views and sizing information. The size of the base on this miniature is huge. If you’re playing according to ki-rin stats from Volo’s Guide to Monsters, that’s the correct size. If you’re using the updated stats from Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse, it should be large, so this mini will not make you happy. You’ll have to make this decision, but at least you know which size this one is now, once you make your decision. Also, as usual I want to thank wildlife artist Sherrie York, the master of the reduction linocut, for kindly allowing me to use one of her pieces, Shivano Sunset, as the backdrop for the minis.