The skeleton hiding inside all of us
Skeletons are found throughout Dungeons and Dragons, because each of us has one, just waiting for death, followed by a necromancer who is either bored or wants something. Nearly every published D&D campaign has included one or more skeletons at some point. These Undead are great at many levels. Low level characters will find them challenging but rarely impossible to handle, while ever increasing swarms of them pose risks even for higher level characters.
The basic humanoid skeleton is a medium sized miniature, because the average PC which they emerge from is also medium sized. Since they are so common in campaigns, it is also not hard to find miniatures of them. The skeleton mini which is am highlighting this week was chosen due to an early strategy that I had for collecting miniatures when I had very few. Wizards of the Coast, which makes Dungeons & Dragons, also sells board games based on D&D. Each board game is brimming with unpainted minis and includes many of the more commonly used miniatures in the game, as well as some less common ones and some player characters. Buying the board games just for the minis gives you a good collection of miniatures for a great price, and you have a board game as well to play- it’s a win-win!
This skeleton miniature comes from Wizards of the Coast‘s Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft Board Game. As you can see from the video, the miniature is nice for the price. If you are just starting to collect minis, purchasing one of these board games is a great way to bulk up on many of the common creatures that you will want for your collection. Also check out my post/video for the gargoyle and my post/video for the zombie, which also came from the Castle Ravenloft board game.
How useful is this mini, really?
Skeletons are included in these 26 published Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition books:
- Acquisitions Incorporated
- Baldur’s Gate: Descent Into Avernus
- Call Of The Netherdeep
- Curse Of Strahd
- Deck Of Many Things
- Ghosts Of Saltmarsh
- Glory Of The Giants
- Journeys Through The Radiant Citadel
- Keys From The Golden Vault
- 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
- Storm King’s Thunder
- Tales From The Yawning Portal
- Tasha’s Cauldron Of Everything
- Tomb Of Annihilation
- Van Richten’s Guide To Ravenloft
- Vecna: Eve Of Ruin
- Volo’s Guide To Monsters
- Waterdeep: Dragon Heist
- Waterdeep: Dungeon Of The Mad Mage
- The Wild Beyond The Witchlight
- Xanathar’s Guide To Everything
If you’re wondering why I am doing this, feel free to read through my post about the first video in the series where I explain it all in depth. In addition, I want to thank the amazing wildlife artist Sherrie York for allowing me to use her splendid reduction linocut, Shavano Sunset, as the background image for my videos. Otherwise, I hope this helped some of you when trying to decide on a miniature. I’ll catch you next time when I show you another miniature from my collection.