The month of Marsh has been and gone - a Fimir Demonomaniac

We have just passed through the month of Marsh - the time to celebrate those proud one-eyed warriors of the fens, the Fimir. Now, every year I start painting some fimir during Marsh, only for things to remain unfinished on my dask at the end of the month. This year was no exception - but I can now present the horror that has arisen among Clan Slea. This Demonomaniac comes from Krakon Games and is sculpted by Ross Whitehorn. It comes with a choice of heads, and I chose the double-headed variant just to enhance its mutated feel.

Demonomaniacs are introduced in the 1995 Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay adventure Dying of the Light, set around Marienburg. The result of the ritual experiments of a Meargh who seeks to bind demons into her warriors, demonomanics are an unstable horrors: the body of a fimir struggling - and generally failing - to control the demon that has possessed it. In Chapter 5, the party first find the mangled and mutated corpse of a Fimir who has failed in this struggle and been ripped apart by an "an extreme series of mutations". Then, deeper in the swamp they find another thing that "looks like it was once a fimir", towering and in a state of apparent confusion. (My favourite detail is in its profile, the alignment is given as "Too confused for that at the moment"). "Claw marks cover its whole body and worms now ooze from these fetid gashes." It emits gutteral noises of agony. It flails its axe and mutated scythe-claw arm in a state of wild attack.

Here is Pete Knifton's atmospheric, terrifying, and frankly disgusting image of a Demonomaniac. As you'll see, I haven't included worms with mine. I do regret not giving mine a tail that can shoot spikes. Anyway, I imagine the one I've painted to be in a slightly more stable state of possession - though only just.

This is not the only fimir I managed to get belatedly done for the month of Marsh, but I'll save the others for the next post.

Mutant Fimir - a month of Marsh special

Why are you wandering far from home, child? Have you not heard of the fen ague? Cover your face and hurry back. But keep to the paths, child, keep to the solid ground. Don't be tempted to cut across through the reeds and the moss, for there are things in the marsh, diseased and unholy things. These are strange times.

This is the month of Marsh - the month of all things Fimir. When last in Liverpool, I found a project I'd started (but never finished) for the month of Marsh about 3 years ago - a conversion based on this image from the first Citadel Compendium. Having found a copy of the Compendium not long after joining the oldhammer movement, and being obsessed with Fimir at the time, it just screamed out at me "mutant fimir!"

... a prefiguration from 1983 of things to come? Almost certainly not, and yet I couldn't shake the uncanny resemblance to our one eyed swampy friends. So I set out to assemble a mutant fimir in its honour.

Having done the initial conversion, I'd left the model unfinished - these are a couple of photos from before I'd even undercoated it. The main body of the model is an Otherworld miniatures troll, with the head from a Forgeworld Fimir and hair from the Daemonettes of Slaanesh sprue. Can't remember where I got the tentacles from.



Seemed a shame to abandon something I'd put a lot of effort into assembling, and the timing seemed appropriate, so I spent the past few days trying to get it looking suitably swampy and diseased. What do you think?




Alongside the original inspiration, it doesn't look too far off...

From the mud

In the beginning was mud. The mud was without time and without end, and the creatures who dwelled in the mud lived in peace.

The gods came and divided the mud into the wet and the dry. The wet they called "sea" and the dry they called "land". Mud remained only at the forgotten edges of the earth.

The gods created creatures to dwell in the sea and creatures to dwell on the land.
The gods said to the creatures of the sea, "go forth and multiply". The gods said to the creatures of the land, "go forth and multiply".

The creatures of the mud were forgotten. The creatures of the mud cowered together at the edges of the earth. They had not been told to go forth. They had not been told to multiply. They cursed the gods who had forgotten them. They cursed the creatures the gods had favoured.

Again and again they cried at the skies with curse after curse and profanity after profanity. And they waited and listened for the wrath of the gods who they had cursed. They heard nothing. Nothing but the silence of the mud, and the screaming desire to do that which the gods had denied them:

Go forth and multiply.



So near and yet so far! I made a good start on these fimir and hoped to have them ready for the end of the month of Marsh, but frustratingly it looks like I'm not quite going to finish. Above is as far as I got. It's particularly frustrating given that all around me in the oldhammer community, people are successfully completing one hour painting challenges, and I can't get these done within a month... but the thing is, I think without the dangling carrot of a wargame coming up, it's really hard for me to paint to a deadline. Anyway, I'm up to Liverpool tomorrow so the detail work on these will wait until I get back.

In the meantime, here's a couple of team photos of the whole of Clan Slea so far. Turning into quite the horde.

The month of Marsh

Following on from the mild success of Gnomevember, I figure it's time for yet another arbitrary thematic challenge.

Welcome to (drumroll)... the month of Marsh!
And what is 'Marsh' all about? Why, everybody's favourite marsh dwellers the Fimir, of course! Nothing says "oldhammer" like these club-tailed, one eyed, reproductively deviant buggers.


The dying race of the fens needs you! Do you have any fimir (or not-fimir!) that you've yet to paint up? Do you want to develop fimir background? Do you want to engage in philosophical discussion on the ethics of including rape themes in wargaming? Well, now is the time!

To get you started, here are some of the key resources for understanding these misunderstood creatures:

* The most authoritative writeup of the history of the fimir's development in Games Workshop is by Luke Maciak on the blog Terminally Incoherent, including recollections from designers Graeme Davis (who gave birth to the species) and Tony Ackland.

* Zhu Bajie has a cultural history of the design of the fimir in three parts: Part 1: Origin of the Species, Part 2: Dawn of the Scredling, and Part 3: Alan Lee's Formorian. Across the series he explores their rooting in influences ranging from Irish Mythology to the Jim Henson film The Dark Crystal. Indeed, in Part 3, he shows us the back cover for Michael Scott's Irish Folk and Fairy Tales Volume 2, which is the very piece of artwork (by Alan Lee) that inspired the creators of the fimir:


* The authoritative (albeit unofficial, but who cares?) source for Fimir background is Warpstone Issue 25. Which I'm yet to read, because I haven't got a copy. Something to put on my "to do" list for Marsh!

* And in terms of official GW print sources White Dwarf 102 included background for the race, a 3rd ed army list, and a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay adventure with the fimir in a starring role. Read all about it over at Realm of Chaos 80s, which includes a link to the WD article on scribd.


So what am I planning on doing for Marsh? Well, I'd like to get at least one article on this blog exploring their background, but in essence my plan for painting and gaming is very straightforward and hopefully achievable within this month or soon after: paint up the Diego Serrate and Nick Bibby fimir I've not yet finished (including the Meargh!), build myself a village for my fimm, and issue a challenge to Warlord Paul to come and take back the Elf sorceress Fayana, who Clan Slea have taken captive!

Ask not what the fimir can do for you, but what you can do for the fimir!