Four Horsemen Studios Mythic Legions

[Mint In Boks]

I like Mythic Legions figures, I just think they’re neat!

Don’t care much for super involved cult like fandom though, there’s a reason I didn’t follow from the Fantastic Boards to the Kabal

Don’t care AT ALL about their lore or the characters official names… I was actually fairly shocked to recently learn some grown ass men have no imagination and NEED character bios to know how to collect and display their toys, like my brother in Christ, just buy the ones you like and put them together as a little team! It’s not Toy Story or Small Soldiers! They don’t come to life and get mad at each other if you the Thief Guild Skelly and Evil Wizard Crew Skelly next to each other on your Skelly shelf!

The worse part of the live streams are always Jermey reading his little stories like a fourth grader failing a book report. To quote the great Folding Ideas, “CRINGE! There’s no other word for this! This makes me cringe!” and they’re unobjectionably bad stories! It’s not world building like “oh these are dwarves mentioned in Otho’s backstory three waves ago! We finally get to meet them!” it’s “and we said at a con eight years ago we’d like to do gnomes someday maybe… so there’s a gnome! Right there! And we named him after Gary from the Kabal because he said he liked Gnomes once so say hi Gg’Airee the Sninterkooplin… that’s our word for gnomes!”

I get them wanting to expand beyond toys, both because why not offer your fans more products to purchase and because every creator dreams they could be the head of a multimedia empire, but they need to be better about it.

Their last two attempts at comics (and I’m not having high hopes for this Cosmic Legions comic they sent out free samples of) where done by teaming up with hucksters who had no idea what they were doing. The Seventh Kingdom comic was so bad the Horsemen killed it before it officially happened but the Mythic Legions Kickstarter comic will live in infamy for how badly it was handled. The video game has been a complete disaster, and was weirdly only promoted to toy collectors already aware of Mythic Legions and not video game players to grow the fan base of the brand. (All for the better, it’s better toy collectors get their exclusive figures and forget about the game they never wanted to begin with than reaching out to video game players who might have wanted a new Fantasy game while waiting fir Baulder’s Gate 3 to come into existence only for an entire sub group of fans to equate “Mythic Legions” with “that Kickstarter that stole a bunch of money from people and never finished the promised game!”)

I guarantee the Tabletop book will be promoted the same way, sending early copies to D-Amazing*, PixelDan, Dan Larsen, Dork Lair… who will do a video flipping through the pages of the book saying how nice it looks and how it has stats for all these races and characters, but they don’t know how to play so they can’t demo it, and the toy collectors watching their videos don’t know how to play either but they might as well buy a source book to know how powerful certain characters are… and I’m not saying they need to get Matt Mercer to play this fucking thing (and they shouldn’t for the same reason it’s good they didn’t promote the video game to video game fans) but there must be smaller live play streamers they could send free copies to so they can promote the book to table top fans (although again, maybe for the better they don’t, since we don’t need “Mythic Legions” being synonymous with “Pathfinder fell down the stairs, get help!”)

*in fairness D-Amazing does know how to play D&D and play tested with the Horsemen… on their channel… aimed at toy collectors.

It feels like, to me anyway, the next real step they need to take in growing the brand is Infinite Legions. I kind of feel like, Mythic Legions as a toy line, has gone as far as it can (oh sure they can make new toys, but as of right now, if you want toys of knights, they’re kinda the top and you already know about them, they’re reaching the top of their marker demographic and then there’s no more room for growth) and it feels like one good license would push them to that next level. I have honestly no clue what that license could or should be, but that’s what they need to go from “freelancers for the real players of the industry who make their little knights on the side” to “could they be the next McFarlane or NECA?!”

Anyway, I’m rambling, closing thoughts:
-they’re absolutely art thieves or at least bad a crediting sources. My wife has still never been officially credited for designing Minotaur the Duck’s head despite an entire article on their website about his creation (which kind of implies the helmet my wife designed for him kinda just popped into the universe fully formed with no real point of genesis and “fans” just drew that!)
-we hung out with the Horsemen one Comic Con 20 years ago, Cornboy is definitely one of the realest, coolest guys in the industry. I jokingly told him as we left on the last day “You better be working on Martian Manhunter when you get back to Jersey!” before he was announced in Mattel’s DC Classics And he just flat out said “oh, he’s already done, he’s in an upcoming wave”, cool guy!

 

[altcunningham]

(Then again I come from the school of fantasy writing of "make the name memorable and people will remember it, make the name unreadable and they'll pronounce it wrong forever.)

When I was a kid and playing Final Fantasy 2/4, obviously Kain was like the coolest f****** thing on the playground.

About a year later we were in an airport and I was looking for something to read and I picked up a fantasy book solely because the main character was called Kian. Which is like Kain, but they swapped the letters, and I thought that was the most ingenious thing ever, this guy had to be like the best fantasy writer in the world. I don't remember what that book was at all.

 

[AgentHemlock]

The 4H are art thieves? This is new to me.

Personally they can make skateboard decks, video games, whatever, I don't particularly find that offensive. I'm happy they can be creative and have the support of a community. I'd encourage them to strike while the iron's hot on their brand. It might not last forever. Most artists die starving, but if you hit a vein, drink while you can. You might be paying your own pension and health care out of pocket in 20 years. If they're trying to set up for that now, that's wise.

Same with their mythology. It's usually not my cup of tea. But neither are 98% of fantasy books that I've read. I'm happy Jeremy gets to indulge himself on a livestream. If I'm not interested in the backstory for Tinthor Bigfingers or Borspainaphaelogg the Peevish, I most certainly can fast forward on youtube.

But one of the things I do like about their characters is they are set up to let me make up my own stories. They even come with heads sometimes that obviously conflict with their name and identity. I think Jeremy understands his storytelling only goes so far.

 

[Buttmunch]

(Best advice ever heard for naming a character was when I read the manual for Everquest a billion years ago: "if someone has fun playing with you, they may want to find you later. Make sure you choose a name they can remember.")

Everyone remembers Buttmunch

I agree, I’ve never been one to follow the lore much but the upcoming lore book may change that with everything all in one place rather than bits and pieces. I did enjoy this Einsamall wave story though. Probably why I’ve enjoyed Figura Obscura the most as they’re pop culture characters that I’m usually already familiar with.

 

[Damien]

I'm reading a fantasy book with characters named Clay and Gabriel. It drives me up a fucking wall. While creatively bankrupt, a name like Clay or Rose is forgivable. Gabriel, though? Gabriel is a Hebrew name from the bible. Is the bible canonical in your world?

For my D&D campaigns, I use made-up names that are easy to pronounce. Tolkien had it right with Bilbo and Legolas. Your names can sound unique/world-appropriate without being John or Hlkak'Elknanwivi. Even George RR Martin throws in the odd Jon or Kevan for reasons I can't understand.

I'd argue that it's not like you can create entirely new names that have never existed anywhere else for every fantasy book, for every character. There's only so many ways to string together 26 letters where readers can make any sense of it. I'd actually argue the two best ways to do fantasy naming are historically-used names that loosely fit your world's cultures, and what Tolkien did. Most people can't really do what Tolkien did. I mean, you can make up a name here and there - they often won't be completely original even if you think they are (the 26 letter problem). But you can't do that for entire worlds' worth of characters, I would argue. Unless you're Tolkien. And actually - a lot of Tolkien's names are actual real names.
To be fair to writers; it's also very much a reader issue. The Tiffany Problem.
For those that haven't heard of this; it's the problem where readers mistakenly believe something is anachronistic. It comes from the fact that most readers would see the name 'Tiffany' and immediately associate it with modern day, because that's a very modern name. When, in fact, Tiffany is a VERY old name going back to ancient Greece.
John/Jon in its current form is somewhere around 1000 years old. If you're trying to make a European Medieval analogue fantasy world, it actually makes almost more sense to have Richards and Johns and Peters than it does to have Fingarfelion the Blackguard of Caferdoplun.

In the fantasy worlds/places I've made up for TTRPGs over the years, I've heavily favored choosing real names, or names derived from real names, or just words, based on the closest analogue in the real world to that culture. Like how Tolkien's "Theoden" is just an old English word for King. Eomer is from Beowulf.


An appreciation for this kind of thing might come from being way too into history, though. When you spend three weeks studying specifically a bunch of guys named Henry and William that lived 500-1000 years ago, for example, you really do stop seeing Henry and William as being particularly current/modern names.

It might be a negligible distinction, but rather than "believing their own hype", which implies some level of conceit *cough*Brian Flynn*cough*, I think they're naively optimistic.

It can be both. You're free to not agree, of course. I don't think someone has to be rude or act like an asshole to be conceited. I'd also argue it's hard to have the level of success the 4H have had and NOT be a little conceited. While maybe not entirely the fault of the 4H, they've pressed themselves deeper and deeper into a little worship bubble over the years. Their 'fans' are pretty rabid about defending them at every turn, and not a lot of criticism of them or their work is allowed to exist. If I go somewhere that's a big 4H bastion and say something critical, I will get absolutely shouted down and drowned out.

What that accomplishes is nothing short of insulating the 4H from criticism. Which stifles their growth as professionals. Maybe that's why it took them so long to do things like tighten up the joints on the figures, or give weapon hands up-down wrist swivels. Stupid little things that took 'professional toy designers' way, way, way too long to do probably in part because they've intentionally and unintentionally surrounded themselves with people that live to defend them and tell them how perfect and wonderful they are and constantly thank them for even deigning to make toys at all for us lowly peons.

ll my griping about the names, but I'll still get that entire next wave.

Yeah, I mean look - the names and story don't matter. That's just nerds talking about nerd stuff. It would be wholly inappropriate and ridiculous to criticize the toys because they have stupid names. But it's still definitely a fact worth talking about if you're the kind of silly nerd that goes online to talk to a bunch of other nerdy adults about toys in the first place. That doesn't make them bad toys, though. Certainly not.

I don’t blame 4H for trying other avenues with their Mythic property.

To be clear; I blame them for doing it badly and not having any idea what they're doing, and being arrogant enough to think that success in making toys (and being surrounded by sycophants) means they can just do anything and be good at it.
But this is the same criticism I would level at any company (and often do in my line of work) for stepping outside what they actually know and doing mediocre or poor quality work.

About a year later we were in an airport and I was looking for something to read and I picked up a fantasy book solely because the main character was called Kian. Which is like Kain, but they swapped the letters, and I thought that was the most ingenious thing ever, this guy had to be like the best fantasy writer in the world. I don't remember what that book was at all.

True story Kian is an Irish name. So the author probably didn't swap the letters of Kain so much as just like.. name a character an Irish name.

The 4H are art thieves? This is new to me.

I brought it up several years ago on Fwoosh. I don't have all the links and stuff anymore because, quite frankly, no one gave a shit. Some of their fantasy weapon designs are basically exact copies of fantasy art that existed way, way before Mythic Legions. Some of their early Cosmic Legions figures seemed to be almost direct copies of fanart based on Pathfinder's Starfinder space D&D game. It was the kind of thing where it's always possible they came up with that stuff on their own, but given these were almost 1:1 exact copies, it seemed unlikely to me. Like they had two 'Elf' swords in Mythic Legions that were virtually exact copies of two 'Elf' swords that appeared in a piece of art together. That seems... suspect, at least.

But like I said... literally not a single person seemed to care at all. It was just 'let the 4H make my cool toys, I don't get where they get the ideas from' from like the one or two people that even bothered to engage with the topic at all. So I let it go. But I still definitely suspect them of plaguerizing the work of others. SUSPECT, mind you.

Personally they can make skateboard decks, video games, whatever, I don't particularly find that offensive. I'm happy they can be creative and have the support of a community. I'd encourage them to strike while the iron's hot on their brand. It might not last forever. Most artists die starving, but if you hit a vein, drink while you can. You might be paying your own pension and health care out of pocket in 20 years. If they're trying to set up for that now, that's wise.

Anyone can start a company doing anything they want. The problem is inflated ego making you think you should. It's the guy that tells his friends a couple of jokes that they politely laugh at, so he decides to write movie scripts for Hollywood full time. Yeah, he CAN do that. That doesn't mean he -should-. And he absolutely should be criticized if he does it badly. Which, so far, the 4H have done badly with their non-figure ventures.
And also, it's insulting to actual professionals when people with no actual experience or knowledge drop in with money from somewhere else and say 'I can do this too, because my ego says so.' I don't know any professional writers that aren't endlessly annoyed by the fact that everyone seems to think it's easy to just write stuff. Made a toyline? Guess you're a writer now, too. It's an irritant - not a crime.


On the positive side, I'm very glad that the 4H's figures seems to be improving in quality. I'm seeing a lot less complaints now than some years back for loose joints, stuff that doesn't work the way it's supposed to, etc. I still miss my Fwooshephant. That was a good figure until it wasn't.

 

[altcunningham]

I'm reading a fantasy book with characters named Clay and Gabriel. It drives me up a fucking wall. While creatively bankrupt, a name like Clay or Rose is forgivable. Gabriel, though? Gabriel is a Hebrew name from the bible. Is the bible canonical in your world?

For my D&D campaigns, I use made-up names that are easy to pronounce. Tolkien had it right with Bilbo and Legolas. Your names can sound unique/world-appropriate without being John or Hlkak'Elknanwivi. Even George RR Martin throws in the odd Jon or Kevan for reasons I can't understand.

Ha, careful. I once translated Drow so I could name my elf Talbyrn'thrae Torana - The Shortening of the Way.

I had a DM who created his own world and culture? And when I asked about languages so that I could name my character within it, they just told me just use Celtic or Norse. I asked how that works with the linguistics of their world on a Tolkien level and they said that's too much work. Pull a name from Warcraft or something.

 

[bat]

Even George RR Martin throws in the odd Jon or Kevan for reasons I can't understand.

I really like Martin's trick for fantasy naming. He generally changes a single letter from a familiar name (e.g. Edward to Eddard, Anya to Arya, Jeffrey to Joffrey, Kevin to Kevan, etc) Makes the names feel familiar and plausible but a bit unfamiliar and fantastical. Fits his type of world building, which likewise draws inspiration from real historical events and which feels grounded in familiar politics, economics, etc but then adds fantastical elements (e.g. big @#$%ing dragons).

 

[docsilence]

One of my favorite acts of surrender with fantasy naming was an episode of Critical Role were Mercer used the same name for an NPC twice and the cast gave him a hard time about it, and he says "People have the same name in the real world, not everyone has to have a unique name in a fantasy world guys!" or something like that. Basically, naming characters in fantasy stories is way harder than it looks. (I think that's why I poke fun at bad fantasy names, cos they are EVERYWHERE. I just listened to a terrible audiobook where one of the character's name was Saetan. Pronounced Satan. Every single time that poor narrator had to say "Satan sighed and blah blah blah" I was thinking, well, that right there is a naming choice.

On an actual 4H topic, I have been prowling for months for a Version 1 Headless Horseman figure because my Version 2 one arrived broken (leg fell off in the box and was scragged, could not fix it, but I got it from a second-hand vendor so I couldn't ask 4H's usually solid customer service for help - this is why green punkin head man is on a knight's body in my avatar pic). One popped up for sale at a pretty decent price and two seconds before I hit buy I saw the teeeeeeny little note: Incomplete. No specifics. Just... incomplete. I'm just laughin' cos there's a level of incomplete I can live with and a level I can't but if I can't tell how incomplete incomplete is... Eh, I'll keep looking.

I really like Martin's trick for fantasy naming.

I actually have only ever been bothered by a couple of specific names he uses and it's strictly a personal visceral reaction - the fact that he based the whole thing on the War of the Roses originally made me really not worried about using real world adjacent names. Specifically Kevan, because I always hear Kevin's mom from Home Alone screaming his name when I see it, and Grover, Elmo, and Kermit Tully was a joke too far for me. George. George. Really George? Grover, Elmo, and Kermit, dude?

 

[AgentHemlock]

If you take naming conventions to its logical end, every thing should have different name. There should be no "wolves" without a Germanic people. Or sword. Or the word husband without Norse. Already, if you say "Gildafegger the Mighty, husband to Borguld, killed a wolf with his sword in the bog and then had a whiskey" You've combined at least three cultures that in your fantasy world would have had to have meshed together. Let alone Celtic being it's own umbrella for a multitude of peoples with distinct attributes and culture...

At a certain point, you gotta let Gildafegger be Gildafegger. Your fantasy world is being translated and Anglicized so contemporary Americans can get in it. Good enough.

 

[Damien]

I had a DM who created his own world and culture? And when I asked about languages so that I could name my character within it, they just told me just use Celtic or Norse. I asked how that works with the linguistics of their world on a Tolkien level and they said that's too much work. Pull a name from Warcraft or something.

Haha, yup. I mean, I honestly dislike this approach. But also it's something you just have to live with if you are a fan of fantasy. Most people aren't going to put the work in because it's not important to them. And for a D&D game that's fine. Quite honestly, in most D&D games you probably aren't running into enough named characters to make too big a fuss about the naming conventions anyway. Naming stuff is super complicated and, on a macro level, it's easy to hand-wave stuff. How come all these guys have Englishy names and this guy has a French-derivative name? Because he's an immigrant. Or his dad once served the lord of a different realm and named his son after that lord's father. Like.. stop thinking about it so much.
But in books I think it does help if it's more thought out. Unless it's short stories where, again, you're just not meeting enough characters for it to really matter unless it's especially jarring.

I really like Martin's trick for fantasy naming. He generally changes a single letter from a familiar name (e.g. Edward to Eddard, Anya to Arya, Jeffrey to Joffrey, Kevin to Kevan, etc) Makes the names feel familiar and plausible but a bit unfamiliar and fantastical. Fits his type of world building, which likewise draws inspiration from real historical events and which feels grounded in familiar politics, economics, etc but then adds fantastical elements (e.g. big @#$%ing dragons).

Joffrey, Kevan/Cevan, and Arya are actually real historical names - true story. Like I said earlier, it's actually really hard to create a sub-20 character word using 26 letters that's both pronouncable for an English-speaking audience and wholly unique. I think Eddard is unique, though. Haven't come across that one before Martin.

If you take naming conventions to its logical end, every thing should have different name. There should be no "wolves" without a Germanic people. Or sword. Or the word husband without Norse. Already, if you say "Gildafegger the Mighty, husband to Borguld, killed a wolf with his sword in the bog and then had a whiskey" You've combined at least three cultures that in your fantasy world would have had to have meshed together. Let alone Celtic being it's own umbrella for a multitude of peoples with distinct attributes and culture...

At a certain point, you gotta let Gildafegger be Gildafegger. Your fantasy world is being translated and Anglicized so contemporary Americans can get in it. Good enough.

It's absolutely true that all the words we use have roots and if you remove those roots the words don't make sense. But there's still an art to naming characters - particularly in fantasy and even historical fiction - for a reason. For toys, does any of this matter? Nope. It's just pure nerd talk.

 

[docsilence]

So here's a question, totally mean for it to be funny - which Legions names do you actually remember? Because I really do think since most of us are just head-canon-ing these characters anyway the names really are just something to put on the box as a placeholder. I know for me it's blue dragon guy, green dragon guy, black dragon guy, beardy orc, lady orc, etc. But there's a few I always remember, like Hadriana, Magnus, Sir Gideon Heavensbrand, Juno stuck in my head for some reason (I know there's a double letter in there somewhere but), Duban, Thistlethorn, Brontus. But some of my favorite figures, like, top shelf love 'em, are the wizards, orcs, and elves whose names I can never remember. The ones that have real world connotations that are easy to spell, though, those guys stick with me. Balam! I always forget where they stuck the apostrophe but my first catman is still one of my favorites too, I remember his name usually.

 

[RunestoneCowboy]

I remember the cyclops is Argemedes because of his real world eponym, and I remember a few of the early skeleton names because they're goofy puns like Tibius, Skapular, and Scaphoid, but I don't remember which name belongs to which skeleton.

 

[Mint In Boks]

the only names I remember are:
-Gideon and Gwendolyn Heavensbrand
-Attila
-Atlus
-Otho
-Owain
-Gorgo
-Skapular the Cryptbreaker
-Pixus
-Ba’lam (who I only remember as the leopard, I’m not sure I’d remember his fully armored body had a name)

And that’s it… I know there’s a dwarf named “Bothar” (whose last name is not Deznut?!) but if you showed me a line up of dwarves and told me to pick him out I couldn’t do it. Same the Goblins I think ones name is Swig and one is like Boink or something but lord if I know which one is which! One of the Minotaurs is Astarion like the BG3 character but I don’t know if that’s the black or brown one…

Mostly just remember names from the first Kickstarter, after that it gets hazier and hazier, like I have no idea the names of any of the characters I just got in the Necronomnom wave (and I know Neceonomnom is a dude, but I don’t remember if he’s the Boney king or the Grim Reaper!)

I will call you liar if try to tell me the ogre scale figures and horsies have names, I don’t believe it.

Edit: oh shit! I forgot! I do the name of a more recent figure! Tharice! (Not gonna remember her last name though!) because they keep reusing her head! So in addition to basic Drow Tharice, there’s also Orange Space Tharice, the upcoming Blue Tharice, and Blonde white lady Space Tharice!

Also! The Blue and Purple Dwarf wizard is named like “Jorund Runeshaper” I believe but I don’t know if that’s spelt right or not. (Or if he really is a wizard or if that’s shit I made up in my head)

 

[GrumpyMatt]

Balius the horse is very disappointed with you.

 

[JakeEkiss]

Skimming the thread and largely nodding my head at a lot of points already covered re: fantasy names and such.

I've often found the 4h lore and names to be... I mean it's sort of boilerplate fantasy to me. I haven't delved deeply because, by and large, the individual character bios kinda bored me? The thing that makes the line strong for fantasy enthusiasts is sort of the thing that sabotages me caring about individual lore the team thinks up for it. It's basically "everything and the kitchen sink" fantasy. You can match a Legions figure to nearly any European medieval fantasy vibe you want (and a few not European), but because of that the line doesn't have a strong identity of it's own beyond some light theming around good guy and bad guy faction armor and color use. It cut's both ways, y'know? Makes it easy for everyone to head-cannon their own characters in, but also isn't so singular that you want to know what the lore is.

I think the first time I've really said "I wonder what that dude's deal is" was with the updated Scapular guy (whose name I did have to look up, even though the skeletons I think have a better naming convention than most). His updated figure has a lot going on and it's just enough that he feels really specific in a way that makes me curious. The parts library for them is big enough now I expect that will happen more often, but I don't know that the story is there to sustain my interest.

Though I haven't really followed the game or comics or whatever, as someone who does play ttrpgs a fair amount, I don't know what they're wanting to offer with their tabletop game. That's probably mostly me not seeking the info out, but other than the ML lore, is there anything about the game itself they're talking about? Systems they think are cool? Mechanics they think set it apart?