|
Adventurers, Merchants, and Collectors, thank you so much for your patience while waiting for the trailer.
We invite you to turn on the audio and click play to watch the October collection: Brood of the Zeek Scuttlers!
The Zeek, arthropods of the depths now roaming the Scourgelands thanks to the ashen climate, are among the creatures I love the most to sculpt. They have always fascinated me, inspired by films like Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and games like Morrowind, which I first played as a child on my original Xbox with a dictionary in hand, since I did not yet know English (I actually learned it that way)!
The Poll
I was a little skeptical about creating a collection focused entirely on Zeek, but when I showed the original concept months ago, the votes were simply too high to ignore. In fact, the Zeek ranked second only to the Frost Alfar.
That concept sketch is actually quite old: I drew it back in 2011. The inspiration came from a not-so-pleasant childhood memory. One evening, lying on my back reading a comic, I opened it only for a big silverfish (those little insects that eat paper) to fall straight onto my face. Not fun at all!
Years later, I thought: what if these paper-hungry silverfish were turned into monstrous bipeds? They would be the perfect scourge for wizards and scholars, devouring tomes and scrolls and erasing centuries of history in a single night. Thus the Zeek Scuttlers were born. The name “Zeek” itself comes from the Italian word zecca (tick).
By 2011, after completing and playtesting the first draft of the (eternally) work-in-progress Artisan Guild RPG rules with friends, I began illustrating the bestiary, and decided to include the Zeek Scuttlers. Here’s a page from that old PDF (the current version have changed a lot since then!), straight from the past, compared with the actual 2025 sculpt.
The Process
The first question was: how do I differentiate Kit I and Kit II?
These kind of Artisan Guild rules can be sometime a bit limiting, but they also force some more creativity.
Removing the classic “silverfish” carapace for Kit II was a good idea in my eyes, making them resemble more generic ant monsters, useful for any RPG encounter. Then I gave them chitin weapons, likely scavenged from Scourgelanders (though sculpted entirely from scratch).
As always, the modular system lets you equip those weapons with the carapace of Kit I as well, if you wish.
This set also gave me the chance to explore their larval stage: the Zeek Burrowers. Freshly hatched and not yet bipedal, they crawl on six limbs, using huge mandibles to defend themselves and dig the hive tunnels for the Queen. I like the idea of showing Zeek in multiple stages, something I’ll surely repeat for future sets.
For the heroes, I took inspiration from real insect colonies: in the absence of a Queen, any female can transform into one. So what if, in times of great danger, the hive could spawn eggs not for thieves, but for champions? This gave birth to the Scuttler Knight, a warrior wielding resin-forged blades, and the Psionic Scuttler, whose carapace is studded with Ashglass crystals consumed by the Queen in abundance. And of course, Skirra, a twisted lure designed to enchant and entrap wanderers, much like harpies, sirens, or succubi of old myths.
For the Queen, I wanted something massive, but not bipedal like the Avid Zeek King sculpted months ago. Instead, a monstrous broodmother, spending her entire existence spawning thousands of eggs, her swollen body almost fused to the throne chamber itself. She looms above a mountain of treasure gathered by the thieving Scuttlers.
Like the dragons of books and tales — Smaug above all — the Scuttler Queens are drawn to sleep upon beds of coins and jewels, as though their greed mirrors that of wyrms. But unlike dragons, their hoards are not only trophies: they are symbols of dominion, offerings from the swarm, and fuel for the strange psionic cunning that festers within their monstrous minds.
Finally, for the terrain, I sculpted spires erupting from the ash, inspired by termite mounds. On the tabletop, these can serve as hive entrances, or as spawn points for Zeek in our Guild game.
Thank you all for allowing me to continue expanding our universe.
I can't wait to see what you'll be doing with these once you get the STL files!
See you soon!
— Andrea Tarabella
Responses