Shobik And Tell, A Closer Look At The Idol – Mantic Monday – Empire Of Dust

25th Jul 2022

Jonny Mann

Welcome to Mantic Monday!

Every Monday we will bring you exclusive video content, behind the scenes peeks at the day to day of Mantic HQ, all your hobby and gaming tips, plus an array of exciting and engaging content from all the Mantic game systems and universes.

With the incredible Idol Of Shobik now available to Pre-Order, we thought we should take a closer look!

What is the Idol Of Shobik?

The Ophidian obsession with mastery over death and everlasting life is a curiosity in the eyes of the northern lands. But little do most know that beyond Ophidia lies a more sinister place – the remnants of a kingdom long thought destroyed, whose vengeful overlords rise from the sand once more in the name of their everlasting god, Shobik.

The Ahmunites (the Empire that later became...dust) once worshipped the old god Shobik and great stone statues of its likeness stand proudly at the entrances to temples, palaces and mausoleums. Here they acted as powerful lodestones for all kinds of magic and sacred worship.

These idols still simmer with this innate power and can be summoned to life by high priests chanting blasphemous texts from forbidden scrolls.

jack hacket father ted

A blasphemous Priest?

From Concept to Construct

Here is an extract from the brief that was given to the sculptor at the early stage of development.

"The Idol of Shobik is an animated statue of the Empire of Dust’s god, Shobik.

Shobik is the god of death and roughly analogous to Anubis from Ancient Egyptian Mythology.

They have a jackal’s head with an Egyptian headdress, so that they resemble the faction icon. There is a heavy metal collar over their shoulders covered with glyphs and have a series of metal plates hanging at their waist as a short skirt/sarong.

Use the faction symbol in the place of where a belt buckle would be (as a clasp) and have the ankh symbol hanging down from it. There are bracelets on the wrists and ankles, but other than this they are bare stone. They are rib-like details around the sides of their upper torso. The stone is mostly intact, but cracks heavily around the joints where it moves.

They carry a pair of short axes, similar to the short version carried by the Enslaved Guardians. Their pose should be slowly advancing with a bit of a twist to their middle. It should convey the weight and lack of speed that a walking statue would have."

Three headed dog

Nope, this is definitely a Jackal not a Cerberus!

BUT!

It does come with three different head options! We sculpted different options and in the end we loved them all so much, we decided to stick them all in the box and let you make your own decision!