KR|Dimness Review #1: Solamya & Dhar-Wun

Happy new year!! We start 2019 with a brand new line in the world of Key Raiders!

The upcoming reviews will be about recently developed prototypes that belong to the latest Key Raiders wave. Like Origin and Enmity, this is a prequel series, which will be titled Key Raiders: Dimness (stylised as KR|Dimness) and concern a universe characterised by a barbarian vibe, recounting events happening 5 years before the adventures of the KR|Foundation series:

à			Timeline (intervals in years)			à
		500		15		5
	Origin		Enmity		Dimness		Foundation

So, let's start with the first prototype review of this new series!

Toy prototype details

Name: Solamya^TM & Dhar-Wun^TM

Subtitle: prophetic guide with her catlike companion

Line: KR|Dimness

Item type: multi-pack (2-pack) - Nº 1 in the line.

Solamya

Character details

Name: Solamya

Classification: human

Sex: female

Home: Tahron

Era: 5 years before Foundation

Affiliation: Forseha^TM

Rank: prophetess.

Background

First appearance: KR|Dimness #1 - Into dimness: Part I – Awakening

Brief bio: a wise and dauntless inhabitant of the Forseha terramare settlement near the Ucamur^TM region, Solamya was the daughter of the tribal chief Dakun^TM and held the blood of the great ancient warrior Myneran^TM in her veins. Her father himself had been a valiant hero entrusted with keeping their tribe safe from villains who learnt of their valuable legacy. Solamya's link to the powers of the ancient champion gave her a number of supernatural abilities and made her particularly hard to subdue when the evil Wordron set his sights on exploiting powerful warriors after his exile to Ucamur. With the help of her father and the other tribespeople, Solamya defended her clan and helped defeat the wicked rival.

Articulation

Standard, excluding hinged abdomen.

Description

Head: Indigenous Brazilian features, olive brown skin, bald scalp (except for a tuft of brown hair gathered by a red band on the top of her head), brown eyebrows (which extend much beyond the eyes), hazel eyes. She has two sickle-shaped, glow-in-the-dark blemishes located under the eyes and wears a pair of long beaded dangle earrings

Body: the exposed parts of her body show olive brown skin

Wearables: a body-length garment made from dark-brown linen with ring-shaped red decorative patterns, a large dark-brown leather wrist guard (ornamented with a red gemstone and two silver bands) on the left arm, a narrow dark-brown leather bracelet and a light-brown bark armband on the right arm, and two dark-brown leather boots with wide flat light-brown laces and furry turndown lapels. The garment is a long, tubular cloth open on the left side of the body, with the top edge folded down about halfway (so that the top of the tube is draped below the waist), while the bottom edge is at the ankle; the tube is gathered around the waist with a light-brown raffia fibre belt (equipped with a large bronze buckle bearing the Forseha emblem, i.e., a seven-petalled flower that vaguely recalls a Plumeria, and two lamellar red leather tassets) and the folded top edge is fastened over the left shoulder by a silver fibula (while the right shoulder is left uncovered). I like that the folded-down top of the tube provides the appearance of a second piece of clothing and even shows a different texture. The garment is sewn together along the left side, from the armpit to the thigh, while there is a slit on the right side of the skirt.

Action feature

In the comics, Solamya is shown to possess a range of supernatural faculties, such as precognitive and telekinetic powers, as well as the ability to communicate telepathically with animals for controlling their behaviour. Whenever she uses any of these powers, the marks situated on her cheekbones glow; so, the only action feature for Solamya is her GITD facial markings. What I can't tell is if this is meant to represent some sort of bio-luminescent marking, or some traditional makeup or tattoo.

Weapons and accessories

Solamya only comes with a kind of sceptre made of a knobbly reddish-brown wooden staff that ends in a loop and has a number of greenish vines twining around its length.

Dhar-Wun

Character details

Name: Dhar-Wun

Classification: ormurid* mammal

Sex: female

Relationship: mother of Ki-Wun^TM

Home: Tahron

Era: 5 years before Foundation

Affiliation: Forseha

Rank: steed.

*Ormurids^TM are fictional carnivorans.

Background

First appearance: KR|Dimness #1 - Into dimness: Part I – Awakening

Brief bio: before Ki-Wun loyally carried Masq-Lor^TM into combat, the Forseha tribe members rode into battle on top of their mighty ormurid mounts, an ancient lineage of formidable carnivorans, during the conflict against the invasion forces of the Dark Legion. Saved as a cub by a young Dakun from a rival clan of savage hunters, one of these indomitable beasts, Dhar-Wun, grew up with her master's daughter Solamya, faithfully protecting their tribe during Wordron's exile from O-Kin. Her offspring included Ki-Wun, who eventually became Masq-Lor's heroic steed.

Overall description

The sculpt is mostly re-used from Ki-Wun, except for a unique head, as well as new front paws and tail. Like her "cub", this seemingly ferocious beast resembles a large cougar, but has a new amazingly realistic cream-coloured flocked fur darkly marked with both large blotchy spots and wide stripes. Apart from the two paws with more extended claws and the tail with a hairy tuft at its end, her head is the only newly sculpted piece on the figure. Even though it shares almost all of her details (such as the round shape and the yellow eyes) with her whelp's head, her ears, whiskers, canine teeth and fur on the sides extend out further than Ki-Wun’s do. The most obvious difference, however, is the pair of large pointed, curved and spiralling dark-brown horns projecting from her forehead, a typical female feature that definitively makes her distinguishable from her single horned offspring.

Dhar-Wun's articulation benefits from Ki-Wun’s body with joints all over the place: hinged jaw, ball jointed upper neck, hinged lower neck, swivel-hinged shoulders, hips, elbows, paws and tail, hinged knees and hocks, and a final ball jointed abdomen. Surprisingly, most of the joints don't disrupt the sculpt as much as it might sound like they do.

In the comics, Dhar-Wun is occasionally shown to stand on her hind legs, in order to fight with her front claws; the nice and tight articulation allows for displaying the figure in such a pose with no problem. And I like that they added the new front paws for a great mauling action!

This mighty creature comes with no accessory (but she can wear the removable saddle and claws that came with Ki-Wun) and can fit most KR figures on her back (not Solamya though).

Comic

Together with the multi-pack we get the first comic issue Into dimness: Part I – Awakening. Fifteen years after the beginning of their exile to the region of Ucamur, Wordron, Modi-Rha and Barkos excavate a swampy site in search of the magical helmet that was once in their possession. Instead, they discover a number of lethal seeds, formerly belonging to the Reptonoid warrior Rabidriss^TM, and the ancient mystical being Clavisaur^TM. Wordron plots to use those resources to retrieve the lost helmet. To obtain the life force that is required to revive Clavisaur, Wordron attacks the nearby Forseha settlement with his new army of demonic parasites, and several tribespeople are put into an unconscious state. Solamya, whose father Dakun is among the victims, tells her fellows that they must find an enchanted fungus, which grows on the slopes of Mount Atubion^TM and can produce a powerful antidote. After the heroes have reached the volcano and found the fungus with much difficulty, Solamya fashions its decoction into an ointment that will neutralise the parasites' poison and make the wicked creatures life-giving. The Dark Legion attacks the settlement again, hoping to extract more life force from the tribespeople, but the heroes rub the ointment on their weapons and counterattack the evil army, reversing the effect of their stings. This time, Wordron's minions bring everyone back to life. After finally retrieving the helmet, Wordron gives Barkos the prodigious relic and sends him to stop the tribe's retaliation, but the shield-maiden Yla-Nha^TM defeats him and forces the Dark Legion to retreat.

Overall, all the ingredients for a good story are here, but they hardly seem to get together. Barkos himself is entirely pointless - all he does is walk to the tribe's settlement and then get beaten by a girl. The quest to gather the enchanted fungus begins and finishes too quickly, and Wordron spends too much time senselessly attacking people instead of actually looking for the helmet. Finally, the way the antidote is used to counteract the Plant-Men's poison is just too complex. The premise of the series is good, but I think I’ll rank this episode towards the lower end of the scale.

Final thoughts

Character value: ♦♦♦♦ Solamya is a very important character in the KR|Dimness series, being the heir to the leadership of the Forseha tribe, the source of Masq-Lor's boldness. Dhar-Wun is also the mother of Masq-Lor's steed Ki-Wun and is considered one of the most powerful animals on Tahron

Articulation: ♥♥♥♥ You can get plenty of poses from both figures, even if they're not meant for interacting with each other. They still have great base bodies that work very well for the female human and ormurid KR figures

Sculpt and paint: ♣♣♣♣ All the sculpting work is great here; there is very good detail work on Solamya's outfit, and Dhar-Wun's head sculpt, besides its flocking, is one of the many high points of this multi-pack. The paint on Solamya is mainly limited to highlights or shadowing - there appears to be dark washes over the brown cloth parts and dry brushing on the red details that adorn the dress and the belt

Accessories: ♠♠♠♠ We get a small accessory with Solamya, which is her staff. It looks excellent, but is made from a very soft plastic, so it comes out of the packaging a little warped. Dhar-Wun could almost be considered an accessory and is also very cool, helping round out Solamya pretty well

Playability: ♪♪♪ Apart from the fact that Solamya can't actually ride Dhar-Wun due to her skirt, there are hardly any problems I can think of with this set

Overall: ☺☺☺☺ I really don’t have too many issues with this multi-pack: Solamya looks great and can be posed well, even if her "pet", which also looks awesome, isn't appropriate. Being two important characters in the Dimness series, they will fit perfectly in the collection.