Toy prototype details
Name: Wog-RauanTM, aka Kon-RauanTM (Emergence Edition)
Subtitle: amphibious warrior
Line: KR|Emergence
Item type: action figure - Nº 23 in the line.
Character details
Name: Wog-Rauan (later known as Kon-Rauan II)
Classification: amphibian
Sex: male
Relationships: son of the original Kon-Rauan (Kon-Rauan I)
Home: Tahron
Articulation
Standard, except that the right hand is especially engineered with a hinge to hold an arrow.
Description
Head: somewhat reminiscent of the Gill-man, characterised by warty greenish skin, a jagged lighter green sagittal crest that seemingly runs down the middle of the upper back (thanks to an extra neck piece that fits right on top of the body), two large external gills protruding from the sides of the head, two large bulging purple eyes surrounded by whitish calcified rings (most prominently on the brow ridge and on the "nasal" bridge; similar smaller outgrowths are also visible in some other spots), two drooping skin flaps flanking the slightly open mouth, and two short, slender tendril-like appendages projecting from the chin
Name: Wog-RauanTM, aka Kon-RauanTM (Emergence Edition)
Subtitle: amphibious warrior
Line: KR|Emergence
Item type: action figure - Nº 23 in the line.
Character details
Name: Wog-Rauan (later known as Kon-Rauan II)
Classification: amphibian
Sex: male
Relationships: son of the original Kon-Rauan (Kon-Rauan I)
Home: Tahron
Era: 3 years before Foundation
Affiliation: Rexodon
Rank: warrant officer.
Background
First appearance: KR|Emergence #1 - The cradle of evil
Brief bio: originally members of a lacustrine ethnic group, Kon-Rauan and his son Wog-Rauan were among the Reptonoid army's last recruits. More openly fiendish than most of their reptilian fellows, Kon-Rauan often aimed at poisoning his foes with his highly toxic gasses, while Wog-Rauan took a sadistic pleasure in flogging them with his long tail. When, after the splitting of the reptilian forces into two factions, Kon-Rauan allied himself with Lor-Drek and took several former Reptonoid soldiers prisoner, Wog-Rauan betrayed him by freeing his comrades-in-arms. During the ensuing battle with his father and the Unnamed Clan, Wog-Rauan suffered grave injuries when he bravely shielded his fellow soldier Traark from Kelotur's deadly spinning blades. Although he appeared to die, his body only entered into a process of transformation, which not only healed him and helped him develop powerful lungs, but also erased his memory. He soon re-emerged as Kon-Rauan II, an extremely brutal creature who would serve as an amphibious scout for the Rexodons. Armed with strong legs that allowed him to quickly reach enemies in battle, Kon-Rauan II, unaware of his true parentage, killed his father by shooting him with a poison arrow. Later, after Bi-Harr's death, he acted as a double agent within the Spektrosaurs and, although he was loyal to his faction, he was tempted to serve Lor-Drek temporarily.
Affiliation: Rexodon
Rank: warrant officer.
Background
First appearance: KR|Emergence #1 - The cradle of evil
Brief bio: originally members of a lacustrine ethnic group, Kon-Rauan and his son Wog-Rauan were among the Reptonoid army's last recruits. More openly fiendish than most of their reptilian fellows, Kon-Rauan often aimed at poisoning his foes with his highly toxic gasses, while Wog-Rauan took a sadistic pleasure in flogging them with his long tail. When, after the splitting of the reptilian forces into two factions, Kon-Rauan allied himself with Lor-Drek and took several former Reptonoid soldiers prisoner, Wog-Rauan betrayed him by freeing his comrades-in-arms. During the ensuing battle with his father and the Unnamed Clan, Wog-Rauan suffered grave injuries when he bravely shielded his fellow soldier Traark from Kelotur's deadly spinning blades. Although he appeared to die, his body only entered into a process of transformation, which not only healed him and helped him develop powerful lungs, but also erased his memory. He soon re-emerged as Kon-Rauan II, an extremely brutal creature who would serve as an amphibious scout for the Rexodons. Armed with strong legs that allowed him to quickly reach enemies in battle, Kon-Rauan II, unaware of his true parentage, killed his father by shooting him with a poison arrow. Later, after Bi-Harr's death, he acted as a double agent within the Spektrosaurs and, although he was loyal to his faction, he was tempted to serve Lor-Drek temporarily.
Articulation
Standard, except that the right hand is especially engineered with a hinge to hold an arrow.
Description
Head: somewhat reminiscent of the Gill-man, characterised by warty greenish skin, a jagged lighter green sagittal crest that seemingly runs down the middle of the upper back (thanks to an extra neck piece that fits right on top of the body), two large external gills protruding from the sides of the head, two large bulging purple eyes surrounded by whitish calcified rings (most prominently on the brow ridge and on the "nasal" bridge; similar smaller outgrowths are also visible in some other spots), two drooping skin flaps flanking the slightly open mouth, and two short, slender tendril-like appendages projecting from the chin
Body: warty greenish (a very shiny green neither light nor dark) skin with whitish calcified outgrowths here and there, webbed hands and large webbed feet; each finger (three per hand) and each toe (four per foot) bears a long black claw. His bare chest displays a red tattoo that resembles the strange symbol seen on Kon-Rauan's breastplate; smaller versions of this tattoo (which looks like a sort of upside down crown, but it may represent a webbed three-toed foot with pads) are also present on his shoulders and knees. The torso features two matt lines running down each side, from the armpits to the waist; this is probably a reference to the lateral line sensory organ that we've also seen on Aktahnor's body. Moreover, the right arm carries a studded silver armband, while a long, laterally compressed green tail with a lighter green ridge emerges from under his skirt
Wearables: a double string of wooden prayer beads worn as a necklace, two studded metallic red bracers (worn over red leather boxing hand wraps), two armoured metallic red toeless boots (with studs around the tops and near the claws, tubular coverings made out of reddish pondweed that envelop the shafts, and a pair of chest-tattoo symbols sculpted on the soles), a red leather belt with a golden buckle showing the chest-tattoo symbol, and a tattered scale armour golden skirt. The belt secures a large loop of wrinkled, white-striped green skin trimmed with reddish pondweed and worn round the waist, and is equipped with a red leather sheath for the blade of a non-removable dagger, whose golden hilt resembles an elongated, narrower variation of the chest-tattoo symbol. Additionally, he wears a golden quiver, which contains four wooden arrows (which are all removable!) and is secured to his back by a red leather baldric.
 |
| Wog-Rauan's stylised emblem. |
Action feature
In the comics, Wog-Rauan's main feature is his powerful whip-like flexible tail, which can be used to deliver painful strikes and, in the figure, is made of bendable plastic.
Furthermore, when attacking his opponents, he reveals a grossly oversized open structure of his mouth - similarly to a secret toadhead agama and to a sarcastic fringehead, the head flaps that distinguish his face spread out and become very apparent. So, the figure comes with an alternative head, in which his laterally-splayed jawbones and sail-like scaly cheek membranes reveal a purple tongue, two rows of sharp white teeth (including two upper fangs), a fluorescent green mouth rim and a bright pink colour on the inside used as a warning.
Weapons and accessories
Aside from the swappable head, Wog-Rauan comes with his nicely sculpted golden bow and wooden poison arrow. Both pieces are exact replicas of Kon-Rauan's weapons, except that this version of the bow is equipped with a taut string, while the arrow, which can be held by the special right hand, has a greenish paint application that represents its toxic, rather than fiery, head.
Furthermore, when attacking his opponents, he reveals a grossly oversized open structure of his mouth - similarly to a secret toadhead agama and to a sarcastic fringehead, the head flaps that distinguish his face spread out and become very apparent. So, the figure comes with an alternative head, in which his laterally-splayed jawbones and sail-like scaly cheek membranes reveal a purple tongue, two rows of sharp white teeth (including two upper fangs), a fluorescent green mouth rim and a bright pink colour on the inside used as a warning.
Weapons and accessories
Aside from the swappable head, Wog-Rauan comes with his nicely sculpted golden bow and wooden poison arrow. Both pieces are exact replicas of Kon-Rauan's weapons, except that this version of the bow is equipped with a taut string, while the arrow, which can be held by the special right hand, has a greenish paint application that represents its toxic, rather than fiery, head.
Additionally, the package includes a new head, a harness and an axe, for transforming the Foundation version of Kon-Rauan (Kon-Rauan II, the metamorphosed form of Wog-Rauan) into his Emergence version (Kon-Rauan I, father of Wog-Rauan). The frog-like head is very similar to the Foundation portrait (characterised by a wide shape, green skin marked with white stripes and a large protruding purple left eye), but its ragged look and the presence of an eye patch worn to protect the right eye definitely help the figure appear older. The black eye patch is attached around the head by a double black string, and has a golden rim and a cross pattée red design with a small golden plate at its centre. The harness looks like a short, sleeveless red leather vest ornamented with golden edges, golden shoulder pads and two large golden studs (plus one smaller) on each front panel, which is completely open and has a loose closure (formed of two golden clasps connected with a golden gas cylinder) near the stomach. On the back, the harness features four red-and-gold pipes designed to release poison gas and fed by a number of black tubes departing from the front cylinder; the pipes are arranged like two stacked vees (V) and each has a plume of greenish smoke spreading from the end. The bearded axe shows a golden blade held in a wooden handle by two projections, leaving a cut-out at the base of the blade. The neat thing is that Wog-Rauan's bow and old Kon-Rauan's axe can combine to create a weapon that resembles the crossbow used by Wog-Rauan in the comics. The crossbow is formed by placing the bow horizontally within an indentation near the bottom part of the axe's handle, while any one of his five arrows can be placed on top of the weapon thanks to a notch at its butt end for grasping the bowstring. The cut-out on the blade and an additional small handle at right angles to the axe's haft serve as the rear grip and fore grip, respectively.
If the possibility to build a second figure isn’t enough for you, a cool great bonus is that Wog-Rauan comes with an additional soft good wrap and a set of weapons, so you can have an Emergence-kinda-accurate display option for Tauton. While Foundation Tauton was wearing black and gold, his Emergence counterpart is decked out in white and blueish-grey. You can remove all the plastic pieces on the figure and put on a newly created fabric shirt that covers his face, torso and groin. It's a padded white tunic with a screen-printed emblem in grey and blue on the chest, held tight by a simple Velcro belt that wraps around the waist. You know what? It's kind of cool! I'm not sure I like it as much as I'd like a completely new Tauton figure in his short-sleeved, all-white attire, but I do appreciate the effort to offer up something new for the figure. The piece is easy to put on and I love how the crested (i.e., with a longitudinal raised band) balaclava covers the whole head and neck except for the eyes. The printing on the cloth is super clean and pops out thanks to the colours used, and represents a new symbol that looks like a hybrid of a Theriom insignia and a throwing star. The included weapons are the same wakizashi, stick and nunchaku that came with Tauton, just redone in the new white-and-steel colour scheme. Tauton can actually tote these weapons around thanks to the built in sheathes on his tunic - there's a small loop on the back right of his belt, which can hold the nunchaku, while the slot on his back can hold either the sword or the stick (or both).
Final thoughts
Overall: as a hardcore KR fan, I'm really glad to have this prototype to finish off the proposed Emergence line, which we don't know yet if it'll ever come to fruition. Wog-Rauan is another fine entry into the series, he's just a lot of fun! Although he's not one of my favourite characters, he's indeed a great figure with excellent weapons and the ability to hold them all. The extra head and harness give us the opportunity to update an old figure while retaining the original aesthetics - the addition of the eye patch and toxic tubes definitely makes Kon-Rauan seem like a bit of an improvement over the original figure. Plus, while we're missing the chance to see a younger, whiter version of the Theriom fighting officer in this line, the included vest and weapons make it possible to get an Emergence-styled Tauton at a reasonable price. As I said, I’m happy with Wog-Rauan, but it’s a bit sad in the sense that this may be the last Emergence figure we ever see
Rating: ☺☺☺☺ / 5
Final thoughts
Overall: as a hardcore KR fan, I'm really glad to have this prototype to finish off the proposed Emergence line, which we don't know yet if it'll ever come to fruition. Wog-Rauan is another fine entry into the series, he's just a lot of fun! Although he's not one of my favourite characters, he's indeed a great figure with excellent weapons and the ability to hold them all. The extra head and harness give us the opportunity to update an old figure while retaining the original aesthetics - the addition of the eye patch and toxic tubes definitely makes Kon-Rauan seem like a bit of an improvement over the original figure. Plus, while we're missing the chance to see a younger, whiter version of the Theriom fighting officer in this line, the included vest and weapons make it possible to get an Emergence-styled Tauton at a reasonable price. As I said, I’m happy with Wog-Rauan, but it’s a bit sad in the sense that this may be the last Emergence figure we ever see
Rating: ☺☺☺☺ / 5
No comments:
Post a Comment