We talked a little bit about Pathfinder’s mixed bag of character designs, and being an avid player of the game, I’m very familiar with the Iconics, the canon characters for each of the classes. I have mixed feelings about a lot of them, but one character I definitely have no conflicts about: Estra, the iconic spiritualist (and Honaire, her dead husband). The spiritualist is a class that has a Phantom companion: a ghost who can either be ectoplasm or incorporeal, and who acquires a variety of abilities depending on some class variables. This is usually used in a front-liner (phantom) and ranged caster (spiritualist themselves) combo.

Since Estra is the caster type, it would have been so easy to make her into another sexy Pathfinder caster who doesn’t need to wear armor, but that’s not where they decided to go with her concept. Instead, she’s an elderly woman who has had many life experiences, internal conflicts, and even a canonical lover. Yeah, he’s dead, but he came back.

Her dress is practical, her face looks appropriate for her age (ahem), and she’s even got the arthritis. She’s got glasses hanging off her shawl, and a medal her dead hubby received when he was alive hanging off her cane. This is just a lovely design full of character-building details, and that’s the kind of stuff that I love seeing.

-Icy