Oso the Circus Bear
Familiar
Oso keeps the patter steady as he runs through the air on the orb he uses as a magic circus ball. If he decides he doesn't like you, he rolls up to you, does a little song and dance and tips his fez. But beware! The fez is mightier than the sword! Ouch!
Speed 4, fly 6 (hover)
Constant Benefits
Grrrrrr: You gain a +2 bonus on Intimidate checks.
Active Benefits
His Own Bear: Oso can speak any language you know, and can converse with other creatures. Unlike mere familiars, you can't hear everything Oso hears and says unless Oso lets you, and you would never be able to tell Oso what to say.
Pact Bear: As a minor action when Oso is in active mode, you can place a curse on one target in a square adjacent to Oso. Until the end of the encounter, your attacks deal an extra 1d6 damage to that target, exactly as the warlock's curse ability on page 131 of the Players' Handbook. At 11th level, you deal an extra 2d6 damage to a cursed target, and at 21st level, you deal an extra 3d6 damage.
Verrrry Dangerous: Oso deals 1d10 damage to anyone who attacks him and misses. At 11th level, he deals 2d10 damage, and at 21st level, he deals 3d10 damage.
While Oso had his stats created by R&D's Rob Heinsoo, that still left the small matter of Oso's appearance. While Shelly knew her bear wore a fez and traveled atop a rolling ball… or a circus bike… or sometimes even a giant d20, she left the actual creation of Oso's likeness to Art Director Jon Schindehette. And Jon put out the call, looking for the best depiction his artists wished to share.
Here now are the depictions of Oso de la Fez. And now we'd like your help to determine which best suits this most acrobatic and ursine of familiars! In addition, we've provided a short bio of each of the artists and links to their own websites.
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Christopher Burdett
I began my professional career designing and creating special makeup effects for television and movies. Working on projects such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly gave me a wonderful opportunity to create a high volume of new and interesting monsters in a very short amount of time. A long stent of zombie and monster movies filled out my time in Los Angeles giving me a lot of hands on experience. I now live in Florida where I focus on illustration and concept design work for the gaming industry. For Wizards of the Coast I have designed miniatures for Dreamblade and Dungeons & Dragons and most recently created illustrations for the Monster Manual 2.
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Heather Hudson
Heather Hudson has worked on Magic: the Gathering and licensed properties based on the D&D game system, Tolkien and H.P. Lovecraft. She has just finished illustrating a conservation children’s book on clouded leopards, "The Clouded Leopard’s Secret" to be published and distributed in Southeast Asia.
Her artwork can be seen at: www.studiowondercabinet.com. For artplay, see her blog at: http://hudillo.blogspot.com.
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Jason Pruett
Jason has always created. From building sets for his G.I. Joes, to writing and illustrating books while he was still in elementary school. From drawing comics in high school, to designing products in college. From writing songs and playing guitars, to building guitars and furniture. He earned a BFA in Industrial Design at Brigham Young University and an MFA in Illustration at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. He still writes and illustrates stories - and gets better with every project. He now works as a freelance illustrator and is trying to break into Visual Development for Animation.
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Herman Lau
Herman Lau is a freelance artist from Edmonton, Alberta. His interests in illustration stem from the stories and games he grew up with, mythologies full of movement and characters to inspire his drawn illusions. Accordingly, he finds homes for his artwork in the speculative fiction and gaming industries. More samples of Herman’s work can be viewed online at spectralcalm.com.
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MJ White
MJ White is a recent graduate of the Alberta College of Art and Design's Illustration program. She currently lives in Calgary, but grew up on Canada's west coast with her family and a little dog named Spatula. She loves to draw animals, plants, dragons and other fantasy creatures.
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Boleslav
Boleslav has been drawing since childhood. Art is his life-long passion. He graduated from Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow (Poland) with a MFA in Fine Arts. Boleslav has been freelancing as an Illustrator/designer since late 2008 and currently hi is working hard to expand his personal portfolio.
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James P. Mullen
James P. Mullen is a native California, inspired by the art culture that surrounds him. He fell in love with watercolors the second he got his starter set, and embraced all different kinds of water media. Animals and Science Fiction are subjects that he loves to revisit.
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Claudio Pozas
Claudio Pozas is a native of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A love for drawing, gaming and reading comics steered him away from an award-winning career in Advertising when he made his artistic debut in Fiery Dragon Productions' Counter Collection series. In the past decade, Claudio has worked for several publishers, including White Wolf, Expeditious Retreat Press, Necromancer Games, Mongoose Publishing, Exile Game Studios and EN Publishing. He currently lives in Rio with his wife Paula, 5-year-old son Daniel and their pet dire tiger, Tyler.
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Ralph Horsley
I was first awakened to the realms of fantasy through reading Tolkien, and I was then given the chance to inhabit those worlds through playing the 1st edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. This found expression in my doodling which rapidly transformed from depictions of soldiers to that of adventurers and monsters; indeed usually my own character and their latest encounter. Much as I aspired to emulate the illustrations within the pages of the wonderfully acronymic DMG, PHB and MM, it seemed a distant dream for the young teenager I was.
So I am very happy to find myself in the position of being a freelance illustrator with two decades worth of work behind me in the games industry, and to be working on Dungeons & Dragons, Magic; the Gathering, World of Warcraft tcg, Warhammer novels, Pathfinder, and numerous other products.
Examples of my work can be found at: http://www.ralphhorsley.co.uk.
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Timothy Phillips
I'm a 22 year old Biology major at UMBC with a passion for art. Even though I'm currently a freelance artist I hope to eventually garner a job making art for my passion, gaming. I’m interested in good stories told through any medium and strategic thinking. As a result I’m an avid gamer and with a history of enjoying role-playing games, real time strategy games and most strategic table-top games.
You can find my works at http://www.timartphi.com.
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