Venal Anatomica

Montefalco grabbed hold of the tapestry. As he did so, Camille named the thing - "Venal Anatomica." The General pulled off the tapestry and revealed it. As might have been guessed from its scale beneath the carpet, it was of heroic size, nine feet tall or more. It had death's face, and was equipped with a variety of medieval murder weapons. There were nails crudely hammered into its shoulder and leg. Blood had coagulated around the nails, but when Anatomica began to move (as now it did) fresh blood bubbled up from the wounds and ran down his body. A modern day Frankenstein, Venal Anatomica is a nightmarish ugly monster, a mixture of machine and humans, many humans, pieced together into one as an assassin created not in the beauty of God by Agonistes, but under the pain of technology by Talisac. Although the novella states him to be over nine feet tall, the figure stands only 6 1/2" tall, but undoubtly looks very tall and very dangerous. Its bottom half has long legs bound in leather and straps, with a little flesh showing that has been torn open by gaping metal pieces, still bleeding. The upper body is clothed in a leather bodice that leaves parts of the chest showing, revealing the flesh stitched together. Anatomica's arms are covered in wounds and metallic pieces to be used as weapons; his left arm a mess, a long cut running from the top of the shoulder down to the wrist, with various metal nails sticking out as well as an enormous blade at the top of the shoulder. His wrist is covered in an adornment of metal hook - the other wrist is suited with an enormous hook weapon (with a mousetrap-like attachment) and a spiked ball on a chain. The top of the shoulder has a chain extending from it to his head where it attaches to an enormous spike that goes through the top of his head to the bottom, through his chin. The head is perhaps one the most notable of his entire body - the bottom half is a disfigured face with a creepy, bloody grin, like that of Agonistes - the top half is an ugly skull, still covered in muscle and tissue fragments, with dead eyes staring out. A translucent "skull-cap" fits over this part of his face thus hiding it, but it is removed as an accessory and hangs from his shoulder. The sculpt is the simplest from this line, but it looks great, and once again, the paint apps detail it even better. Aside from the skull, my favourite bit is the blood around the blade extending from the shoulder - it looks real, and that's disturbing. As an assassin, a monster who kills at its master's command, it has several weapons. Firstly, the hooks embedded in its left hand, and the hook-device strapped to its right and the spiked ball and chain that hangs from it. Secondly, it has a two weapons hanging from its belt - one is another spike/scythe, and the other is more disturbing - a spiked metal phallus. How this is to be used we really don't want to know - needless to say, it's graphic. As for articulation, Anatomica is probably the most playable in the set - not because of the places of articulation, just because of his construction. He's articulated at the shoulders, upper arms, wrists, legs and neck, giving his full use of his arms to attack with. Although why anyone would want to play with this thing is questionable - perhaps not quite as vile as the other Tortured Souls, it's still not a kid's toy. Unlike most skull-faced toys, this one seems to be close to biologically correct, in the way that it looks how you'd expect a man created from pieces of other men to look. Overall, Venal Anatomica is one of the best of the Tortured Souls line. An antithesis to the first three figures in the line, Anatomica is a monster rather than a creation, a Frankenstein crafted without precision or beauty, just ugliness. It's simple and ugly, which works effectively, plus it has more playability than the rest of the line. It almost comes equal with Mongroid as my 3rd favourite in the line - but because Mongroid's more gross than playable, he comes in at 4th. Overall Rating: A Shocka's Placing in the Line: 3rd Agonistes | The Scythe-Meister | Lucidique | Talisac | Venal Anatomica | Mongroid What IS that thing? Do you feel sorry about what happened to him in the story? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.

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