Belualyth

When Necronominus was recalled to Mythoss, he did not return alone. Loyal acolytes of the Lord of Death who had been banished with him after the First Great War returned as well, including the ghoulish child of Necronominus named Belualyth. A beastmaster who commands a skeletal chimera, the legion of Turpiculi, as well as other unnatural monsters that have not been seen in Mythoss since the First Age, she resumes her role as one of the generals in her father's undead army. Okay, so the first time we got a daughter of Necronominus, her name was Morgolyth - as in "morgue," place for dead things, and "lith," rock, so combining to be a roundabout way of saying her dad named her "tombstone." Now we've got Belualyth, which I kept wanted to mentally pronounce "Beulahlyth," but that's not right; "belua" is a Latin term for a wild beast, while "Beulah" comes from the Hebrew word for a bride; the "-lyth" suffix in this case may have just been carried over by the Horsemen was a way of showing the two women were related, like that's a common way of feminizing a name in Mythoss. So according to that bio, Belualyth was banished to another dimension alongside her father (also her twin brother, Berodach, but I didn't get him beause the ogre-scale figures are expensive). Unlike all the children of Necronominus we've had so far, Belualyth is not a bare skeleton and instead has skin, so here's our question: is the fact they're all living bone a result of them being stuck on Mythoss for all this time, or was she different to begin with? Or maybe it's like losing your baby teeth. Berodach's bio says they're the youngest, so maybe she just hasn't lost her baby flesh yet? That would certainly explain why her alternate head, while still having the few spots of decay on the forehead and cheek as the regular head, is also missing its nose, and instead only has an exposed nasal cavity. She's back in the world, baby, and she's rotting in real time! You won't see much of the standard Mythic Legions parts that are used to build this figure. The steel-armored chest? Hidden by her long hair. Armor on the right arm? underneath a gigantic skull pauldron. The cloth on her legs? Behind a softgoods skirt. Hip armor? You'll be distracted by the new belt she wears, sculpted with tiny skulls, dangling chain, and a coiled whip. Even the jagged gauntlet she wears will spend a lot of its time replaced by one of the accessories, but we'll get to that in a few paragraphs. This is a very distinct character! Belualyth wouldn't be much of a beastmaster if she didn't have some beasts to master, and the Four Horsemen recognized that not everyone would have necessarily chosen to get even one Turpiculus (a weird dragon/man skeleton hybrid also available in this same set of releases), so they made her a deluxe set, and included several animal skeletons for her. The most impressive and eyecatching is a chimera - as in, the literal mythological monster that's part lion, part goat, and part snake. As is traditional, the body is mostly leonine, with a large chest and long spine. I'd have expected the rear legs to be hooves, for the goat part, but here they're the same sort of paws as the front. The tail turns into a snake about halfway up, the transition facilitated by a spike band that also serves as a point of articulation. The hips and shoulders are balljoints, as are both front-heads. The creature wears a harness that helps distract from its unnatural assembly, and that connects via a real metal chain to a handle Belualyth can hold as a leash. Judging by the stock photos, the stump the two necks connect to (which serves as a swivel joint so you can pose them out of each other's way) was intended to be painted gun metal grey, but is instead left bone colored on the final product - presumably for budget reasons - and so is more visible than the Horsemen wanted it to be. Shame, that. One of Belualyth's accessories is a long, curved bone of some sort (a giant clavicle, perhaps?) that plugs into her back in lieu of any sort of backpack. This stretches up above her left shoulder, and serves as a carrying hook for a large birdcage. Well, we say "birdcage," but that's not a bird inside there! It is, in fact, the skeleton of a snake, draped languidly over the branches of the permanently affixed tree branch. The bars of the cage can be removed from the base, if you want to take the snake out or if you need to adjust its position; the skeleton doesn't attach to the tree in any way, so it may slip off its stand if the cage gets jostled. Finally, she has a leather cuff sized to fit over her single gauntlet (see, we told you that would be gone most of the time) and a bird perching upon it. Probably a falcon, given the context. Since this is supposed to be a realistic creature and the Four Horsemen aren't as silly as the companies who make plastic skeleton animals for Halloween decorations, the bird does not have bone feathers to make us recognize what it is - it does, however, have a few actual feathers still clinging tenaciously to the tips of its wings and tail. (The ones on the tail help connect the bird to the pad, so the spindly little legs don't have to support it alone; very clever!) The bird has a balljointed head, so it doesn't always have to be staring eyelessly in the same direction. So after all those, Belualyth's only other accessory is a bone-handle knife, which makes a ton of thematic sense for her. There's also a bag behind the tray with a second copy of her hair. That's an exceedinly odd choice. Like, we've seen characters with alternate hair before, but that was for a purpse - this is the same thing, just twice. So why? All I can figure is if you want to put one of the heads on a different body, and have them both on display at once? Still no reason it couldn't be two different styles. The alternate hands they've given her are weird: in the package she's got a gloved left fist and a bare right gripping hand; there's then a matched pair of bare holding hands, and a pair of bare clawing hands. Why is there no gloved clawing hand? Why is there no bare fist? Shouldn't every hand for the left arm be wearing a glove? These are kind of a let-down. But regardless, Belualyth is a cool figure. She's got a unique look and her pack-in animal companions are creepy accessories that make her not just one of the most interesting toys in the Necronominus series, but in Mythic Legions as a whole. The Four Horsemen debuted this line just over a decade ago (February of 2015), and they're still releasing total bangers today. -- 04/05/25 How can we make the Four Horsemen pronounce all these names out loud? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.