Wizkids Icons of the Realms Underdark Expeditions Miniatures - Nightlights To Stop You Bumping In The Dark

There's a lot of classic Dungeons & Dragons monsters that steal the limelight; dragons, beholders, demons, etc. But for all of the monsters that patrol the surface of our favorite D&D settings there are locations like the Underdark that feature more… unique creatures. Wizkids Underdark Expeditions pack not only includes some of these creepy critters, but also features the first glow-in-the-dark miniatures from Wizkids.

As is standard now Underdark Expeditions is available to purchase in Blind Boxes, each of which contains 3 small or medium sized miniatures, and one large or bigger. These sizes relate to the stat block of the creature.

Be Sure To Look Up When Exploring The Underdark

Of the smallest miniatures I received from my eight blind boxes there were plenty of duplicates in this category. Some of the monsters were familiar to me, while others I'll need to do some investigation before I put them out on the table for a low-level party.

• Choker
• Darkmantle
• Gazer
• Giant Centipede
• Giant Rat x2
• Myconid Sprout x2
• Piercer x2

I was really pleased to get some Piercers and a Darkmantle together, as they're canonically known to hunt together. These are fantastic examples of an Underdark twist or something your party might know to expect. The Piercers tails are reminiscent of a stalagtight, these predators hang from the ceilings of caves just waiting to drop. The Darkmantle hunts similarly, it's miniature here shown ready to drop down and envelop the head of it's opponent.

For the more humanoid creatures the Myconid Sprouts show off their eerieness with an unnatural blue color to them. Up close you can make out the features of crossed arms and a face, but from a distance it might even just look like set dressing to players at your table.

Unfortunately for the size the choker just looks like a small green humanoid. A lot of the finer detail, such as the mouth full of sharp teeth, tentacle suckers on the ends of it's arms, or it's maliable cartilage body really come across for this little miniature.

Aberrant Horrors

The Medium creatures I pulled immediately take a further turn from the standard into the creepy and eerie. From this I pulled:

• Babau
• Choldrith
• Deep Rothe
• Fire Snake
• Gray Ooze
• Quaggoth
• Shadow
• Swarm of Bats
• Vampiric Mist
• Xorn

Starting with the creatures that are spins on what we're familiar with the Quaggoth hunches forward in its stance, leering with it's lowered head. One of it's hands clenched into a fist, while the other is poised to grab an adventurer. The Choldrith too has an impressive pose, reared up on it's hind (four) legs, with a dagger ready to slash. These cursed spawn of Lolth rituals lead others in her ways, obeying only her command.

Moving even further from the norm we have creatures like the Xorn and Babau. These are the kinds of creatures that defy traditional sense, looking like they have too many limbs, or not enough limbs, or just limbs in the totally wrong place.

This is when your players will know that they're not in Waterdeep anymore. For the Xorn specifically the mix of too many limbs and the rocky texture across their body show perfect detail with under the light. No matter where you are on the table you'll be able to see how unique it is.

For those with no form at all the Shadow does a good job of being way too dark and shows just slight humanoid figures. Unlike the Choker who suffers from being too close to a human form but green by making the shadow this ominous and looming form it takes it away from reality and makes it something scarier to face.

For the Large creatures I pulled:

• Barghest
• Carrion Crawler
• Drider
• Giant Bat
• Hook Horror
• Umber Hulk

Here the miniatures remained decidedly subterranean but moved further away from the kinds of aberrant creatures that were medium-sized. Making your way through a system of caves you'll likely run across creatures like the Giant Bat or Carrion Crawler. I am extremely impressed with the smooth leathery quality of the bats wings, spread out, which its beady eyes are focused on a target and teeth are bared.

Interestingly, this isn't the first time Wizkids has included an Umberhulk in their expansions, the last one was available in Spelljammer: Adventures in Space. What did surprise me looking at the two is that each is posed differently. Some slight changes to arm position, stance, and where the head is turning. This is also true of the Drider from Underdark Expeditions and Vecna: Eve of Ruin.

It's nice to have a few minis of something, but even better to have minis with variants to them, it doesn't look like you're throwing down an army of clones and can help combat feel varied.

Creatures That Go Glow In The Dark

The last creatures to mention are the glow-in-the-dark ones. From this set I got the following creatures:

• Flumph x2
• Gas Spore
• Magma Mephit
• Oblex Spawn
• Venom Troll (This one I believe is Glow In The Dark, it might just be toxic green in color)

Right off the bat, I do want to say that while each of these are marketed as glow in the dark the mileage will definitely vary. The Gas Spore and Oblex Spawn were definitely glowing when I locked myself in my lightless laundry room, some of the paint around the back of the Venom Troll also glowed, but the Flumph and Magma Mephit didn't give off any glow in the dark.

The other genuine question about this is… when are you going to be playing in a dark enough space that you'll be able to review your character sheet, run a session, plan combat, and also have a glow-in-the-dark be recognizable.

I think the charm in these is that by simply looking at them you can tell from the semi-translucent green that they're glow-in-the-dark. The idea of them being glow-in-the-dark is almost a better pay off than getting to see them in the dark.

The most impressive of these is the Gas Spore, this monster looking like a Beholder's distant underdark cousin sits on an incredibly detailed cloud of gas, the semi-transparency lends really well to the effect here.

Wizkids Icons of the Realms Underdark Expeditions Review | Final Thoughts

This set does feature a good number of strange and creepy creatures that a party might run afoul of in the Underdark. Followers of Lolth, strange adaptive creatures, and even some (kind of) glowing monsters.

From my mix of draws I did get a number of more common creatures from caves or sewers but it also makes sense that not everything is going to be a horror from the deep Underdark.

The glow-in-the-dark effect is fun on paper, in practice it doesn't quite have the effect you'd expect, maybe if you let them bake under a UV light for a bit before drawing them out you'll get a more impactful reveal.

The miniatures for this review were provided by Wizkids in the form of eight Underdark Expeditions blind boxes. All photos were taken over the course of the review.