It’s a childhood wish come true! When I was a kid, my absolute favorite Saturday morning cartoon ever was Dungeons & Dragons. I liked the heroes, of course--especially Uni and Sheila. (Rewatching it as an adult, though, Diana is way cooler than Sheila.) But my favorite character of all was a villain--Tiamat the five-headed queen of the dragons. I used to draw her, write stories about her, and dream about her. (She wasn’t evil in my dreams. Just misunderstood. How could anyone that cool be evil? Besides, she helped the heroes at least once.) I always wanted a Tiamat toy, but of course, no such thing existed at the time.
Well, earlier this week I saw a nifty Gargantuan Blue Dragon for sale. They also had a Gargantuan Black Dragon, which led me to wonder if they had made all of the D&D dragons. So I went home and got online, looking for a Chromatic Dragon--what Tiamat was supposed to be, according to my old 4th edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual (c1978). No luck. Then I just searched for Tiamat. Jackpot! I found a fully painted plastic figure called “Aspect of Tiamat” and made a fairly expensive impulse buy.
(Note that, for me, “impulse buy” means buying it the same day I discovered it. I still checked ten online stores, six of which listed the figure as out of stock, and, of the stores remaining, the one with the lowest price had only five left in stock. So maybe it should be called an “obsessive-compulsive slightly-delayed-impulse buy.”)
And now, a momentary pause to give three cheers to the United States Postal Service. I ordered Tiamat late Tuesday evening and chose the slowest, cheapest shipping option available, which happened to be USPS First Class. (Actually, given a couple of lukewarm experiences with UPS and several downright awful experiences with FedEx, USPS is my preferred shipping option anyway. But I digress.) The toy could not possibly have shipped earlier than Wednesday, and it was sitting on my doorstep tonight when I came home from work. Now that’s fast! Forget that “five to seven” days they said to allow. Thanks, USPS! You rock!
So now I have my very own Tiamat. She doesn’t look as cool as she did in the cartoon, but she looks way better than she did in the Monster Manual. I am happy.
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2 comments:
FYI - they did make a toy of the Cartoon Tiamat - I had one. I have no idea what happend to it.
Thanks, Dave! A couple other people also emailed me to let me know the toy existed. I just never saw one, so apparently they weren't selling them in my area. I never knew anyone who had one.
Unfortunately, since it looks like they go for an average of $600 on eBay, I probably never will see one in person. They look cool in the pictures, though.
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