Paizo Iconics - Merisiel

The next iconic to come up is the elf almost manic pixie girl rogue Merisiel. She's one of the Forlorn, which means that she didn't grow up among elves, and by the time she was a "teenager" most of the friends she'd grown up with were dead, some even of old age or other complications related to aging, because she's actually... I dunno, fifty or sixty or something by the time she grows up. She's also iconically not very smart, with intelligence being her obvious dump stat. Not that the writers of the Pathfinder Legends radio plays understood that; all they knew is that if she's the girl, she has to be the most capable and interesting "real" star of the show.

In yet another example of Paizo's inability to read the room, because of their stupid Seattle bubble, they made Merisiel gay, and she's "married" to Kyra—a "Persian" cleric human girl. What a joke. That's beyond silly, and honestly kind of obnoxious, but of course Paizo is Paizo. 

Anyway, another iconic down. Merisiel is one of the most iconic of the iconics, if that means anything, appearing in tons of artwork, appearing as the most iconic adventuring party of pregens in the first adventure path, and appearing in all three of the Pathfinder Legends radio plays as one of the most important main characters.

Merisiel also shows how Pathfinder elves aren't really exactly like D&D elves, although of course, this was the same time as 4e was coming out, so the Pathfinder elves were not too unlike the 4e "eladrin" who replaced elves for that edition. Kinda. Of course, this redesign just makes elves look a little bit like anime characters; too thin to be realistic, really big eyes, solid colored eyes, in fact. Merisiel looks a bit like a shark-eyed waifu anime girl. Blegh. Again, she's not the worst of the iconic characters, but that's mostly because they hadn't degenerated into weirdo concepts yet. They really made way too many iconics. Something like thirty or forty, and then they added another dozen or so new ones for 2e. Geez.

She got new art for 2e again, although she doesn't really look that different, just reposed. And she lost the little pteruges, and the yellowjacket ribbons seem to have swapped to the other leg. And she got a less piratey set of boots, I guess, and a new rapier—now with 80% more basket hilt!

Is it just me too, or do the Pathfinder elf ears look absurd? And why is there a rock or jewel or something glued to her forehead?