Paizo Iconics - Seltyiel

The last iconic for the Second Darkness adventure path, and the only one who arguably shouldn't have been made, because he didn't even represent a regular character class until later, Seltyiel was always an odd fit. It's also the first one that had a really quite long and detailed backstory written; more so than the other characters before him, and of course, they made him a misunderstood edge-lord who'd been bullied as a kid but later came into magical power so he could... I dunno, get his revenge against the jocks who made fun of him and got the girls that he had a crush on all through high school, or whatever. 

At the time, Seltyiel was built as a fighter/wizard who took the Eldritch Knight prestige class, but he later was given the "martial wizard" (sometimes stupidly called a "gish" by D&D players) class of magus when that came out in Ultimate Magic, so his mechanics were revised and retconned. He really doesn't fit. I understand why they probably wanted an even number of twelve iconic characters to start with; four unique ones for each adventure path, but y'know, when you only have eleven core classes, that twelfth one simply isn't going to come across as very iconic. 

The next adventure path, Legacy of Fire, re-used iconics, which it should have done because having a limited number makes some sense. They use Kyra, Valeros, Ezren and Merisiel, probably the first time that they really actually had an iconic party, honestly. Seltyiel reappears in the next adventure path after that, Council of Thieves (along with Lem, Seelah and Seoni) which is the first Pathfinder 1e (instead of D&D 3.5) adventure path. By the time we got to the Carrion Crown adventure path, they weren't even included pregens anymore. But by that time, products like Advanced Players Guide and others had started to introduce additional 1-20 level "core" classes, so new iconics to represent them started to appear, which is where we'll be when I come back to this series. 

Seltyiel has two iconic Wayne Reynolds artworks, but curiously, it's not an update from 1e to 2e like the rest; he just has two artworks for whatever reason. One of them comes from the Ultimate Magic book, I believe, where he was retconned into being a "magus" class rather than an Eldritch Knight prestige class. In honor of the retcon, he got new art, I guess.

Original art 2008

Updated art 2010

Love the little Red Cross icon on the updated art. Lolwut?

Anyway, when I come back to this series, we'll be doing stuff like the "iconic" ninjas, samurai, oracles, alchemists, etc. Interesting characters, and I'm not sad that they made representative versions of them to, y'know, represent, but they no longer fit the definition of "iconic" in any reasonable sense.

Anyway, for the heckuvit; here's a list of the next few iconics, in groups of four:

1. Alahazra (Oracle)
2. Alain (Cavalier)
3. Damiel (Alchemist)
4. Hayato (Samurai)

<  †   >

1. Lirianne (Gunslinger)
2. Reiko (Ninja)
3. Feiya (Witch)
4. Imrijka (Inquisitor)

<  †  >

1. Balazar (Summoner)
2. Jirelle (Swashbuckler)
3. Quinn (Investigator)
4. Oloch (Warpriest)

There's more, but that'll keep me busy for a little while.