7TV Fantasy - the first five characters

Yesterday, I unveiled my new fantasy project and said that I'd do a series of posts about the various recurring characters who featured in the now-lost Anglo-Italian TV series "Tales From The Enchanted Kingdom". 

Right from the first broadcast, each episode was introduced by a sarcastic and bad-tempered blue-skinned Genie named Ozymando, who would emerge from his brass lamp and, often mockingly talk about some of the characters who could be found travelling around the Enchanted Kingdom and "meddling" in the affairs of the mighty rulers of the Kingdom. Over time, he explained his origins and how he had become a trusted advisor to the Great Emperor, Sigismondo, a character who we never actually got to see at all.

Ozymando also acted as the narrator during episodes, generally commenting directly to the audience about the stupidity or avarice of characters, or as a link moving the action from one location to another, which was clearly done to avoid lengthy or costly shots of ships sailing the seas, caravans crossing the land or similar. Later, on towards the end of the first series, Ozymando began to appear as a character in some of the episodes.

The most frequently-recurring character was a Wizard of Celestial Magic called Pandolfo. It is rumoured that the writers had originally wanted to call him Gandolfo, but lawyers advised that this was likely to infringe on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, so the name was changed. For the same reason, all the orcish characters in the series were described as Goblins.

Pandolfo featured in around half of all the episodes ever produced, often in a supporting role but sometimes as the main protagonist. His magical expertise was concerned with controlling the weather, conjuring up fogs, winds, outbreaks of rain, thunder and lightning etc but also in making predictions based upon the movements of the heavenly bodies. His predictions often tended to come true, but not necessarily in the way that might have been expected.

The next three characters always appeared in supporting roles, generally providing assistance to move the plot on or to resolve apparently insurmountable problems.

From left to right, they are Mercator, an itinerant seller of obscure books and scrolls, potions and ancient objects, Chung Lin, a warrior monk from the faraway land of Xanadu and Pankrates, a mercenary master of unarmed combat.

All of these figures are from the North Star range of Frostgrave miniatures, the MDF bases are from Warbases and the tufts are Gamer's Grass from Bad Squiddo.