(Illustration by Maichol
Quinto comes from the Paizo Blog and is © Paizo Publishing.)
I’ve already talked about how caulborn are sort of
Pathfinder’s answer to the world’s oldest role-playing game’s mind-flayers—more
sagacious perhaps, definitely less ravenous or evil, but ultimately just as
alien and unknowable. Caulborn thoughtkeepers
are the psychic and physical muscle of the hive—some serving as guardians of
the hivemind’s living libraries, the chrestomaths, and others sent farther
afield to harvest more compelling thought-matter to bring back to the
hive. (And given that caulborn
thoughtkeepers can both plane shift
and summon up a mindscape door,
“farther afield” can be very far indeed.)
Which means that a caulborn thoughtkeeper might make its way into almost
any adventure, assuming there are fascinating minds or great stores of
knowledge involved.
Aided by mind-fogging
volcanic mists, a talented and powerful cerebric cyst has managed to slay
and effectively replace a caulborn hive’s chrestomath. The brain-like cyst directs the hive’s
thoughtkeepers to bring it psychically potent individuals. The cyst wisely allows the caulborn a few
days to study the victim’s thoughts before it devours them.
A scholarly
adventurer is invited to join the Concordia. Known far and wide as a retreat for
free-thinkers and absolute leaders in their fields, the Concordia’s campus sees
kobold dracologists mingling with architects of Astral semi-real estate and
drow flesh surgeons (on their best behavior, of course). What none of the Concordia’s members realize
is that it is not a retreat or campus—it's a zoo, carefully kept by caulborn
thoughtkeepers who consume or mind wipe
away any suspicions from the residents.
Adventures are drawn
into the mindscape of a dying genie noble.
Unfamiliar with the mechanics of such a domain, they fear what will
happen to them if the genie expires while they are still inside. (This is complicated by the fact that the
genie’s wishcraft still functions,
occasionally making their fears real as his sickly subconscious misinterprets
their speech and sends animate dreams and other hazards their way.) Just as the genie is about to expire, a
caulborn thoughtkeeper enters the mindscape, telepathically declares the whole
affair a dull exercise, and invites the adventurers to leave the mindscape with
him—for a price.
—Occult Bestiary
12
Hey, my brutal personal schedule has seen me fall waaay behind on reader
correspondence. So please, please don’t
be insulted if I haven’t written back to you—I’ve been too busy just trying to
keep the posts happening on the regular.
That said, if you dig reader commentary, definitely check out the
comments/reblogs buried in the notes over on Tumblr for the last few weeks’
posts. There’s been a lot of great
back-and-forth, alternate origin stories, some people flagging some stat blocks
tidbits they wanted to call out, and the return (welcome back, man!) of dr-archeville’s
very elaborate commentary (along with regulars filbypott, demiurge1138,
ohgodhesloose, fortooate, cofinaldestination, and several others. So, when you read this, click the notes. And then go to yesterday’s entry and click the notes. And then the day before…you
get the idea. It’s worth it!
Some I want to call out: crinosg references my home state’s
own cryptid, the goatman of Maryland.
Reader hidrihime made me laugh by hollering back “hell yeah ordovicians”
within seconds of my “Cameroceras” post landing.
Reader jakus wanted to know:
Okay, just curious,
what is the absolute most horrific abomination of a monster that is in the
manual? Show me the evil.
Setting aside the obvious Lovecraft candidates, I’m going to
have to go with Pazuzu, for all the reasons I’ve written about. If I take fiendish lords out of the
equation…? Hmmm, I’ll have to think
about that one. Any nominations from the
audience? And beowulfthecool asked:
Heyo,
I was wondering how exactly I would look for specific Bestiaries? I want to look only at the ones I have but
I'm not sure how.
Sadly, I didn’t think to tag posts that way—when I started,
there was only the Bestiary, the Bonus Bestiary (which barely counted),
and Bestiary 2 to worry about. So I’ve got no good recommendations for you
other than scrolling through the archives (this one or this one) and clicking
on what you recognize, or just using the Find command. Sorry!
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