tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89038364315280175002024-03-14T04:15:05.090-07:00The Daily BestiaryA monster most every weekday. Three adventure seeds a post.
<br>Because Pathfinder and 3.5 are more fun than work.
<br>Safari may not show some entries. View in Firefox for best results.Patchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14551888121167330346noreply@blogger.comBlogger1245125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8903836431528017500.post-48277543854372153902019-12-31T12:18:00.000-08:002019-12-31T12:18:12.989-08:00Plankta
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="http://legacy.aonprd.com/bestiary5/plankta.html">Planktas</a> are odd. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bestiary
5</i> describes them as “stony creatures formed from the shattered remnants of
ancient island civilizations devastated and inundated by natural or magical
cataclysms”—okay, check, we got that—“and given life by unleashed magical
energies and the anguished spirits of those lost in the tragedies.” Makes
sense. Except…planktas do not remain creatures of unleashed energies and
spirits—in other words, they are not outsiders or fey or even undead. Instead,
they become aberrations—true mortal creatures, albeit alien ones. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Of course, becoming such a creature also means having the
drive to procreate…and in the plankta’s case, that means destroying more island
civilizations. It’s a grisly life cycle to say the least.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">None of that will probably <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ever</i> come into play at your game table, unless you’re really deeply
exploring themes of climate change and island cultures. And even the choice to
make them aberrations probably had to do more with behind the scenes math—“We
need X number of aberrations in this book, and we only have Y, so get
brainstorming.” But once the monster is in print, I find it super interesting
to wrestle with the implications of what’s in the stat block.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">One more thing about planktas: They are described as animate
jumbles of buildings and rock, and the illustration makes them look vaguely
hermit crab-like. But that’s by no means made explicit in the text, so their
forms might be even more outlandish, depending on the nature of the cataclysm
that formed them…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #f1c232;">A band of adventures
began its career</span> </b>in the shadow of an exploding volcano, ferrying passengers
out of the doomed city of Hestius. Now the Hestian Beast, a plankta born of
Hestius’s destruction, threatens their adopted home of Sanctis. Now far more
experienced and with a clear enemy in sight, this time they resolve to fight
rather than ferry.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Ships have been
disappearing</b></span> along Giant’s Foot Strait. A clan of deep merfolk has been
blamed, but the truth is a plankta has been raining boulders (and its own discorporated
rocky body) on the passing ships. Investigating the mystery may uncover the
hitherto unknown sunken city whose destruction birthed the plankta, as well as
unlock a runic alphabet that has had researches stumped for years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Ringwrack</b></span> is
a vast chain of archipelagos circling the Sea of Rage. Planktas are more common
here than anywhere else in the world, thanks to the extreme level of volcanic
activity in the region and the destructive procreation of the planktas
themselves. Planktas that were fathered rather than arising spontaneously tend
to resemble their sire. Those that resemble stony hermit crabs were born from
Old Karg, those that resemble weeping whales made of marble were sired by the
White Witch, and those that resemble massive iguanas seem to trace back to a
mystery progenitor near the equatorial line.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pathfinder Bestiary 5</i>
195</span></div>
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">I have <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">feelings</i>
about 2019. I have feelings about the last decade. I’ll save them for another
day, but suffice it to say I’m ready for 2020 in a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">big</i> way. Happy New Year, everyone.</span></span></div>
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</span></style>Patchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14551888121167330346noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8903836431528017500.post-33312970221549530262019-12-29T06:05:00.000-08:002019-12-29T06:05:33.167-08:00Plague Giant
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk1TVdDnqmqCwOkX1aFJ8ZeFH0FD16d4A0HtO6AoBuQSe3BCPCRx217q8TRMUnLpAI2VOUHzIOvxjtcddaX8KojgnvQKmhQ-wpPlN8Dj5RV8N4WeHcUiCdBPmMbOY086nqMtj7N7RVfNI/s1600/pathfinder_bestiary_6_plague_giant_by_davesrightmind_db7mwr3-pre.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1173" data-original-width="681" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk1TVdDnqmqCwOkX1aFJ8ZeFH0FD16d4A0HtO6AoBuQSe3BCPCRx217q8TRMUnLpAI2VOUHzIOvxjtcddaX8KojgnvQKmhQ-wpPlN8Dj5RV8N4WeHcUiCdBPmMbOY086nqMtj7N7RVfNI/s320/pathfinder_bestiary_6_plague_giant_by_davesrightmind_db7mwr3-pre.jpg" width="185" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">(Illustration by David Melvin comes from the <a href="https://www.deviantart.com/davesrightmind">artist’s DeviantArt page</a> and is © Paizo Publishing.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">I’m on record as being very picky when it comes to certain
kind of [noun] monsters. I want my [noun] giants to be from some kind of
recognizable landscape or elemental force. (I grudgingly accept <a href="http://dailybestiary.blogspot.com/2013/05/rune-giant.html">rune giants</a>
because they are dope.) I want my [noun] golems to be from things you carve or
mine—no web or stained glass golems, please. I’m basically done with [noun]
dragons altogether, preferring more unique branches of the family tree.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Yet all that goes out the window when I hear the word
“plague.” Plague golems? Sure. Plague dragons? BAD. ASS. Plague armadillos, plague
puddings, plague leprechauns? Why the heck not—let’s make galarchauns a thing!
(Somewhere I have an Irish reader who is wincing. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tá brón orm!</i>)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">So I like <a href="https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/humanoids/giants/giant-true/giant-plague/">plague giants</a> as they're presented in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bestiary 6</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean, who doesn’t love the special ability
Hurl Corpse (Su)? (And imagine the cinematics of a giant lair just having
stacks of corpses piled around for ammo, or a giant pushing a massive corpse
cart the size of a cottage through a blasted landscape.) And they cause a
disease that withers limbs. And what kind of monsters do they summon? Vultures
maybe? Rats? Nope—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">tick swarms!</i> I
don’t even know why I like that; I JUST DO.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Obviously, plague giants are the result of some curse or
divine intervention or some other dire event…and what that event was might be
something your PCs can discover in the course of the game, or it might be a
mystery they never learn, as they’re too busy dodging rotted corpse missiles.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Adventurers are
providing aid</b></span> to a plague-stricken town when an unnatural mist rolls
through town. Out of the fog comes a pair of plague giants pushing a massive
cart, offering to collect the town’s dead. The offer is a sincere one, and
removing the corpses will help stem the tide of infection. But then the plague
giants make their way to the hospital, and begin collecting still-living
victims with no regard to their prognosis.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">After their service
preventing diabolists</b></span> from disturbing the Storm Moot—and enduring much anti-human
prejudice and violence in the process—a band of adventurers are allowed the
rare honor of sitting in on giant summit. The meeting is thrown into turmoil
when a delegation of plague giants arrives. While not precisely banned from the
Moot, the cursed giants have never attempts to attend before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most present wish to bar them entry, but they
insist, particularly as they come bearing the corpse of the exiled fire giant
jarl Vulsk with them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">One reason plagues
aren’t more prevalent</b></span> is that the plague powers are a fractious, jealous
bunch—a mix of demigods, daemons, demons, and divs jockeying for worshippers
and warring over ownership of specific strains of infection. One sign a plague
power is in ascendance is when it has the puissance to transform nearby giant
tribes into plague giants, sending them out as earthly avatars to further the
power’s ends.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bestiary 6</i> 134</span></div>
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</span></style>Patchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14551888121167330346noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8903836431528017500.post-14917691588900311512019-12-28T16:09:00.001-08:002019-12-28T16:09:46.361-08:00Plagued Beast
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Whenever demons or undead take over a country, or some
horrible magical event happens in a region, there’s always the question of what
life in a realm of death is actually <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">like</i>.
Like, what happens to the animals? Do they flee? Do they remain, skittish and
agitated? Do ghouls eat them all or do they find a way to persist? Or are they,
too, morphed?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">The <a href="http://legacy.aonprd.com/bestiary5/plaguedBeast.html">plagued beast</a> is the result of demon plague—in Golarion,
yet another stain from the Worldwound. But in your game it can work for any
necromantic or fiendish affliction, and is useful for giving your undead
something to ride that’s sturdier than a skeletal steed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The centaurs of the
Iron Lands</b></span> are in dire straights. Demon plague is racing through their
herds, decimating the stock just before the yearly horse fair the centaurs
depend on for buying winter stores. If they can’t cull the undead beasts and
save their horses, they will have to rely in the Medichar Bank for a loan—an
ill prospect, as Medichar law protects only humanoids from slavery if they
default. Adventurers are needed to hunt down the plagued steeds (possibly
hindered by Medichar Bank agents) and discover the root of the infection.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Loch Annis is famous
for three things</b></span>: a series of three sentry keeps, the hag (long slain) that
gave the loch its name, and a serpentine beast, likely an elasmosaurus, that
draws tourists and naturalists. But when some necromantic storm engulfs one of
the keeps, the lake monster “Annie” becomes a plagued horror, terrorizing towns
up and down the loch.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">A traveling circus’s
showstopper</b></span> is covering one lucky farmer’s animal in gold. Crowds for miles
around come to watch the Eeling & Sons Circus lead a horse, mule, or kite
deer through a magic mirror, which it comes through dusted in real gold leaf
the farmer can then curry out of the animal’s hide. But three months into the
act, an alarming pattern is emerging: Every animal that has gone through the
mirror comes down with demon plague. After a plagued deer terrorizes a halfling
village, the sheriff wants the circus stopped—permanently.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Worldwound</i> 56
& <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pathfinder Bestiary 5</i> 194</span></div>
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Long time no see, huh? Happy holidays, everybody.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Looking for the piranha swarm? We’ll cover it when we cover
the dunkleosteus.</span></span></div>
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</span></style>Patchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14551888121167330346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8903836431528017500.post-91076194313095582222019-09-16T19:22:00.001-07:002019-09-16T19:22:50.220-07:00Phasmadaemon
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">The ram-horned, mantis-armed <a href="https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/daemons/daemon-phasmadaemon/">phasmadaemons</a> personify death
by fright. They also happen to <i>cause</i> death by fright (convenient, that!),
courtesy of illusion spell-like abilities supercharged to be practically real,
and they feed on fright, too—demonstrating, all in all, a horrifically
efficient and thrifty biology.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Though phasmadaemons didn’t make it into the hardbound <i>Bestiaries</i>
till number <i>6</i>, they’ve been around since <i>Horsemen of the Apocalypse</i>,
so GMs looking for a deep dive on their tactics, hunting habits and culture
should <a href="https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/daemons/phasmadaemon/">look there</a>. Two things in particular jump out at me, though. The first
is how powerful (CR 17) phasmadaemons are—an indicator that causing death by
fear alone somehow situates them closer to the daemonic ideal than, say, more base
deaths such as drowning, being mauled, or exsanguination. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">The second is that—though this isn’t really reflected in the
rules, it’s a great story bit—phasmadaemons somehow also collect fearful
imaginings and trade them with each other. I’m a big fan of the soul markets of
the night hags, so the notion of even more quiddity-derived commodity trades
excites me to no end. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>Struck by an azata’s arrow</b></span>, a thanadaemon goes mad as
the celestial wound grows septic. No longer content to represent death by old
age, it begins stalking the living, culling souls before their proper time—and
in the process, disrupting a phasmadaemon’s carefully orchestrated hauntings. Offended,
the phasmadaemon tricks mortal adventurers into hunting down the wayward
thanadaemon, though all the while it also sends illusory torments to harry
their progress and stoke their fear. Once the thanadaemon is slain, the
phasmadaemon offers its thanks by revealing itself to the adventurers before
attempting to murder them.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>Fireworks, porcelain masks, and sinuous manticore puppets</b></span>
are all hallmarks of the Yung New Year’s celebrations. But the court sorcerer
made a deal with the daemonic Lord of the Wastes to win Yung’s last war against
the northern barbarian tribes, and now daemons have begun slipping unchallenged
into the empire. The rise in terror and deaths are largely felt only as a
malaise that hangs over the city. But that changes during the New Year parade, when
a porcelain-masked phasmadaemon erupts out from under the procession’s manticore
puppet and sends illusionary horrors to torment citizens.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>Bugbears that perfect the art</b></span> of stalking and
terrifying victims are sometimes visited by a phasmadaemon. The daemon stalks
the chosen bugbear over the course of three days and nights, attacking at
random, setting up ambushes, and never letting the goblinoid sleep. Though few
bugbears could hope to defeat a daemon in combat, if the champion does not show
fear throughout the entire ordeal, the phasmadaemon will grant the bugbear some
boon. Often these boons include the gift of an intelligent magical weapon,
magical prowess (treat as added class levels or the half-field template),a
spell-like ability, transformation into a greater barghest, or some other dark
blessing.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">—<i>Horsemen of the Apocalypse</i> 52–53 & <i>Pathfinder
Bestiary 6</i> 74</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Hi guys. <a href="http://dailybestiary.blogspot.com/2019/05/pharaonic-guardian_20.html">Been a while</a> since we did a monster. For my Blogger
readers, here’s <a href="https://dailybestiary.tumblr.com/archive">some of what’s been going on</a>—including some <a href="https://dailybestiary.tumblr.com/post/186804900213/name-a-dd-or-pathfinder-monster-you-love-ill">fun with monster reading recommendations</a>, some <a href="https://dailybestiary.tumblr.com/post/187537116523/so-i-guess-i-can-announce-this-now">big news</a>, and some <a href="https://dailybestiary.tumblr.com/post/187467825448/several-times-on-this-blogparticularly-as-my">bleak news</a>. For my Tumblr
readers, thank as always for sticking around and keeping me company.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><style><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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</span></style>Patchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14551888121167330346noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8903836431528017500.post-58201182266883408182019-05-20T19:03:00.000-07:002019-05-20T19:03:12.831-07:00Pharaonic Guardian
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">As I’ve mentioned before, I have a love/hate relationship
with fantasy Egypt tropes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mummies are
interesting undead, period, and when done thoughtfully, Egypt-inspired
adventures can be some of the best around (see the excellent Mummy’s Mask
Adventure Path).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the other hand, it
can be way too easy to just drop fantasy-Egypt wholesale into your
Pathfinder/D&D campaign without a lot of forethought (even Forgotten Realms
was guilty of this), leading to trite adventures involving pyramids, death
traps, and the obligatory cameo appearance by Anubis.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">The <a href="http://legacy.aonprd.com/bestiary5/pharaonicGuardian.html">pharaonic guardian</a>, at first glance, looks both useful
(it’s the kind of monster you’d <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">totally</i>
see in a <i>Mummy</i> movie but that there hasn’t <i>exactly</i> been stats for
yet ) and pretty generic (oh great, it’s still an undead tomb guardian, no
matter what kind of head it has).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">But it shines in the details: A judging gaze and
soul-rending wings are just cool.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
fact that it can use (and even briefly hand over) a <i>+3 ghost touch speed
longsword</i> and <i>shield</i> is a nice cinematic touch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even the alignment is flavorful—not a bland N
or LN, but not your typical undead NE or CE either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And why lawful evil?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because pharaonic guardians “are the product
of fear and sweat wrung from slaves and other servants”—in fact, they’re made
from an amalgam of these servants’ souls!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">So these are creatures born of atrocity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they probably will try to kill you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But if on the rare chance you’re actually
trying to preserve a pyramid rather than loot it…maybe you’ll get lucky.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">But say you’re not down with Horus and Set.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s interesting to think of other reasons a
culture might have animal-headed tomb guardians…</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>In the early stages of exploring a crypt</b></span>, adventurers
have an opportunity to step into magical mural of a garden, where they may
ritually purify themselves and converse with the denizens therein.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of these figments, a foul-tempered,
warthog-headed armorer, will ask them to swear an oath not to disturb a certain
burial chamber.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Should they do so (and keep
their promise), he will come to their aid later in the depths, arriving bearing
<i>ghost touch</i>-infused arms when the adventurers are set upon by the tomb’s
more malevolent spirits.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>Elves of Parnish have a taboo</b></span> against being
represented in images after their death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Instead, they are depicted in carvings, paintings and tapestries bearing
the heads of their totem animals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To the
Parnish’eya, it is an honor to have one’s soul be destined after death to
become a tomb guardian.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the elves’
strict religious and funeral obligations weigh upon the souls over the
centuries, and most of these guardians grow cold and evil during the course of
their endless watch.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A wise ruler puts some distance</span></b></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
between his palace and his line's necropolis. The Captive King is a
lesson why. When Tarpin XII decided to shore up his faltering reign by
building a palace atop the burial city of Omun-Ke, it did not occur to him the
pharaonic guardians would see fit to judge the weak king according to the harsh
standards of namesake. Now Tarpin XII is naught but ash in an urn, and
his son Tarpin XIII has spent 30 years a prisoner in his own palace. Praying
for a rescue that never comes, he appears in public only to pronounce draconian
edicts dictated by his undead jailers, who are intent in restoring the faith
and territory of the first Tarpin's empire.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">—<i>Osirion, Legacy of the Pharaohs</i> 60 & <i>Pathfinder
Bestiary 5</i> 191</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">I also like Mummy’s Mask because it’s one of the last APs I
successfully read all of as it came out, rather than in desperate cram sessions
after the fact.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My life got weird,
y’all.</span></span></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">It’s been long enough now that I bet many of you have
forgotten the truly messed-up elves of Eberron.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>No matter what system you play, you owe it to yourself to pick up either
the 3.5 <i>Eberron Camapaign Setting</i>, <i>Player’s Guide to Eberron</i>, or <i>Races
of Eberron</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At time of writing, used
<i>PGTEs</i> are a steal at $16.50, and for value for money it’s still really
hard to beat a used <i>ECS</i> at roughly $36.</span></span></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Also, old-school (or at least, middle-school) D&D fans
will remember the Dark Sun novels, specifically the Prism Pentad by Troy
Denning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first three books were
flat-out baller, but the fourth, <i>The Obsidian Oracle</i>, was a muddy,
claustrophobic, and depressing read, even by Dark Sun standards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it featured some truly horrific bad
guys—beast-headed giants that got those heads through magical manipulation that
(if I’m recalling correctly—I haven’t re-read these books since, like, ’94)
also doomed their children’s souls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So
there’s another source of animal-headed atrocities for you.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><style><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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</span></style>Patchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14551888121167330346noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8903836431528017500.post-34713517952540217792019-05-15T20:44:00.001-07:002019-05-15T20:44:38.760-07:00Peuchen
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiJEurMyJQzrbHqj8_eX1BHl842XidfYOZeEumsrA2qcJOVaN85cGlEKLZVscGp6XkOdZj9-fUYQqdGX_N7dhxAV4HWKbjDEsVzUckXds0mzD2XmKPobZpoVPDhB53PVFwglE9YM6a65U/s1600/Peuchen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="725" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiJEurMyJQzrbHqj8_eX1BHl842XidfYOZeEumsrA2qcJOVaN85cGlEKLZVscGp6XkOdZj9-fUYQqdGX_N7dhxAV4HWKbjDEsVzUckXds0mzD2XmKPobZpoVPDhB53PVFwglE9YM6a65U/s320/Peuchen.jpg" width="232" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">(Illustration by Dave Allsop comes from the <a href="https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Dave_Allsop">PathfinderWiki</a> and
is © Paizo Publishing.)</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">I’m a big fan of Dave Allsop’s art—he did the <i>Bestiary</i>’s
woeful mite and the amazing <a href="http://dailybestiary.blogspot.com/2019/01/papinijuwari.html">papinijuwari</a> I was so excited about a few months
ago—so I’m a little bummed that his <a href="https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/magical-beasts/peuchen/">peuchen</a>, while beautiful, doesn’t capture
the <i>scale</i> of the beast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What he’s
painted looks like an exotic species you’d see on display in a fantasy reptile
house or curled around the arm of some sorceress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it’s actually a roughly human-sized
(Medium) monster that punches in at a mighty CR 10.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">And that, in a nutshell, is why I like the peuchen: It’s a
pretty good dragon substitute for low-level campaigns.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">But let’s back up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The peuchen is a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peuchen">cryptid</a> from Andean mythology, especially Chile and
Argentina—likely a mashup of the boa and the vampire bat—that is a feared
shapeshifter who drains the blood of livestock and lone shepherds. Pathfinder’s
version follows that outline almost exactly (right down to bleed and blood
drain abilities, as well as the ability to cast <i>hold person</i> and <i>vampiric
touch</i>).</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">I’m always looking for good non-European monsters I can
point GMs to, and the peuchen definitely checks that box. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Which is awesome, as South America is
probably our least-represented continent in terms of <i>Bestiary</i> monsters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even Antarctica has a better selection once
you start throwing in Lovecraft, John Carpenter’s <i>The Thing</i>, Hollow
Earth tales and other pulp inspirations.).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Then again, if you’re a Euro diehard, the peuchen reskinned could make a
perfectly acceptable version of Fáfnir the dragon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m also always looking for ways to tell
bring more intimate, narrative and folktale-inspired gaming into
Pathfinder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I can totally see a
slow-moving, low-XP campaign where a PC’s parent’s death hangs over the campaign…with
the peuchen teased as the culprit all along but finally revealed somewhere
around Level 6 or 7, just as the players are really coming into their full
powers.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">But if you want straight-up hack & slash…well, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camazotz">Camazotz</a>
is about the most badass god/devil/demon (depending on your game world) out
there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Someone’s got to clean out his
creepy jungle temple superdungeon…and guess what’s the perfect monster to fight
on Level 10?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>Nutmeg’s value to spice traders</b></span> isn’t just from its
rarity and taste—it’s also dangerous to harvest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Peuchens delight in polishing their scales
with the crushed aromatic seeds of the nutmeg tree.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Harvesters in the Bluewater Isles need
adventurers who will guard their crews from the cunning winged snakes.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>The fey of the Bier of Bone</b></span>—bloodthirsty pixies,
tooth fairies, quicklings, redcaps, and worse—all serve the mad leanan sidhe
Umlar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her prize pet is a peuchen the
blue of a bird of paradise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Recently she
has been distracted by the charms of a larabay (who secretly plots to steal her
throne), leaving the peuchen as the main guardian of her ivory hoard.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>Years ago, a silver-tongued drover</b></span> talked his ways
out of the jaws of a peuchen by offering to deliver livestock the likes of
which the winged snaked had never tasted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Intrigued, the peuchen agreed, and was rewarded with Huwari beef from
the Olfshires—a kind of cattle newly brought by Northern colonists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Desiring more such delicacies, the peuchen
and the drover began trading Northern cattle for alpacas, llamas, and other
livestock. Today the drover is the most powerful beef importer in the thriving
colony Sor Pelag, with the peuchen as his silent partner—and occasional
enforcer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When a new source of
flesh—glowing, duergar-raised deep oxen—threatens the pair’s monopoly, they
turn to murder to keep their balance sheets in the black.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">—<i>Pathfinder Bestiary 5</i> 189</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">The history of nutmeg is actually super interesting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nutmeg is also one of the reasons that, while
Pepsi always does better in blind taste tests, Coke is more popular in
reality—the nutmeg in a Coke Classic sets off more flavor sensors and yields a
more complex, richer experience over the course of the entire can.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(At least according to some <i>New Yorker</i>
article I read years ago.)</span></span></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">I keep waiting for my day job to hand my some kind of
nutmeg-related project, but so far I’ve only played around with <a href="https://vimeo.com/245436945">turmeric</a> and bay
leaves.</span></span></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Looking for the penguin?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We covered that <a href="http://dailybestiary.blogspot.com/2016/02/chicken-flying-fox-penguin.html">way back here</a>.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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</span></style>Patchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14551888121167330346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8903836431528017500.post-30301811283259843502019-05-14T15:19:00.001-07:002019-05-14T15:19:43.170-07:00Pelagastr
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUV20Q2hIUNG3fCnI1BQmY3P-nWY2E7_DH8hmg3jZFcoN6A1ofs_8iAkVsxxudVgHEH6Umbzm0AO9GEHSCX-R5UqobVUGOImLj_YWIgHMAns7PUp7R3Fs2FxvEtUaKiKKFmFiFvyarf8k/s1600/500px-Pelagastr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="818" data-original-width="501" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUV20Q2hIUNG3fCnI1BQmY3P-nWY2E7_DH8hmg3jZFcoN6A1ofs_8iAkVsxxudVgHEH6Umbzm0AO9GEHSCX-R5UqobVUGOImLj_YWIgHMAns7PUp7R3Fs2FxvEtUaKiKKFmFiFvyarf8k/s320/500px-Pelagastr.jpg" width="195" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">(Illustration by Roberto Pitturru comes from the
<a href="https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Pelagastr">PathfinderWiki</a> and is © Paizo Publishing.)</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">The serpentine proteans are chaos incarnate—so much so that
they can change their shape, their vital organs shift around constantly, they
can just regrow new sensory organs, they are in constant flight, they are
always under the effects of a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">freedom of
movement</i> spell, and many of them cause warpwaves that ripple through and
twist reality itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But at least
they’re bound by some basic laws of corporeal existen<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">oh God there’s an incorporeal version isn’t there?</i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">So, welcome to the <a href="https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/protean/protean-pelagastr/">pelagastr</a>! And it gets worse, because these creatures, while not being
part of material existence, delight in it—the Material Plane in
particular—dipping their limbs into reality to smack adventurers around or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">magic jar</i>-ing themselves into humanoids
to wear their skins for a while, just for kicks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are natural spies and investigators, and
unlike other proteans seem to originate directly from the Maelstrom itself,
rather than promotion/evolution through the protean caste structure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So even for creatures of chaos, pelagastrs
are…chaotic.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">If you’re looking for more on pelagastrs, definitely check
out <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pathfinder Adventure Path #99: Dance
of the Damned</i>, which has room for far more lore (as well as teasing a possible
pelagastr master) than the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bestiary 6</i>
write-up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in the meantime, here are
some adventure hooks to get you started:</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Efreet loathe pelagastrs</b></span>
for the disorder the cause—and the plans they ruin with their incessant spying
and possession.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Five maliks known as the
Fist organize a pelagastr hunt every year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The prize, a unique statue carved of ruby, is worth a fortune in and of
itself, or it may be exchanged for a favor from one of the five fearsome lords.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Anchored Isles</b></span>
are a chain (literally, thanks to adamantine fetters of extreme size and age)
of floating earthbergs hovering where the Planes of Earth and Chaos intersect
the Plane of Air. Here the artists and aesthetes from the Circum Sensoria allow
pelagastrs to ride their bodies, unlocking the doors of perception for both
parties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when a clique of pelagastrs
begins a new fad of riding mortals into the experience of death, adventures
must step in to separate the sense-mad participants.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Snallygaster
& The Pelagastr</b></span> isn’t a sign you’d see above most public houses—but
then again, Cardumond, with its cosmopolitan society and no less than three
magic colleges, is no ordinary city.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
things are about to get even more unusual for the tavern.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Earlier this week, a pelagastr (a recent escapee
from the university’s Hall of Conjuring) chanced upon the pub. Delighted by the
sign outside, the pelagastr has decided that, now that he’s arrived, all that’s
lacking is a snallygaster or two…and he his currently herding two giant
specimens toward the tavern at this very moment.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pathfinder Adventure
Path #99</i> 88–89 & <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pathfinder
Bestiary 6</i> 214</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">My notes for the first draft of this post references a Snail
Mail video where Lindsey name-checks my radio station—the link to which has <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">long</i> since vanished.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh, and it references me not doing my show
the night before…because of snow.</span></span></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Also the saved file dates from January 30.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">I…yeah, I should really post more often, huh?</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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</span></style>Patchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14551888121167330346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8903836431528017500.post-46815921005972473132019-01-21T19:26:00.000-08:002019-01-21T19:26:33.576-08:00Paradise Dragon
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlIMdkxvwOqAbaJBdP7-31tPBbYAqWjbEMdmIgjOy8oyJGnurJ1VHOLO7l9lfF1_m1PCC7a_KY-MOYosmvtFDX68airwQuF8u4xm4xoibqMYnUB08-bzWYniShZJe92nhayxYzEDrCdJc/s1600/500px-Paradise_dragon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="545" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlIMdkxvwOqAbaJBdP7-31tPBbYAqWjbEMdmIgjOy8oyJGnurJ1VHOLO7l9lfF1_m1PCC7a_KY-MOYosmvtFDX68airwQuF8u4xm4xoibqMYnUB08-bzWYniShZJe92nhayxYzEDrCdJc/s320/500px-Paradise_dragon.jpg" width="293" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">(Illustration
by Leesha Hannigan comes from the <a href="https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Paradise_dragon">PathfinderWiki</a> and is © Paizo Publishing.)</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">It
was pretty much inevitable that we’d get <a href="https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/dragons/dragon-planar/">planar dragons</a>. (Honestly, I
expected them sooner than <i>Bestiary 6</i>, but outer and esoteric dragons
arrived instead, a sign of Pathfinder’s pulp sci-fi/horror obsession). </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">What’s
not inevitable is their naming convention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It would have been really easy to just slap planar monikers like
“Abyssal” or “Maelstrom” on top of these dragons. Instead, we got something
far more interesting: names that seem more conceptual, more distilled, that tap
into essential aspects of those planes—apocalypse, bliss, crypt, edict, havoc,
infernal, paradise, rift.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You feel like
each dragon species could have its own planar layer or demiplane based on its
specific descriptor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Elysium probably
has many fields; Havoc feels like a specific one.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not a huge difference, but it’s a subtle
and meaningful one. More importantly, it’s a surprise from the authors, and
this late in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bestiary</i> life cycle
surprises are to be treasured.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">So…the
<a href="https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/dragons/dragon-planar/planar-dragon-paradise/">paradise dragon</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like all planar
dragons, it manifests a chunk of its home plane around itself (a nice touch
that feels very video-gamey or anime but still awesome). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The paradise dragon’s specific special
abilities also pack a lot of heavenly flavor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The text indicates that they create holy sanctums of light and harmony
to shield their followers, and that extends to their abilities, which aid,
heal, resurrect, rebound, bull rush, or banish as needed, allowing them to
reshape even the battlefield to their liking.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Like
archons, these dragons are pretty much the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ne
plus ultra</i> of right and good…but for adventure design purposes, there’s
always that one bad apple more concerned with his particular rightness than the
public goodness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also, in the single
sentence of descriptive text we get, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">B6</i>
mentions these dragons attract followers…and what policies or actions a planar
dragon deems necessary to protect its followers may not jibe with PCs’ plans.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The paradise
dragon Pearl of Moonlight discovered</b></span> the long-hidden prison lair of
Alefbetraxus, an elder wyrm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Overawed
and a little infatuated by his age and grandeur, Pearl seeks to free the
primordial dragon, and she will brook no interference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately, Alefbetraxus is still guided
by his instinctual drives, one of which (in fact, the reason for his
imprisonment) is to eradicate any and all forms of elemental planar
pollution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Poor Pearl has no inkling
what he might do to the world she guards, where one in twenty humans has
geniekin blood.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Paradise
dragons are discouraged</b></span> from dwelling too long on the Material Plane, as cults
inevitably form around them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
empyreal lord Enoch the Admonisher, Scourge of Pride, makes it his business to
test the character of these paradise dragons, often using powerful adventurers
as cat’s-paws.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Since the
Shattering</b></span>, there has been no single lawful good plane—a triumph of
existential undermining sponsored by the daemons of the Shroud.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What remains are scattered islands of
conceptual reality—the Seven-and-Seventy Heavens—each one held together and
defended only by the iron will and adamantine claws of a paradise dragon and
its followers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(This includes whichever
archons haven't yet fled the multiverse in shame.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">—<i>Pathfinder
Bestiary 6</i> 104–105</span></div>
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Not
all the planar dragons appear in <i>Bestiary 6</i>; some show up in <i>Pathfinder
Adventure Path</i> issues. I think at time of writing we’re still missing
one from the Maelstrom (PathfinderWiki indicates it’s the tumult dragon).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Or maybe that plane rejects having a
designated dragon species as being too orderly…or maybe doesn’t need one,
thanks to the protean race…)</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Speaking
of the dragons we got (or didn’t)…we were probably never going to get <i>all</i>
of the abomination, humour, mineral, thaumaturgic, sin, and virtue dragons that
Mike McArtor teased all the way back in <i>Pathfinder #4: Fortress of the Stone
Giants</i>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I fervently wish we had
gotten <i>some</i> of them, and to this day I love the weirder, wilder Golarion
they suggested. If you ever get the chance to dig up the early <i>Pathfinder</i>
issues—especially those explosive first 18 issues—do it!</span></span></div>
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</span></style>Patchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14551888121167330346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8903836431528017500.post-83949348012157462112019-01-13T19:25:00.000-08:002019-01-13T19:25:35.953-08:00Papinijuwari
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiHpBSH5l4QboU71xWl9osD6y3mLG1MQklpGlZ_cO1SfjjAaCrS9FlpIuoEButRyB7WEkzrFilfI_CHdBLSjLDqqgjxQ8t5J-IB0AZ_PLZ6tLdg7wwYp3lj2R32z8YAsWpwRBJ1kRER3o/s1600/PZO1133-Papinijuwari.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="815" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiHpBSH5l4QboU71xWl9osD6y3mLG1MQklpGlZ_cO1SfjjAaCrS9FlpIuoEButRyB7WEkzrFilfI_CHdBLSjLDqqgjxQ8t5J-IB0AZ_PLZ6tLdg7wwYp3lj2R32z8YAsWpwRBJ1kRER3o/s320/PZO1133-Papinijuwari.jpg" width="260" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(Illustration by Dave Allsop comes from
the <a href="https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo5li8d?You-Only-Die-Twice">Paizo Blog</a> and is © Paizo Publishing.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">As this blog has unfolded, one of the themes we’ve hit on
many, many times before is that the larger and more powerful giants become, the
more they move into the realm of folklore and myth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can envision a world where ogres, hill
giants, and even certain conceptions of stone and fire giants could be natural
outgrowth of evolutionary and environmental forces (for a given value of
“natural”).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But once you get past frost
giants, natural shoves out of the way in favor of supernatural.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">The paradigm for this is the cloud giant race, which comes
to us not from Norse myths, but children’s fairy tales—and boy does it
show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Between their magical powers,
their cloud castles*, and the Manichean, good/evil alignment split of cloud
giant societies, it’s clear we’re dealing with creatures out of story and
legend. (*Cloud castles seem to be more a D&D thing than a Pathfinder thing
if you’re reading the manuals closely, but I like them so let’s just go with
it.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Now, if you ever shivered in fear when your parents read
“Jack and the Beanstalk” to you at bedtime…imagine the stories cloud giants
tell <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">their</i> kids.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What could terrify a monster child who
regularly helps his mother grind human bones into bread?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The answer is the <a href="http://legacy.aonprd.com/bestiary5/papinijuwari.html">papinijuwari</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">As you might guess from the name, the papinijuwari is a
monster from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papinijuwari">Australia’s indigenous people</a>, specifically the Tiwi of Bathurst
and Melville Islands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a cyclops but
worse, searching with its single lambent eye for the young and the weak to
devour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re such figures of terror
that shooting stars are thought to be papinijuwaris flying overhead (a pretty
stark departure from the wishing stars we Americans grow up with!).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All in all, it's a hell of a monster.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">What I love about Pathfinder’s papinijuwari is that the
designers have translated the monster into game stats without sanding down any
of the horror.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They feed on disease.
They wear skulls, because of course they do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And they fly through the air by clutching a burning torch, a detail from
folklore I’m so glad the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bestiary 5</i>
designers retained.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Interestingly, according
to the rules this talent works only when the papinijuwari is 500 ft. above the
ground, which raises questions about how they take off and land—can they only
fly from mountaintop to mountaintop, or magical cloudbank to magical
cloudbank…and do they just plummet to the ground …or are they allowed to land?)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But never mind the physics—take a look at
that image from Dave Allsop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now imagine
that thing hurtling down from overhead, landing with a thud in a three-point
stance straight out of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Iron Man</i>,
torch held aloft, hunger gleaming in its eye as it sniffs the air for its
prey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that’s</i> a monster.</span></div>
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</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">In fact, it might be my favorite monster in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bestiary 5</i>, and that’s a book that
includes the <a href="http://dailybestiary.blogspot.com/2017/03/liminal-sprite.html">liminal sprite</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Best of
all, I never even noticed it—not once—until I sat down to write this
entry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which is a great reminder that,
even in a book I think I know, there are always surprises waiting—and the
reason I blog is to find them and share the excitement with you all.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Now to spoil that valedictory ending with a postscript: I
think the best way to deploy papinijuwaris is to drop mention of them in your
very first session.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Make them sound like
an old wives’ tale; make them sound positively ridiculous—nothing like the grim
and gritty horrors your players are actually going to face.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Drop another mention at 4th level or so,
and then say nothing for ages</span>…<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
then, when they least expect it, rain evil giants down upon them with a
vengeance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Adventurers use an
ancient ritual</b></span> to call a meteor shower down upon the necropolis of a
lich.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The aerial bombardment destroys
the hated undead’s tower and reduces his city-state to rubble.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the devastation also draws the attention
of a tribe of papinijuwaris eager to feast on the lich’s diseased subjects…and
perhaps make a home for themselves in this new untapped hunting ground.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">In addition to its
usual reprehensible cargo</b></span>, a slave ship arrives in port with a strange
cyclops chained in the hold and a crew sick with blister fever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The slavers quickly grease the palms they
need to slip free of quarantine, and soon plague and a papinijuwari run rampant
through the city.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">An adventuring party
is brought together by loss.</b> </span>They are all survivor of cloud giant depredations—some
lost family to raiders, others were raised in villages overseen (quite
literally) by lords in cloud castles overhead, and still others had their homes
just scooped away by giant dredges.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No
matter where their travels take them, they all know that they are gaining in
power and resources until the day they can challenge the giants on their own misty
turf.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And just as they are gearing up
for their first assault on their oppressors, the king—the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">high</i> king!—of the cloud giants approaches <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">them</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I need your help,” he
tells the shocked adventurers, “for my oracles have read the signs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The enemies of both our races, the papinijuwaris,
are coming.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pathfinder Bestiary 5</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">
188</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">If you’re looking for ways to break out of Pathfinder’s and
especially D&D’s default Eurocentric atmosphere, I think there’s an amazing
campaign just waiting to be constructed out of fragments of Le Guin’s Earthsea
novels, Australian and other Pacific myths, and your own imagination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Start with the papinijuwari and go nuts. </span></span></div>
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</span></style>Patchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14551888121167330346noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8903836431528017500.post-7810799737989161642019-01-07T14:58:00.000-08:002019-01-07T14:58:09.891-08:00Pakalchi
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX34cmgSYmEygcYxaqS5at6tK9Z_6WS3-iewrlxRb7ezmIxaFLeR6RqFIRze3biBInBzUusG1XTBrYu6Cvy2O78ol2qPb4aUd1nTRXZRslWiSiE2njQ0UNeDykjSKXHAC9MCvDcHbPY8w/s1600/12184235_10153519513902530_2742235611769976077_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="718" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX34cmgSYmEygcYxaqS5at6tK9Z_6WS3-iewrlxRb7ezmIxaFLeR6RqFIRze3biBInBzUusG1XTBrYu6Cvy2O78ol2qPb4aUd1nTRXZRslWiSiE2njQ0UNeDykjSKXHAC9MCvDcHbPY8w/s320/12184235_10153519513902530_2742235611769976077_o.jpg" width="229" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">(Illustration by Jose Parodi comes from the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/paizo/photos/a.416808657529/10153519513902530/?type=1&theater">Pathfinder Facebook page</a> and is © Paizo Publishing.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">“<a href="http://legacy.aonprd.com/bestiary5/sahkils.html#sahkil-pakalchi">Pakalchis</a> feed on the fear and insecurity of failing
relationships,” says <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bestiary 5</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if you’ve ever been in a failing
relationship, that’s pretty much all you need to know to convince you that these
sahkils are the absolute worst monsters in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">B5</i>—end
of story, full stop, done. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">And that’s even <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">before
</i>you take into account that they can skip between the Material and Ethereal
Planes (never a good thing) as a move action (even worse)…dominate you into
giving into your worst instincts, fears, and insecurities and sabotage your
love…and then strangle, poison, or pierce you to death when it’s all over and
you’re no longer amusing to toy with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Remember how mad Iago made you when you read <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Othello</i> in high school?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
is Iago with game stats and semi-immortality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She may be CR 9 on the page, but she’s CR 29 against your heart.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Also, one last note to underscore why pakalchis are the
absolute worst: they feed on “failing relationships.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not troubled, not star-crossed, not
tumultuous—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">failing</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(And since sahkils are former psychopomps, from
a lore/flavor perspective it’s not unreasonable to assume that they have at
least a little foresight/precognition about such matters.).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, these relationships were
already doomed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The hurt was already
there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pakalchis make it vastly worse so
as to feed on the couple’s misery…but if you slay a pakalchi, that’s not going
to lift the dark clouds over its victims and make flowers spring up in their
footsteps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It just means the
relationship is likely going to flounder and fail anyway…and when the end
comes, there won’t even be a monster to blame.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Young men in town have
been disappearing</b></span>—often after violent quarrels that leave their sweethearts
heartbroken (and too often sobbing and bruised). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Certain signs—vines in unlikely places, bits
of clothing caught on thorns, and trails of flower petals—suggest a nymph or
some other fey influence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the true
culprit is a pakalchi whose domain includes a thorny thicket in this world and
a grasping, hungry forest on the Ethereal Plane.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Emika and Bez-Sha are
twins</b></span>—budded in the same instant from the same outcropping of direstone in
the Cradle of Bones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though the catrina sisters
were once mirror images of each other, Bez-Sha abandoned the psychopomp order
to become a sahkil, gaining in power as she discarded mercy and other
weaknesses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only hint at their
kinship now is the swaying gait of their skeletal forms and the identical shade
of tea roses adorning their brows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
sisters have not spoken since Bez-Sha fled Death’s Realm, but Emika stretches
her schedule and her oaths as far as they will allow to search the multiverse
for news of her twin. Often this means hiring mortal adventures—sometimes with
gold, sometimes with promises of future intercession in matters cosmic.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Napoleon’s occupation
of Spain</b></span> leads to calls for revolt throughout Mexico.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To suppress the uprisings, the Spanish
colonial governments rely heavily on mercenary wizards, particularly conjurers
whose summoned allies excel at breaking up demonstrations and ferreting out
revolutionaries. Doing so, however, pierces the veils between this world and
the next, allowing shadows, spectres, and extraplanar threats to creep through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Recently a pakalchi managed to ooze over from
the Realm of Mists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She has taken to
haunting the son of a local marqués and his betrothed, the daughter of a
wealthy importer. The lovers’ misery has exacerbated tensions between the
families and driven the distracted marqués to ever-harsher reprisals against
his people, magnifying the fear and misery that fatten the pakalchi and her allies.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pathfinder Bestiary 5</i>
216</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">The original image of <i><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Calavera_Catrina">La Calavera Catrina</a> </span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">that inspired Pathfinder’s <a href="http://dailybestiary.blogspot.com/2014/09/catrina.html">catrina</a> psychopomp and
possibly the pakalchi actually dates from a century later than the Mexican War
of Independence: 1910, rather than 1810.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But today the images of a beautiful woman and/or a friendly skeleton
wearing a flower crown is so tied to Mexico I couldn’t resist playing with
history a little for that third adventure seed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Mashing up wizards and Napoleon is, of course, also a big nod toward <i>Jonathan
Strange & Mr Norrell</i>.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><style><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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</span></style>Patchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14551888121167330346noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8903836431528017500.post-67651854294501605992018-12-31T08:59:00.001-08:002018-12-31T08:59:50.082-08:00Painajai Demon
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">As much as I love Pathfinder and D&D, being a fan can
lock your imagination into certain patterns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You hear the word “demon,” and immediately your brain spits out “chaotic
evil outsider native to the Abyss” like a cash register dishing out
change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s why I find it
essential—particularly after a childhood spent reading way too many
shared-world franchise novels—to read as widely as possible to break out of
those patterns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Demon” can mean the
Lovecraftian horrors of Anthony Horowitz’s Gatekeepers series, the annoying
imps inside the Discworld’s personal organizers, or even (as “daemons”)
children’s souls incarnated as animal familiars in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Golden Compass</i>.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">So I dig the <a href="https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/demon/demon-painajai/">painajai demon</a> because—while it definitely is a
chaotic evil outsider native to the Abyss—it is also a dream-haunting nightmare
that seems outside the norm for Pathfinder/D&D demons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A spider-eyed, frothing horror that stalks
the Dimension of Dreams, it spreads fear and confusion via psychic magic and
conjured horrors, while controlling the landscape via <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mirage arcana</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">hungry pit</i>.
Once it has a bead on its prey, it hurls its chain spear into its victims and
then drags them in close to continue their torments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Combining some of the the worst elements of
night hags, kytons, and bolas spiders, it’s a relatively fresh take on the demon
category I really like. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">You can certainly use painajais as written—psychic-magically
gifted foils to Desna’s <span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">uinuja azata servants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But your campaign could easily find other
roles for them as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe in your
home setting painajai demons are the main threat to sleepers, rather than night
hags.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What does the world look like when
a bad nightmare might lead to the Abyss?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Or imagine a world where fiends are rare, like the Forgotten Realms in
2e AD&D.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What would it look like if
painajai demons were the only demons known?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Players who have gotten complacent rolling dice against dretches and
babaus will be in for a shock when the word “demon” automatically means a CR 14
horror waiting to ambush your dream self.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Adventurers awaken in
an inn</b></span> to discover every single surface covered in spider silk—and every
guest but them is similarly cocooned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The message is an unsubtle reminder that they owe a favor to the aranea
queen, Leilani.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Traveling to her mist-shrouded
kingdom, they are given a task that will release them from her web of
obligation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An avatar of the aranea
trickster god Nasari has been captured by painajais, and party must travel into
the Dreamskein to set him free.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“A stately pleasure
dome”</b></span> is how Armapan Singh envisioned his Taj Berin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What he did not envision was that it would
attract the attention of a pair of fiendish lovers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An avatarna rakshasa and her painajai demon
consort have occupied the palace and turned it into den of pleasures and
addictions from this world and the world of dreams.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In addition to cleaning out the Taj, Singh
himself must be recovered as well—preferably alive and with his soul intact—for
his moderating influence is all that keeps the government’s Circle of Adepts
from surrendering to their wizard-supremacist impulses.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The solution to cracking</b></span>
the Vault of Marbled Midnight is not a literal key but a musical one: a note no
human voice can sing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cameron of the
Knife has recruited a fleshsculpter who specializes in demonic grafts to craft
a sort of vocal sac implant he believes will do the trick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But not just any demonflesh will do—they need
the throaty resonance of a painajai.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That means hunting down the hunters of the Dimension of Dreams and
successfully bringing the grisly trophy home while it is still viable.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Occult Bestiary</i> 19
</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Happy New Year’s Eve!</span></span></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Apologies to my Blogger readers: I posted <a href="http://dailybestiary.blogspot.com/2018/12/ouroboros.html">yesterday’s entry</a>
before remembering to search for an ouroboros image, and now I’m too scared of
Blogger’s buggy interface to try editing the posted file.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can see the image <a href="http://dailybestiary.tumblr.com/post/181558620528/ouroboros">here</a>, though.</span></span></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">If you’re looking for the outlaw troop, we’ll be covering
that when we loop back around to the goblin troop. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you’re looking for the ovinnik, we covered
it <a href="http://dailybestiary.blogspot.com/2016/05/domovoi-dvorovoi-ovinnik.html">back here</a>.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><style><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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</span></style>Patchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14551888121167330346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8903836431528017500.post-84302396940415883692018-12-30T11:58:00.000-08:002018-12-30T11:58:04.158-08:00Ouroboros
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">The <a href="https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/magical-beasts/ouroboros/">ouroboros</a>, the snake eating its own tail, is a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouroboros">common ancient symbol</a>, appearing in Egyptian, Greek, Norse, Gnostic, Vedic, and South
American texts and carvings...which is interesting, because there aren’t
actually a lot of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">stories</i> about it (compared
to say, dragons or giants or even sphinxes).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Instead, the ouroboros’s value seems to be almost entirely as a symbol—for
life and death, consumption and renewal, light and dark, the circle of samsara,
and so forth.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Given what a well-established symbol the ouroboros is, the
first question about it was always going to be: When would someone turn the
ouroboros into a Pathfinder monster?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
the second question was: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">How</i> would
someone turn the ouroboros into a Pathfinder monster? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(A serpent constantly eating its own tail is
great from a visual perspective, but it’s going to have trouble making a bite
attack.)</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">But if it’s a snake made of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">thousands</i> of snakes…on the Astral Plane…constantly devouring and
regenerating itself…with blood that’s can raise the dead or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">baleful polymorph</i> you into a swarm of
snakes…and it’s CR 21 for good measure…now <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that’s</i>
a Pathfinder monster.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">I also dig the video game-ness (or 4th Ed D&D-ness) of
its Self-Consumption (Su) ability—that if you damage it down to half its hit points,
it stops eating its own tail, which both makes it more vulnerable, but also
unlocks some of its special abilities (and makes it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">pissed</i>, presumably).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t
need every monster to get special abilities for being bloodied, but it is a
nice perk for certain significant baddies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It also works thematically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One
of the exceptions to my “There are no stories about these things” gloss above
is the Norse World Serpent, Jörmungandr, who could be considered a kind of ouroboros.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the climactic acts of Ragnarök is Jörmungandr
releasing his tail from his mouth and surfacing to fight the gods. There’s no
reason fighting an ouroboros at your game table can’t be just as epic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #f1c232;">Adventurers discover a
divine secret</span></b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">:</span> the goddess of death and the goddess of birth are one and
the same. In her gestalt form, the Splintered Queen dwells in a palace ringed
not by a moat, but by an ouroboros that both symbolizes her twin portfolios and
makes a singularly unforgiving guardian.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Planar travel through
the nested Tiers</b></span> of the Celestine Stairs is difficult.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even a successful casting of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">gate</i> spell opens the archmage’s mind to
maddening influences from beyond the Tiers. (An unsuccessful casting may result
in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">disintegration</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">polymorphing</i> into a gibbering mouther,
the calling of a shoggoth, or worse.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But a few rifts connect the Tiers, the most famous being the Ouroboros
Gate—a living ouroboros whose ravenous coils can be traversed to reach the vast
expanse of the Astral Tier.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">With the awakening of
the serpent god Sardsorius</b></span>, the serpentfolk race, long thought extinct, has
erupted from the bowels of the earth. Worse yet, their shamans are poised to
succeed in a quest that has eluded them for millennia: piercing the veil hiding
Refuge, the last lost retreat of the elves. Embattled on all sides, the elves
risk everything to resurrect their mythic hero king, Kin-Yalyn—including
tasking a rogue band of adventurers to acquire the ouroboros blood the ritual
demands.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pathfinder Bestiary 6</i>
206–207</span></div>
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Hey!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Remember me?</span></span></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">I think I first read about the ouroboros in the Xanth
books…which means I just admitted to <a href="https://www.avclub.com/revisiting-the-sad-misogynistic-fantasy-of-xanth-1798241312">reading the Xanth books</a>. (Leave me alone,
this was middle school.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The use of an ouroboros
as a moat monster is a direct homage to one of these novels (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Source of Magic</i>, I think).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While we’re at it, any elves vs. serpentfolk
scenario I write probably owes a debt to <a href="http://dailybestiary.tumblr.com/post/73663072350/the-18-most-rewarding-3e-dd-books-for-pathfinder"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ghostwalk</i></a>.</span></span></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<br /></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Wouldn’t it have been nice if I’d posted this entry last
April, when <a href="https://paizo.com/products/btpya0fi?Pathfinder-Adventure-Path-129-The-Twilight-Child">my article on resurrection</a> was coming out in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pathfinder Adventurer Path</i>?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yeeeeeah, that would have been smart.</span></span></div>
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</span></style>Patchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14551888121167330346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8903836431528017500.post-46971038946178190022018-03-08T19:25:00.001-08:002018-03-08T19:25:30.037-08:00Ourdivar
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">In the entry on <a href="http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/protean/protean-ourdivar/">ourdivars</a>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bestiary 6</i> states:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ourdivars are
spontaneously formed when called forth via spells like </i>lesser planar ally<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They toil at the behest of their conjurer creators, acting as tools of
chaos across the planes.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">This is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">suuuuuper</i>
interesting to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
creature-spontaneously-created-in-the-act-of-conjuration is a common trope of
fantasy fiction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in fantasy gaming,
we tend to assume all outsiders come <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">from</i>
a specific somewhere—after all, our characters can visit those planes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even summoners, who call into being conjured
creatures the way most people conjure up chili fries, supposedly get the
spirits they call from…someplace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That
makes an outsider brought into existence purely in the moment of conjuration an
interesting beast indeed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Now give it the body of a crystal lamia, with a weapon hand
that can morph from spear to saber to morning star with just an effort of will
(as if they were Junkions in Act 2 of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Transformers: The Movie</i>!)…well, that’s a monster worth conjuring/creating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">But once they're created, how do they react?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As living embodiments of chaos, following
orders to the letter isn't going to be a strong suit, even in the service of a
chaotic caster.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are they thrilled at
their sudden coming-into-being, or do they seek to return to the Maelstrom, à
la <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUYvIAP3qQk">Mr. Meeseeks</a> (“Existence is pain!”)?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That leaves a lot of room to play for an inventive GM and a chaos-loving
conjurer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The enemies of Mortis
Minelus</b></span> have all wound up dead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
each time, the method has been different—beaten to death, bludgeoned, pierced,
slashed, even warped by some form of raw magic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Minelus himself wears the purple and blue robes of the pacifist Morning
Glory sect, having sworn “to raise no weapon, nor fire a spell in anger”—and
spells testing his veracity have returned nothing incriminating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The truth is that Mortis Minelus is an
accomplished conjurer, using called ourdivars to do his wicked work.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Debtors know they can
always find refuge</b></span> in the Abbey of Alms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>First, the land the abbey sits upon is properly part of the March of
Lady Weatherall, and thus not within the jurisdiction of the Lord-Mayor or his
Dunners.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Second and more importantly, the
constantly shifting stained glass window in the ramshackle abbey calls
ourdivars to fend off any scion of law—be they archons, devils, paladins, or
even humble local watchmen trying to fulfill a writ of collection.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Lamias and spirit
nagas</b></span> sometimes summon ourdivars for coitus, not combat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The resulting entropic creatures are
inventively deadly and hate the trappings of humanoid civilization even more
than their serpentine mothers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pathfinder Bestiary 6</i>
213</span></div>
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Do I get to say I’m the authority on nagas?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://paizo.com/products/btpy9t1s?Pathfinder-Adventure-Path-118-Siege-of-Stone">Yeah</a>, I’m gonna say it.</span></span></div>
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</span>Patchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14551888121167330346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8903836431528017500.post-2684508919807017522018-03-07T18:04:00.000-08:002018-03-07T18:04:02.252-08:00Othaos
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">High-CR aeons are concerned with the great dualities of existence:
creation and destruction, life and death, the peaks and ebbs of karma as it
ripples like a sine wave through existence.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">The <a href="http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/bestiary5/aeons.html#aeon-othaos">othaos</a>, being only CR 5, handles a more elemental duality:
light and darkness, protecting the one from the other so that the worlds of
shine and shadow remain in harmony.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If a
mysterious obelisk casts an unnaturally large shadow or outsiders made of light
make an incursion onto the Material Plane, expect an othaos to manifest.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Spear of Dumar</b></span>
is an incandescent stalactite of unspeakable size that casts a rosy glow over
the dwarf city below.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is lovingly
tended by the Glowstones, a sect of earth druids and elementalists, as well as
an othaos that has spent more than a generation inspecting the unique
crystal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the Spear of Dumar begins
to dim unexpectedly, the Glowstones recruit adventurers to rule out
sabotage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They also seek a way to
contain the othaos—the aeon seems mad with grief and has already attacked two
innocent citizens.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Mirror Plane</b></span>
actually moves through the Shadow Plane, a ribbon of glowing silver in the
eternal darkness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Othaoses guard crucial
passages and intersections along this winding road, preventing incursions from
the Shadow Plane onto the Mirrorways, and vice versa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Owbs are these aeons’ particular foes, and
they will attack anyone who seems marked by their stain—including adventurers
injured in combat by the magical weapons or death throes of the dark folk.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The expansion of the
Incandium</b></span>, Porthos’s college of magic, has led to an explosion of magical
innovations and curiosities, with recent graduates eager to apply their new
talents for the public good (or at least for public acclaim).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Chief among these are Porthos’s new streetlights—some
magical, some alchemical—which shine brighter than torches throughout the
city.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An othaos takes exception to this
interruption in the cycle of night and day, dimming or consuming every
streetlamp he can find.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With no
Lamplighters’ Guild to pick up the slack, Porthos is facing a rash of muggings,
assaults, burglaries, and attacks from cloakers, gremlins, and other
photophobic monstrosities.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pathfinder Bestiary 5</i>
10</span></div>
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">I’m no expert in the subject, but I’m pretty sure the othaos
would make a kickass Pokemon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Also, I could use an othaos to do something about the
apartment building across the street that has taken a chunk out of my bedroom’s
natural light.</span></span></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Longtime reader/encyclopedic </span><a href="http://dr-archeville.tumblr.com/">dr-archeville</a>
gave me the heads-up about the <a href="http://paizo.com/pathfinderplaytest">Pathfinder Second Edition playtest</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was really hoping this day wouldn’t come
anytime soon, but given the life cycle of the product line—they’d splatted
pretty much all the hardcover splatbooks it seems reasonable to splat—and the general
veering of the tabletop world away from complexity/having a stat for every
situation to ease of creation/use, 2e Pathfinder was probably inevitable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(The learnings from the development of Starfinder
was probably also a big third factor.)</span></span></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">So naturally I’m a little bit nervous (like Garth in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wayne’s World</i>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU3qfDtWFmk">I fear change</a>), but of
course I’m excited too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Any time an
edition switches over, that creates opportunities for hungry creatives like
yours truly—and possibly for many of you out there as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Last night <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New
Indie Canon</i> went architectural and intellectual, courtesy of our guest DJ,
<a href="http://mcmansionhell.com/">mcmansionhell</a>’s Kate Wagner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We
had a great time spinning songs about buildings, architecture, the financial
crash, and masses great and smol.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A huge
thank-you to her </span>for coming out and to many of you for listening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you missed the fun, <a href="http://wmuc.umd.edu/stream_ripper/tue/The_New_Indie_Canon_2200_2400.mp3">stream/download it now</a>
till Monday, 03/12/18, at midnight.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span>Patchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14551888121167330346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8903836431528017500.post-78796895322426509672018-03-04T20:11:00.000-08:002018-03-04T20:11:12.536-08:00Ostovite
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">One of the hallmarks of the original Outer Planes—the 1e
AD&D Outer Planes, that is—was their lethality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If arriving on the plane itself didn’t kill
you—on many planes you were only a saving throw or two away from energy drain,
suffocation, or reaching your full potential and exploding into a star (no,
really, that was a thing)—then the Wandering Monster tables surely would
(“Suddenly a…<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">*GM rolls dice*</i>…Type V
demon appears!” “Is that bad?” “Roman numbers are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">always</i> bad.”).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">These days planar travel isn’t nearly so grim—2e’s
Planescape setting and 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder’s templates went a long way toward
ratcheting down the deadliness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it’s
still really nice to run into fresh low-CR Abyssal creatures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/bestiary5/ostovite.html">Ostovites</a> are a great excuse to bring the Lower
Planes into even the most introductory adventures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That may not be the right arc for every
campaign, but for certain setups—especially one centered on a holy city or
religious order or crusade (in my head I’m immediately flashing back to the
visuals of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Claymore</i> anime
series)—ostovites are an outstanding option.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">But I’ve totally let the metanarrative distract us from the
monster itself, which deserves a look: It’s a silverfish made of tiny
bones!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That gathers up the bones of
other creatures!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And rides them in
something called a bone chariot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>BECAUSE IT HAS AN INFERIORITY COMPLEX!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(If any of you are <a href="http://xplainthexmen.tumblr.com/"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men</i></a> fans, this is your cue for a
“WHAAAT?!?”)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Come to think of it, it’s funny—I’m guessing that, for a lot
of us, inferiority complexes are probably the main driver of conflict in our
daily lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And yet when was the last
time you ran across a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">monster</i> driven
by inferiority?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let alone one who
literally collects bones and rides them like a parade float because it hates
looking up to the demons and human slaves around it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s a pretty unforgettable hook for what
is otherwise nothing more than an extra-nasty silverfish.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Novice adventurers
stray into a crypt</b></span> that is mirrored in the Abyss.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fortunately for them, the crypt protects them
the demonic horrors of that plane.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
the crypt’s more mundane inhabitants do not care to have their domain
disturbed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After spying on the
adventurers from cover, the crypt’s ostovites eagerly seek their bones to ride
like the lords of death they see themselves to be.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Adventurers stumble
across a rare scene</b></span>—an ostovite mating dance, where the Abyssal arthropods
gather to challenge each other for status and mates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While the scholars at the Collegium would pay
handsomely for notes on the encounter, the adventurers likely won’t get the
chance to take any.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First of all, there
are more ostovites in the area than normally would congregate together, making
them extra aggressive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And since most of
the ostovites in this year’s colony have only been able to cobble together bone
chariots the size of halflings and dwarves, they are driven to a frenzy by the
sight of taller prey.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Day of the Dead</b></span>
comes every year to the seaside town of Mazatlan, as it does all across
Mexico.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this year not all the
skeletons in the parade are human.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
nest of ostovites took advantage of the seasonal porousness between life and
death to slip back into the mortal world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They quickly assemble bone chariots from recently interred corpses and
attempt to join the festivities of the living.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>However, a young seminarian and his friends discover the disturbed
graves, and anxiously attempt to recover the stolen bodies.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pathfinder Bestiary 5</i>
187</span></div>
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">God, I’m so tired I can barely see.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Forgive any typos, please.</span></span></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">A bit of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Coco</i> in
that last adventure seed, no doubt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also,
I visited Mazatlan over spring break my senior year of college.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Loved it, especially watching the pelicans
fly home at sunset.</span></span></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Also, for my Blogger readers—or any Tumblr fans who missed
the news—I have <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">two</i> Pathfinder
articles coming out in the next two months!!!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Details are <a href="http://dailybestiary.tumblr.com/post/171175369193/i-made-a-monster">here</a> and <a href="http://dailybestiary.tumblr.com/post/171203792368/another-article-announcement-now-im-just-getting">here</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hope
you preorder, I hope you read, and most importantly I hope you enjoy!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thanks!</span></span></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">And finally, last Tuesday we celebrated my radio show’s
21st(!!!) birthday!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tune in for an hour
of songs about drinking, then an hour about sex, drugs, poor decisions, and
consequences…not to mention just a whole lot of 1997.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://wmuc.umd.edu/stream_ripper/tue/The_New_Indie_Canon_2200_2400.mp3">Stream/download it now</a> through Monday,
03/05/18, at midnight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also keep an eye
out for news about<i>—</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">*fingers crossed*</i>—a
very, very special guest DJ coming up.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span>Patchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14551888121167330346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8903836431528017500.post-42807798663172624332018-02-21T20:39:00.001-08:002018-02-21T20:39:12.906-08:00Oshageros
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">As proteans go, the <a href="https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/protean/protean-oshageros/">oshageros</a> is pretty simple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No meditating on the beauty of ceaseless
change or the nature of the Maelstrom, no trying to get mortals to broaden
their perspectives, no games of transmutation or mental manipulation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>OSHAGEROS SMASH.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Of course, it’s not that simple—with Int 21, an oshageros
would still wipe the floor intellectually with nearly every mortal wizard, and
could out-consider (with Wis 18) even most mortal priests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s just that all that piercing intellect
leads them* to rather Gordian† solutions: too much order must be torn down.</span></div>
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</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">That crystalline wall of Law separating Order from
Chaos?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oshageroses are gnawing at the foundations
of that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That presumptuous tower of
justice on some Heavenly plane?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’ll
pop in and out in a smash-and-grab judge abduction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That newly minted inevitable prototype?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oshageros saboteurs will see it never reaches
the production line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when the forces
of Law strike at the heart of Chaos, oshageroses will stand ready (slither
ready? side-wind ready?) with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">dispel law</i>,
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">chaos hammer</i>, draining tentacles and
warpwave bursts to turn aside the blow.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Adventurers attempt
to replace the keystone</b></span> of a magical arch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>To accomplish this feat, a rift must be opened, then the threads of
reality anchored to the arch as a ritual is performed…all while fending off
assaults from oshageroses drawn to the magnet pull of invasive law.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">In theory, one
shouldn't be able to walk</b></span> along the Crystal Horizon separating the Universe
That Is from the Void—it’s supposed to be a theoretical construct, and a sphere
to boot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in the impossible way of
the Planes, the Crystal Horizon manifests as a mountain range of otherworldly
quartz and granite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Half-celestial
halfling ridge runners man watchtowers here, lighting beacon fires and racing
along knife-edge precipices to warn of oshageros assaults from the misty Void.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The School of
Thoughts</b></span> sprawls along Avedon Square and the Aspirateum in the Sixth Sacred
Ward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyone who assumes the academy’s
moniker is a wry joke would be mistaken—the school literally collects,
catalogs, dissects, and displays important concepts from across the
multiverse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An oshageros named Uragolo,
Invar, and/or Shezyx (depending on the day) joins in the School of Thoughts’s
regular philosophical debates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
understood among the planar students that physical might is a valid means of
supporting one’s metaphysical arguments, but mortals on the receiving end of
the protean’s tentacle lash are often caught by surprise.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pathfinder Bestiary 6</i>
212</span></div>
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">*If <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">any</i> monster
was going to use the singular “they” pronoun, you know it would be a protean.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">†As in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordian_Knot">Knot</a>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">In addition to the crocodilian jaws, artist Rayph Beisner
gives the oshageros a tail…club?…that is also suggestive of a rattlesnake’s
rattle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever it is, I love it.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Enjoy another radio show, with new
Remember Sports and Calexico! Also, 15 years of the Postal Service!
<a href="http://wmuc.umd.edu/stream_ripper/tue/The_New_Indie_Canon_2200_2400.mp3">Stream/download it now</a> until Monday, 02/26/18, at midnight.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span>Patchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14551888121167330346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8903836431528017500.post-41023454157555586852018-02-19T13:20:00.003-08:002018-02-19T13:20:55.073-08:00Orang-Pendak
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB_2NRnI9LLV0s9qIKcYLYs54INpK21aJ7agHX1HmZEcgtWsTTQlIrkkVidsejzwZ07JtpS9ed4rVVFyBwSsbmD60I-t8c6lZfgq__WrBUV2fnGmHjCRfcrwCJw97Z_9BFlGlDbIdmk5o/s1600/pzo1133_orang_pendek_by_danlop77-d9of6ug.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="468" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB_2NRnI9LLV0s9qIKcYLYs54INpK21aJ7agHX1HmZEcgtWsTTQlIrkkVidsejzwZ07JtpS9ed4rVVFyBwSsbmD60I-t8c6lZfgq__WrBUV2fnGmHjCRfcrwCJw97Z_9BFlGlDbIdmk5o/s320/pzo1133_orang_pendek_by_danlop77-d9of6ug.jpg" width="149" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(Illustration by Daniel López comes
from the <a href="https://danlop77.deviantart.com/">artist’s DeviantArt page</a> and is © Paizo Publishing.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">An <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orang_Pendek">Indonesian cryptid</a> in our world, the <a href="http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/bestiary5/orangPendak.html">orang-pendak</a> has
made its way into the Pathfinder game as a kind of jungle sasquatch, although
much smaller (the name means “short person”) and more orangutan-like (no surprise
there).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are shy and nomadic, though
their migrations have a pattern if one makes the effort to study them; they
befriend apes easily, especially orangutans and gibbons, and train them to
fight for them; and they are surprisingly strong for creatures of their size.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">At first this doesn’t seem like a lot to build adventures
out of.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But orang-pendaks are actually
situated in an interesting design space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As relatives of the sasquatch, they’re a good alternative when you want
a “wild man of the woods” race more keyed to tropical mountain jungles. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As CR 1/2 creatures, they’re good encounters
for 1st–3rd-level PCs that don’t automatically lead to violence, but are
level-appropriate if a fight breaks out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Vanarans might regard them as distant forebears, honored cousins, or
embarrassing primitives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They hunt with
spears, clubs, and bolas—and let’s face it, every time I see an ape-man
proficient in bolas, you know I’m thinking <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Planet
of the</i> (very short) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Apes</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although these ape-men won’t be riding
horses, thanks to the adorable Own Two Feet (Ex) ability—ability? quality?
drawback?—which has them so unnerved at riding other animals and vehicles that
they take massive penalties—a great detail.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Most importantly, they’re a potential PC race!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And plenty of players out there will be
willing to sacrifice some Intelligence and skill ranks for a four-foot
orangutan-like druid or ranger (or shaman or hunter…or maybe even barbarian or monk!)
who’s surprisingly strong (I keep forgetting to mention the orang-pendak’s Tear
Apart (Ex) ability), petrified of horses, and has a platoon of monkey
friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Heck, I want to play one right
now, and I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">hate</i> simians.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Indonesian myth and legend has been really kind to Pathfinder
players in recent years, and the orang-pendak is no exception.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Treat the relatively blank slate they provide
as an opportunity and see what they can add to your game.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Adventurers begin
their career</b></span> as villagers sent forth to look for a tribe of
orang-pendaks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ape-men’s migrations
typically carry them near the village, whose economy has become reliant on the
herbs and medicines they bring to trade—but this year, the tribe is late.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Should the adventurers find the
orang-pendaks, they discover the tribe is tardy because they’ve been taking
longer and longer routes to avoid the Canyon of Lost Hope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Evil wayangs have established a secret
redoubt in the canyon, and they’ve been capturing orang-pendaks and gripplis to
ship back to the Plane of Shadow as slaves.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #f1c232;">Adventures are called
in to solve</span> </b>a locked-room mystery, where a flamboyant local sorcerer has
been found murdered, his body locked within a cage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Investigation reveals that a business rival
gave the sorcerer an “orangutan”—actually, an orang-pendak accomplice—as a
potential familiar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At night, the
orang-pendak (a rogue by training) unlocked his cage, murdered the sorcerer,
put his body on display, and then shimmied up the chimney, using his
outstanding strength to pry open the chimney cap and then force it back into
place.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Adventurers wake in
the morning</b></span> to discover their camp surrounded by trees filled with hooting
gibbons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hunted nearly to extinction, a
tribe of orang-pendaks has allied with several treants; now the ape-men and
their forest travel together for mutual protection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At least one of the young orang-pendaks
wishes to join the party for a time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
they consent and the youth comes to harm, the orang-pendaks and their moveable
forest may come hunting for them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pathfinder Bestiary 5</i>
186</span></div>
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Hey, I’m from Baltimore; you know I had to go <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Murders_in_the_Rue_Morgue">Poe</a>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">For my Blogger readers (or in case my Tumblr folk missed it),
the other day I posted an appreciation of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dragon
Magazine </i>#165 <a href="http://dailybestiary.tumblr.com/post/170916098513/rpgcovers-dragon-magazine-165-tsr-january">here</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And while we’re
at it, <a href="https://annarchive.com/files/Drmg187.pdf"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dragon</i> #187</a>’s “Ecology of the
Dakon” could be used to flesh out certain aspects of orang-pendak society
(though by and large dakons seem more hierarchic, aggressive, and fixated on
gold than orang-pendaks would be).</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">As I said on air, <a href="http://wmuc.umd.edu/stream_ripper/tue/The_New_Indie_Canon_2200_2400.mp3">this episode</a> might be the platonic ideal
of my radio show: something old, something new, something folksy, something
grunge. It was a night for dancing as we celebrated Mardi Gras, the
Elephant 6 Recording Company, and 20 years of Neutral Milk Hotel’s indie rock
monument to Anne Frank, <i>In the Aeroplane Over the Sea</i>. <a href="http://wmuc.umd.edu/stream_ripper/tue/The_New_Indie_Canon_2200_2400.mp3">Stream/download it here</a> until tonight (Monday, 02/19/18) at midnight.</span></span></div>
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</span>Patchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14551888121167330346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8903836431528017500.post-4967924900500655612018-02-12T20:06:00.001-08:002018-02-12T20:06:55.502-08:00Ophiotaurus
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bestiar</i>y deep cuts
don’t get much deeper than the <a href="http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/bestiary5/ophiotaurus.html">ophiotaurus</a>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s only found in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiotaurus">a single reference</a> from
Ovid—and not from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Metamorphoses</i>,
either, but <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fasti</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s the mythological equivalent of saying
your favorite ’90s alternative song is Sloan’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0I4bicqC_s">“Stove/Smother”</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfspvoNUJzM">cover</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like, I can tell <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DGC_Rarities_Vol._1">how you got there</a>, but man,
you were <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">looking</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Aside from being a Gargantuan, mythic half-bull,
half-snake-monster, the ophiotaurus is most significant for what it offers—a
massive power boost in the form of either its <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ascension</i> spell like ability and its Questing Beast (Su) ability—if
PCs kill an ophiotaurus they have access to certain divinatory powers, and if
they’re willing to accept a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">geas</i> on
top of that, they also get a massive moral bonus (+6 to Str and Con) per <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">vengeful outrage</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">In other words, facing (and possibly slaying) an ophiotaurus
is an excellent step along the way to facing a mythic Big Bad—perhaps even the
penultimate step.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every hero needs his
Campbellian journey, and the Ophiotaurus checks off the Road of Trials and/or
Apotheosis boxes pretty nicely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An
ophiotaurus’s death, though, should be more than a plot coupon—it should carry
an air of what it is: a necessary sacrifice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Adventures attempt to
seal a portal</b></span> to the realm of Baphomet, the demonic patron of evil
minotaurs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If they fail to light the
temple braziers and burn the proper offerings, the snaking tile labyrinth
beneath their feet reveals itself to be the pebbled hide of an awakening ophiotaurus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">At the behest of a
sovereign dragon</b></span>, adventurers race to the ends of the earth to place a
magical yoke upon the shoulders of an ophiotaurus—an animal they did not even
believe existed mere days ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Unfortunately, their demodand rivals have sent a lackey to beat them to
the punch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And “punch” is the operative
word, for the vile servant is one of the Hundred-Handed Ones, a hekatonkheires.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #f1c232;">Adventurers slay an
ophiotaurus</span> </b>and eat its entrails, as the old legends instruct.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in doing so, they have inadvertently
performed a religious act, for the sacrifice of a bull, even a mythic one,
belongs to Tiernos, the Lightning Lord.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Now the long-slumbering Allfather wakes, and the adventurers must
contend with his assumption that they are his new high priests…and vassals.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pathfinder Bestiary 5</i>
185</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Somewhere out there someone is screaming, “The Ophiotaurus
was also in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Percy Jackson</i>
series!!!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Fair enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have
not read the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Percy Jackson</i> books. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Usually mixing mythic tales and modernity is
not my jam—I’ve had some grim experiences in the past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But surely it can’t be any worse than the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nicholas Flamel</i> books, right? Let’s see
what <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiotaurus">Wikipedia</a> has to say… </span></span></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<br /></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Percy Jackson saves
[the Ophiotaurus] in the middle of the night, when he was warned by his
favorite pegasus, Blackjack. He first thinks it is a female and names it
"Bessie". The Ophiotaurus thinks that Percy is his protector. Later,
the creature is brought to Olympus via a magic water bubble and is put under
the care of Percy's father, Poseidon.</i></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<br /></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">…Nope.</span></span></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<br /></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">*gently closes laptop,
stares into space for a minute, gets up to walk away*</i></span></span> </div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<br /></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Nope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not going to happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nooooope. </span></span></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Someone burn the room after I leave.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s the only way to be sure.</span></span></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Once again it’s Monday night, and once again I am
encouraging you, with barely an hour to spare, to click a link I should have
posted last Wednesday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sigh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sorry about that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But click anyway—it’s my first radio show of
the Spring 2018 semester, and we’ve got new Hop Along, Camp Cope, and
Baltimore’s own Wye Oak and <span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Letitia VanSant, </span>plus 20 years
of Pearl Jam’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Yield</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://wmuc.umd.edu/stream_ripper/tue/The_New_Indie_Canon_2200_2400.mp3">Stream/download it now</a> through midnight
tonight (Monday, 02/12/18, U.S. Eastern)!</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span>Patchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14551888121167330346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8903836431528017500.post-77848406164017064552018-01-15T20:04:00.000-08:002018-01-15T20:04:29.869-08:00Oolioddroo
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5bNLE3P0LE6XEodBgoySDxJqDDraagiwllncRN63to_VyfcHp7DC_tnSpmOHUoK-A1Gj1MBDiwJGsGrOUcGZYdxy0rbbxfEF2OZjjrrXHnN3U1HRK_gMtuvpBq2wrNHdCKeg-F-CC8aQ/s1600/Bestiary6MothDemon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5bNLE3P0LE6XEodBgoySDxJqDDraagiwllncRN63to_VyfcHp7DC_tnSpmOHUoK-A1Gj1MBDiwJGsGrOUcGZYdxy0rbbxfEF2OZjjrrXHnN3U1HRK_gMtuvpBq2wrNHdCKeg-F-CC8aQ/s320/Bestiary6MothDemon.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(Illustration by Jorges Fares comes
from <a href="https://geekdad.com/2017/05/pathfinders-bestiary-6/">GeekDad</a> and is © Paizo Publishing.)</span></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">What, a <a href="http://dailybestiary.blogspot.com/2017/12/olethros.html">moth psychopomp</a> wasn’t mothy enough for you?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then how about a moth demon, the <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/demon/demon-oolioddroo-2/">oolioddroo</a>?</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">From browsing
Tumblr, I know a lot of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Daily Bestiary</i>
fans are also fans of possession and body horror—so merry belated Christmas,
kids, because this monster is for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">you</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The oolioddroo’s
party piece is using her thought-siphoning tongue—you know, the one that can
slurp up memories, skills, spells, or Wisdom—to implant her eggs into the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">brain</i> of a sleeping or helpless
victim.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eggs that then hatch as larva
(still in that brain).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which the moth
demon can track across any distance in the same Plane (safely nestled in that
brain).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And through which the demon can <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">detect thoughts</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">modify memory</i>, and cast <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">suggestion</i>
(because brain). Worst of all, the oolioddroo can sacrifice the larva (and the
victim’s brain—have I mentioned the brain?) in a kind of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">feeblemind </i>bomb—a tactic that causes even the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bestiary 6</i> to break tone and refer to it as a “scorched earth”
tactic.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">That’s right: This
is a monster so awful it makes even the rulebook itself stop and say,
“Daaaaamn.”</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>An oolioddroo poses as a roving fortuneteller.</b></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her
magical abilities give her plenty of fodder for predictions, and she leaves a
trail of infected or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">feebleminded</i>
victims in her wake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Normally such a
humble disguise would be beneath the moth demon, but this particular band of
rovers has long been welcome at a local magefair the oolioddroo intends to
infiltrate.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>Adventurers are asked to check on</b></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> the niece of a patron.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The young woman was married off to a stern
landholder in a distant county, and in the intervening months her letters have
grown strange and evasive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Should the
adventurers take the case, they find the woman in decent spirits but acting oddly—as
do many inhabitants of the local village and the surrounding district.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Further investigation reveals the truth: Much
of the town is under the control of an oolioddroo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when the adventurers go to confront the
demon, they find themselves ambushed by the village’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">un</i>infected in habitants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
entire town has willingly devoted itself to the moth demon, and the infected
villagers were merely a lure to draw the adventurers into its clutches.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>Among a certain truly decadent and thrill-seeking set</b></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">, oolioddroo eggs are a delicacy akin to
caviar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The challenge is to consume and
pass the eggs without falling under the moth demon’s sway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And since such eggs can only be harvested
from the brains of an oolioddroo’s victims, this delicacy necessarily involves
appallingly risky chirurgery or a hefty body count.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Worldwound</i> 50–51 & <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bestiary 6</i> 86–87</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">That second
adventure seed has a very <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hellboy</i>
feel to it, if you ask me.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span>Patchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14551888121167330346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8903836431528017500.post-77103180651976938832018-01-09T20:20:00.000-08:002018-01-09T20:20:07.882-08:00Omnipath
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpDlcZnCxtqiN__gxULRbJbJl2cvvDK-lH2QwKdPUAArSqh7V-lszioLcc75QS6zyR1f5pKXRQNmkwjzUq40u0TURy91a7l3oh3vbcoqEBESBfWYpi1t1PKs2cA3-5MSfAx7RCkSSHOpE/s1600/PZO9284-Omnipath.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="637" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpDlcZnCxtqiN__gxULRbJbJl2cvvDK-lH2QwKdPUAArSqh7V-lszioLcc75QS6zyR1f5pKXRQNmkwjzUq40u0TURy91a7l3oh3vbcoqEBESBfWYpi1t1PKs2cA3-5MSfAx7RCkSSHOpE/s320/PZO9284-Omnipath.jpg" width="203" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(Illustration by <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Yigit Koroglu </span>comes from the <a href="http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5lhwd?Mind-Beasts-Hunger-for-Your-Dreams">PaizoBlog</a> and is © Paizo Publishing.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">The last year or so has been pretty good to aboleths—their
schemes are the focus of the Ruins of Azlant Adventure Path, they got a
full-fledged ecology in the same, and psychic monsters and psychic magic in
general have been on the upswing since the release of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Occult Adventures</i> and the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Occult
Bestiary</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">One of<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> OB</i>’s
contributions was the <a href="http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/aberrations/omnipath-2/">omnipath</a>, the information-sharing/communications network
(with a dash of spying and possession) of the aboleth race.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was also one of our first indications that
the race (known as othagu or alghollthus, depending on what source you’re
reading) included more phenotypes than the tentacled fish form of the aboleths
and the veiled masters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Omnipaths
resemble eels, but with a horrific set of multiple jaws nested inside each
other, like something from the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Alien</i>
franchise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have equally horrifying
powers: an eidetic memory, the magic of a 15th-level psychic, a touch that can
turn skin transparent and vulnerable, psychic tail rays (because why not), and
a telepathic mesh that allows an omnipath to share sensations and possess
victims with alarming facility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
are, in short, bad news.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">If you’re an aboleth fan, omnipaths make an excellent
high-level contribution to the family tree.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If you’re not, they could still be useful in your campaign, either as
one-off aquatic/subterranean monsters or as part of some other cabal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Iku-tursos and <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">siyokoys are both good options to pair omnipaths with in Pathfinder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And in </span>D&D (particularly 2e
AD&D Spelljammer) the neogi race may have bred omnipaths to combat the
threat of illithids, or developed them in some sick collaboration with the mind
flayers.<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The mysterious and
seemingly utopian kingdom</b></span> of Ildevania is protected by the Queen’s Mantle—a
phrase meant as a metonym for her power and authority, but that also nods to
the very real mesh of telepathic energy she shares with her trusted agents, the
Footmen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Adventurers discover that many
of the Footmen are actually omnipaths and their thralls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is the country’s utopian peace worth the dark
bargain the queen has made?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Adventurers manage to
subdue the saboteur Renoir</b></span> and shut the Cypher Gate, sealing in the dread
energies he meant to unleash. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His
capture also reveals the very real threat of the aboleth nation lurking far below
the canals of Vinchenza, City of Spices and Spies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Incensed that Renoir shattered the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Calling Crystal</i> that allowed Vinchenza’s
fleet captains to speak over long distances, the Doge’s Council wants
adventurers who can do the same to the aboleths—by gutting their omnipath
network like so many eels.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">A spiritualist
unlocks a dark secret</b></span> from an adventurer’s past: She was an omnipath in her
past life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moreover, that omnipath’s
mother is still alive…and seeks to make contact with her lost daughter, in
whatever reincarnated form she now takes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The adventurer must wrestle with what to do with this information,
investigate what new insights or powers her heritage might unlock…and face the
possibility that this is all a complicated aboleth plot.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Occult Bestiary</i>
38–39 & <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bestiary 6</i> 204–205</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">I linked to the more recent (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bestiary 6</i>) stats for the omnipath above.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span>Patchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14551888121167330346noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8903836431528017500.post-35332840691531154912017-12-31T17:02:00.001-08:002017-12-31T17:02:39.495-08:00Olethros
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcbpsr_It-r4ixf1D4ayE-TpD4pDOwtkTnz_36UY3-_XW1hg1SmaoGmDN_VbiioyYaFkl1tFdHCFFmBeHZPFoEgzobFggyzX5Ke43PhuxyacpCKxa0KxhbjcKgvScpWbG76GHzk9AP5Rg/s1600/Pathfinder%252B4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1075" data-original-width="906" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcbpsr_It-r4ixf1D4ayE-TpD4pDOwtkTnz_36UY3-_XW1hg1SmaoGmDN_VbiioyYaFkl1tFdHCFFmBeHZPFoEgzobFggyzX5Ke43PhuxyacpCKxa0KxhbjcKgvScpWbG76GHzk9AP5Rg/s320/Pathfinder%252B4.png" width="269" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">(Illustration by David Alvarez comes from <a href="http://www.chalgyr.com/2017/05/pathfinder-roleplaying-game-bestiary-6.html">CGR</a> and is © Paizo
Publishing.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olethros">Wikipedia claims</a>, “Olethros translates roughly in ancient
Greek to ‘destruction,’ but often with a positive connotation, as in the
destruction required for and preceding renewal.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which makes sense for the Greek
personification of havoc (and a daughter of Eris in the bargain)…but it works
even better for <a href="http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/psychopomp/psychopomp-olethros/">this Pathfinder monster</a>, a powerful psychopomp associated with
souls whose fates hang in the balance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Olethroses are powerful agents of death, helping to preserve
the proper course of fate (at least as they, the psychopomp ushers, and their
goddess deem it).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This of course means
they may come into conflict with adventurers, as PCs are notorious for wishing
to bend fate to their own desires.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On
the other hand, olethroses are rivals or enemies of a number of other
fate-oriented outsiders and entities, including norns, lipika aeons, and
sahkils, which may cause them to ally them with PCs. (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bestiary 6</i> actually goes into great detail about this, as well as
their relations with their psychopomp kin).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Powerful olethroses can even become mothers (a rarity among
psychopomps—and most outsiders, for that matter) when old fates fork and new
fates reveal themselves, immaculately conceiving new olethroses to study the
branching phenomena of destiny.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #f1c232;">An olethros has been
guiding</span> </b>the fate of a single family for generations, subtly ensuring that
every birth, marriage, death, and important event falls in its course.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when adventurers save the family from a
fiery holocaust (courtesy of norn’s quiet influence), they upend a century of
planning and earn the enmity of the powerful psychopomp.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The pit fiend
Idvidicar the Sculptor</b></span> has been pierced by no less than six arrows from an
olethros's silkbow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He refuses to
remove the shafts, wearing them as badges to signify that no one but he is the
author of his fate—or the fates of those under his control.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The olethros who shot Invidicar wants to
retrieve the shafts, believing their long exposure to the pit fiend’s foul
essence may have granted the arrows unique properties,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">An olethros conceived
a child</b></span>, presumably according to some looming twist of fate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever the event was, though, it has failed
to come to pass so far…leaving the gravid olethros in a state of horrible pregnant
limbo, in terrible pain that is as much spiritual as it is physical.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the months have stretched into years, the
olethros has become desperate to end her condition…and if that means going
rogue and forging a new fate for her child to study, so be it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Adventurers might find themselves caught in
the olethros’s schemes, or even be hired by other psychopomps to bring in the
rogue mother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is also the question
of whether her child will be born an olethros after so long, or if some far
darker creature will erupt from her womb instead…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pathfinder Bestiary 6</i>
220–211</span></div>
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">One last post out the door before 2018.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Happy New Year everybody, and have a great
2018!</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span>Patchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14551888121167330346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8903836431528017500.post-17752123077995812392017-12-25T20:09:00.000-08:002017-12-25T20:09:11.897-08:00Occult Dragon
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt548QvFHByOaiEmvH0xaQOYB0-nyfpTic_NkvqkH0cj6ETbVvh49BnZl7RQDFhAnIyNNHpfFrgjpYQ1Bwm2_gegLJcQim7DVyb-RW3HB86udWeGeD3enPbnUSLSocLYfP_FhVqCFEPYU/s1600/occult_dragon_concept___beastiary_5_by_the_sixthleafclover-d9q1fwk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="814" data-original-width="732" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt548QvFHByOaiEmvH0xaQOYB0-nyfpTic_NkvqkH0cj6ETbVvh49BnZl7RQDFhAnIyNNHpfFrgjpYQ1Bwm2_gegLJcQim7DVyb-RW3HB86udWeGeD3enPbnUSLSocLYfP_FhVqCFEPYU/s320/occult_dragon_concept___beastiary_5_by_the_sixthleafclover-d9q1fwk.jpg" width="287" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">(Illustration by Christina Yen comes from the <a href="https://the-sixthleafclover.deviantart.com/">artist’s DeviantArt page</a> and is © Paizo Publishing.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Astral, dream, etheric, nightmare…occult?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">At first glance, the <a href="http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/bestiary5/dragonsEsoteric.html#esoteric-dragon-occult">occult dragon</a> seems like a bad entry
from a <a href="https://annarchive.com/files/Drmg134.pdf">late-’80s</a> <a href="https://annarchive.com/files/Drmg146.pdf">anniversary issue</a> of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dragon
Magazine</i>, following the usual recipe of “Add adjective and stir until
dragon.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">But upon closer examination, it actually fits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just as the other esoteric dragons have a
transitive plane or dream dimension to call their own, occult dragons hail from
the Akashic Record, a demiplane tucked away in the Astral that includes “a
visual library of perfect psychic records of every moment in the history of the
multiverse” (per <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Occult Adventures</i>).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">As such, it’s no surprise that these are essentially
draconic librarians, researchers, and diviners—when your home demiplane is a
library, that’s all to be expected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
also make excellent appraisers and psychometrists, able to read the value and
the history of an object (and use it, if it’s a magic item) with consummate
skill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For this reason, they are
collectors and hoarders to a degree even other dragons find shocking (which is
saying something), particularly when it comes to psychically charged objects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Finally, they are also perhaps more urban (and
urbane) than any other true dragons besides golds, happily moving in disguise
through humanoid cities.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Interestingly, occult dragons aren't particularly
strong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps this is because they
only hail from a demiplane…or perhaps it says something about the relative
power of truth versus dreams…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Finally, even if esoteric dragons and the Akashic Record
aren’t your thing, an occult dragon makes a good one-off encounter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are plenty of magical libraries or
universities that might have a guardian that is, for all intents and purposes,
an occult dragon, no matter how you re-skin it for your players.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Bruised and bleeding</b></span>
from more than a dozen sets of claw marks, a young occult dragon crashes its
way into an adventuring party’s sanctum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It gasps out that it has “the answer” for them, then passes out from its
wounds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What “the answer” is will remain
a mystery unless the adventurers can heal the dragon…and defeat the pack of
hounds of Tindalos that arrive hot on the dragon’s heels.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">One of the more
notable spy networks</b></span> on Avilar is comprised primarily of occult
dragons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They spend much of their time
in human or half-elf form, often selling their services as detectives and
object readers (a convenient cover for their abilities that helps them forge connections
to those in power).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They seem to be
interested in knowledge for its own sake, but surely no one builds such a powerful
network without an agenda of some kind…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Adventurers make
their way to a library</b></span> that appears to be perched on the edge of Infinity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The library caretakers are a collection of
clockwork beings, gnomes, and oddly civilized gnolls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If they make trouble or wander into the
Restricted Wing, they are met by the library’s real masters: a nest of occult
dragons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The dragons at this library
specialize in knowledge relating to something called the Aeon War, which
occurred long ago but, paradoxically, is about to occur for the first time
(again?)…<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pathfinder Bestiary 5</i>
96–97</span></div>
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Merry Christmas and happy holidays, everyone!</span></span></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">There are only about 60 minutes of Christmas left, but
that’s still plenty of time to <a href="http://wmuc.umd.edu/stream_ripper/tue/The_New_Indie_Canon_2200_2400.mp3">stream/download last Tuesday’s Christmas radio show</a>!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two hours of holiday tunes, from
old favorites to ska covers and everything in between.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Enjoy y’all, and since I think I’m taking
tomorrow off, I’ll have more tunes for you in the New Year!</span></span></div>
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</span>Patchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14551888121167330346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8903836431528017500.post-63464059047544734822017-12-18T20:27:00.002-08:002017-12-18T20:27:55.261-08:00Obsidian Golem
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Most golems are created to serve as security systems and
tomb guardians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are built to last
and built to crush—not always in that order.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/constructs/golem/golem-obsidian/">Obsidian golems</a>, on the other hand, are made to cut people
the hell up.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Obsidian is brittle, so it has a lifespan, as weapons (and
constructs) go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Obsidian also comes from
volcanic areas, and people who live near volcanoes have to have a certain
comfort with transience and uncertainty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In other words, the mage who is making an obsidian golem is probably
making it because obsidian is what’s handy, not what’s best or most durable.
But that doesn’t matter, because the mage who’s making an obsidian golem has
other things in mind than crafting an eternal protector. The mage who makes a
golem out of volcanic glass intends that golem to be <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">used</i>—with all the bloodiness and pain of a <i><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">macuahuitl</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Don’t believe me? Look at those abilities: Bleed damage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jagged Body (Ex).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Obsidian Spray (Ex).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Death Throes (Ex).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Sure, <i>Bestiary 6</i> says, “Obsidian golems often are used as
deterrence against tomb robbers.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
you can bet we’re not talking lonely pyramids far from civilization.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re talking tombs or mausoleums in active
necropolises located in or near major cities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Victims of an obsidian golem are meant to leave a bloody spectacle, and
the few survivors are meant to have an agonizing tale of horror to recount to
other would-be thieves.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The most famous
authority on surgery</b></span> in the last age was also a necromancer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More cosmopolitan than his magical colleagues—and
well aware of their propensity for grave robbing—his tomb relies on finely
crafted constructs for protection, rather than flesh golems or the unquiet
dead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The obsidian golem that guards his
corpse was actually his surgical aide during life, its sharp fingers serving as
ideal scalpels during the necromancer’s lectures.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Having been caught</b></span>
sneaking into a forbidden temple, adventurers are forced to play <i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ōllamaliztli
</span></i>for the nobles’ entertainment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If they lose, they will be sacrificed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If they win…well, the high priest has an obsidian golem positioned at
the shrine at the entrance to the locker room to ensure that the blood price is
paid either way.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">A shaitan lent a
portion of her power</b></span> to aid in the creation of an obsidian golem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now she wants it back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She hires adventurers to smash the construct
and free the animating spirit shard inside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In the intervening decades, however, the golem ended up being buried in
ash after a nearby volcano erupted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amid
the shattered remains of the lava-damaged city, two xorns of unusual size now regard
the golem as theirs, and they are loath to give up their prize.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pathfinder Bestiary 6</i>
141</span></div>
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Last Tuesday was my “Best of 2017” show on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New Indie Canon</i>, featuring my
favorite new and important songs from this year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s only about half an hour left to grab
it, so <a href="http://wmuc.umd.edu/stream_ripper/tue/The_New_Indie_Canon_2200_2400.mp3">stream/download it now</a> till midnight (Monday, 12/18/17, U.S. Eastern).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And thanks for listening all year long!</span></span></div>
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</span>Patchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14551888121167330346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8903836431528017500.post-5853213236642605432017-12-11T19:51:00.004-08:002017-12-11T19:51:48.652-08:00Oblivion
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Spheres of
annihilation</i> suck don’t they?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(Facing one in combat, that is. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you’re in control of one, wheeee!)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">But…what if one of those <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">spheres</i>
was somebody’s egg?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">That’s what you get with the <a href="http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/oozes/oblivion/">oblivion</a>…a one-eyed, Colossal
smoke cloud from the Negative Energy Plane that leaves a trail of annihilation,
dubiety (man, that’s a good word), and enslaved servants of entropy in its wake…and
which might, maybe, possibly have hatched from a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sphere of annihilation.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Who’s to know?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’ll already be
dust and dubiety (woo!) before you find out. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Stat-wise, it’s pretty clear that the oblivion is meant to
be the penultimate or even the final monster of a campaign.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It sneezes through damage reduction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">disintegrates</i>
at will.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Yeah, you read that right; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">disintegrate</i> is a cantrip to this
thing.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can’t <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">banish</i> it unless you’ve got an artifact or you’re a god…you get the
idea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oblivions mean to deliver just
that—oblivion, and the eventual end of the cosmos—and only the mightiest heroes
have a prayer of stopping one.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Arcanist Aron of the
Black Rod</b></span> is the most famous mage of the age…perhaps of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">any</i> age since the falling of the White
Tower.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His vanishing in the Year of Lost
Hope was met with alarm across the continent, and his return in the Year of the
Shadowed Griffon was enough to turn back the orc horde at Karsum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He has walked the worlds many times since
then, each time becoming more powerful and more distant from mortal men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His latest planewalk was once too many,
however.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He fell to the touch of an
oblivion, and the “Aron” that returned is a servant of entropy who is currently
preparing a ritual to summon his dire master.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The oblivion known as
the Dustsinger</b></span> is responsible for the deaths of at least three planets: the
Flesh Orb (now a spheroid lattice of bone and rotted tendons known as the
Cage), the former forest moon of Nesserit (whose fey, driven mad with grief,
are more undead than faerie), and Ossus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This last planet put up the best fight against the Dustsinger, and it’s
said that the cat-headed goddess Bastet helped her worshippers escape to
another world—at the cost of one of her lives.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">A band of adventurers
has been mercenary</b></span>, larcenous, duplicitous, backstabbing, and murderous…and
that’s on their best day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But they find
themselves forced into new roles as heroes when one of their oldest allies, the
sorcerer-magistrate Inwelm, unleashes an oblivion in the very heart of
Singate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the White Rose paladins in
exile (the adventurers’ fault), the High Prelate jailed in disgrace (ditto),
and the duke dying of night pox (a coincidence, though they did raid his
treasury), only Singate’s worst adventurers stand between the oblivion and the
city’s—and then the world’s—destruction.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pathfinder Bestiary 6</i>
202–203</span></div>
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Hi guys!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The…Fortnightly Bestiary</i>?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sigh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’m trying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But hey, I wrote an
adventure seed for evil PCs!</span></span></div>
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Hey, <a href="http://wmuc.umd.edu/stream_ripper/tue/The_New_Indie_Canon_2200_2400.mp3">have a radio show</a>!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I play music.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mostly indie rock,
though some other genres managed to sneak in there as well, including a
Christmas/Hanukkah song or two.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a
blast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’ve got till midnight tonight
(Monday, 12/11/17, U.S. Eastern) to stream/download it, and since that’s in an
hour, <a href="http://wmuc.umd.edu/stream_ripper/tue/The_New_Indie_Canon_2200_2400.mp3">why not grab it now</a>?</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span>Patchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14551888121167330346noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8903836431528017500.post-43194023911741382472017-11-20T20:15:00.002-08:002017-11-20T20:15:38.535-08:00Obcisidaemon
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Avatars of the darkest elements of war, <a href="http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/daemons/daemon-obcisidaemon/">obcisidaemons</a>
primarily serve that particular apocalyptic Horseman (Szuriel, if you’re
following Pathfinder canon).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Resembling
a cross between a man, a wolf, and a smilodon—plus wings, because of course it
has wings—this daemon’s most singular feature is the misty cloak of stolen
souls it wears around itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It can tap
the power of this supernatural cloak to boost its weapon, pump its saves, or
heal itself—consuming one of the poor souls, of course.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But don’t worry; it’ll get a new soul when it
kills your character.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which it will,
because did I mention it’s CR 19?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The obcisidaemon
represents the horrors of war stripped of all the trappings of honor, loyalty,
and glory, and then taken to their logical extremes—in particular,
genocide.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mass graves, concentration
camps, super-weapon test sites, razed cities, and similar locations may draw an
obcisidaemon if the planar boundary with Abaddon is thin enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Adventurers who defeat a genocidal tyrant may
later find their foe’s shade serving one of these creatures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Worse yet, their foe might be reincarnated <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">as</i> one of these creatures.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>Duergar manage to set off a volcanic eruption</b></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> and guide the subsequent rain of ash and
lava to destroy a surface city.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their
triumph is short-lived, as the devastation causes an obcisidaemon to manifest in
their capital with a number or daemonic retainers in tow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Adventurers who wish to bring the duergar
high archonus to justice will first have to retrieve his essence from the cloak
of souls the daemon wears around itself.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><b><span style="color: #f1c232;">The Horseman of War has been felled by a coup.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Now
rival obcisidaemons hope to claim her mantle, and an axiomite city finds itself
in the no man’s land between the two monsters’ forces.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>Adventurers befriend a dusk elf</b></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">—a gray-skinned, half-drow exile from another
world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Good-hearted but suspicious and
close-mouthed, he says little about his native land, other than that it was
ravaged by war, genocide, and blood feuds that go back hundreds of years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Indeed, his very birth is the end result of
a breeding program of half-castes meant to serve as guerilla warriors and
irregulars).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only when the adventurers’
own nation becomes torn apart by civil war does he open up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His nation was turn asunder by armies led by obcisidaemons
that had broken free of their foolish summoners.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Worse yet, the adventurers discover that one
of these daemons has seeded his true name in their world as well…and their own
nation’s generals have made plans to summon him.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pathfinder Bestiary 6</i>
72–73</span></div>
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<span style="color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Oh hey guys!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s
less that an hour to <a href="http://wmuc.umd.edu/stream_ripper/tue/The_New_Indie_Canon_2200_2400.mp3">download last week’s radio show</a>!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe you should do it right now!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Featuring <span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">new Superchunk, new
J. Roddy Walston, 25 years of R.E.M.’s <i>Automatic for the People</i>, and
more! <a href="http://wmuc.umd.edu/stream_ripper/tue/The_New_Indie_Canon_2200_2400.mp3">Get it before midnight tonight</a> (Monday, 11/20/17, U.S. Eastern)!</span></span></span></div>
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speeeeecialllll!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stay tuned!</span></span></span></div>
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</span>Patchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14551888121167330346noreply@blogger.com0