Cervinal

Most agathions are animal-headed humanoids, but the cervinal switches it up, going the centaur route.  And since I’m a big deer-centaur fan—for instance, I believe that in a perfect world the Forgotten Realms’ hybsils wouldn’t have gotten buried in the overpriced Monsters of Faerûn—I’m all about these guys.

That said, they’re not easy monsters to write combat encounters for.  Unless your group’s characters are absolute mercenaries or outright evil, they’re not going to have much reason to fight these neutral good, noble agathion knights.  (You can’t even get mad at them for being snooty or goldbricking since they like to take the lead in fights.)  Cervinals are the heavenly (Nirvana-ly?) version of your cool older neighbor who always used to let you tag along despite your age, or the three-sport valedictorian at your high school who was also hella nice.  There’s just too much to like.

In other words, if you get on the wrong side of this guy, he’s probably not the problem.  Then again, adventurers are very good at getting on the wrong side of people, even noble-hearted celestials.

Archons are holding a devil prisoner—a monster the azatas desperately want to see tried.  When the archons refuse a change of venue, some of the more rebellious azatas decide to take things into their own hands…and they know just the adventurers who can help them out.  But when a vulpinal spy catches wind of the plan, she makes sure a collective of cervinals are waiting to stop the plot before any archons are roused to anger.

Cervinals are often entrusted with securing dangerous artifacts…artifacts that adventurers want.  It’s a race against time across three Outer Planes—the wilds of Thornhold, the gray geysers of Daemonhaunt, and the mathematically-perfect seashell expanse of Nautilheim—to beat galloping cervinal knights to the Organ of Magard’s Deep.

A cervinal burst into Crown Prince Ronan’s wedding ceremony, cut down several guards (though not fatally), and dosed the bride with a sleeping agent.  Then he escaped with the somnolent girl slung over his back.  The kingdom is in an uproar, the king’s inquisitors have put the bishops under house arrest, and everyone is talking sides now that the very heavens seem to have turned against the union.  Who was the cervinal who took the bride?  To where?  And why?  The answers to those questions could make an adventuring party very, very rich—and landed and titled—indeed.

—Chronicle of the Righteous 58 & Pathfinder Bestiary 5 12

For more deer-like monsters I love, check out the polymorph gas-breathing actaeons from Rules Cyclopedia-era “basic” D&D.  (Here’s a Dragon“Ecology Of” article they were in.)  Planescape’s goat-like bariaurs are another favorite.

It’s Tuesday’s radio show!  Got a couple new tunes for you, including Chumped, who I am tragically late to the party for (and who play their final show this week).  Tune in!

(Bear with the initial muddy audio…it’s fine after the first 50 seconds.  Link good till Monday, 2/8, a midnight.  For best results, Save As an mp3 and listen via iTunes.)

Korada

Neutral good monsters are nearly impossible to write antagonistic adventure hooks for.  (“He’s devoted to helping others!  He must be stopped!”)  A neutral good CR 26 outsider, exponentially more so.  (“He’s an immortal champion of peace, kindness, and forgiveness!  He must be stopped!”)

Thankfully, the empyreal lord Korada gives GMs an out: He’s a monk and a martial arts master.  Which means that there are plenty of reasons PCs may seek him out and vice versa: to test their worthiness, to learn a new fighting style, as the last trial before becoming grand master of a monk order, etc.  He’s also got the gift of foresight, so perhaps he has reasons of his own to fight the party—maybe to temper their steel, teach them humility, distract them from a path that will lead them to ruin, or even injure them so that they cannot attempt a trial above their abilities. 

And yes, he’s part monkey and has a dash of trickster in him…so he might just aggravate PCs into fighting him for kicks.  You can't trust monkeys, even monkey empyreal lords.

On their way to face one of the terrifying rakshasa rajadhirajas, adventures take a detour through Nirvana.  On the grounds of a city-sized palace, they are pestered by a vanara four different times in four different gardens—always while they are trying to solve some puzzle or fend off an attack.  Finally, they must fight the vanara himself.  The monkey man is in fact Korada, and the four trials (and his jibes) were meant to prepare the adventurers for their fight against the nascent rakshasa immortal.

A powerful monk failed to challenge his master before the old man died in his sleep.  So while the monk may be the most powerful of his order on the continent, and perhaps even in the world, tradition denies him his master’s title.  He and his adventuring companions must thus seek out Korada himself.  Only after facing the empyreal lord in single combat and using a move the agathion has not seen will the monk be able to take his master’s place.

On their way to confront a devil, adventurers are faced with an unusual antagonist: Korada, the Open Hand of Harmony.  He asks the adventurers to turn from their path; if they refuse, he regretfully begins combat, pulling no punches.  The devil is a fallen angel that Korada is determined to redeem…and if the adventurers dispatch him before his conversion, the devil’s immortal spirit will be lost to evil forever.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 4 90–91

Neutral good or not, any creature that casts mad monkeys (see Ultimate Magic) at my PC is going to die.  (Primates set off my uncanny valley alarm.  Also they throw poo.)

More on Korada’s worship and boons is in Chronicle of the Righteous.

My first exposure to the monk class was in Best of “Dragon Magazine” Vol. III, courtesy of “He’s Got a Lot to Kick About” from Philip Meyers, which offered ways of reworking the rather insane 1e AD&D monk class.  I still don't know much about the class as it was written, but I gather that above certain levels, monks actually had to compete with other monks to advance—that was actually a required mandate of the class (along with level freezing for failure)!  Obviously I don't want to go back to those dark days…but every five levels or so...?  Might be a fun role-playing thing.  And it seems perfectly reasonable that to achieve the level of Grand Master of Flowers, a 20th-level monk/champion might have to go a few rounds with the lord of the Dream Lotus.  Old-schoolers in the audience, what do you think?

Vulpinal

What does the fox say? 

Um…Celestial, Common, Draconic, Infernal; speak with animals and truespeech, apparently.

Anyway, fans of Sir Didymus, rejoice—the vulpinal is here!

And Sir Didymus is actually not a bad role-playing model, because these foxlike agathions (guardinals to you 3.5 fans out there) only reach about 3 feet high, but are doughty and adventurous in spirit.  Add a bard’s love of storytelling (and story collecting), and you have your typical vulpinal.  At CR 6, they’re hardly the Outer Planes’ heaviest hitters, but their courage more than makes up for their lack of Hit Dice.  And since they are so down to earth, a vulpinal is likely to be the closest thing many adventuring parties have to a true friend—not a mentor, sponsor, familiar, ally, or liege like other celestials, but a bona fide boon companion.

A mighty curse turned Cartherix the True’s lillend companion Alora into a medusa-like monster that revels in her new petrifying powers.  Desperate to save Alora from herself, Cartherix is hopping the planes looking for something to reverse the curse.  As potential cures become more and more outlandish, he is taking more and more risks, which could put him in conflict with adventurers guarding unusual artifacts (or chasing obscure cures of their own).

Yuki Todoro is destined to lead her kitsune clan to greatness.  Unfortunately, at the moment Yuki is a shiftless, teenage kitsune trickster (see the Advanced Race Guide) uninterested in her clan or responsibility of any kind.  Her clan’s patron spirit, a vulpinal named Uncle Ono, is determined to awaken the goodness within her. Currently that means making sure Yuki’s schemes go catastrophically wrong, while using his magic to instigate encounters that will teach her wisdom, prudence, and moral lessons—encounters that tend to involve heavily armed strangers.

An agathion is a creature of pure good—making one’s fall especially tragic.  In Potter Swift’s case, he has not fallen per se; rather he is under the control of a fiendish parasite.  The infected vulpinal now delights in arson, using flame arrows to set a different building on fire every night and major image to throw the Watch into confusion.  If he is not stopped, Crescent City could burn to the ground.  If he is slain, the parasite will drag the agathion’s celestial substance into the dark.

—The Great Beyond 62–63 & Pathfinder Bestiary 2 22

One of the first and best cosplays I ever saw was a girl at my first Otakon who went as Ambrosius with a Sir Didymus plush clinging to her back.

I’m not a stat block expert, but it looks like The Great Beyond’s vulpinal was developed in a slightly different fashion than the Pathfinder Bestiary 2’s.  The former book also has more real estate to devote to the vulpinal’s habits and personality.

I had a snow day today.  Not my usual “Everyone else got a snow day but me” day.  Not a “Snow day but because of deadlines you have to work anyway” day.  But an actual snow day!

What’s that you say?  I probably should have written more blog entries?  While I acknowledge the wisdom in your words, I must remind you:

SNOW.  DAY.

Hey, want a radio show featuring new music from bands like Hey Marseilles?  Here!  Do you want, about halfway through that new music, to suddenly feel old because Green Day’s Dookie, Pavement’s Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, and Beck’s Mellow Gold all just celebrated their 20th anniversaries?  I got that, too!  Enjoy!

(If the feed skips, let it load in Firefox or Chrome and then Save As an mp3.  Link is good till Friday, 3/7, at midnight.)

Silvanshee

One of the smallest agathions, and one of the most animal-like, the silvanshee can pass almost unnoticed in the worlds of men and cats alike.  This makes silvanshees stealthy spies for the forces of Nirvana, excellent guardians of the wilderness, and capable familiars for adventurers.

The Bestiary 2 notes that silvanshees are also called cat sìth or cath sidhe…but traditionally these creatures have a much more dubious reputation in folklore, being faeries, ghosts, or transformed witches.  In your campaign maybe this is just a case of mistaken identities—agathions getting blamed for the crimes of evil witches’ familiars, for instance—or maybe cat sìth/cath sidhe are a separate species entirely.  Swap out the good-aligned elements from the silvanshee stat block for more fey or evil traits (like vulnerability to cold iron or the evil subtype) and you have a perfectly serviceable antagonist ready to claw, taunt, and torment the party, only to vanish the instant before it receives its comeuppance.

When adventurers come into possession of a mystical orb, they also gain a new companion—a magical talking cat.  The cat aids them in all endeavors that aren’t outright evil (up to and including theft—it finds mortal notions of property amusing).  It also refuses to touch the orb but seems inordinately concerned with the well-being of the artifact’s owner, inquiring often about his or her mental state and if he or she has any experienced unusual dreams of late.

Archibald Dawnfoot is a swashbuckling ratfolk eldritch knight with an unusual familiar: a rather querulous silvanshee.  The cat-like agathion spends much of his time complaining about the indignity of having to accompany Archibald on his adventures, and constantly threatens to eat Archibald “like the rodent you are, no matter how overgrown.”  Of course, anyone who has been on the receiving end of one of the silvanshee’s heroic strength-enhanced pounces knows how loyal the agathion really is to his master.

An eldritch lightning strike split a guardian silvanshee from his shadow.  The weakened silvanshee Moss Scratcher guards his forest the best he can, but his evil twin, the genderless Shadowgrim, works to oppose him at ever turn.  Moss Scratcher goes out of his way to befriend adventurers who might be able to aid him, provided Shadowgrim hasn't already turned them against anything feline.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 2 21

Great role-playing models for less benign silvanshees include Mogget from Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom trilogy or, if you want to go downright evil, Cat Sith, the malk from The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher.

Edit: Apologies for the tardiness of this entry, especially to Rory and the other readers who have written in asking for it.  Original post: Hey all!  I got a last-minute opportunity to go to the beach, so the silvanshee entry is going to be a tad late.  Thanks for your patience—I promise this, the shinigami, and the completed sepid post will all be up ASAP.

Leonal

Lion-headed agathions (guardinals to you 3.5 fans).  So…a race of Aslans, basically.

As with most neutral good creatures, PCs are more likely to ally with a leonal than fight one—you really have to work to get on a leonal’s bad side.  (But I’m sure your players are up to it…)

After years of fighting evil on distant planar outposts, a leonal was sent as a messenger to the fabled land of pyramids, Mekhtar.  However, she was unaware of the reverence the nation’s people hold for their animal-headed deities.  Her celestial message was ignored as she was hailed as a goddess by all who meet her—including the pharaoh, who installed her as a princess in her own right ruling over the distant southern third of his kingdom.  Now she has grown used to both the mantle of power and the luxury that comes with it, and it may take more than persuasion to return her to Elysium.

Years of fighting vrocks and other minions of Pazuzu has made a leonal suspicious of avian creatures.  When a garuda settles in its territory under the cover of alter self, the leonal assumes the worst despite the creature’s apparent good intentions.

Summoned to a dragonmoot to give an account of themselves after having slain an evil (but prominent and well-connected) dragon, a group of adventures is shocked to find that their advocate is not another dragon at all, but a young Draconic-speaking leonal.  Another older leonal acts as the moot’s chairman and judge.  Even stranger, the judge does not seem well disposed toward the adventurers, and the dragons most pleased with their actions seem to be the chromatics.  Clearly, there is more to their last adventure than they realized.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 2 20

Apparently, Mekhtar is my go-to place for all things Egypt.

Speaking of Aslan, if you liked the Narnia books as a child, I highly recommend you do not reread them.  Many books suffer from reëxamination with adult eyes, but the Narnia books positively wilt.

Finally, bear with me if I’m slow to reply to mail or take some days off in the next two weeks.  Between the looming Frankenstorm, a definite trip to New England, and a possible trip to Canada, my Internet access and time are question marks at the moment.  (And if I am tardy posting, there’s always the archive…)

Draconal

Woe unto the PCs who attack a draconal.  Saintly creatures of pure goodness, they nonetheless have the power to repel most mortal assaults.  Draconals will most likely serve as reclusive planar heralds and sages in your campaign, being such remote figures that even treating with one may be the culmination of a great quest.  That a draconal’s colors reveal something of her temperament and bailiwick is also worth mining for role-playing and adventure opportunities.

Triumph of Spirit is a rarity twice over—a female red draconal who remains active in the mortal world.  She guards the Maw of Tullamore, where the fey Tain sometimes manifest.

A herald of cultural invigoration, the white draconal Shivah Moonmaiden appears to the city-state of Anchorage to reveal two truths and a warning foretold by prophecy.  While her foresight spans the ages, her insight into the here and now is limited.  Only two years removed from a humiliating occupation by half-white dragon oligarchs, the Anchorage Blades and the militia immediately attack the kind-hearted agathion.

The yellow draconal known as the Silent Watcher holds the key to unlocking an ancient artifact.  Many have entreated him to surrender the key, but as a creature of earth and stone, he comes to decisions more slowly than even the oldest treant—supplicants have literally died waiting.  Should mortal adventurers wish his aid, they had better bring a compelling case before him.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 2 18–19

Cetaceal

The oceans are full of evil—aboleths, devilfish, krakens, and so on.  Cetaceals are rare otherworldly agents for good in the depths.

Named for his orca-like form, the Killer Priest is a cetaceal known for performing the laying on of hands to villagers who are generous to strangers and birds.

Beluga-bodied Armeen seeks word of her daughter.  An aasimar of pale white elven aspect, whose connection to the agathion has made her an outstanding summoner, the young woman is adventuring deep in the mountains of Butal where Armeen cannot easily follow.

Provosi is the solitary southern guardian of the ice-rimmed White Ocean.  She also lacks many allies, the waters being too cold for most traditionally good aquatic races—but not for her grindylow nemeses or the shoggoths who lurk near many of the deep volcanic vents.  She’s taken to liberally awakening great blue and sperm whales to act as her deputies.  But she can only monitor a few pods at a time, and many of her newly conscious charges have taken to eliminating the whaling trade instead.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 2 43

Avoral

As a rule, the neutral good agathions are vastly more likely to be PCs’ allies rather than their antagonists—unlike archons, they’re less likely to be provoked by lawless behavior; unlike azatas, they don’t feel compelled to pursue their own agendas out of sheer iconoclasm and willfulness.  But the right set of circumstances could still find them crossing swords with adventuring parties, avorals included.  After all, avorals are the scouts of the agathions, and scouts are known for landing in trouble...

The Red Crane Clan has a heavenly sponsor in a crane-winged avoral, whose friendship with the clan’s founder helped inspire the family totem.  Sadly, in the last decade Red Crane samurai’s have become corrupted by their love of indolence, luxury, and peasant tax revenues. Still, the avoral will feel honor-bound to defend than clan’s holdings, unless PCs can present concrete proof of the samurais’ wrongdoings.

A god has been murdered.  A squad of avorals finds a party of sellswords holding the blade.  The adventurers must defeat the avorals, escape, and solve the murder before the wrath of the Blessed Planes comes down upon them.

An avoral claims to be a messenger sent back from the future.  But in order to avert the coming calamity, he is determined to kill a sorceress—with lightning bolts and empowered magic missiles if he can, or with claws if he has to.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 2 16

I try never to diss Paizo’s art choices—usually there’s no need—but does that particular avoral in the Bestiary look like an angry turkey to you?

I chose the Red Crane name to differentiate it from the Legend of the Five Rings’ Crane Clan.  Credit where credit is due: WotC’s LotFR take on Oriental Adventures was fantastic, and I just (and by just I mean 4/16/12, since this post is months late) got AEG’s Rokugan Campaign Setting in the mail.