First up, an update from last Monday's post: We're all feeling much better around here. Physically at least. (The various stresses and psychoses of the editorial pit are more the topic of an encyclopedia set than a blog post... so moving right along.)
If you read Pathfinder Adventure Path's monthly Bestiary, you probably already know what a sucker I am for monsters, especially when we can double-dip, combining cool creature design with beasts from real-world folklore and mythology. Well, just a heads up, the Bestiary in Pathfinder Adventure Path #34 hits the swamp monster mother load! To spill the beans on the majority, we've got the ahuizotl, the river-dwelling eye-ripper of Central American; the leshy, the legendary green man of Slavic myth (which, as you can see by the art, I ended up taking a weird but open ended turn with that all you druid players might be particularly intrigued by); and, my personal fav, the nuckelavee of Orcadian legend—the second time I've developed this monster for a d20 game—who, thanks to artist Scott Purdy, looks INCREDIBLE!! I absolutely love bringing these monsters, with pedigrees as vaunted as classics like chimeras and goblins, to the game table, so expect a few more lethal legends by the end of the Kingmaker Adventure Path, and plenty more in the future.
Illustrations by Scott Purdy
And if you have any other obscure folklore or mythological monsters you'd love to see make their way into Pathfinder Adventure Path, don't hesitate to drop a suggestion in the thread for this post (along with a link so I can read more!).
In a fit of madness, I decided to run a high-level playtest so we could have an ongoing idea of how high-level play works in the Pathfinder RPG. In a fit of double-madness, I decided it would be an "evil" game. Triple-madness means everyone is playing a drow noble from House Azrinae in the Darklands. The result is Exiles of Zirnakaynin.
As I'm a miniatures geek, this meant painting up a bunch of dark elf PCs and NPCs, plus other Darklands monsters and underground terrain. As I'm a science geek, I painted many of these things with fluorescent paint highlights, glow-in-the-dark paint, or glow-in-the-dark varnish so they react to a black light.
This photograph is from our first session, where the PCs (and associated undead and eidolon minions) and soldiers of House Azrinae line up on the eastern wall and tower of the House grounds (with the riding-lizard stable in the foreground) to defend against an attacking force of half-fiend minotaurs, enemy drow soldiers, some treant-like fungus creatures, and a few other surprises not yet on the map.
While the denizens of the Pit have been slavishly wrangling hundreds upon hundreds of beasts both fascinating and foul, we've managed to slip in and liberate a particularly interesting few. Now behold! We bring to you, our faithful readers, the terrible visages of four terrifying creatures, taken directly from the pages of the fabled Pathfinders' Bestiary that nears completion deep in the Vault of the Golem. Some of these creatures are obvious, yet what the others are, we cannot say. Perhaps you, dear readers, can tell us what they are?
Art by Eric Lofgren
Art by Andrew Hou
Art by Kieran Yanner
Art by Michael Jaecks
Watch close for further glimpses into the gruesome Bestiary; next time, expect fearsome creatures from the Great Beyond!
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