Eric Hinkle's page

This sounds terribly useful for drow and kyton-oriented adventures.

Emphasis on the terror. ;) Picking this up soon!

When I read this one I thought that myself. I have this image of a Kuthite mystic theurge and his kyton assistants slicing bits off of monsters and seweing them on to a gredy and/or fooolish PC.

It really is a great piece of work.

It sounds like a perfectly fine idea to me, though given their racial penalty on Strength kitsune might not make the best melee fighters.

This is indeed great news, but I'm hoping we can end up ordering this through Paizo due to problems I've had of late with ordering things on RPGnow. The money seems to get deducted from my card by they never received the order.

But more importantly, I am delighted to hear that there's a POD of Way of the Wicked and I will get it -- somehow!

Endzeitgeist, Rite_Publishing, yes, a look at the preview showed me how some of these can be reworked for other settings. Thanks for the help.

I have this and I love it. These are easily the best Pregens I've eve seen in a fantasy RPG, or any other.

I would like to ask, though, is there any chance we'll ever see this done again for other Adventure Paths in the future? Heck, I'd pay money for such a product for an already-done AP like Kingmaker (yeah, not going to happen, but I can dream).

I have a question for Endzeitgeist and the publisher: while these traits are of course optimized for pirate characters, is it safe to assume that many of them can also be used in more usual land-based games with some work? I ask because I was thinking of giving it a pass for a while, but End's review has really stoked my interest.

I love those books. And the John Carter books and the Planet Stories Martian stuff...

Can we add in Pulpdom's "Queen of Outer Space" Leigh Brackett to that list?

I enthusiastically agree with everything Endzeitgeist said in his review. The whole Haunts series is very well done, but this is the very best of the lot with its story thread of creeping horror running through it all. It also serves as a nice reminder of how even the weakest fiends can be used to cause a ton of trouble. And it just feels so 'Kaidan'.

the Guivre(serpantine dragon that poisnous and poisons water that lives in, lives in wells, lakes, etc.)

the Gorynych(dragon with three wolf like heads)

I believe they've both been done, with a non-wolf-headed Gorynych in Bestiary 3, and the Guivre (as the Vouivre) in, I think, Pathfinder #30. I do remember that it was the last book in the "Council of Thieves" AP.

Humaniod wolf race that is playable as a character

Oh yes, I want to see this. Even with getting the race handbook in a few months, I'd still enjoy seeing an "official" wolf-folk race from Paizo.

creatures that are romantic or love humaniods as lovers, children, or pets

Pardon me, but don't we kinda have these already? Dryads, Nymphs, Satyrs, and Succubi all come to mind. Though I suppose you could use nearly any monster in this role. Hey, all those half-dragon humans and drcaonic bloodline sorcerers have to come from somewhere.

Pardon my asking, but has the city cleaned things up enough so that the Paizo folks can get back in to the warehouse as yet?

The description given for the Plane of Shadow makes it sound like a great place for an adventure of the 'visit the creepy otherworld' variety. I'll be sure to get this when it comes out.

Take care there and stay well.

And to think, last week I was visiting some friends in southern California (I normally live in Pennsylvania) and I had to listen to them complain about the horrible frigid 70-degree temperatures. Gosh, don't you just pity those poor people? :P

Doug,

Couldn't have said it better than that. And to everyone buying these early digital copies, we thank you. This money is very helpful indeed.

That said, a print version is on the horizon. Of course it is. Just one glance at the book should tell you that a print version was always on our mind as we were laying it out.

More is on the way,
Gary McBride
Fire Mountain Games

This is very good news!

And while it's very, very early to be asking this, will you be doing any more "Evil" adventure paths in the future?

I think an Anachronistic Feat that allows for extra talents would be a very good option. Something to think of for the Genius is a bullet point for Anachronistic options.

So far I'm a big fan of this series and can not wait for the next to be released.

I second all of this.

I am so looking forward to this, just for the agathion options if nothing else.

So, Minkai goblins who fear octopi... Would a hentai joke be out of line?

I have for a while been toying with the idea of running a "Judge Dee" type campaign, where the players are all the Lieutenants of Judge Dee, and help him solve crimes, hunt down monsters, uncover political intrigue etc.....

I am thinking of the Judge Dee of the Robert Van Gullik novels.

Where in the dragon empires would be a good place for something like this?

Thanks

I'm left to wonder what character class Judge Dee would be. A Lawful Good rogue with the Investigator archetype?

That said, places like Goka, Minkai, Lingshen, Po Li, Quain, Shokuro, maybe even Xa Hoi, would all be good places for someone like the good Judge to operate in.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all the wonderful folks at Paizo.

I want to second TheLoneCleric on the well-done personalities of the kings. I also really like the idea of White Estrid giving land to half-orcs and allowing them to settle there and work/fight for her. If you want non-maniacally evil orcs and half-orcs, now you have a good homeland for them!

Eric Hinkle wrote:

Darn, and I was hoping we could get a non-evil and hopefully PC-playable race of wolfmen.

Agreed. We get Catfolk in the Dragon Empire, this would have been a perfect place to hide a Wolfman species. Maybe Baba Yaga cooked some up for us?

Maybe we could stick them in Iobaria, or somewhere else in those vast expanses between Avistan, Iobaria, and whatever-you-call the lands surrounding the Keleshite Empire? Virtually nothing has been said about the place; we can find or place just about anything there.

Lord Fyre wrote:

Now that they have been introduced in the Dragon Empires Gazetteer, can any of these races be found in the Inner Sea region?

Absolutely.

Tengu already ARE found in the Inner Sea region, in fact. The other four races can certainly be found in the Inner Sea Region, but are pretty rare, just as dwarves and halflings and gnomes and half-orcs are pretty rare in Tian Xia. And just as there are tengu in the Inner Sea region, there are elves in the Dragon Empires.

Myself, I figure you should be most likely to find kitsune and nagaji and whatnot in places like Katapesh, Absalom, and Nex, with a few outcasts and runaways in places like Kaer Maga and the River Kingdoms.

To everyone at Paizo: I hope you have a very Merry Christmas!

And thanks for the gift of Krampus the Christmas Goblin.

The book looks and sounds magnificent; and add me in as one more vote for more on Iobaria.

Eric Hinkle wrote:

Three questions:

1) What information do they have on the place of kitsune in Tian society and culture? Are they regarded s monster or spirits, or more like the nonhumans of Avistan (i.e., as odd-looking and acting people, rather than divine servitors)?

Kitsune get along well with elves and samsarans, but are well-known to be tricksters amongst the other races and in mixed societies they often just pose as humans in order to avoid dealing with their reputation among the other races.

Thanks for the kitsune information.

2) Can nonhumans from Avistan like dwarves, gnomes, and such be found as natives in Tian Xia?

You can find all of the core races and the new ones from Dragon Empires in Goka as well as humans of any ethnicity. Dwarves, gnomes, halflings, and orcs do not have any homelands in the Dragon Empires and there do not appear to be any areas populated by these races in the book beyond Goka. Nonhuman races are less widely known about in the Dragon Empires the further you get from Goka. Tianjing is a homeland for the Aasimar, the Tengu have Kwanlai, the Kitsune and Kami have The Spirit Forest, the Samsarans have Zi Ha, the Hobgoblins have Kaoling, the Wayang are most populous in the northern isles of Minata, the Elves have Jinin, the Oni rule Chu Ye, a Kraken rules Wanshou, the locathah and other aquatic races have Xidao, and the Naga and Nagaji have Nagajor. Beyond that, not too much is revealed about nonhuman societies in the Dragon Empires is written so far.

Wow, it sounds like nonhumans have more nations for their own folk in Tian Xia than they do in Avistan or Garund.

And a homeland for Aasimar? That sounds like a great idea! I hope we also eventually get to see one for Tieflings as well.

3) How much information do we get on their "Southeast Asia", the River Kingdoms of the nagas and the like?

And thanks for the questions you've already answered here.

Nagajor, Dtang Ma, and Xa Hoi are the main nations with a SE Asia flavor and like all the others they get one page devoted to each nation. Also, Minata could count as having that flavor as well, but I see them as a mix between that and the Philippines when I look for an analogue in the real world.

Nagajor is the kingdom of nagas as you can tell by the name. Xa Hoi is a nation ruled by dragons and is one of my personal favorites. Dtang Ma is ruled by a group of five sorcerers of different bloodlines that rotate rulership between them every ten years (another of my favorite nations). Minata is a wide mix of different island cultures with cannibals, demon worshippers, headhunters, and a floating city of pirates thrown into the mix. The northern islands are actually the remains of a Krakatoa-like volcano.

Xa Hoi and Dtang Ma both sound very cool from this description. And Minata sounds like the classic Java of old adventure stories, which is good.

Thank you for your detailed and very helpful reponse, sir.

Eric Hinkle wrote:

Three questions:

1) What information do they have on the place of kitsune in Tian society and culture? Are they regarded s monster or spirits, or more like the nonhumans of Avistan (i.e., as odd-looking and acting people, rather than divine servitors)?

2) Can nonhumans from Avistan like dwarves, gnomes, and such be found as natives in Tian Xia?

3) How much information do we get on their "Southeast Asia", the River Kingdoms of the nagas and the like?

And thanks for the questions you've already answered here.

1)Kitsune seem to be viewed as pretty much just another non human race ala elves/dwarves what have you ...though there seems to be a disproportionally high rate of them (and samsarans) being taken as slaves by the more evil aligned nations. It seems that they have an almost gypsy/tinker/artist colony image on the whole with the positive and negative stereotypes associated.

2)I only recall one nation listing a quantity of avistan based races and that was Goka which seems to serve as "The Gateway to Tian Xie" for the majority of the world. There is the elven nation as well though that is pretty much only elves by the sound of it.

3)Same as the rest about a page. Heavy jungle and sawmpland, mysteriously inscrutable purposes from the naga leaders and a population of fairly servile nagaji. Apparently has a caste system of some form or other.

any help to you?

Yes, it's all very helpful, thank you.

1) Kitsune taken as slaves? Given what I've read of them in real-world mythology, this sounds like a good way for said slavers to end up dead or insane.

3) The caste system sounds about right, given that (at least in our world) the nations of that region were influenced as heavily by India as by China.

So far, it all sounds very good!

Ooh, magic items and spells based on real-world Icelandic legendry? I know what I'll be getting during this sale.

New languages: Hon-La, Hwan, Minatan, Minkaian, Senzar (language of the Kami), Nagaji, Samsaran

Eep, first we get some Fey speaking Aklo with its Lovecraftian associations, and now the Kami speak this? I'm beginning to wonder if Golarion is part of the Dreamlands.

Each nation gets a page of information. There's a multi-page timeline. There's a section on the zodiac and one on society. There's information on each Tian ethnicity. There's sections on foreigners and nonhuman-races in Tian-Xia. There's a page for each of the 5 new races.

Is there anything in particular that you all are interested in hearing about?

Three questions:

1) What information do they have on the place of kitsune in Tian society and culture? Are they regarded s monster or spirits, or more like the nonhumans of Avistan (i.e., as odd-looking and acting people, rather than divine servitors)?

2) Can nonhumans from Avistan like dwarves, gnomes, and such be found as natives in Tian Xia?

3) How much information do we get on their "Southeast Asia", the River Kingdoms of the nagas and the like?

And thanks for the questions you've already answered here.

I almost peed when I saw giant skunk, giant porcupine, and giant vulture.

Shouldn't that be "The Giant Skunk pees when it sees you?"

And this book looks absolutely amazing. Really, the only thing it lacks is Earth Ponies to go along with the Unicorns and Pegasi we got in the first Bestiary (I'm kidding, mostly).

I like these just for the extra info about the holidays, for my home game.

I second what Dark_Mistress said here. I enjoy these little tidbits of world background.

Silly question time: would it be possible to fight this thing by sticking it in a Bag of Holding before it blasts you? Then, afterwards, you can send the Bag to one of your hated enemies and let them play with Bob the Skull.

The Boogeyman is an evil Fey creature that looks like an evil clown(It) from I have been told anyway.

Doesn't that line imply that there are non-evil clowns?

But more seriously, I am truly looking forward to this book. Especially so for the new information on divs, rakshasa, demodands, etc.; as well as the updated and all-new monsters.

Hmm, the bogeyman? While I'm sure it will be a great monster, I kinda thought that niche was already taken, courtesy of the bugbear. And I wish someone would use some of the bugbear variants from Classic Monsters Revisited in a story or game.

I remember a homebrew adventure where the PCs killed one demilich without overly severe casualties. They started congratulating each other -- and then a panel opened in the ceiling and four more demiliches dropped out right into their laps. Ah, such memories.

I liked this product, and expanded on it in a short article in Pathways #10, "The Fleshgrafter's Foe." I'd be interested to know if you felt that this article was useful--and Pathways is free!

Thanks,

Ron Lundeen

I have the PDF and I read the article, and I think they go great together. I especially like the new fleshgraft and the potential it brings in for complications and enemies of the Lovecraftan sort. Sometimes it seems like writers forget that treasures often belonged to someone before the PCs got them, and that someone may have friends or enemies who want to find out how you got that piece of property.

Heck, for a truly creepy feel, you could have the former "owner" of a fleshgraft showing up to reclaim it from you.

From the sound of the name and the look of the illustration, I'm guessing this comes from Aztek / Mayan myth?

I think this was inspired by the Tzitzime, the Star Demons, who were winged women with skull-like faces and massive fanged jaws who descended to Earth during eclipses to devour humans.

I hope that one day we get to see a monster version of Tezcatlipoca as the Haunter of Graveyards, in which form he was a giant, headless skeleton, his viscera dripping blood and gore, and with his ribs hanging open to reveal his rotted but still-beating heart. The only way to defeat him was to walk up to him fearlessly and snatch the heart from his chest. Oh, and try not to get killed in the process.

Got it! Love it! Even better, I do believe I have successfully reverse-engineered the Kitsune Character Race from one of the NPCs.

The Ja Noi is the only oni entry in this issue's bestiary. The other entries are all kami.

The new NPC ally introduced in this issue does not get a romance score.

We get our first look at a Kitsune? Now I gotta get it -- okay, I had to get it in any event, but now it's a case of 'Before I buy any other Pathfinder books'.

So now that the book has been out for a little while, I have a few questions to ask for those folks who've already gotten their copy, or have read through the pdf while it's in the mail. I've been wanting to write a book like this for oh, forever, and so suffice to say I'm absolutely desperate for feedback: positive, negative, or otherwise.

So a few questions:

1) Among the new daemons in the book, which are you favorite and why?

2) Which of the Horsemen/Archdaemons are your favorite, and why?

3) What more regarding daemons/Abaddon do you want to know more about?

4) What part of the book in general did you like the most, and likewise what part of the book did you not care for (and why especially for the last one)?

Feedback here on the boards or if you want to roast me over the coals and not do it in public for something or another, you can email me any comments are fiend@laughingfiend.net

:D

1) The Erudaemon, simply because "evil seducer" isn't something I would have associated with daemons given their MO in Golarion/Pathfinder. But now that it's been done, I'm left wondering why I didn't see the logic of it before.

2) Trelmarixian, because (a) I like wild canids, even when they're horrors from Abaddon, (b) he has such a well-thought out backstory, and (c) his sphere of influence is so very broad considering that he's primarily about Famine; so he rules cancers and such as well? But doesn't that lead to problems with Apollyon?

As for archdaemons, I'll have to go with Vorasha, both because I've seen the art of her elsewhere and because she sounds so very creepy. Venomous animals creep me out, and that's what she does.

3) Hoo boy. Right now I can't think of much beyond more information on how the daemons interact with the NE deities and the divs.

4) The chapter on how mortals interact with daemons is very good. I liked the information on daemonic cults, especially how they often hide themselves behind facades of "freeing the weary and wounded from their terrible lives", as well as "Why would anyone even remotely sane worship something that wants to destroy everyone and everything forever?"

And the Souldrinker PrC is great. Not to mention the new "Summon Daemon" spells.

The bad? As always, the book could have been longer for my money -- but more seriously, the short two-page sections at the start of each chapter were rather hard to read. This is true of the first two Books of the Damned as well. For some reason the combination of the print and the color of the page make the words hard to discern. Mind, at the same time they're some of the most flavorful sections of the various books!

That's about all I have right now. I hope we se more from Mister Stewart, on fiends and other topics.

Eric Hinkle wrote:

I will definitely be getting this; hags are some of my favorite monsters.

And just how much longer is the Black Friday going to last?

Dec 3rd or 5th if I remember correctly not positive but around then.

You have until midnight on December 5th. :)

Thank you, both of you.

I will definitely be getting this; hags are some of my favorite monsters.

And just how much longer is the Black Friday going to last?

Gorbacz wrote:

*cough*

Ninjas were here

*cough*

I was just going to post that here! For those of you who are wondering, Gorbacz is linking to a PDF preview we did through Game Trade Magazine. I think there are six new monsters in that preview PDF (actually, turned out to be four, thanks for checking on me guys!). Enjoy!

-Lisa

And here is the link for easy reference.

That's one impressively ugly troll there. He's so very Norse!

And yay for non-insanely evil (but still dangerous) aberrations/Lovecraftian horrors in the Race of Yith. This is going to be a GREAT book!

Threeshades wrote:

The Alraune's description reminds me of a scene with Poison Ivy from Batman & Robin.
And isn't Alraune the German word for Mandrake?

Yes. Yes it is. Here's the lowdown on alraunes-as-monsters...

There was a German novel titled "Alraune", in which a mad scientist uses a mandrake as the animus to create a human being, due to the legend that mandrakes grow from the ejaculate of a hanged man. The mandrake-child rapidly grows up into a young woman who uses charm and seduction to wreak havoc. Sort of a fable about the perceived dangers of female sexuality with a botanical twist.

In the late eighties/early nineties, Japanese video game developers looking to populate their dungeons with weird monsters discover this novel (which has several film adaptations, all of which somewhat obscure). Rather than making the alraune a woman born of a plant, they make her a giant plant with a woman growing out of it. I think the first alraune-as-monster was in a Castlevania game, but I'm not sure; they've cropped up in a ton of franchises, including Breath of Fire, Tales Of and even Final Fantasy.

And now you know.

I thought I'd heard the word "Alraune" before. And now I wonder if that's an Alraune that Kyra is facing in the art included with Kingmaker #6 with the article about the First World.

So we're getting a write-up for Marsh giants? Huh, I didn't think they were that popular.

I do hope they settle on just what illustration to use; I vastly prefer the slimy gray-skinned savage from RotRL #5 to the potbellied Deep One from Bestiary 2. Though I suppose the latter is one of the brineborn.

Seoni is never overused.

Earth Pony/Pegasus/Unicorn Chimera oh man I can not stop laughing on that one.

Someone's been reading the weirder MLP:FiM clopfic, I see.

And I'm not too worried about Seoni, the poor sorceress could probably use a book off.

I am more interested in the Oni bloodline then the archtypes anyway.

Well, if you simply must have a game-balanced Oni bloodline for sorcerers, then Rite Publishing has one in their Wyrd of Questhaven PDF. It's also in their big In the Company of Monsters PDF, along with about a thousand other amazing gameable tidbits.

And hey, right now they're on sale!

I have one question here: the Enforcer gets a Talent at level 3 and every four after that. Could it work to shift that first talent to level 2 and then keep it to the normal "one new talent every 4 levels" so that you get the new talents at levels 6, 10, 14, and 18? That way you could avoid "empty" character levels, which Paizo usually tries to stay away from.

And thanks to everyone at Super Genius Games for all their work on this PDF and for the November sale!

Eric Hinkle wrote:

Lastly, with the Varki: are they supposed to be more like the Inuit/Eskimo, or the Finns?

Finns.

Our Inuit analog ethnicity is detailed in Pathfinder #51; they're called the Erutaki.

Thanks for clearing that up. Hm, what with the long-awaited news on the Ulfen and Tians, as well as the all-new Varki and Erutaki, you're introducing a lot of new races and cultures with this AP and its support material.

Nevermind Fafnheir has Regeneration 20(cold iron)

I agree with you nighttree

Aslo if you want to know James Jacobs told me that the Adlets are CR 10 monstrous humaniods.

Adlets ??? I have not run into them yet....where are they mentioned ?

Heine Stick wrote:

They are first mentioned on page 19 and there's an awesome illustration of one on page 21.

Found them :) I had seen the picture, but assumed it was an irresen winter wolf or something like that.....

Why oh WHY is Infuse Effigy not listed as a Witch spell? ....it oozes witch :(

Darn, and I was hoping we could get a non-evil and hopefully PC-playable race of wolfmen. Still, the adlet look amazingly cool, and thank you Paizo for including them and the magnificent art of one.

And I agree on Infuse Effigy; I'm making it a Witch spell myself.

Lastly, with the Varki: are they supposed to be more like the Inuit/Eskimo, or the Finns?

Monkeygod wrote:

I just read the Nightstalker entry in Undead Revisited the other day, which was also written by Todd Stweart.

I ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT!!!!

and if BoD3 is even half as good as that entry, this is going to be an utterly amazing book that will devour all our souls :)

I'd glad that you liked that one. I actually think I had more fun with the Devourer entry in that book, but it was a blast to work on both.

Please accept a "I love it too" vote from me for your work on the Devourer. You made them even greater than they were in 3.5's Dragon "Ecology of" article.

And while I wait with baited breath for the book to hit the stores, can someone please taunt me by letting me know what new daemons show up?

Oh yes, I also like the idea of a "daemon of eating people alive". It's the return of the Creeping Terror!

Eric Hinkle wrote:

The adventurers now have their own island and port, but they’ll need more than one ship to defend it. They must scour the harbors and docks of the Shackles to recruit more ships and more crews to their flag.

Hmm, this sounds kind of like Kingmaker, which suddenly makes me want to get my hands on this AP whereas before I was more lukewarm about it.

Well... in the interest of managing expectations... this is NOT "Kingmaker on a boat." There's not going to be much at all of "empire building" in the vein of Kingmaker in this AP.

I should have emphasized that it sounds "like" Kingmaker in the sense that the characters become leaders and have to gather followers and the like.

The adventurers now have their own island and port, but they’ll need more than one ship to defend it. They must scour the harbors and docks of the Shackles to recruit more ships and more crews to their flag.

Hmm, this sounds kind of like Kingmaker, which suddenly makes me want to get my hands on this AP whereas before I was more lukewarm about it.