Mythic Monsters 8: Abyssal (PFRPG)

4.70/5 (based on 3 ratings)
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The eighth volume in our Mythic Monsters series, Mythic Monsters: Abyssal brings you a dozen and one Abyssal abominations from the deepest reaches of those infinite layers, where demons rightly fear to tread. Here you will find the eldest and fatherless qlippoth, the proto-demons spawned when the universe was young and that set in motion the devouring awfulness that is the Abyss itself. You will find also the demodands, godless mockeries forged by the cruelest titans, thwarted in their ascension to true divinity and raging against the heavens through their fiendish creations. Still other prowlers and predators of the plane of chaos and evil roam here, numbering twelve in all and updated for the mythic rules, and when we say updated we mean complete stat blocks, yes, but more than that every creature of chaos and emissary of evil has its own unique and exciting new mythic abilities, from a mythic baregara's terrifying challenge and beheading grapple to the faith-stealing strike and where is your god now abilities of a mythic noble slimy demodand!

This product includes mythic versions of all three types of demodands and five qlippoth, along with planar predators like the baregara and bebilith alongside deviant monstrosities that carry the tainted corruption of the Abyss with them into the material plane, like the terrifying kakuen-taka, covering CRs from 3 to 23. In addition to a dozen existing otherworldly foes, Mythic Monsters: Abyssal also contains an extensive in-character introduction to the warring and fiend-races of the Abyss in general, and the binding of the terrifying qlippoth in particular, with special runestone rituals for the binding of each. To top it all off, Mythic Monsters: Abyssal introduces an entirely new 13th mythic monster, the demon-devouring vermicious horror that is the ylrygoi qlippoth, ever on the hunt for the hosts in which to implant its shoggti tadpoles with its waving throng of stinger-necks akin in appearance to a headless hydra, if its heads were made of deadly scorpion's tails!

The Mythic Monsters series from Legendary Games brings you dynamic and exciting mechanics alongside evocative and cinematic new abilities that really help creatures live up to their flavor text, whether they are creatures of real-world myth and legend or creatures born out of the RPG tradition itself. These creatures can work just as well in a non-mythic campaign as they do in one that incorporates the full mythic rules, as you can throw them at your jaded players who think they’ve seen it all or know the standard monster stats as well as you do. That look of surprise and “What was THAT?” will warm any GM’s heart.

Download this 40-page mythic monster supplement today, and look forward to future releases in the Mythic Monsters line.

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An Endzeitgeist.com review

5/5

This installment of Legendary Games' Mythic Monster series clocks in at a massive 40 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 2 pages introduction to the product line, 1 page advertisement and 1 page back cover, leaving us with 32 pages of content, so let's take a look!

After a short introduction to the matter at hand, we are introduced to an extremely cool introductory text that serves as a frame narrative - essentially a lecture on a newly discovered species of qlippoth, before we are introduced to options available for those who want to conjure forth these antediluvian threats of evil - including a new way with the so-called qlippoth talismans (in case the sacrifice of pregnant women is not an option for your vile villain...) - no less of 10 such talismans are provided and they essentially make calling these dread beings via summon-spells possible. Neat!

After this cool supplemental material, we kick off with the respective creatures - Baregara get a mythic version of CR 15/MR 6 that has truly devastating grapples (including a maw that consumes targets, automatically dealing damage on grapples, which they can maintain one-armed, and also providing AoE-demoralizing. Essentially, all basic abilities have been upgraded to be more lethal - nice.

Second would be the CR 13/MR 5 mythic bebilith, and these foes are even better at dismantling foes armor (including natural armor) and their rotting bite is truly devastating. At CR 23/MR 1o, shaggy demodands are terrifying forces indeed - blocking any channeling in the vicinity (unless the target succeeds a very difficult save), these are mythic monsters at their best, taking a relatively bland base creature and slapping a vast array of signature abilities on the creature - towards a more concise monster concept, that one being the anathema to divine casters. Two thumbs up and kudos for improving the base creature like this.

The Mythic Slimy Demodand at CR 20/MR 8 can add stun as insult to injury (when foes bleed and take acid damage...) and even highjack channeling and temporarily sever divine casters from their powers - better yet, said duration can be further expanded with the aptly-named "Where is your god now?" - glorious and once again a HUGE improvement over the relatively bland base creature. AT CR 16/MR 6, the Tarry Demodand is slightly less awesome, but continues the theme of anti-divine outsiders, but their sense of faith and entangling tar-like secretions make them powerful hunters - including an anti-divine smite.

Need something at lower levels? CR 4/MR 1 mythic howlers have quills that drive those embedded with their quills insane and furthermore, heal via drained sanity. Evil! TA CR 18/MR 7, the Kauen-Taka can ROT THE EYES OF THSOE THAT SEE THEM. That's damn creepy even before their carrionstorms get mythic templates added... As a minor complaint - the mini-statblock for flesh-mansion-less Kakuen-Taka could have used a better formatting/some highlighting. But then again - mere presence induces hallucinations? Animating flesh piles and withering plants? This one is disturbing indeed! And while the base creature was awesome, unleashing eyeless hounds and killing foes at short range via ethereal hails of soul splinters round out an epic creature indeed.

Speaking of which - AT CR 15/MR 6, the Chernobue Qlippoth may be a cool upgrade, but in direct comparison to the former critter, it falls a bit flat. Then again, cythnigots-spawning poison is cool - that might be the Qlippoth-fanboy speaking... Speaking of which - these clock in at CR 3/ MR 1 and their spore-infested wounds can entangle, even entrap targets! Cool and rather lethal low-level mythic threat that works well in that context. The Nyogoth (At CR 13/ MR 5) can attach itself to targets via its intestinal limb bite attacks and upgrades the acid spray with poison - neat!

AT CR 9/MR 3, the mythic shoggti no longer just clouds the minds of foes - it can now utterly dominate them and even stun those subjected to its wis-draining powers. OUCH! Have I mentioned that breaking targets free of the control may see them attack you in a murderous rampage? Yeah - nasty, indeed! The CR 19/MR 7 mythic Xacarba learn to mix their poisons (Yes!) and even spray them over an area - neat improvements of the base creature!

Finally, at CR 16/ MR 6 we get the Mythic Ylyrgoi - huge, hydra-like, multi-stingered monsters studded with countless shrieking maws and eyes. This creature is brand-new and oh boy - an aura that reduces gestation periods of infections, parasites and diseases, improved demon killing, stingers that regenerate, insane reach, egg-implants - utterly disturbing and oh so awesome - its signature abilities taking up more than 1 full page - that does not count the statblock! Add to that the extremely awesome artwork and we have a truly glorious beast here!

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are top-notch, I did not notice any glaring glitches. Layout adheres to Legendary Games nice 2-column full-color standard and the two pieces of original artwork by Ivan Dixon are awesome indeed, with the new creature's artwork taking up a whole page so you can show it to your players. Now, layout-wise, like Mythic Monsters before, this one has some blank space at the end of one monster's entry, which is nice if you just want to print out one, but also means that printing this out is slightly more wasteful on the paper than it could be. It's a matter of preference whether you prefer this or a more "cluttered" approach, so that won't feature in my final verdict. Now what does feature in it would be the glaring lack of bookmarks, which renders navigation more difficult than it ought to be.

Jason Nelson, Tom Phillips and Alistair Rigg provide a glorious collection of uncommon abyssal foes - and deliver in spades. You know, mythic can be often taken as a bland "faster, harder, wider"-contest and yes, some creatures can be seen as a relatively straight progression. The vast majority of abyssal threats in here, though, is not content with such a treatment, instead developing the base creature, often into something truly distinct that works so much better than the base beast - with signature abilities emphasizing niches and foci of the monsters herein, there is not one critter in here that has not been massively improved, with the abilities of demodands and their thus much tighter focus making them my favorites in here and, perhaps for the first time in ages, actually DISTINCT. The new qlippoth is one glorious beast as well, and were it not for the lack of bookmarks, this would be immediately 5 stars + seal of approval. Their lack means I'll refrain from putting my seal on this, but still consider this one superb purchase that any DM who thinks the players should FEAR the denizens of the abyss should get - even if only to scavenge signature abilities...of which there are soooo many...

Endzeitgeist out.


It a little crowded down here where the dark things crawl

5/5

Once again I find myself confronting the menagerie of mythic madness that is the Mythic Monsters Line (that line seems a little odd to me.) And once again I sit here very impressed by the creativity involved and the grasp that Legendary Games has on the mythic rules.

This time we are treated to 40 pages 9 of which are covers, advertising, contents etc. As I’ve grown to expect the PDF is once again easy to navigate but again lacks bookmarks for true ease. I didn’t notice typos or significant errors. Abilities, skills, feats etc. are hyperlinked to the SRD so people without an encyclopaedic knowledge of the system can easily reference what these things do.

It is up to Legendary games usual high standard of presentation. The artwork is very sparse, with only 2 pieces; the cover art reprinted inside as full page image without intrusive text (and it is a very nice piece), and the new Qlippoth (also a really nice piece).

Before the 13 monsters we get 8 pages of fluff and crunch. The story in this one is a very entertaining key note style speech on the new Qlippoth while the crunch part concerns the conjuration of the Qlippoth (why would you do that?) . More specifically it introduces Qlippoth talismans – curious shards of stone that help in conjuring and controlling the ancient evils (Again, why would you do that?) as well as protecting you from their often debilitating horrific appearance. Great item for your evil nogoodniks and a fantastic little plot item.

Creatures: OK now for the real textural ingredients in the Abyssal salad of Doom. As usual these creatures span a wide range of CR (from 3 – 23) and MR (from 1-10) and all present what I think is a good challenge for their CR; menaing that base stats and abilities are as you’d expect; higher AC, HP, etc bringing them in line with the adjusted CRs. Mythic feat selection adds to each creatures ability with few, if any, sub-par choices. But as always it’s those unique mythic abilities that define the mythic creature and as I said in the introduction I think Legendary games has truly mastered the concept. Here we get 13 great creatures with abilities that really set them apart from their mundane counterparts. Some favourites:
Baregara: I have a soft spot for these ginger, ape-like denizens of the Abyss. Pathfinders vision and artwork for them is extraordinary and really captures the brutal alien nature of these terrors. Now we get a mythic upgrade. Their challenge now affects all opponents in 30’, demoralising or frightening them and enhancing their STR and DEX even more. Their huge arms they don’t even gain the grappled condition if they latch onto you, and even worse should you experience that loving cuddle the wee mouth in their chest can now behead the non-mythic – yeah that’s right they have a cool vorpal chest mouth!

Mythic Bebileth: As a DM I like these because of their armour rending ability. Well that now extends to natural armor. They have the ability to assess weaknesses in a foes natural armour and exploit these to bypass that natural armor all together! Oh, it also now has mythic pounce. Yeah get that image in your mind – a huge, barbed abyssal spider pouncing at you from the shadows, as an arachnophobic I find that hideously creepy and a little too close to how I picture all spiders in my phobia induced delirium.

Demodands: Thankfully all three of the established ones are here (sadly not the new stringy demodand though). Their mythic abilities are truly awesome. As befits their background these bitter enemies of all things divine gain a suite of powers aimed at countering and destroying those with divine power. Auras that prevent the use of channel energy, souls so blasphemous divine spells can barely touch then, and attacks that can actually prevent a creature from using its divine spells and spell-like abilities - shattering its faith and briefly severing it from the source of divine power. Players will want to deal with these bad boys fast, oh so very fast…

Kakuen-Taka A personal favourite, these walking hives are a very cool addition to the game. Massive fleshy homes to swarms of flesh eating fiends that spew forth flights of undead carrion birds. And now they are mythic. The carrion birds they spawn are far more ferocious and constantly molt decaying feathers to create an obscuring cloud of decay wherever they go. Worse still the mansion can now spew forth a pack of hunting hounds that range ahead looking for flesh for the hive to prey upon. Simply seeing the massive hive approach can render you insane, willing to claw out your own eyes to remove the image of awfulness that is the Kakuen-taka. The Kakuen-taka is one of the most memorable creatures I’ve seen in recent years and it’s mythic version is pure gold.

Qlippoth We also get 5 Qlippoth treated to the mythic upgrade including the new Yrylgoi. All are very well crafted but the newby takes the cake. The Yrylgoi is enormous hydra-like worm that seeks to destroy demons and infest their corpses with its young – eggs that hatch into ravenous Shoggti. It possesses a terrible aura that accelerates the course of disease and infestation and a myriad of awful sticky tongues that can draw opponents in or be severed to hold them in place. It is a truly awful, and thus delightfully grotesque, creation.

The creatures in this book are all well thought out and developed, with abilities that render each appropriately mythic and truly memorable. I cannot recommend this enough to anyone that is interested in using foes from the abyss. Your players will remember these encounters for a very long time, they may even lose a little sleep.


Shadow Lodge

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder PF Special Edition Subscriber

Yay. Bought. My wrath just became more mythic.

Scarab Sages RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games

Hope you enjoy this one as much as you did Inner Planes! Review AHOY!

Shadow Lodge

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder PF Special Edition Subscriber

Well so far so god. Although I have to say of everything in there I think it will be the Demodands will really, really upset my players. They have some very nasty powers. Oh well, looks like Wrath of the righteous just became a lot nastier, he, he, he

Scarab Sages RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games

"so far so god"? Ironic turn of phrase when talking about demodands... :)

Scarab Sages RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games

Thanks for the review Sasayaki! The Mythic Monsters series is a little bit of a different kind of bestiary, and I'm glad you loved the content on both fluff and crunch.

I'll check in with layout about the artwork resolution; the pieces looked fine on my screen and in the print copies I got from CreateSpace.


Reviewed first on Endzeitgeist.com, then submitted to NErdtrek and GMS magazine and posted here, on OBS and d20pfsrd.com's shop. Cheers!

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