Thrilled to see this up and available! I'm interested to see how the adventure is received.
-Ben.
I.. don't suppose there's any way for those who bought the original to get a discount on this one? Looks really good from the previews.
My apologies if I missed this in the description. Is this a hardcover or softcover book? I purchased the original version and the expanded version sounds amazing!
This new version is a hardcover.
Fantastic! Sold!
Can anyone give some insight into the linnorm options?
There are several new types of draconic essence that represent different types of linnorms, and as I recall (I'm not looking at my copy at the moment) they don't get wings and instead get a different natural attack (a gore, I think?), much like the eastern dragon essences. There are also a number of draconic gifts that allow linnorm-type taninim to get some of the other interesting abilities of linnorms.
Overall, having read through most of this book, it looks like a pretty solid update and expansion of the original In the Company of Dragons. There are a few editing issues, but by and large it's good stuff.
I believe that there are some curse-related draconic gifts for the linnorm essences. I'd have to look again (I skimmed them, didn't read them in-depth).
Sorry if I seem dense but I want to make sure I'm ordering the hardcover book. Is the $24.95 for the hardcover book, PDF or both? It seems a bit cheap for both but when I add it to my cart it only shows up as a PDF, not a bundle.
Thanks in advance for any clarification!
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Sorry if I seem dense but I want to make sure I'm ordering the hardcover book. Is the $24.95 for the hardcover book, PDF or both? It seems a bit cheap for both but when I add it to my cart it only shows up as a PDF, not a bundle.
Thanks in advance for any clarification!
This is PDF only. Paizo will specifically call out Hardback or Hardback and PDF if there's an option for the hardback.
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Part II of my review:
Scaled Juggernauts are essentially taninim fighters specializing in combat with their natural weapons, gaining rake and pounce at higher levels, as well as better defenses. Stormclaw magi are a natural weapon-based tweak of the magus-engine, combining that with draconic essence. Trueblood Sorcerors are locked into the draconic bloodline, but receive a scale-spell-component that replaces material components/divine foci and replace regular bloodline powers with a breath weapon. The wardrake war master archetype replaces consul with better Diplomacy with dragons and may even get a dragon cohort later. Followers may have the drakeling template added.
White Worm Apostates, oracles tainted as undragons, receive degrees of fortification and may disgorge a swarm of consuming, maggot-like worms and later, rise as a twisted phoenix from their corpse 1/day - a very powerful archetype that absolutely *requires* the immense social stigma associated with the white worm to be added to the campaign. Amazing one, though!
Now here is one aspect of the book that is slightly annoying s far as I’m concerned: The player-facing material is split to a degree: The psionic dragon-chapter penned by Jeremy Smith is basically an appendix at the back of the book, which is, organization-wise, not ideal – we get, for example, psionic class support for use in conjunction with the draconic hero general archetype, requiring page-flipping. Similarly the draconic exemplar racial paragon class sports psionic support here, with 5 psionic essences for dragons, which doe interesting things, like e.g. tying the breath weapon to active energy, or providing cryptic support; we also get a new array of even more draconic flairs based on psionic powers – weird formatting decision: While functional, they are not presented in the same table-style manner. A total of 6 different draconic defenses may be found here, which include a dream shroud, negative energy resistance, astral suits, a buffer versus psychic enervation, a nightmarish mind and the option to attune to attacks after suffering them, gaining DR versus the creature’s weaponry from that source. We also get a massive 20 new draconic gifts that include astral cages, being right at home in astral or shadow plane, gaining cryptic insight, dream surges, bursts of ectoplasm and a scaling, cool mastery of oneiromancy. Beyond these massive expansions to the core features, the chapter also contains 3 new archetypes: Psychic warriors can elect to become black dragon heralds, locking them into the feral path, which is further enhanced. The bonus also applies to acid-damage-causing damage-rolls. Instead of the secondary path power, we get exhalation of the black dragon, which may not be changed out. 12th level yields claws of energy and 15th level breath of the black dragon. The gale dancer would be another psychic warrior archetype, gaining a draconic essence if the character doesn’t have one; the archetype also comes with its own path, which focuses on aerial combat mastery and basically pounce while flying for psionic focus expenditure as soon as 3rd level – OUCH. The archetype also nets better overland flight and 12th level yields all the unique dogfighting techniques we expect – death spiral, hovering…pretty neat. 15th level provides further adaptation to airborne assaults as well as yielding the ability to form shape and solidity of clouds. The third archetype would be the winged horror dread, employing terrors via claws and natural attacks and the tapping into the terrifying draconic weaponry; bonus feats and draconic gifts complement this one. A total of 6 psionic feats complement this section for e.g. temporary fast healing for psionic focus expenditure, with a hard cap. Rerolling Will-saves via psionic focus expenditure, but only versus non-dragons and options to increase the potency of the new options complement this section. We also get 5 favored class options for psionic classes. (Ultimate Psionics can be found here!)
The second player-facing chapter relegated to the back of the book deals with Rogue Genius Games’ Dragon Riders/Dracomancers – Since Taninim are similar, but different from the classic draconic threats, the book provides one archetype for either class: The Spirit-Bonded Rider and the Spirit-Bonded Theurge – these two focus mainly on modifying the base class engines to account for the taninim ally, modifying e.g. bonus spells etc.
Thirdly, there would be a massive chapter penned by none other than Jason Nelson of Legendary Games, and the chapter is glorious: Some dragons once were overcome by the Elder Voices, making the eldest of these titans the cairna drakh, the First Fangs; in recent years, the younger glorven muun have risen, a new generation of mythic heroes. While the default assumption of the Lost Isles is that mythic powers are restricted to NPCs, the material herein is extensive. If you do go the NPC-route, be sure to pick up Legendary Games’ superb Path of Dragons and Path of Villains, but that as an aside. In addition to notes for PCs within the context of the Lost Isles, we also receive notes on mythic hoards and lairs and more than 3 pages of mythic modifications for the racial paragon class, including augments and meaningful changes. Beyond that, we get no less than 18 different mythic feat-upgrades for the material herein and beyond, making these adversaries really, really deadly. I love how this section ties deeply into the captivating lore presented in the book.
All right, now I’ve already mentioned time and again the Lost Isles mini-campaign setting, gorgeously mapped by none other than Tommi Salama in full color. The islands, sheltered behind the mystic barrier, sport an absolutely GORGEOUS map and more detailed looks at the respective islands are covered – this whole section acts as basically a massive gazetteer of different regions: There would be Borealis, land of ice and snow, where the glasslike aurora coral grows; rugged and mountainous Earthspine sports the majestic Windscour Cliffs and the small fireflower islets and the ones known as jetsam promise more adventure still; war-torn Stormhome calls to the brave, in spite of its foreboding skies, the earth lush and rich, maintained by draconic might…and wooded Verdance is home to the feykith, human settlements and may well be refuge if you manage to hassle the powers-that-be…and, of course, there would be the festering wound that is the Well of Oblivion…but I touched on that before. The Lost Isles breathe the spirit of high fantasy in the best of ways, providing glimpses at unique vistas that may well have carried their own book; as far as I’m concerned, I’d love to see this unique tie-in setting developed further.
The role of regular dragons in the setting is btw. also covered, and we get a chapter on the unique magic items that may be found herein – several of which would be barbules, which are implanted in the thick draconic hide, allowing e.g. weapons to be treated as dancing. The downside to these potent implants is that they cause permanent damage while implanted. Really cool for big dragons – with the proper barbules, you can generate a missile-deflecting shield, guarding allies within your space with a powerful 75%, non-stacking miss-chance. Ability-score boosts and spell storing is also included in the deal…and if you’re afraid that the big dragon won’t accompany his allies into dungeons, well, there is a collar that allows for compression. Class ability enhancers can also be found and the eye of elemental focus allows the taninim to form breath weapons into fireball-like blasts. The steelrain war howdah also rocks and yes, there are vambraces to duplicate the standard benefits of unarmed damage escalation. Even better, we actually also get Elder’s Pixane, a legacy item collar. Legacy items are Rite’s scaling magic items, just fyi. What begins with a basic defensive item becomes pretty amazing pretty fast. Now, as noted before briefly, there is a CR +1 drakeling template and we get 2 new critters: At Cr 8 and CR 11, the Screaming and Whispering Entropy, respectively, horrid clouds that can exsanguinate and possess targets, tied into the rich lore of the setting.
Okay, so the book has another chapter that made me smile from ear to ear: This book is, in fact, also a Dragon-NPC-Codex of sorts. Why should you care? Simple. When someone asks me for the best NPCs in the 3pp-circuit, my response is usually to list a whole variety of Rite Publishing books first; the complex and challenging builds are what, a long while back, led me to become a fan of Rite Publishing. So yeah, we don’t just get some standard codex stats, we get fully developed characters…and not any characters either, mind you: We get full stats of the Elder Voices, and they are EPIC. Take e.g. “Darkened and Bloodied”, the mighty draconic hero war master wardrake: This lady clocks in at CR 22/MT 5, and she will mess you up – if not with superb tactical acumen, then her ridiculously potent physical tricks. Beyond here, we get to know the most accomplished spellcaster of the isles, the mighty green sorcerer Gardener; Heart of the Mountain; Infinite (includes an artifact); Winterglide (again, with unique item) – none of these sport less than CR 20 and guess what? They come with stats sans buff-suite as well. Beyond these mighty demigods, we get 10 mighty dragons of note, including the narrator of this missive, Thunders in Defiance – and yes, the stats are pretty complex and diverse. This one is pretty epic. Beyond this aspect, however, we also get the rules to make undragons and an archetype for the jotun (see Rite’s In the Company of Giants) – the race sports a pretty cool tie-in with the tale of the taninim, putting a spin on the classic giants vs. dragons-conflict.
Okay, so this also includes an adventure intended for dragons of level 1, guiding them up to level 6. The adventure is billed as a scripted sandbox and comes with, once more, gorgeous full-color cartography by master Salama. Even better: We get player-friendly versions of the maps in the back AND high-res jpgs of them for VTT-use. Dear publishers, please take note: This is how it’s done. When you have amazing maps, make sure that players get to see them sans secret door markers, keys, etc. Kudos to the Rite team! Oh, I didn’t mention the most important thing, did I? Guess who wrote it? None other than Ben McFarland. If you have any kind of experience with adventures, this alone should be enough t make you grin. Oh, and guess what? The adventure is not some brief 10-page standard supplemental adventure – we’re looking at a proper, full-length module. The adventure takes place on the volcanic island of Pani Ura (explorable via hex-map!) and deals with taninim granted a fiefdom there. Years passed, no sign remained. Sounds familiar? Well, one way to think of the module is to consider it a reclaiming of a Roanoke-like aftermath, through the lens of a brilliant writer and high fantasy.
Want to know more? Well, sure, but for that, I’ll have to go into SPOILERS:
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..
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The taninim PCs are sent to Pani Ura by none other than Raging Tide, to figure out what happened on Pani Ura and to secure the island for the taninim – which is depicted as a hex that contains tribal lands, wilderness, villages – etc. Heck, we even get entries for subaquatic animals noted, for the PCs will need to sustain themselves; the island is inhabited by several tribes: The Maohi, who btw. are the native grippli (yay for frogfolk!); the Otsjanep tengus; the Pu’oku locathah and the Saissut iguana-lizardfolk; all of these tribes come with notes on their settlements, sample statblocks, story seeds and potential threats/developments. Similarly, there are several threats the PCs will have to contend with – like the interaction with the tribes, these threats are tied into the environment and can be used in a pretty freeform manner by the PCs. After establishing contact, it will be up to the PCs to unify the island: Seeds for the dealing/negotiations with the respective tribes are provided and ultimately, the PCs will have to explore the old taninim lair within the dungeon of Pani Ura. The dungeon comes, once more, with a superb full-color map and the locations sport read-aloud text here as well. It is here that the PCs will have t deal with taninim that have been utterly corrupted, as well as a body-jumping menace that was foreshadowed before. Once the PCs have defeated these foes and destroyed their tainted idol, they should have managed to consolidate their rule, right? Well, no. Unfortunately for the PCs, crusaders have found the island; the crusader’s ship is fully mapped and the invaders are hostile, belonging to an order dedicated to the enslavement and eradication of all dragonkind. Usually, those guys would be potential allies for PCs…but this time around, the PCs unfortunately are the dragons. If the PCs are smart, they better prevent the escape of the vessel and defeat these fellows…but this is not the end. The order won’t just take a loss; instead, they send really potent, really nasty folks atop the mighty Drake’s Misery, a fully statted vessel, armed to the teeth…and if the PCs don’t intervene, the crusaders will deal serious damage to the island…let alone the PCs… The literally only thing I didn’t love about this great module is that I have finished it; while the replay-value is huge, I wish this was a full campaign. I mean, seriously, the defending the isle angle is great!!
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are excellent on a rules-language level; on a formal level, I noticed a couple of minor, purely aesthetic hiccups, missing blank spaces and the like, but less than you’d expect from a tome of this size; in this category, I’d consider this to be good. Layout adheres to Rite Publishing’s classic 2-column full-color standard and the pdf comes with a ton of amazing full-color artworks. The cartography is excellent and in full-color, comes with player-friendly versions and even high-res Jpgs for VTT-use. The pdf-version comes fully bookmarked for your convenience. The massive hardcover is really neat and well worth getting.
Wendall Roy’s original “In the Company of Dragons” was a “squaring the circle”-sort of file; on one hand, he had to capture the power of dragons; on the other, there had to be some sort of balance. He succeeded in a truly impressive manner. This expansion, then, represents a massive evolution and refinement. We add Steven D. Russell’s draconic flairs as basically a whole sub-engine; well-done psionics by Jeremy Smith; kickass mythic support by Jason Nelson and a masterclass adventure by Ben McFarland. Sounds like an all-star team? Yeah, well, it is.
Beyond the mega-impressive chassis and the subtle, unobtrusive balancing that prevents the worst potential combinations, this oozes flavor and flair; the prose is stellar and the mighty NPCs can carry whole campaigns. The added details to taninim culture and Lost Isles is a joy to read and radiates creativity and heart’s blood. The adventure is unconventional, creative and amazing and the supplemental material otherwise never goes the lame route, instead opting for creative and unique solutions.
The Lost Islands are unique enough to carry a campaign by themselves, but please indulge me for a second, for this book made me come up with a pretty cool idea: So, you know how PCs often are supposed to “save the world”? Or, when evil, lose in the finale, à la Way of the Wicked? Well, what if the evil guys don’t lose? What if the PCs get squashed by a certain, unleashed Worm-that-Walks, what happens when the comet-summoning ritual isn’t stopped and the world as we know it ends, nations fall, gods follow? When darkness claims the world, for the PCs have failed and been TPK’d? Here’s an angle: A few mortals managed to escape to the taninim and the Islands remained. In the aftermath of the downfall of deities, divine energy was released. Now, if you take the rules from Purple Duck Games’ Dragon Thanes of Porphyra, you can do something cool: The latter book assumes that dragons, with enough followers, can learn to grant divine spells to followers! The new PCs could thus be a single taninim with his followers, attempting to become a new good deity of sorts, guarded by the other mortals, in a world that has fallen…or all PCs could be taninim, using the universal leadership rules from Everyman Gaming’s Ultimate Charisma; they are basically a new, draconic pantheon in the making, as they venture forth to bring hope to a defeated world! Come on, can you honestly not be excited by this idea?
Anyways, the fact that I mentioned this angle should tell you how excited this book made me. Yes, I freely admit it. I go review-bot whenever I have to deal with the notion of playable dragons and focus on the crunch, the fluff and turn off my personal biases. As a private person, I don’t even LIKE the notion of playable dragons. I consider it to be a horrible idea in most games. I rated the original version grudgingly, with respect for the design and vision, but no truly pronounced desire to use it, as my games tend to gravitate towards grittier playstyles. This book changed that. Not only did the crunch duly impress me, the whole vision, the setting, the cool NPCs…there is an incredible amount of love poured into this book, and it shows. This is one of the tomes, where the synergy of evocative prose, unique crunch and a daunting vision coalesce and form something greater even than the sum of the parts. In short: This is pretty much the definite option to play dragons. It oozes passion from all of its pages. My final verdict will clock in at 5 stars + seal of approval and the book is a candidate for my Top Ten of 2017. If the notion of playing dragons even remotely intrigues you, then look no further.
Reviewed first on endzeitgeist.com, then submitted to Nerdtrek and GMS magazine and posted here, on OBS, etc.
Endzeitgeist out.
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Wait they said Linnorms where is rysky? Doesn't that automatically summon her?
Alright, has to be asked... How do the listed NPC Taninim manage to keep their Dex so darn high? Any Taninim I've made has had absolutely terrible Dexterity by the end of game!
By not dumpstatting Dexterity just because it's going to get reduced by 6 or 8 at 20th level.
Most of the NPC personages started with a 20-point buy for ability scores. The lower-level NPCs don't have as much Dex hit from dracomorphosis yet, while the Elder Voices (and other Colossal-sized movers and shakers of the Lost Isles) invest heavily in barbules of physical perfection to shore up their weaknesses.
(I mean, when you're CR 22/MT 5 with an effective Dexterity of 8, including a +6 enhancement bonus, I wouldn't say your Dex is darn high.)
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Part II of my review:
Humbled by such a glowing review... thanks as always for taking the time to provide comprehensive reviews to the 3PP PFRPG community!
What happens if I start with, say, 7 (or lower) Dex because my group uses die rolls for stats and I didn't have a good stat to spare?
The intent was always that it couldn't lower Dex below a 1.
I already ordered the hard copy and I got the PDF to look through in the mean time! is or are their going to be more hardback versions for other In the company of lines?
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Delighted to see this so well received. :D
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Delighted to see this so well received. :D
The super-dope dragon adventure included in the book is a huge contributor to that.
So is thier any guides to help with dragon exemplar character creation. Their is a lot of options in this book. Also I feel their is still room for a lot of dragon abilities that didn't make it in.
cricket: *chirp chirp*
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Just downloaded this last night, will put up a review at some point.
So is thier any guides to help with dragon exemplar character creation. Their is a lot of options in this book. Also I feel their is still room for a lot of dragon abilities that didn't make it in.
I don't know that it's been out quite long enough. I had players who just dove in and tried making a few characters. I also allowed them to change things up if something didn't work as they expected.
I think most of the in the company of dragons material has been out in PDF form for awhile now. The hardback is just new well and some of the added on content.
So is their no silver dragon flair? I've looked over and over and can't find it.
This one is not very active i'm noticing.
3rd-party product discussion threads are rarely very active. You take the already comparitively small number of people who get on the Paizo forums, divide that into the number of people who are on the Paizo forums and are interested in third-party products, divide that into the number of people who are on the Paizo forums interested in the specific product, and then divide that into the number of people who bother to look at the product discussion thread for that specific product, and you get a very small number of people.
And while there has been In the Company of Dragons for a while, the expanded version is a *major* expansion that would invalidate any previous guides, so no, you can't really count on the fact that it had been out for a while for people to have made guides. I don't really see many guides for 3rd-party material, anyway, due to the before-mentioned small userbase issue.
I suppose your right. Didn't think about it like that. Well just in case someone pops by has anyone seen the flair for the silver dragon I might just be somehow over looking it but I keep reading over and over not finding it.
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@Vidmaster7:
I *think* I may clear up the confusion, but I am talking out of my own behind here.
Back in the day, Steven (Rest in Peace) designed these, and I recall talking with him about disposable dragons and how much I loathed the 3.X "slap half-dragon on everything"-phase. In that conversation, we talked about the themes of dragons, and Steve told me that he envisioned silver dragons as the paladins of the species, subject to easier corruption because of their compassion for lesser races. This *could* mean that he deliberately did not write a silver flair, envisioning them more like draconic knights.
That being said, it is actually not that hard to extrapolate the draconic flair design paradigms from the list of dragon abilities and the ones presented in the book.
If I do that, I arrive with the following draconic flair for silver dragons:
1st level: detect evil
7th level: detect gems (as locate object, but can only be used to locate gemstones)
10th level: feather fall or fog cloud (3/day)
13th level: wind wall (3/day)
Hope that helps!
I just purchased this since I decided that I'd rather have *actual dragons* as a playable race in my campaign than yet another half-dragon race. Still evaluating the rules however. My one concern so far is that the playable dragon race is much more complicated than the standard races, but I guess this is what you have to do in order to make dragons playable and balanced.
Just curious, does anyone have any experience running a campaign with a mix of dragon and humanoid characters using these rules? Are there any balance issues that I'll have to worry about?
@Vidmaster7:
I *think* I may clear up the confusion, but I am talking out of my own behind here.
Back in the day, Steven (Rest in Peace) designed these, and I recall talking with him about disposable dragons and how much I loathed the 3.X "slap half-dragon on everything"-phase. In that conversation, we talked about the themes of dragons, and Steve told me that he envisioned silver dragons as the paladins of the species, subject to easier corruption because of their compassion for lesser races. This *could* mean that he deliberately did not write a silver flair, envisioning them more like draconic knights.That being said, it is actually not that hard to extrapolate the draconic flair design paradigms from the list of dragon abilities and the ones presented in the book.
If I do that, I arrive with the following draconic flair for silver dragons:
1st level: detect evil
7th level: detect gems (as locate object, but can only be used to locate gemstones)
10th level: feather fall or fog cloud (3/day)
13th level: wind wall (3/day)Hope that helps!
Ah thanks a lot. Good insight.
@Matrix Dragon:
That's the beauty of the Taninim - the race is distinctly a FULL dragon - you can pull off basically everything, from linnorm-y curses to the tricks of the more common dragons. All the things dragons can do, taninim can do as well - the numbers are adjusted for balance, obviously.
As for complexity: The class is much more complex, yeah, but that's a system-immanent issue when attempting to translate pretty much the strongest creature type into something that's playable and that should work alongside other characters.
As for balance, they are potent, but not to the point where they negatively impact the game, at least not in my tests. And yes, mixed groups work...if you are not overly restrictive for the other characters. If you play ItC:DE and Core only, non-dragons will suck, obviously.
I am personally partial to homebrewing ItC:DE with Purple Duck Games' Dragon Thanes of Porphyra and the "dragons age via worshipers"-rules posited there for such a scenario. So yeah, partial experience here. I found that mixed groups work rather well. Things that attack Touch AC will be the bane of the taninim and being a dragon makes foes antsy to attack them first or last (or generate ambushes). As long as your system mastery suffices, they should yield no issues. (And I'm confident in your abilities there, judging from posts!)
Hope that helps!
Cheers!
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@Endzeitgeist
Thanks for the detailed answer! Yea, the more I've read the book the more comfortable I've been getting with using it in a mixed race campaign. I'll just have to take each game slowly and make sure that the party balance seems right.
I'm not sure that the idea of "dragons aging via worshipers" works with my campaign, but I may take a look at those rules anyway.
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Thanks for adding a unbiased voice on balance, End. I labored (and obsessed and fretted to ridiculous levels) to keep things within the realm of sanity on both my personal work and on development for the additions to ITC dragons.
And re: silver flair, I 100% endorse End's suggestion.
3 games in as a silver dragon. I do not feel OP at all but strong for sure. I wish it was organized a bit better however every time I see a cool ability I want I have to go aww its for linworm... which isn't the kind of dragon I'm going for.