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I need help with a PC who wants to run a Druid of Sheela Peryroyl, the proficiency Herbalism from Second Ed D&D translates into what in Pathfinder 1E?
Caedwyr's suggestion of using the appropriate skill for what you want to do, and flavoring it as herbalism, might be the best bet. Craft (alchemy), Heal and / or Knowledge (nature), or, if you want to do it as a daily job, Profession (herbalist), perhaps (although you might make more money using Craft (alchemy...)).
There's also Herbalism which is kinda awesome, although painful if your player has their heart set on a furry friend / animal companion. Wis 16 gives me 3 free potions of 1st level Druid spells (like cure light wounds) *every day?* Yes, please!
How about the proficiency for Agriculture? Profession Farmer?
Knowledge (nature) or Profession (farmer), again, depending on whether they want to make a daily job of it, or just have some relevant knowledge left over from a childhood / church training on the farm.
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Yeah, Knowledge (nature) seems like the right choice.
In other news, I want a pickle themed alchemist AT for a goblin alchemist NPC / foe for a game.
His outre powers are going to involve;
A) extracts made entirely from pickled stuff (he's got a 'fire breath' spell that requires an extract made from fiery chiles, radish chunks and meat from a gland from a fire breathing lizard, a concoction that is strangely flavorless and bland, all of it's 'heat' absorbed and transmuted alchemically into the fiery breath weapon the drinker produces).
B) 'pickled punks,' tiny creature embryos suspended in little pickle jars that he flings down within 30' and form over the next round into full size beasties from the summon nature's ally spell list (except for elementals, he can't create elemental embryos in his workshop, 'cause they ain't got none). During the round of growth, they have only half hit points and cannot attack, writhing around and growing to their full size (and counting as one size class smaller, to a minimum of Diminutive, for AC purposes), but after that, they function normally for their creature type.
C) he can throw, instead of fiery bombs, bombs of pickle juice that act as if they had the acid bomb discovery, plus he has a discovery to make them extra rank, nauseating the primary target and sickening those splashed.
He can't learn the fiery, icy, whatever bomb discoveries.
The path of the Mad Pickler What Pickles at Midnight is a hard one and accepts no diversions.
Obviously this isn't meant for a serious game. :)
Monstersdownthepath on tumblr has a wonderful alchemist homebrew for a goblin pickler called the Brinesmith! It has good acid fume bombs and the ability to pickle itself in combat.
https://monstersdownthepath.tumblr.com/post/175964457025/homebrew-archetype -brinesmith
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Hey Set. No real requests, I was just fanboying in this thread again, thought I'd just see how you're doin'.
Well, that's a long story.
Brain cancer. But 'the good kind' that's not really cancer, just a big honkin' tumor that had been there for decades, probably, and was slightly bigger than a golfball. It's mostly been removed now, and thank goodness for a government job and full insurance, I have zero medical debt. But also lost my voice, use of my right side (about 90% recovered), hearing on that side, and, most tragically, half the taste buds in my mouth. (Peanut butter, still yummy. Chocolate, tastes like mud. Like I said, tragedy!) :) The laundry list of other life-changes bores even me, but I'm actually doing okay.
So that's the short, short version.
Hopefully stuff with you is less 'interesting' in the ancient-Chinese-curse sense of the word? :)
Full disclosure I'm flagging a bit in my own creativity so I was re-reading some older stuff and this thread is SPECTACULAR inspiration fuel.
Yeah, I used to be just overflowing with ideas about Pathfinder. I remember that one Qadira-themed Wayfinder where I submitted *fifteen* articles, and poor Tim had to make a 'no more than three!' rule just for me. :)
These days the muse is more about comic books and Mutants & Masterminds, but still keeps me up nights with ideas!
My last PF idea was for a race of Babelspawn, which formed when some old researcher (Norgorber-worshipper, actually) stumbled upon secret texts that allowed him to work out some of the ancient 'words of creation' some of the gods had used in the creation of the world (in theory, he's got no real proof of that...).
In any event, they were definitely 'words man wasn't meant to know,' and they are *contagious.* Hearing the words spoken aloud, or reading them (and comprehending them, so being unable to read Celestial makes you immune to the written text!) infects you with a mania similar to a never-ending Barbarian rage when in the presence of those not infected with the word. When nobody is around but other infected 'Babelspawn,' they calm down and ransack any texts in the area, desperate to read anything to tease out more potential words of creation that they believe are hidden in *any* written texts.
Basically an infection that spreads by hearing it (or reading it), particularly affecting those who speak Celestial (or, to a lesser extent, Infernal, which is derived from it), and turns these, mostly physically non-threatening scholars and researchers, and then anyone else they spread it to, into babbling berserkers who want to kill you and read your stuff!
Other fun threads for inspiration fuel include some of the 100 things type threads, like the ones about variant Aasimar and Tiefling appearance quirks, or the 'Create your own Empyreal/Demon Lord/Archdevil' threads. I liked those a lot.
Hopefully you're staying safe and healthy. I think I've seen you on other threads so I think you're ok. If, though, you had any more fey or aberrant stuff laying around you wanted to share... *hopes petulantly*
Still around for now. I'm not doing PF2, so the creative urges aren't as fresh since I lack the mechanical know-how to translate my ideas into this game language, but I still enjoy the community and the setting.
The Babelspawn idea, above, could be easily adapted to an Aberrant thing, with Aklo being the vector language. (Fey seems less on-theme.)
At higher levels, or more unpredictably, Babelspawn clusters could be found with odd goods and materials. Crates of parchments, inks and quills. (The sorts of things a bunch of librarians might 'wish for' if they had a wishing engine.) Ornate non-magical armor and fanciful (but non-masterwork, and sometimes not-entirely-correctly-designed) weapons on everyone. Piles of clothing in outre styles and vivid colors. Hundreds of bottles of fine wine, all strangely identical.
Strange circumstantial evidence that *some* Babelspawn has actually gotten these 'words of creation' to work...
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Wow! Just glad you've recovered as much as you have and I hope more health and wellness in the future sir. Also Babelspawn are, of course, an amazing idea!
Thanks. I forgot to mention until I was at work later that the 'cure' for being infected with the 'words of creation' is a Modify Memory spell. And, hopefully, not to hear it again. (If you know you are going to face them, stopping up your ears with wax, like Oddyseus with the sirens, is a good solution.)
Mutants and Masterminds/comic book stuff huh? Where can your fans stalk you for that kind of discussion?
Sadly Green Ronin.com recently shut down their forums, so I'm still looking for a decent place to land. Echoes of the Multiverse has a few of the old gang, so I'll probably head that way, eventually.
I was always a Marvel Super Heroes guy myself. Tried V&V back in the 80s, also did the Paladium supers stuff, TMNT, Big Eyes/Small Mouth, and a couple other comic book type games, but always came "home" to Marvel.
Yeah, I also started with Villains & Vigilantes (the game that taught me math...), then GURPS Supers, Aberrant and Mutants & Masterminds. Now looking at Icons, which is a very simplified game, compared to most, with a cartoony house style, but looks fun.
Anyway, seriously, I'm glad to hear you're recovering. Thank you for all of your "stuff," in this thread and elsewhere.
Thanks as well. You've had some fun ideas as well, on the Flora & Fauna thread, to name just one that I can remember off the top of my head. (Your idea in the 'what do intelligent monsters do all day of an entire tribe of mites cranking out tiny leather armors and crossbows with spider poisoned bolts was wicked!)
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Random thoughts on a Magaambyan NPC I'll never use;
Garylkyr 'the Garylith'
Priestess N’dulu had never quite reached the savage heights of power and influence that she felt she’d long deserved, and hatched a scheme to drag her weak-minded Bekyar followers into a fresh war against the soft people that crowded their border and defiantly fished the seas just beyond their reach. She lacked the power to bind a demon to this world to lead her people into glorious victory, but with a ritual she had found, she could bring one for just one night, for a sacred purpose. The joining was grueling, but she tolerated weakness in none, least of all herself, and eight and a half months later, after a birthing as bloody as any battlefield, delivered herself of a half-demon child. Exhausted, she remained conscious long enough to smile a red smile at the infant’s six flailing arms, lusty cries and flailing serpentine tail, so like his dread father.
Against all predictions, she regained at least some of her strength, enough to feel despair and rage as the weeks became months and the thing she’d labored so hard to bring into this world failed to prove the mighty and terrible half-demon champion she’d wished for. The child had demonic traits, it was true, but hardly the strength, savagery and innate spellcraft she’d sought in a warlord meant to unite the fractious tribes and inspire them into greater fervor for the glory of great Angazhan. Indeed, the child, for all his fearsome appearance, seemed little better than a lowly tiefling! She was as savage as the beasts of the jungle, as unrelenting as the storm, as unforgiving as death itself, hoping ever to beat into this wheezing disobedient soft-headed child the strength and glory of his demonic heritage, and so awaken the demonic powers of chaos and destruction, the rage and lust for carnage she knew *must* lie within him, just seeking to be called forth, like to like. He learned in that time the arts of war from the savage berserkers, to channel his anger and frustration into powerful violence, as well as to draw upon the chaotic forces in his blood, to work demon sorcery, in the tradition of his people, to rattle bones and inflame passions.
It was his thirteenth year of this torment that Garylkyr, so accustomed to standing still and quiet, hoping his wrathful mother would forget his presence, overheard her plotting with a quasit that served her how she would ‘salvage’ what she could of his demonic blood, mating him to a succubus she would call forth, in hopes that at least this grandchild could finally be the demon-blood Bekyar warleader of her dreams. He knew that she would spend days in ritual purification to summon such a servant of Angazhan, and he waited until she was busy in her preparations before seizing up the messenger pouch he had born to deliver her proclamations to neighboring tribes (for she had never told those around how much she despised her weak son, counting on his fiendish appearance to deceive others into thinking she greatly honored them, to send a personal message in the hand of her half-demon firstborn) and left in the night. Seeing the beaded pouch, none stopped him, thinking him on some task for his powerful mother, and he moved quickly across the Bekyar border territories, until he reached the sea, where he threw his pouch into the water and then joined it, taking to the water as only a strong young man with six arms and a serpent’s tail could.
He quickly had to abandon most of his belongings, useless impediments in the water, keeping only a gourd of fresh water, the masterwork scimitar his mother had begrudgingly gifted him after learning to channel his rage, and a pair of daggers. He swam towards the northern lands, knowing that he was leaving Bekyar-haunted waters far behind, following the current ever north, keeping the shore in sight on his right. He knew not the dangers of the ocean, nor of whatever distant shore he would land upon, but feared them less than returning to his mothers’ wicked dream of being mated to a demon, in the hopes that his blood might be more useful to her than he had been. He never even saw what bit him in those dark waters, and washed up on the beach delirious and near-death, to be found by an old blind woman and the simple young man who served as her eyes on her morning rambles.
“It’s a fish-man, Auntie! But he has many arms, like a spider, a spider-fish!” Ife cried, looking to Auntie to see her reaction and judge if he should be scared or curious. She seemed more curious than afraid, and he led her to the still body. She had thought that Ife had perhaps poorly described a dead grindylow, in his simple way, or worse, a grindylow that was not quite yet dead, but upon feeling the boy’s arms and serpentine tail, she knew that she had found something quite different. She also found the wound on one of his many arms, swollen and hot with venom, which even without eyes she could tell by smell and feel was from a sea snake’s bite, and she sent Ife running back to her home to fetch her healer’s kit.
And so Garylkyr awoke in the hut of the woman he only ever knew as Auntie, for no one in the village seemed to remember her actual name. The former midwife had delivered more than half the adults and all of the children in the village before a fungal infection took her sight, and she had sharp words for any who tried to convince her that she could not harbor this demon-thing from the sea in her home, striking with her walking stick to crack the shinbone of any, headman or priest, who spoke out of turn under her roof, until they threw up their hands and muttered angry empty useless words, before leaving her to her madness.
Months passed, and soon the villagers stopped making warding signs against evil when he slithered along the beach, Ife in tow, chattering away happily, and it was Garylkyr’s interaction with the exasperating boy that finally eased their minds. Ife had always had a rare gift for doing exactly the wrong thing, getting himself into all sorts of dangerous situations that an ounce of common sense could have prevented. He had been assigned to ‘help’ Auntie as much for his protection, as hers, as left to his own devices, he would inevitably find trouble. And so, Garylkyr’s seemingly superhuman patience with the boy, earned him much respect with the people of the village.
Still, Garylkyr had power from his demon blood, his simple sorcery being used almost furtively, as he feared then source of his power, that it was a thing of chaos and wickedness, with a will of its own. Auntie told him that was ridiculous. He used his gifts, however sparingly, to make their lives easier. Did that seem like a thing of madness and violence? She told him he needed to go to Magaambya, and learn to embrace his gift, but he balked, and she relented, not willing to give him yet more of the rejection that he had known so much of his life. Only after a rogue ape, maddened by the taint of Angazhan’s ‘blessing’ had to be killed by the villagers that he realized that the agents of his mother did not have to be Bekyar, but even a simple monkey in the trees could have a wicked mind and pass word that would reach his mother that a six-limbed serpent-tailed youth had been seen not far from Bekyar lands. Even if such a day never came, he could not sleep under Auntie’s roof knowing that he could bring doom in his wake, and he agreed to travel to Magaambya. “But Auntie, what if my doom follows me there? Her rage is mighty…” “To storm Magaambya itself? Oh dear boy, your mother had better bring her demon-god with her, and even then, I do not think she would win!” Auntie scoffed. And so she sent word around, and found a few potential students were passing near soon enough, to go to the great school, and Garylkyr met new faces. A half dozen Zenj looked upon him with wide eyes, and made the expected signs against evil, muttering prayers and brushing circles in the dirt with their sandals. He tried to look unintimidating, and forget that he had tasted the flesh of their kind as a boy. Two figures he did not recognize, a boisterous male and a female with a penetrating stare, were of the Matanje, and he found his first kindred spirit on the journey to Magaambya, long before reaching that place, for T’suq, the louder and more sociable orc, was also a demon-blood sorcerer, pointing to the tiny hornlets at temples, cheeks and chin, “Although not nearly so much demon-blood as you! Hah!” T’suq exclaimed, in that energetic way of his. His possible mate, it was unclear to Garylkyr their exact relationship, since neither of them seemed jealous of the others flirtations, was named Rakar, and was, like Garylkyr, both a student of the blade and the spell, although something of a scholar as well.
A year in Magaambya brought about many changes.
Garylkyr pestered his sponsor, an Amurran sorceress with angel-blood, wishing to know if he could somehow transmute or replace his demon-blood with angel blood, and become a celestial sorcerer like her. Rayomi Mir, who had spent her childhood a ‘divine gift’ in a temple of Bast, exploiting her heavenly light to cozen offerings of coin from the gullible, and engaging in petty theft and confidence games, assured Garylkyr that the blood of angels does not carry any innate knack for virtuous behavior, and that his own demon blood likewise does not carry a curse of destruction. “Your anger is your own, not something you can’t control, something forced upon you, but a choice you have made, and you must learn to control. No blood in your veins will master your rage. You must take responsibility for your temper, and master it yourself, or continue to blame it on your blood, and be mastered by it.”
He also has learned that while sorcerers cannot readily call upon the healing gifts of priests, they can sometimes ‘trick’ a scroll of such magic to work for them, and seeks to master this knack, so that he can purchase a scroll of priestly magic to cure blindness, and travel to the Bonuwat village he has decided is his home, and give Auntie back her eyes. (He is less sure if restorative magic could help Ife find the wits he seems to have misplaced, but is willing to give it a shot.)
Finally, he has noticed entirely too many of his fellow students pairing off, splitting up, and pairing off anew. An endless swirling dance, some partners always in each others orbit, others changing with the season. There are a very few Bekyar at Magaambya, tall and lean and radiating the intimidating and unfriendly aura of his people, but they speak not to each other, let alone him. The Iruxi are quiet and relaxing to be around. So long as he does not speak, he is welcome to sit with them in the sun, and enjoy a companionable silence. But he wants more. He wants to join the dance. Only his Matanje friend T’suq seems to have the will (or courage?) to flirt with him, and he remains uncertain what Rakar would think of that, with her hot-eyed judging looks.
Another Bekyar would recognize his name as not being a Bekyar term. T’suq, conversant in the tongue of demons, recognizes the word ‘garylkyr,’ which the orc refuses to call his friend, instead cheekily calling him ‘the Garylith.’
His mother finally gave him that name a month after his birth, when she had determined that he lacked the powerful demon blood she sought. Garylkyr is the Abyssal word for ‘disappointment.’
[Garylkyr is an Abyssal tiefling with all sorts of extra bits. Six arms (and the multiweapon fighting feat). A serpent's tail instead of lower legs (20 ft. ground move and the dwarven slow and steady trait, as well as a 10 ft. swim speed). A broad chest and powerful lungs. (Can hold breath three times as long as normal. If demon sorcery is a bust, he'll make a hell of a pearl diver!) 1 level of Barbarian, 2 of Abyssal Sorcerer. Weapon Focus (scimitar) among his feats. Tail lacks the flexibility to constrict others or be used as a weapon, but does make him immune to being tripped, at least! He's not meant to be a PC, so his having six arms isn't that big a deal, particularly with his low level and unexceptional attributes, lacking all the 'oomph' that comes with an actual half-fiend's bennies. Oh, and even his human side is scary, 'cause he grew up a casual cannibal (which he's totally over, being good aligned by choice)... He's quite possibly the oddest student that PCs will see slithering around the Magaambya!]
Always good to see you.
Random thoughts on a Magaambyan NPC I'll never use;
Garylkyr 'the Garylith'
Garylkyr is the Abyssal word for ‘disappointment.’
HEY!!!
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HEY!!!Random thoughts on a Magaambyan NPC I'll never use;
Garylkyr 'the Garylith'
Garylkyr is the Abyssal word for ‘disappointment.’
I needed a name that worked with 'Garylith,' because my mind is like 80% wordplay, dad jokes and terrible puns.
And his mom is named after one of the 'Type VI demons' from the 1st edition Monster Manual. 'Balor' was one of the other name choices.
My brain, such as it is. :)
I kept coming up with more whacky details, I had to prune them. The Ant Gnoll students and their Napoleanonic complex, and the Taralu Draconic Sorcerer being super generous and not at all territorial, and being more proof that blood is not destiny were not necessary to present the character. :)