You Only Die Twice!

Thursday, November 12th, 2015

This is it folks—the final matchup round for our Bestiary 5 previews, and your final chance to get in your votes and a chance to win a copy of Bestiary 5!



Illustrations by Ben Wootten and Jose Parodi

Wyrmwraith CR ??

This ghostly, skeletal creature appears to once have been a dragon, but it is now something far less noble.

CE Gargantuan undead (incorporeal)

Init +16; Senses darkvision 60 ft., lifesense; Perception +38

Aura unnatural aura

Defense

Defensive Abilities channel resistance +4, incorporeal, positive energy transference; Immune undead traits

Weaknesses sunlight powerlessness

Offense

Special Attacks breath weapon (60-ft. cone, ?d? negative energy and 1 negative level), create spawn, ectoplasmic shift, energy drain (? levels, DC ??)

Statistics

SQ phase lurch

Ecology

Ecology any

Organization solitary or cadre (1 plus 2–4 dread wraiths)

Treasure double

Special Abilities

Create Spawn (Su) Any humanoids slain by a wyrmwraith become dread wraiths (Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 281) in 1d4 rounds. Spawn are under the command of the wyrmwraith that created them and remain enslaved until its death, at which point they become free-willed dread wraiths. They don’t possess any of the abilities they had in life.

Divine Dispelling (Su) When a wyrmwraith strikes a creature with one of its claws, that creature is also affected by a targeted greater dispel magic (CL ??th) that can dispel only divine spells.

Ectoplasmic Shift (Su) A wyrmwraith can push through the ectoplasmic veil to temporarily assume a physical form made of ectoplasm. As a swift action, the wyrmwraith can become corporeal for ?d? rounds. It can return to its incorporeal form as a free action. Once its ectoplasmic form’s duration ends, the wyrmwraith can’t assume that form again for ?d? rounds. While in ectoplasmic form, the wyrmwraith loses the incorporeal ability (including its deflection bonus to AC) and gains a +?? natural armor bonus to AC, DR ??/—, a Strength score equal to its Dexterity score, and the phase lurch ability. The AC for a typical wyrmwraith in ectoplasmic form is ??. When in ectoplasmic form, its attacks are Melee bite +?? (?d?+?? plus energy drain), 2 claws +?? (?d?+?? plus divine dispelling), 2 wings +?? (?d?+?), tail slap +?? (?d?+??).

Phase Lurch (Su) A wyrmwraith in ectoplasmic form can pass through walls or material obstacles. It must begin and end its turn outside whatever wall or obstacle it’s moving through. It can’t move through corporeal creatures with this ability, and its movement speed is halved while moving through a wall or obstacle. Any surface it moves through is coated with a thin, silvery mucus that lingers for 1 minute.

Positive Energy Transference (Su) Whenever a wyrmwraith succeeds at a saving throw to resist positive energy damage but still suffers damage, the wyrmwraith can immediately transfer that damage to any dread wraith spawn of its choice with ?? feet that it controls. The wyrmwraith takes any excess damage beyond the spawn’s hit points. Even if the wyrmwraith has no spawn under its control, when it succeeds at its save against a positive energy effect that normally deals half damage on a successful save, it instead takes one quarter damage.

The Wyrmwraith tore through the Deep Merfolk like me at a sushi bar, crushing it by a 2-to-1 margin to win. With a veritable host of abilities at its disposal, not to mention the ability to phase through solid objects, the Wyrmwraith is a mighty opponent, and not one to trifle with.

Pakalchi Sahkil CR ??

Thorny vines with tiny red flowers grow from this emaciated woman and flow like a train behind her.

NE Medium outsider (evil, extraplanar, sahkil)

Init +10; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, true seeing; Perception +13

Defense

DR 10/good; Immune death effects, disease, fear effects, poison; Resist cold 10, electricity 10, sonic 10; SR 20

Offense

Special Attacks bleed (?d?), entangling train, look of fear (?? ft., DC ??), spirit touch, sudden strike, thorns

Statistics

SQ easy to call, emotional focus, skip between

Ecology

Ecology any (Ethereal Plane)

Organization solitary, pair, or plot (3–7)

Treasure standard

Special Abilities

Easy to Call (Ex) Sahkils count as having 4 fewer Hit Dice (minimum 2) for purposes of spells or effects that call outsiders, such as planar binding. However, they receive a racial bonus equal to 1/2 their Hit Dice on Charisma checks to break free of planar binding spells and similar effects, and their spell resistance counts as if it were 5 higher for the purpose of breaking free of planar binding spells and similar effects.

Emotional Focus (Ex) Whenever a sahkil casts a spell or uses a spell-like ability or effect with the emotionUM or fear descriptors that allows a saving throw, the DC is increased by 2.

Entangling Train (Su) Creatures adjacent to a pakalchi must succeed at a DC ?? Reflex save or become entangled in its vines for ? rounds, and count as tethered. Entangled creatures take vine damage automatically each round they’re entangled. Creatures are no longer entangled if the pakalchi moves away. The save DC is Constitution-based.

Look of Fear (Su) A creature affected by a pakalchi’s gaze is panicked for ? rounds and shaken for ?d? rounds thereafter. A creature that successfully saves against this effect is only shaken for ? rounds. The save DC is Charisma-based.

Poison (Ex) Thorns—injury; save Fort DC ??; frequency ?/round for ? rounds; effect ?d? Wis damage; cure 3 consecutive saves. A creature with Wisdom damage from a pakalchi’s poison hears paranoid whispers warning of betrayal. It can’t treat any other creature as an ally or be a willing target for a spell or effect. This is an emotionUM effect.

Skip Between (Su) Many sahkils can shift between the Ethereal Plane and the Material Plane as a move action. This ability is otherwise identical to ethereal jaunt (CL ??th).

Spirit Touch (Ex) A sahkil’s natural weapons, as well as any weapon it wields, are treated as though they had the ghost touch weapon special ability.

Sudden Strike (Ex) Once per round, a pakalchi can extend the reach of one claw or thorned vine by ? feet as part of a single attack. It can use this ability to threaten additional squares to cause an enemy to provoke an attack of opportunity.

Thorns (Ex) A pakalchi can fling a volley of poisonous thorns as a standard action (make an attack roll for each thorn). This attack has a range of ??? feet with no range increment.

The power of cute was not strong enough to save the Lotus Leshy, and the Pakalchi Sahkil crushed it with the power of its floral arrangement. Against the Wyrmwraith, the Pakalchi's spirit touch will be a great aid against the incorporeal Wyrmwraith—but will it be enough?

Customer Service Representative Diego Valdez: "No contest, the Wyrmwraith wins. The Pakalchi may not be afraid of the undead, incorporeal, dragon because it is immune to fear, but it should be. It should be. A bit of damage resistance barely slows down a dragons jaws."

Designer Mark Seifter: "The pakalchi might have barely knocked off the lotus leshy, but she’s bitten off more than she can chew with the wyrmwraith. As she unloads her attacks against her foe, she finds that it’s basically immune to her entire repertoire, from fear, to mind control, to poison. Bet she wishes she hadn’t given up on that whole psychopomp thing now; she might once have been a morrigna, and then she would have stood a better chance against undead. The best thing she can do here is step between to run away and forfeit the match. Meanwhile, the wyrmwraith’s first breath attack has left her enervated and badly hurt. There’s no chance she’ll survive the wyrmwraith's full attack!"

Now that you've seen the entrants for the Final Round, head on over to the Voting Booth to place your bets! If you vote on a winning creature, you'll increase your chances to win a signed copy of Bestiary 5, or be one of four winners of a digital version! The third round of voting closes at 12:00 PM Pacific time on November 18th, 2015, and remember, each round will give you more chances to win!

Vote Now!

After a late night of journeying in the Wastelands, I'm gonna need a quad-shot, so here's a quad-shot of monster previews!


Illustrations by Wayne England, Jim Nelson, and Dave Allsop

Until we meet again,

Liz Courts
Community Manager

More Paizo Blog.
Tags: Ben Wootten Bestiary 5 Community Contests Dave Allsop Jim Nelson Jose Parodi Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Wayne England
1 to 50 of 55 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 8

2 people marked this as a favorite.

Go wyrmwraith!

Dark Archive

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Tough choice! I like the wyrmwraith's positive energy transference - gives it more of a reason to intentionally create spawn. That, along with nixing divine spells, could make this creature a headache for clerics and the like.

With all those emotion abilities and fear gazes, occult characters will rahter hate sahkils, it seems! Sahkils can better embody the "summon things at your own risk" trope rather well.
I'm still sticking with the pakalchi, but it's a close call.

Love the encantado art!


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Both of my picks were right! :-p

And awesome artwork as usual! Cool mythological pics!

Liberty's Edge

Wait, the Encantado is female?


Paladinosaur wrote:
Wait, the Encantado is female?

Encantado can be both female and male in the myth if I remember correctly, or people draw the Encantado female on google...

Scarab Sages

1 person marked this as a favorite.

The Pakalchi seems tailor made to take out that Wyrmwraith.


I voted for the Difficult-Named Lady.

Just because Dragons always win, and I think its time for a new-comer to take the prize this time.

While I really LOVE the Wyrmwraith, very cool skeletal/ghost dragon design, and one of my favorite dragons, uhm undead, as the undead group could really use some freaking non-humanoids :-p

Liz, I love you for posting the Akaname, Encantado and Papipapi (the blue guy with the torch and one eye, with extremely difficult name to remember)!!! Very cool pics! Even the Deep One (which don't really interest me that much) has beautiful artwork.


Huh, I was thinking the exact opposite. The wyrmwraith is pretty much immune to all the nastier things it can throw at it. Fear? Nope. Poison? Nope. Mind-control? Nope. What else is it gonna do?


And I have a question.

I'll buy the PDF as soon as it is available, probably don't even sleep and eat on Wednesday to download it as soon as it is available.

But what if I also WIN this competition, and are one of the 4 winners, but I already bought the PDF, then the prize would be in vain...

What happens then? :-p

Designer

Orthos wrote:
Huh, I was thinking the exact opposite. The wyrmwraith is pretty much immune to all the nastier things it can throw at it. Fear? Nope. Poison? Nope. Mind-control? Nope. What else is it gonna do?

I agree (hence my fight commentary). The leshy was also immune to the morrigna's specials, but it was a less formidable opponent than the wyrmwraith and would have had to win a battle of attrition against the pakalchi.


I voted against the Dragon in every round until now, as Bugs Bunny always says "If you can't beat them, join them"

Edit: of course I have a Bugs Bunny alias:-)


Dragon. No question. Only the drakes couldn't take this Sakil.

Editor-in-Chief

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Paladinosaur wrote:
Wait, the Encantado is female?

That example is.

When I ordered the art, I figured, why limit exciting encantado times to just one gender?


Papinijuwari is my new favorite creature in Pathfinder (sorry Alraune)

It looks so insane cool!

In my own project they become minions/right-hands for the Gaasyendietha/Meteor Dragons.

How could I not know that awesome Aussie myth creature before?


Going to have to give my vote to the sahkil. The thing is too damn cool not to. Can't wait to see the results, this thing has me ridiculously excited.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

sad that the deep merfolk didn't make it to the final round


Hold on, has it changed that voting for the winning monster increases your chance of winning the raffle, or has it always been like that? I don't recall that at all. All I remember is that the more you vote the better chance you have.

EDIT: I went back to the last post and that little tidbit of information is indeed there. Huh. Doesn't bode well for me that both the merfolk and the leshy lost!


The art is pretty rad. Especially the papinijuwari. The deep one hybrid is not exactly what I envisioned, but its's properly fishy. The encantando, though good artwork, seems really bizarre to me. I think I would've preferred it remained gender-neutral in appearance. Sure, have a female one, but the hair and breasts matched with the dolphin face kinda throw me off. That's to say I think any hair on a dolphin-faced head would throw me off.


Acolyte of Mushu wrote:
The art is pretty rad. Especially the papinijuwari. The deep one hybrid is not exactly what I envisioned, but its's properly fishy. The encantando, though good artwork, seems really bizarre to me. I think I would've preferred it remained gender-neutral in appearance. Sure, have a female one, but the hair and breasts matched with the dolphin face kinda throw me off. That's to say I think any hair on a dolphin-faced head would throw me off.

Did you misspell Bad or is Rad another word?

I wouldn't believe you find that Papinijuwari art bad.


Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Myth Lord wrote:
Acolyte of Mushu wrote:
The art is pretty rad. Especially the papinijuwari. The deep one hybrid is not exactly what I envisioned, but its's properly fishy. The encantando, though good artwork, seems really bizarre to me. I think I would've preferred it remained gender-neutral in appearance. Sure, have a female one, but the hair and breasts matched with the dolphin face kinda throw me off. That's to say I think any hair on a dolphin-faced head would throw me off.

Did you misspell Bad or is Rad another word?

I wouldn't believe you find that Papinijuwari art bad.

Rad is short for Radical. Which is a compliment. It means cool. West Coast US slang, I think.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a wee-lad was the first time I heard it.


lol, never heard that word before, it is confusing to say the least :-p


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Nooooo! Lotus Leshy!
And there goes my last original pick. :(

Oh well. Wyrmwraith is pretty cool.

Liberty's Edge

1 person marked this as a favorite.
F. Wesley Schneider wrote:
Paladinosaur wrote:
Wait, the Encantado is female?

That example is.

When I ordered the art, I figured, why limit exciting encantado times to just one gender?

I'm excited about this one. Brazilian mythology is rarely used in RPGs. I hope that now that we have occult adventures you guys use african-brazilian religions like Umbanda and Candomblé as sources of inspiration =)


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Paladinosaur wrote:
F. Wesley Schneider wrote:
Paladinosaur wrote:
Wait, the Encantado is female?

That example is.

When I ordered the art, I figured, why limit exciting encantado times to just one gender?

I'm excited about this one. Brazilian mythology is rarely used in RPGs. I hope that now that we have occult adventures you guys use african-brazilian religions like Umbanda and Candomblé as sources of inspiration =)

We still need Cuca, Curupira, Capelobo, Mapinguari, Headless Mule, Minhocao, Boitata and Saci to make the most-needed-brazilian-stuff complete. Then we can have a Brazilian Mega-Parteee!

Add some Alicanto, Nguruvilu and Invunche to add to the South American flava's and voila, a South American Party :-p

Designer

1 person marked this as a favorite.

The curupira very nearly made it into B5, so it's definitely possible you might see it some day.


Same was said about the Inuit Mahaha, but we still didn't see it :-( (and probably we never will, this book only had 3 cold-based monsters and like 3 black oozes... something must be very wrong with the Mahaha that it didn't gained a spot over one of the black oozes)

Hope you are right about the Curupira, though the Kijimuna looks somewhat similar with the hair, so it could stand as a weird stand-in lol.


Go Wyrmwraith!! vengeance for Su!!! destroy the Pakalchi!!


It's easily the wyrmwraith. As others have said before me, the Pakalchi Sahkiln can't do anything to it besides use it's Ghost Touch weapons against the dragon....but who wants to go head-to-head in a physical fight against a dragon?


Xethik wrote:
Myth Lord wrote:
Acolyte of Mushu wrote:
The art is pretty rad. Especially the papinijuwari. The deep one hybrid is not exactly what I envisioned, but its's properly fishy. The encantando, though good artwork, seems really bizarre to me. I think I would've preferred it remained gender-neutral in appearance. Sure, have a female one, but the hair and breasts matched with the dolphin face kinda throw me off. That's to say I think any hair on a dolphin-faced head would throw me off.

Did you misspell Bad or is Rad another word?

I wouldn't believe you find that Papinijuwari art bad.

Rad is short for Radical. Which is a compliment. It means cool. West Coast US slang, I think.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a wee-lad was the first time I heard it.

I live in the Midwest, so not too sure about that. ^_^

Though I wouldn't know, and it's not like I use the word everyday, or even every week. I wouldn't be surprised to find its use much more prevalent in the West Coast.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
bigrig107 wrote:
It's easily the wyrmwraith. As others have said before me, the Pakalchi Sahkiln can't do anything to it besides use it's Ghost Touch weapons against the dragon....but who wants to go head-to-head in a physical fight against a dragon?

Good point, maybe some sp-like abilities?

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

The shift between could help her, with being ethereal and all.

Dark Archive

I feel wyrmwraith is kind of a lock on this one.


Dragon of course.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

That's the second sexiest dolphin I've ever seen.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Aww...I was voting for cute flower.

But I don't overly care either way. May the best monster win!


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I was Lotus Leshy all the way. ;__;

Paizo Employee Developer

6 people marked this as a favorite.

I had no fear that my creepy pakalchi would win against cute.

Now to just take down that silly undead dragon. Undead and dragons are usually both winners in gaming circles, so she's got a tough fight to contend with.


Mark Seifter wrote:
The curupira very nearly made it into B5, so it's definitely possible you might see it some day.

This is very interesting to me. I'd really like to see the Curupira at some point. Was it already written up, with stats and stuff, or simply on the proposed list of creatures?

Also, wasn't there a Squonk planned for B4? Its artwork (if I remember correctly) turned up online alongside the Roiling Oil's, so when the Oil was shown I had hoped that the Squonk had gotten in too. Is it likely that one will ever see the light of day?

Also, pure curiosity's sake here, but are there any other creatures, (particularly ones from the B5 wish list thread) that were strongly considered for the book that you feel it would be okay to mention?


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Wannabe Demon Lord wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
The curupira very nearly made it into B5, so it's definitely possible you might see it some day.

This is very interesting to me. I'd really like to see the Curupira at some point. Was it already written up, with stats and stuff, or simply on the proposed list of creatures?

Also, wasn't there a Squonk planned for B4? Its artwork (if I remember correctly) turned up online alongside the Roiling Oil's, so when the Oil was shown I had hoped that the Squonk had gotten in too. Is it likely that one will ever see the light of day?

Also, pure curiosity's sake here, but are there any other creatures, (particularly ones from the B5 wish list thread) that were strongly considered for the book that you feel it would be okay to mention?

I second this, I really would like to know that too!

Editor-in-Chief

Paladinosaur wrote:
F. Wesley Schneider wrote:
Paladinosaur wrote:
Wait, the Encantado is female?

That example is.

When I ordered the art, I figured, why limit exciting encantado times to just one gender?

I'm excited about this one. Brazilian mythology is rarely used in RPGs. I hope that now that we have occult adventures you guys use african-brazilian religions like Umbanda and Candomblé as sources of inspiration =)

South American mythology was definitely a sub-focus this time around. While the sahkil, have inspirations from there, the encantado, saxra, cerufe, and others (including a few that got cut for space) come straight from the myths of Peru, Brazil, and older legends.

Editor-in-Chief

5 people marked this as a favorite.
Wannabe Demon Lord wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
The curupira very nearly made it into B5, so it's definitely possible you might see it some day.

This is very interesting to me. I'd really like to see the Curupira at some point. Was it already written up, with stats and stuff, or simply on the proposed list of creatures?

Also, wasn't there a Squonk planned for B4? Its artwork (if I remember correctly) turned up online alongside the Roiling Oil's, so when the Oil was shown I had hoped that the Squonk had gotten in too. Is it likely that one will ever see the light of day?

Also, pure curiosity's sake here, but are there any other creatures, (particularly ones from the B5 wish list thread) that were strongly considered for the book that you feel it would be okay to mention?

The curupira got all the way to the end, but we weren't feeling the art. (Turns out that illustrating a little guy who runs fast with his feet on backwards is challenging to get just right.)

That's a factor worth pointing out. For all the monsters in our bestiaries everything has to be in The Zone: story, design, and illustration. If something slips, there's a strong chance the entry gets side-boarded. That doesn't mean it won't ever see the light of day, it just means that it's not right for the project du jour.

Then sometimes everything works perfectly and a creature STILL doesn't make it in. Take the roiling oil, for example. I ordered that guy for Bestiary 2. It's great art, it's a cool monsters, so why'd it take until now to slip in?

Take a look at your Bestiary. You'll see that there are, generally, two types of layouts: one pagers and two pagers—and two pagers NEVER split over a spread.

NEVER.

That's not by happenstance. Every Bestiary is a gigantic book puzzle. So if something slips, if a monster gets cut, if a name changes, if anything happens that reorders the book’s pagination by even one page, EVERYTHING slides. What that often means is that nothing dies alone. If one monster goes away, probably two monsters go away. Or something gets renamed.

That's part of what happened to the roiling oil. It got chopped from B2, got picked up for B3 then chopped again, never made it off the sideboard for B4, but finally found a home here... a half decade later. That's a lengthy example, but not the oldest (there's at least one oldie from Bestiary 1 who's never made it up to bat). It also happens to everyone. One of my guys for B5 got shuffled off because of the harsh realism of "We need to lose a book somewhere between 'Ho-' and "Ki-."

And that's just one harsh production reality.

Pffh. Bookmaking—am I right?

As for if there are other monsters that didn't make the cut or were seriously considered, etcetera: Of course. Dozens. There are well over a hundred rows on the "sideboard" tab of my Bestiary Monsters spreadsheet.

But it's okay, we'll either find spots for them down the road or assure that they keep good company on the Isle of Misfit Monsters.


Is that oldie from Bestiary 1 by any means the Ravid? Or the Digester? Or the Arrowhawk? (I don't think those Ethereal Creature make a chance)


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
F. Wesley Schneider wrote:
The curupira got all the way to the end, but we weren't feeling the art. (Turns out that illustrating a little guy who runs fast with his feet on backwards is challenging to get just right.)

Guy? You really should have used Emilie Ravin from the old Beastmaster TV series more for inspiration.


And if you want to do the Curupira right, you can always give it a Peccari Pig steed to ride.


I guess I am one of the few who finds the Encantado ridiculous? Now, the Papinjuwari is really "rad"! ;)

The Wyrmwraith! One of my favs of the B5 art I have seen. Should be no contest. That sakhil should be weeping and wailing in no time at all--then silenced just as quick.

Editor-in-Chief

Fourshadow wrote:
I guess I am one of the few who finds the Encantado ridiculous?

You are not.

#kindofthepoint


I was disappointed that the Encantado wasn't a magical dolphin creature instead we got a "mer-dolphin".

So you have a 100 rows of on the sideboard, so how many creature(s) is in a single row?

Designer

Dragon78 wrote:

I was disappointed that the Encantado wasn't a magical dolphin creature instead we got a "mer-dolphin".

So you have a 100 rows of on the sideboard, so how many creature(s) is in a single row?

It's actually both, as it's a (shapechanger).

Designer

2 people marked this as a favorite.
F. Wesley Schneider wrote:
<The woe of spreads>

This is so true.

In fact, sometimes we decide between two alternate names to fix that jigsaw puzzle after a small change. For instance, the four veela were never going to fit on one page but initially were slated for only one, and vahana appeared under the name of the sample creature (makara) in the 'm's, with vilderavn under the Danish name valravn instead of the Germanic. We had the page to give to veela due to another change, but if you picture that situation, you see that it would wind up splitting veela. We managed to get all that to work without losing anything by changing which culture's name we used for the valravn/vilderavn, but as you guys can see, it was a complex combination of shifts!


Liz, I have a question for you, the Heikegani in the Bestiary 5 doesn't have a full picture (its legs are cut off) can you post the Heikegani picture with the 4 pictures (if any) you gonna post tomorrow?

My thanks will be endless.

1 to 50 of 55 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Paizo Products / Product Discussion / Paizo Blog: You Only Die Twice! All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.