The summer heat is causing all sorts of monsters to stir from hiding, including the 100+ new creatures in the Battlezoo Bestiary! This catalog of creative critters, perfect for Pathfinder GMs looking for sinister new foes to sic on their players, goes live on Kickstarter this August 31st! Sign up to be alerted when the Kickstarter goes live next week at: http://kickstarter.rollforcombat.com/
The Battlezoo Bestiary is the long-awaited effort of the 2020 RPG Superstar contest, in which hundreds of Pathfinder fans and aspiring designers submitted their most creative creature ideas for Pathfinder Second Edition. Following the competition’s extended hiatus, Paizo licensed the maker of the long-running Roll For Combat actual play podcast to run this hallowed contest. Now, after more than a year of developing, editing, illustrating, and designing, the 172-page book based on the winning entries is ready to be released along with two other companion volumes: Battlezoo Ancestries: Dragons by Mark Seifter and the Jewel of the Indigo Isles Adventure Path by myself, Ron Lundeen, and Linda Zayas-Palmer!
Along with Roll For Combat’s showrunner Stephen Glicker and Paizo’s own design manager Mark Seifter, I had the great joy of working on this book to expand the contest’s winning entries into an awesome tome of monsters. You can read the full story of how Stephen resurrected the beloved RPG Superstar contest in the Battlezoo Bestiary's introduction, so I’ll spare you the details. Suffice it to say, a lot of love went into this grand effort, and we are all incredibly proud of the final result!
Choosing a favorite monster from the many in this book would be like choosing my favorite horrifying child. From butcher booths (living, breathing, people-eating buildings) to g’mayuns (rainbow-eyed parrot-pirates), the Battlezoo Bestiary boasts enough potential baddies and buddies to populate multiple Pathfinder campaigns. Even with a hundred blog posts, I couldn’t do the magnificent monsters in this bestiary justice. They just have to be seen to be believed.
Only one could reign supreme among the hundreds of monsters submitted to the RPG Superstar contest, however, and this year’s Grand Prize went to the shale spitter, a perhaps unassuming mountain-dwelling critter created by Brant Vallier. Brant’s entry even included a sketch of what he thought the shale spitter might look like—a sketch that I think it’s fair to say artist Sebastian Rodriguez turned up to 11.
We asked Brant to show us what the evolution of shale spitters might look like, and the resulting varieties of this versatile vermin left us astounded. The most impressive specimen is the shale behemoth, a crystal-covered horror of titanic proportions. (This one was so cool that it burst its way onto the book’s cover, as well!)
The Platinum Prize–winning monsters also received expanded entries courtesy of their authors, including the wicked sitebound spirit by Alex G. Friedman, whose constituent critters include the ship-dwelling wispy wayfarer, the pub-haunting dishrag dervish, and the theatre-dooming curtain caller.
As if a boatload of new beasts weren’t enough for this epic volume, the Battlezoo Bestiary also features the brand-new Monster Parts system—a set of rules that Game Masters and players can use to transform loot from their slain foes into custom equipment and gear! Bundled with these new rules are two new archetypes (the vestige hunter and the monster mage), new character backgrounds, and new items, all perfect for those special slayers in your party.
I couldn’t think of anything clever to say about the final piece of art I’d like to share with you. But I think, in this case, the illustration is worth well over a thousand words, so I’ll leave you with just one: parrotbear!
Patrick Renie,
Battlezoo Bestiary DeveloperCongratulations to all of the 2020 RPG Superstar winners!
Grand Prize: Brant Vallier
Platinum Prize: Mark T Adkins, Matt Cavanaugh, Kyle Fenwick, Alex G. Friedman
Gold Prize: James Abendroth, Daniel Aznavorian, Ryan Griggs, Chris Harrell, Isaac Kerry, KM Kovalcik, Shawn Pommier, Rodney Sloan, Heine Stick, Nathan Wright
Silver Prize: James Abendroth, Daniel Aznavorian, Clara Barrs, Aaron Bradford, Dave Breitmaier, Justin Cando, Evan Commins, Jeremy Corff, Douglas Edwards, Aoife Ester, Derrick Ferry, William Fischer, Robert Garland, Mitchell German, Chris Harrell, Vadim Hesin, Jon Hewitt, Elizabeth Heyeck, Juho Kattelus, W. Brian Lane, Alexander William Ohtonen, François Potvin Naud, Brian Nowosatka, Michael Robinson, Shane Smallwood, David Walker, Garrick J. Williams
Copper Prize: James Abendroth, David Adams, Jeffrey Anderson, Jason Arendt, Adil Arif, Daniel Aznavorian, Daniel Baker, Lau Bannenberg, William Banner, Rigby Bendele, Nathan Berg, Aaron Bradford, Beth Breitmaier, Dave Breitmaier, Darran Caldemeyer, Matt Cavanaugh, Eren Christenson, Jeremy Corff, Jason Daugherty, Aoife Ester, Derrick Ferry, William Fischer, Chris Harrell, Vadim Hesin, Jon Hewitt, Scott Janke, Juho Kattelus, Bella Kelly, Isaac Kerry, Adam Kessler, Chris L. Kimball, Ryan King, W. Brian Lane, Jesse Lehto, Crunch McDabbles, Benjamin Medrano, François Potvin Naud, Justin Patera, Tayrone Pereira, Ovid "O.J." Pinckert, Michael Robinson, Nathan Ross, Jakeiol Rudd, Lucas Servideo, Eric Sklavos, Andrew P. Sturtevant, Michael Vieths, Nathan Wright
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Tags: Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Pathfinder Second Edition RPG Superstar
Hmmm I am really interested in those monster parts!
The Dragon Ancestry having Outer Dragons makes this a must-buy for me.
I prefer to call them bearrots
The Dragon Ancestry having Outer Dragons makes this a must-buy for me. The complete list of playable Dragons is currently the following:
Plus a few extra surprises!
I can't decide what I want more - the monster part system or dragon ancestry. Good thing I'm getting both <3
I still find it hilarious how parrotbear is very much parody monster :'D You know of those "monster x but with feature y" I mean, its lore (in the rpg superstar contest at least, I dunno what has gotten changed for this book) is that its literally plagiarism of owlbear "Much debate surrounds the paradoxical specimen that is the Parrotbear. Colorful and vibrant as a macaw, but large and ferocious like a bear. The purposed origins of the beast are dubious at best, some scholars suggest it is the work of a copycat wizard who sought to put their own spin on the Owlbear creation myth, while others say the presence of the Parrotbear is a practical joke of the gods or simply an evolutionary offshoot of the Owlbear." (I rated this one highly just because its actually mechanically really decent variant monster and I found the joke hilarious XD)
sniff My little shale spitter, he... got quite the glow-up! Big thanks to Steven (stonesnake) for organizing RPGSuperstar this year, it's been a real surprise to be rewarded in such a way for what I thought was an unassuming-yet-solid (much like the rock-bug itself) design. And working with Patrick Renie to design the bigger and beefier evolutionary cousins in the "lapisopod" genus was an absolute treat, bouncing ideas back and forth. I can't wait to see the final product and the coating of "Paizo gloss" they received from his experience as a developer. Here's to the next RPGSuperstar!
I just can't believe what happened with my g'mayun... I'm blown away... 
The Bestiary looks great!
Parrotbear looks more like Parrotkoala with those ears. Also for those who are unsure or not Australian Koalas are not part of the bear family. That said I love the artwork and will be backing, looks awesome!
probably wont be society legal I guess It's a 3rd-party product, 2nd-party at best. So no, it won't be Society legal. Purely a good gateway series of book to introduce to GMs for their home games.
Oh I can't wait to help kickstart this set of items. So excited to use some of these creatures someday. 
I need the parrot owlbear in my game. LOL I need a parrotbear Beastkin in my game so I can be a man-bear-parrot! ;)
I suspect this Kickstarter is going to blow UP! it's goals. I hope shipping and printing problems don't hit them too hard, I'd love to see a big win for PF2e 3rd party.
I suspect this Kickstarter is going to blow UP! it's goals. I hope shipping and printing problems don't hit them too hard, I'd love to see a big win for PF2e 3rd party. It's definitely already having an impact for me. Typically I'm lazy about stuff that doesn't appear in HeroLab or Pathbuilder, but I'm 100% making an exception for dragon ancestry, so those are either going to get with the program or get left behind, and since I'm already making that plunge I'm going to implement Midnightoker's awesome familiar rules as well. Next I'll be keeping an eye out for things like alternate shield rules and Starfinder conversions.
Next I'll be keeping an eye out for things like alternate shield rules and Starfinder conversions. I don't know if that is exactly what you are looking for, but there are some "new" shield rules in the Monster part system already. You don't even need to actually use the system itself - it's more or less custom shield creation - a base shield scaling with level and you put properties in it - including the sturdy property (but with a per level progression rather than just the massive jumps the original has). Even if you don't want sturdy, you can apparently still create other shields that are competitive, though details on that are rather light.
The Dragon Ancestry having Outer Dragons makes this a must-buy for me. Well this just gave me the reason to back this Kickstarter, thank you Mark Seifter.
Congratz in being chosen!
Can we have them as pets? 
Is this for PF 1e or 2e? 
Is this for PF 1e or 2e? 2e
Is this for PF 1e or 2e? Says 2e right there in the post. I wouldn’t expect Paizo to ever promote 1e content again.
Is this for PF 1e or 2e?Says 2e right there in the post. I wouldn’t expect Paizo to ever promote 1e content again. I'm out then. No interest in 2e stuff. Good luck to them.
Is this for PF 1e or 2e?Says 2e right there in the post. I wouldn’t expect Paizo to ever promote 1e content again. Thanks for keeping us posted!
Is this for PF 1e or 2e?Says 2e right there in the post. I wouldn’t expect Paizo to ever promote 1e content again. Is there a reason to think they'd be showing PF1 stuff in the PF2 forum?
Is there a reason to think they'd be showing PF1 stuff in the PF2 forum?Is this for PF 1e or 2e?Says 2e right there in the post. I wouldn’t expect Paizo to ever promote 1e content again. I mean, it isn't too rare for stuff to come out for multiple different systems - as seen in this very product. I'm going to be generous and say that they just missed that part in the text ^^
Is this for PF 1e or 2e?Says 2e right there in the post. I wouldn’t expect Paizo to ever promote 1e content again. Darth. Pathfinder First Edition is alive and well. We continue print and promote the rulebooks in either hardcover or softcover. They are available for your FLGS to order from their distributor. All our new Lost Omens setting lore applies just as much to the first edition as to the second. We did not blow up our 19 year continuity. We just published a blog with the Niobe Adventure for Pathfinder First Edition as a part of Stranger Comics Kickstarter. The Pathfinder Kingmaker Anniversary Edition will be include a Pathfinder First Edition Bestiary for those that want to play the new content old school. We continue to support Pathfinder Society legacy play for first edition. The Pathfinder Compatible license has continued unchanged. There are thousands of first edition products available in pdf at paizo.com and we publish a blog with new additions every month or two. Both Pathfinder: Kingmaker and the upcoming Wrath of the Righteous computer games by Owlcat are based on first edition. We continue to invite Pathfinder First Edition Community Content Creators who produce podcasts and live-streams to be a part of our Discord, boost them on social media, and some will be given the spotlight at Gen Con on our Official Paizo Twitch Channel in a few weeks. We don't think you will find another tabletop rpg publisher who supports a previous edition more than Paizo does. Adventures Ahead!
I mean, it isn't too rare for stuff to come out for multiple different systems - as seen in this very product. I'm going to be generous and say that they just missed that part in the text ^^ Sure, I agree but it just seemed weird to me to look/expect for PF1 material. The question also wasn't worded in a way that it was expecting/looking for dual stating. I did make a mistake though as this is in the blogs first so I could see the question if you looked through the blogs to find it as opposed to the forums.
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