Remaster Previews: Dragons Most Diabolical

Wednesday, May 03, 2023

Hey, everybody! Luis Loza here with the first in a series of previews of the upcoming Pathfinder Second Edition Remaster. If you aren’t fully up to date on what the Remaster is, make sure to check out our recent blog post announcing the project along with our video where Jason Bulmahn (Director of Game Design) and Logan Bonner (Pathfinder Lead Designer) discuss a few of the things to expect.

Among the most exciting new additions to Pathfinder are the new dragons that will appear in Pathfinder Monster Core. We’re updating the draconic connection to spellcasting traditions to give dragons a better fit within the Lost Omens setting. Every dragon will be arcane, divine, occult, or primal in nature and have their stories and abilities connected to their respective tradition. Creating this new dynamic—and the new dragons that come with it—has been incredibly fun. Not only do we get to imagine awesome and fearsome new dragons, thanks to the incredible talent of art director Kent Hamilton, we get to see them come to life.


 Concept art for the diabolical dragon. This dragon has massive, diabolical horns and a terrifying appearance. Its wings are tattered, suggesting a long life or a dragon that’s endured many battles.

Diabolical Dragon Concept Art by Kent Hamilton (Not final concept)


The first of the dragons we want to preview is the diabolic dragon, a divine dragon with ties to Hell. Divine dragons draw their power from various planes and sometimes even directly from a deity. Diabolic dragons are bound to the will of Hell, serving as guardians and leaders of Hell’s armies, with some even directly reporting to the archdevils. A diabolic dragon can unleash the fires of Hell itself, and no one is safe from their hellfire. This infernal and unholy fire is even capable of burning creatures made of flame, such as fire elementals. Should you somehow get lucky enough to triumph over a diabolic dragon, you may find their lair to be covered in piles of gems filled with trapped souls as well as countless contracts damning unfortunate mortals to an afterlife in Hell.

If you want another look at a diabolic dragon, take a peek at our preview for the cover of Pathfinder Player Core. While you’re there, you can also check out the mirage dragon on the cover of Pathfinder GM Core. Stay tuned for a future preview where we’ll give you a look at that new arcane dragon!

Luis Loza
Creative Director—Rules & Lore

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Tags: Pathfinder Pathfinder Remaster Pathfinder Roleplaying Game
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My biggest worry if they add half dragons is they are going to be extremely narrow in what half dragons are allowed to look like

Idk about everyone else but I want my half dragon PCs to look Belmazog (see above) or like the ones depicted in D&D5e and not only be humans with horns like FF Au’ra


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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

If the primal dragons are based on the new planes, I would love to see a wood/plant dragon with a pollen breath attack.

And on the Diabolic Dragon, Idk if the text is so small that we can't read or if I am just having trouble being able to read it.


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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
pixierose wrote:

If the primal dragons are based on the new planes, I would love to see a wood/plant dragon with a pollen breath attack.

And on the Diabolic Dragon, Idk if the text is so small that we can't read or if I am just having trouble being able to read it.

Text is a bit small, yeah.

An adamantine dragon paired with a plant one could be very cool. The Zomok is very interesting and I could see that expanding into a full core dragon type, even.
Definitely fits the Primal theme and making the dragons more connected to the magic traditions.


magnuskn wrote:
Ezekieru wrote:
magnuskn wrote:
Hm, I am generally not wild about the "no forearms" (yeah, I know that they are supposed to be the wings, thank you) model for dragons. I hope this won't be the case for every of the Paizo dragons going forward.
What do you mean? The Diabolic Dragon has visible forearms in the Side View part of the picture. The notes even talk about the arms having webbing that runs along the medial seam of the body.
Oh, you're correct! I mistook those for his legs, because the actual legs look so tiny, I took them part of his wings. Sorry, my mistake.

They're not exactly tiny, but they are stretched back in a way that makes them look weird.

magnuskn wrote:
Although in that case the dragon looks distinctly more gorilla-like than cat-like. Not sure if I like that. ^^

I was going to say Brachiosaurus-like, only even more so, and doing a weird stretching exercise at the same time . . . .

Community and Social Media Specialist

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Removed posts that were off topic


Hilary Moon Murphy wrote:

What's an LW?

Edit: Never mind, found it. "Living World."

To be honest, I would have loved it if Battlezoo's options had been published under Paizo, but they were not. What I would love more than anything is a Paizo half-dragon versatile heritage.

I can get a PFS-legal quarter dragon via the lore claiming that most sylphs in the Mwangi Expanse are descended from Cloud Dragons, but not a half-dragon.

Still Kobolds are awesome if you want to dive deep in dragon-content.

Quarter dragons are an actual official playable heritage?


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CaptainRelyk wrote:
Hilary Moon Murphy wrote:

What's an LW?

Edit: Never mind, found it. "Living World."

To be honest, I would have loved it if Battlezoo's options had been published under Paizo, but they were not. What I would love more than anything is a Paizo half-dragon versatile heritage.

I can get a PFS-legal quarter dragon via the lore claiming that most sylphs in the Mwangi Expanse are descended from Cloud Dragons, but not a half-dragon.

Still Kobolds are awesome if you want to dive deep in dragon-content.

Quarter dragons are an actual official playable heritage?

Pause. Reread what was said. You keep jumping at shadows of dragon connections in a dozen different threads.

Elemental Scions (ifrit, sylph, etc) can have any number of "sources" for their elemental connection. Sometimes that could potentially be a dragon, in the same way that many different kinds of fiends might eventually result in a tiefling/fiendish nephilim. One area of the Mwangi Expanse just has a higher-than-normal number of sylphs descended from cloud dragons.

Don't think about it as "this percent dragon". You are trying to be way, way too specific.

Wayfinders Contributor

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It was my fault for using the term quarter-dragon.

Horizon Hunters

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"But Grandpa Ifekube is a cloud dragon." Bitty Blue notes. "He also says that it is nice that these forum discussions are so tame. No one's been eaten in this whole discussion!"

Mechanically, Bitty is a sylph geniekin with a tail. Lorewise, she's got a draconic grandparent.

Silver Crusade

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Hilary Moon Murphy wrote:
It was my fault for using the term quarter-dragon.

Best seller at a Kobold run food truck.


^Wouldn't that be at least a two and a half dollar dragon?


I've got a question regarding the founding myth lore which I've read in the dragons 1E supplement (in order to create a campaign) about Apsu and Dahak (hope the English and German names are the same here).

Are there any major changes to these founding myths, the aforementioned Dragons and their roles (as being "good" and "evil")? I couldn't find any information about this and thought, why not ask the master of lore himself?

Thanks for the awesome and inspiring work, really looking forward to the Remastered Lore!!!


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Pathfinder Starfinder Society Subscriber
SJ82 wrote:

I've got a question regarding the founding myth lore which I've read in the dragons 1E supplement (in order to create a campaign) about Apsu and Dahak (hope the English and German names are the same here).

Are there any major changes to these founding myths, the aforementioned Dragons and their roles (as being "good" and "evil")? I couldn't find any information about this and thought, why not ask the master of lore himself?

Thanks for the awesome and inspiring work, really looking forward to the Remastered Lore!!!

Whilst that lore is not very commonly brought up (The Rage of Creation being the setting's main creation myth), it is one of the three creation myths commented on in Travel Guide's chapter "Folklore and Mythology". Main shift is simply the shift from saying "Apsu and Tiamat created the world, whom gave birth to Dahak" to "The world was created by the first dragons" and then going on to list Apsu and Dahak as among those first dragons, what shouldn't be uprising, Tiamat's last appearance (according to the wiki) was in a 2012 because using "Tiamat, the evil dragon goddess" is a lawyer's nightmare (plus, even in those old sources it's said that she's not worshiped & no dragon dare utter her name, so she was extra easy to remove)


Pathfinder Starfinder Society Subscriber
SJ82 wrote:

I've got a question regarding the founding myth lore which I've read in the dragons 1E supplement (in order to create a campaign) about Apsu and Dahak (hope the English and German names are the same here).

Are there any major changes to these founding myths, the aforementioned Dragons and their roles (as being "good" and "evil")? I couldn't find any information about this and thought, why not ask the master of lore himself?

Thanks for the awesome and inspiring work, really looking forward to the Remastered Lore!!!

Whilst that lore is not very commonly brought up (The Rage of Creation being the setting's main creation myth), it is one of the three creation myths commented on in Travel Guide's chapter "Folklore and Mythology". Main shift is simply the shift from saying "Apsu and Tiamat created the world, whom gave birth to Dahak" to "The world was created by the first dragons" and then going on to list Apsu and Dahak as among those first dragons, what shouldn't be uprising, Tiamat's last appearance (according to the wiki) was in a 2012 because using "Tiamat, the evil dragon goddess" is a lawyer's nightmare (plus, even in those old sources it's said that she's not worshiped & no dragon dare utter her name, so she was extra easy to remove)

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