Jek's page

When in Golarion did this happen? I mean, there were stats for them, but... as a serious race? The 2e rulebook describes them like they're some persecuted minority.

I haven't kept up with all the adventure paths, but last I checked they were still psychotic little monsters that were so insane that it bordered on idiocy. And sung about turning babies into stews.
And certainly didn't have a tendency towards GOOD, or a... prove themselves worthy to the world complex.

It's like reading about dryads cutting down forests to make room for parking lots.

So.
Revelations and the Extra Revelations feat.

1 Mystery = 10 Revelations
Gain the Revelation class feature 6 times
Gain 10 feats via leveling
+1 feat from being human

That's 9 Revelations by the time you've reached 10th level, (although some require you to be higher than 10th level to take).

What do you do when it's time to get a Revelation, but there are no Revelations left for you to take?

I think they've said there aren't any plans for rules to convert back, but give it 6 months and someone will come up with some I'm sure!

Fair enough. Thanks!

The best thing about alien species, be it in games or in film or in novels, is how unlike they are to us, in either appearance or mindset or culture. That should be embraced.

A machine species that generates a pseudo-holographic "hard light" interface for interacting with the world. They often carry themselves around as backpacks or something, and function at a high enough level that they can plug themselves in to serve as a ship's AI, maintaining the holograph-self anywhere in the ship. That way we can have the ever-beloved girl-who-is-actually-the-ship.

A species that is actually a great many small organisms that work together to create something resembling a single body due to the advantages it gives over their normal form. When the organs they make start to fail, they just repurpose other parts of their body to have the same function. They let you play the hive mentality, without the player or DM having to deal with an actual hive getting in the way; it also gives the player some body sculpting, which is one of those things you see a lot in futuristic societies in fiction--although that's typically just a matter of money rather than species.

A species without a central nervous system in the sense that we would understand it. Instead, they have a great many tubes of fluids cycling through their body. The constant movement of electrical signals and chemicals through these imitate the functions of a brain, but unless they completely bleed out they aren't going to be injured by "headshots" and the like. The liquid in the body will continue to carry the information. Many chemicals in their body could be "scrubbed" of their normal functions to take on the jobs of others or to hold more information in the event of injury. The don't see through eyes, but through a small loop of refractive liquid that captures light and bends in it, where it interacts with another loop of fluids. Despite being so... uh, wet, it still has a solid, physical body. A very solid, very hard one. The idea here is to create a character that's damn near impossible to kill (well, as much as a player race can be)--much like Krogans from Mass Effect, but without the behavioral issues.

A species that isn't a race in the conventional or unconventional understanding of the word. They're actually just all interfaces for an eldritch being of a state of existence beyond our own, and are to it little more than the spots where our own fingertips might press against the surface of a child's painting. But such minor aspects of such a vast entity are still of enough complexity that they developed an identity, culture, and consciousness of their own. The concept behind this one doesn't depend much on what they look like, so I don't have anything else to say there.
C'mon. Cosmic horror in space. It's _necessary_.

PURE ENERGY BEINGS THAT ARE BORN IN THE HEARTS OF STARS. THEY FLY THROUGH THE VOID TO MEET ONE ANOTHER, THEIR WILLS PROPELLING THEM THROUGH SPACE BEYOND SPEEDS THAT LIGHT COULD HOPE TO UNDERSTAND. THEY SPEAK IN ALLCAPS.

Starfinder already has the Shirren, the bug people who used to be part of The Swarm. But that isn't good enough. RTS games have made the idea of playing a host of hungering space reptile-bugs absolutely delicious--the Tyranids, the Zerg, etc, without the need to be humanoid at all. There could be a race that is basically a spawning queen for these--the head of her own little hive. Of course, for a race this would mean that they would be limited to spawning pretty small things, with a variety increased by feats--or possibly they could be given a racial class to let them make tougher monsters or steal an enemy's biological distinctiveness for their short-lived children.

Tentacles.

Psychic powers.

I know there's supposed to be a section on converting Pathfinder to Starfinder, but if you want to bring the material the other way will there be rules for that as well?

So we've got a computery wizard, a tech rogue, gun-using fighter, a space cleric, a star-using incarnate/soulborn, an interplanetary bard, and a machine druid.

Sweet.

Would anyone know if they're intending to make supplementary material for this? The lack of a 9th level Wild Talent for Telekineticists and Aerokineticists is agonizingly awful, and the universally available Talents don't offer a 9th level option, either.
(and the Aether-using Kineticists just need some better stuff in general...)

When I began looking through the Bestiaries, I thought that vermin were anthropods. But then I saw the jellyfish, the earthworm, the clam, and the slug, and expanded the category to invertebrates.

Then I noticed that the octopus is an animal, not a vermin.

What, exactly, is a vermin?

I was looking through Classic Treasures Revisited, and saw a reference to a goddess I didn't recognize--Lissala of Thassilon. A bit more research revealed that her faith is, for all intents and purposes, dead.

So... how does that work?

I mean, a deity starved for worship can *literally* talk to you and give you power in exchange for some prayers, and deities overall have a pretty good track record of attracting converts and appearing in people's dreams until they convert. We have cultists who follow demon lords of slime, sand, knives, traps, riddles, and being thirsty--but a goddess of runes and fate disappears?

I'm not saying its a bad decision--ancient, unknown, and forgotten gods are *fun*. I just don't know how one could be forgotten unless it wanted to be. And I'm not specifically asking about Lissala--she's just the example that kicked off the question (and I'm afraid I can't remember any other forgotten deities off the top of my head).

Thanks.

...

Crap. I completely forgot about Mythic Monsters (the local game store doesn't get new pathfinder stuff that often). Seems I am missing one.

Sorry about that. I feel sort of like an ass now.

Thanks for telling me where they show up--hopefully I can get our GM to stick one in the next session.

I'm going to go check to see how much money I have.

What are the Krakens in Pathfinder like?

I've looked around, but the Pathfinder wiki doesn't mention them appearing in any adventure paths (and I don't currently have the money to buy all of them quite yet), and I have all of the Monster Revisited books.

So all that I can really find about the Kraken is the short blurb in the Bestiary. They are one of my favorite monsters and I love how Pathfinder has them at the much-more-appropriate CR 18. But aside from a vague mention in the Bestiary about them possibly being the true lords of the deep, I can't find much about them--in Pathfinder in general, or in Golarion in specific.

Could anyone point me towards which books they show up in?

Thanks.

...I have [levels in homebrew prc/class ability/reserve feat from 3.5/magic item] that lets me teleport.

...I spend my rounds buffing the others.

...I dropped all my money on AC and can only try to throw the gauntlets that came free with my full plate at people. Or maybe go Captain America with my shield.

...I ride a flying mount

...I have a lot of polymorphing spells.

...I prefer to hold arrows in my hand, then stab people to death with them. I don't get as bloody if I shoot people.

...I'm thinking up something so completely out of the box that the GM has no idea how to deal with, but would technically be able to defeat the opponents I should be shooting at without me using a ranged weapon, even if it requires the GM to come up with something just to figure out what the rules for it would be.

That... isn't an answer at all.

Especially considering that Pathfinder outright *has* high technology races, roleplaying hooks for playing on planets with high technology, guns, clockworks, printing presses, not-fully-explained remnants of much higher technology periods of time on Golarion, and (most notably, in my mind) the country of Numeria is entirely formed around a giant crashed spaceship.

Even leaving aside making my own interstellar empires, what if I wanted to go more in-depth with what Paizo has already given us bits and pieces for?

What are your favorite rules for using technology? Homebrewed or published by 3rd party, they both work.

I'm looking for all sorts, really. Completely mundane, steampunk, clockwork, magi-tech, cybernetics...

If anyone's interested in the reasons why; world-building. Well, partially. I got Distant Worlds, and there are plenty of comments about the other planets having more technology, but with very little rules to support it.

I've developed a few other worlds beyond the solar system to go to (with everything from gleaming cities of pristine, Ipod-esque architecture to WH40k grimdark to an pacifistic empire of clockwork spider-things to... well, just about everything on the sliding scale of fantasy to sci-fi, really), but I don't have any rules to support it.

Sure, I could just grab a wizard, say the characters are using technology instead of magic and let them fly, but that would be so... lackluster.

Thanks for whatever help you can provide.

I've seen references to the formians in a couple of books, such as The Great Beyond, but I can't find them in my Bestiary.

Could anyone tell me where I can find them? Are they in one of the adventure paths, or are they in a bestiary I don't have yet?

Thanks.

I see--an entirely understandable mistake, and one that I suppose higher-ups will be the ones to correct (or whatever it is that company-people do? I don't understand companies/businesses that well).

Since you posted here though, might I slightly derail the topic to just add that I loved Horsemen of the Apocalypse? You further defined the daemons wonderfully and developed them into something even more interesting than the Bestiaries could depict. Thank you.

Firstly, let me apologize. Most of my posts seem to be about me finding problems, which I realize doesn't really s.ay many good things about me. I really love Pathfinder, though, so I'm sorry I keep bringing stuff up.

In the Book of the Damned 3, Horsemen of the Apocalypse (not actually mine. Borrowed it from a friend--I'm broke), page 20 describes the Vulnadaemon. But the description doesn't resemble the Vulnadaemon from the Bestiary 3 at all.

In the Book of the Damned, the daemon is described as taking a true form as a cloud of bloody mist. They are described as impersonating traders to infiltrate a community, and as killing people and disguising themselves as them, switch personae and whatnot.

But in the Bestiary 3, the Vulnadaemon is described as a child with a slit throat--save that the 'throat' is actually a fanged maw. They don't have any shapechanging powers, qualities, or spell-like abilities. They don't even have ranks in disguise. They are described as stalkers who use stealth and invisibility. And while the Book of the Damned calls them the representation of murder, the Bestiary defines them as murder accented by betrayal.

The only part of the Vulnadaemon in the Book of the Damned that is like the Bestiary 3 Vulnadaemon is the picture, and that they are the personification of murder. Apart from that, they are like two entirely different creatures.

Is this something that can be fixed in an errata?

Again, sorry for nitpicking over so many things.

Monsters based off of creatures from the Cambrian era. Dire Trilobite, Hallucigenia, Nectocaris, Dinomischus, and Odontogriphus.

Dire praya dubia

Celestials that don't look pretty--old, old, old, who were beings of good before the birth of mortality. Strange creatures; interlocking and ever-spinning wheels lined with eyes, a being so beautiful reality cast a veil over it so none would see it, a creature made entirely of angles (an angle-angel, as it were), a creature composed of eyes that each behold a separate beauty of reality. Eldritch abominations--but ones that are inherently kind. Not human in the least.

More good; we are drastically, drastically low on good-aligned outsiders in comparison to evil.

The major outsider races all seem to have a CR 20 version, except for the following; Archons, Azatas, and Proteans. (technically, neither do the Demodands, but they have Titans, so...).

An Asura that can be used as a familiar, that is an actual product of divine mistake. The Tripurasura is made by other asuras, so is like a... almost-asura. The product of a product of divine mess-up. I'd like a full-fledged one, please.

More Oni! More Asura! More Qlippoth! More Kytons! I can't stress enough how much I love these.

A Rakshasa for the traitor caste, and untouchable caste.

A species of Bodhisattva. Reincarnating good outsiders, that enter the bodies of children that would be stillborn so that the parents may know the joys of raising a child. When they grow up, they remember the truth of who they are, and go out into the world to spread enlightenment. A good-aligned counterpart to the Rakshasa.

Person-spirits. Like Kami, but that follow a single person; many religions think that people have individual spirits that follow, protect, and give luck to someone, or that watch over a single household.

PSYCHOPOMPS!!! We already have a Shinigami, a Valkyrie, and one or two others... if you went into this and did more of them, that would be wonderful! Pharasma's personal force? Devoted protectors of the River of Souls, and sworn enemies of the Daemons? Or maybe they simply go to watch people die, and ferry them to the next world.

You cruelly, cruelly hinted at monsters in the Bestiary 3 but have not delivered. The different Leshies, the different Behemoths... so many, I want them all!

Rules in the back of the Bestiary 4 to make vermin animal companions (we have a vermin-companion druid now, covering the first 2 Bestiaries, but we have nothing for the new vermin introduced in the Bestiary 3).

A Leshy you can take as a familiar. Rules for taking a Leshy as a... Leshy Companion in place of an animal companion. Rules for a Clockwork familiar. Rules for vermin familiars.

Some weaker Demodands--including one you can take as a familiar!

Dragons based around unusual concepts; a feathery dragons, or one who is insectile or an arachnid dragon. A tentacled-dragon.

Space dragons!

More of the monsters and races from Distant Worlds.

More horrors from the Dark Tapestry, one of which can be taken as a familiar.

More good outsiders! Something to show that good is not being crushed by the darkness!

A good-aligned outsider that uses darkness.

Take back what you said about Agathions not having hyena forms; hyenas have very caring, close-knit family communities. They take proportionally longer care of their children than any other animal (other than humans), and are not deserving of their nasty reputation at all. Lions steal hyena kills more than the other way around.

Golems of abstract concepts solid form.

A 2-dimensional monster.

A monster that wields advanced, quantum mathematics for unusual attacks.

A cute monster, that is actually horrifically evil and malevolent. They tend to act friendly, slowly introducing suffering until they reveal themselves as the monsters they are--then they leave, after making their victim destroy his life.

A monster that is from the future, trying to stop something from happening.

Alternate Shikigami; in myth, shikigami aren't clearly defined, so make some other types than the... rock... thing in the Bestiary 3. Honestly, most of the depictions I've seen of them were like spirit animals, or were made of paper.

A template for creatures made of paper (I think paper-creatures fit the concept of onmyou well, don't you? Fits for a more oriental-feeling campaign).

A creature with an 'acid' attack that is actually a base, bypassing acid resistance.

Chemical creatures.

A construct with a philosopher's stone as it's 'heart'.

The Ghost in the Machine. Well, not a ghost, but a spirit/outsider, designed for technology and machinery.

An angel with guns.

A plant that was once a different species, but it ate a clockwork creature, and now grows organic gears as a clockwork-plant. With spikes, and explosives.

A monster based off of the fungus 'cordyceps'. It takes over an insect's mind and controls its body to make it go someplace where the fungus can release its spores to capture more insects. Insidious and evil.

A being (more accurately, a race or template) or a creature that was stillborn, then had resurrection magic used on it, or was pumped so full of positive energy that it jolted back to mostly-life. Not evil, but odd and has difficulties fitting in. An unusual being.

In looking at the cosmology as a whole, and particularly the outsiders.

This is a look at the good-aligned outsiders and the Challenge Ratings.

Agathion, Silvanshee 2
Agathion, Vulpinal 6
Agathion, Avoral 9
Agathion, Leonal 12
Agathion, Cetaceal 15
Agathion, Draconal 20
Angel, Cassisian 2
Angel, Movanic Deva 10
Angel, Monadic Deva 12
Angel, Astral Deva 14
Angel, Planetar, 16
Angel, Solar, 23 (The Solar seems to be the strongest tool on the Celestials side, having a higher CR than all but one of the evil outsiders. However, there isn't a more powerful version of the Solar like there is with many evil, CR 20-and-up outsiders)
Archon, Harbinger 2
Archon, Lantern 2
Archon, Hound 4
Archon, Legion 7
Archon, Shield 10
Archon, Trumpet 14
Archon, Star 19
Azata, Lyrakien 2
Azata, Bralani 6
Azata, Lillend 7
Azata, Ghaele 13
Azata, Brijindine 19
Coutl 10
Garuda 9
Genie, Djinni 5 (although little involved in the greater good vs evil battle, they are important to the moral equilibrium of the Inner Planes, so I included them)
Kami, Zuishin 10
Kami, Toshigami 15
Peri 14
Titan, Elysian 21 (weaker than their evil-aligned counterparts, the Thanatotic Titans)

Most good-aligned outsiders don't seem to be actively involved in the world. They subtly try to change people's viewpoints to more good ones... while demons and devils and daemons are *all* described as actively killing and corrupting and subverting and destroying. Several outsiders are described as single-handedly destroying entire worlds, or subverting nations.

Also, many good aligned creatures--outsiders or no--seem to be described as staying away from other people and living alone. Evil creatures actively spread and cause evil, while a lot of good beings avoid other people? The most powerful Azata is described as living in a volcano--that doesn't exactly give you a lot of opportunities to stop or prevent evil. People can hardly even get close enough to the Brijindine for her to actually do anything to try to spread goodness!

Further, there are only 3 good-aligned Celestials with a CR of 20 or higher. The Draconal, Elysian Titan, and Solar; of these, none have a more powerful form as some other high-tier outsiders have.

Evil outsiders, in comparison, have *11* with a CR of 20 or higher; of these, 7 are listed with an additional, more powerful form or as growing in power over time. Further, the most powerful non-Tarrasque monster is an evil outsider.

A list of evil outsiders and the CR:

Achaierai 5
Animate Dream 8 (Whenever a dream gets it's own life, its always evil? I can't be the only one who is horrified by the very thought of that.)
Asura, Tripurasura 2
Asura, Adhukait 7
Asura, Upasunda 9
Asura, Aghasura 11
Asura, Asurendra 20
Baregara 12
Barghest 4/7 (Barghest/Greater Barghest)
Bebilith 10
Cerberi 6
Daemon, Cacodaemon 2
Daemon, Vulnadaemon 4
Daemon, Ceustodaemon 6
Daemon, Hydrodaemon 8
Daemon, Leukodaemon 9
Daemon, Piscodaemon 10
Daemon, Meladaemon 11
Daemon, Derghodaemon 12
Daemon, Thanadaemon 13
Daemon, Crucidaemon 15
Daemon, Astradaemon 16
Daemon, Purrodaemon 18
Daemon, Olethrodaemon 20/20+ (can become Olethrodaemon Paragons)
Demodand, Tarry 13
Demondand, Slimy 16
Demodand, Shaggy 18
Demon, Dretch 2
Demon, Quasit 2
Demon, Schir 4
Demon, Babau 6
Demon, Incubus 6
Demon, Shadow 7
Demon, Succubus 7
Demon, Nabasu 8
Demon, Vrock 9
Demon, Kalavakus 10
Demon, Hezrou 11
Demon, Omox 12
Demon, Coloxus 12
Demon, Glabrezu 13
Demon, Nalfeshnee 14
Demon, Shemhazian 16
Demon, Marilith 17
Demon, Vrolikai 19
Demon, Balor 20/20+ (can become a Balor Lord)
Denizen of Leng 8
Devil, Lemure 1
Devil, Imp 2
Devil, Zebub 3
Devil, Barbazu 5
Devil, Erinyes 8 (celestials who have fallen to evil; we do not have a race of celestials who were once fiends who have risen to good.)
Devil, Osyluth 9
Devil, Phistophilus 10
Devil, Hamatula 11
Devil, Gelugon 13
Devil, Gylou 14
Devil, Cornugon 16
Devil, Bdellavitra 16
Devil, Puragaus 19
Devil, Pit Fiend 20/20+ (can become an Infernal Duke)
Div, Doru 2
Div, Aghash 4
Div, Pairaka 7
Div, Ghawwas 10
Div, Shira 12
Div, Sepid 14
Div, Akvan 20/20+ (can grow into an Akvan Prince)
Hellcat 7
Hell Hound 3/9 (Hell Hound/Nessian Hell Hound)
Hound of Tindalos 7
Howler 3
Genie, Efreeti 8
Kyton, Augur 2
Kyton, Evangelist 6
Kyton, Interlocutor 12
Kyton, Eremite 20/20+ (can become an Eremite Overlord)
Night Hag 9
Nightmare 5/11 (Nightmare/Cauchemar Nightmare)
Oni, Spirit 2
Oni, Kuwa 4
Oni, Ogre Mage 8
Oni, Ice Yai 14
Oni, Fire Yai 15
Oni, Water Yai 18
Oni, Void Yai 20/20+ (can become a Voidlord)
Qlippoth, Cythnigot 2
Qlippoth, Shoggti 7
Qlippoth, Nyogoth 10
Qlippoth, Chernobue 12
Qlippoth, Augnagar 14
Qlippoth, Thulgant 18
Qlippoth, Iathavos 20 (is described as growing more powerful as time passes and the more they destroy; fortunately, there's only one)
Rakshasa, Raktavarna 2
Rakshasa, Dandasuka 5
Rakshasa, Marai 8
Rakshasa, Standard 10
Rakshasa, Takata 15
Rakshasa, Maharaja 20/20+ (can reincarnate as a Rajadharaja)
Salamander 6
Sceaduinar 7 (of note is that, while they are evil, their opposite number is not good, making a net lean towards evil)
Shadow Mastiff 5
Shining Child 12
Titan, Hekatonkheires 24 (They are the most powerful monsters that are not the Tarrasque, and there is more than one of them)
Titan, Thanatotic 22
Urdefhan 3
Varguille 2
Wendigo 17
Xacarba 15
Xill 6
Yeth Hound 3

A single evil individual can spawn hundreds of demons when he dies. Practically every soul condemned to the Nine Hells is a potential devil; the torture eventually transforms them. The other major species of fiend that comes from souls is fortunately less common; daemons eat most souls that could make more of them. In comparison, only some good-aligned petitioners from the good planes actually become celestials, and the majority of good celestials are made from souls rather than self-perpetuating like many of the non-central fiends can. Practically every evil soul condemned to Hell, the Abyss, or Abaddon either becomes an evil outsider, or can be consumed to make the evils of that plane more powerful, used as spell components, or used to create new fiends.

Also, many species of every type that are described as 'neutral' behave more like evil. Most notably, the Shaitan; the Great Beyond describes them as being cruel and brutal slavers, twisting contracts to hurt others to enslave them as well, being remorselessly expansionist at the cost of countless lives in the elemental planes, and they overall come across as fully as evil as the Efreeti. Aside from these, many neutral species are described as killing unprovoked (or with extremely little provocation), knowingly killing other sentient beings in order to eat them, being brutal and cruel, or engaging in acts such as slavery (the morality of such can differ widely on culture, admittedly).

A lot of the evil aligned species actively do evil things. They hunt down more sacrifices, aggressively expand into other territories, burn people's houses, hunt sentient beings for food, claim vast territories and kill everything that enters, try to defile and corrupt and convert others to follow/obey/worship them. Good... a great many good species, particular non-outsiders, just try to live their lives.

While it is true that good has an advantage in that evil will often turn on itself... it doesn't always (as seen in the regiments of the Hells and the overall unity of the daemons), and good has been shown to turn on itself at times as well (the Bestiaries mentioned Archons and Azatas fighting one another at times). Overall, however, evil does have an exponentially greater level of infighting than good. But it is otherwise so powerful that it looks to me that even the backdraft of this infighting would be cataclysmic to entire worlds in the Material Plane (and has been, in the case of Pazazu's fights with Lamashtu).

And while it is also true that the forces of good, overall, has adventurers on its side, there seems to always be more villains of equal--and sometimes greater--power around, often drawn from the same species as the adventurers. For almost everything an adventurer defeats or threat they stop, someone else has tried at and failed before.

In the Inner Sea World Guide list of deities, we have six evil major gods and seven good. However, the minor gods increases this to 11 evil gods and only 9 good. Taking into accounts the cults of the non-divinities, we get 8 Archdevils, 14 Demon Lords, the fey Eldest are all neutral or evil (another 2 evil objects of worship), the Elemental Lords are all evil (4), there's the 4 Horsemen, and only 6 listed Empyreal Lords. From this, the primary Pathfinder religions/cults number 43 evil objects of worship to only 15 good ones. This is without drawing more from the Books of the Damned. (I have not read all the PF books, so there may be more good deities out there).

Am I overlooking something important? How does Golarion--indeed, the Material Plane as a whole--continue to exist? It looks to me like evil has an incredible advantage in this struggle. Admittedly, the Bestiaries do mostly focus on monsters that adventurers will kill, which leaves out a lot of good aligned creatures, and Paizo hasn't created a celestial equivalent to the Books of the Damned. But still...

Please help.

I was looking through Distant Worlds, and it mentioned some of the monsters in the Bestiary and how they relate to space and the rest of the solar system, and I found something that looks a little off.

Namely, the Tzitzimitl. If it does come of Eox, as the book says (ignoring that nothing else on Eox has an Aztec naming system), then why are there so few of them around? And if they were trying to kill off the rest of the life around them (which is the stated purpose of the Tzitzimitl, at least before Distant Worlds came out), wouldn't the Liches of Eox have cleared out the life on their own solar system first before sending them out to others? And while the entry of the Tzitzimitl itself has only speculation on their origins, if Eox made them then that makes pretty much all of it wrong. And the sages said that the came from the dark spaces between the stars--wouldn't people learned about space, presumably with knowledge of Eox and access to divination magic, at least know that it came from another planet that is in their solar system?

Also, it says that the Akata originate from the Diaspora. But the book said that the Akata came from a far away planet--well, if you go by miles/kilometers the asteroid belt is a ways away, but in regards to stellar distances it is pretty much next door (although this one isn't really that big a problem compared to the Tzitzimitl).

Is the point of view for the Bestiaries not set in Golarion, but generically no-specific-world? Because if that is the case, then it would make sense, but I thought that Golarion was the default world for PF products. If someone could clear this up for me, I would appreciate it.

I apologize if I'm looking too deeply into this, or if I sound a little rude.

I find that Pathfinder has, as a whole, struck an excellent balance between unknowable, unfathomable horror and the ability to kill some of those horrors.

That we don't know the nature of the Old Ones and Elder Gods hidden away isn't a problem; we don't really understand the nature of actual gods either, and at that level of power it doesn't matter if they are stronger or weaker than the actual gods; both are equally beyond the reach of the characters, and equally capable of untold destruction.

@The Drunken Dragon, I think that if one of those ineffable horrors was introduced simply as being 'indescribable', that that's a pretty bad way to depict them. It is possible to explain something in such a way that everything about it seems a defilement of the mind and of reality.

They whisper secrets that predate the beginnings of creation, each sound the condensed noise of a thousand births and deaths of multiverses. The mad gibbering holds the ignition of stars, the demise of worlds, the screaming agony of uncountable numbers driven mad and driven to destruction by the very existence of these malicious horrors. One could describe how they look--could explain the mouths where mouths should not be, where eyes blink from every tooth, covered in squamous writhing tendrils, each visibly stretching out to infinity despite being only a few feet long (or longer? All of space twists around them, impossibly short compared to how you can see it stretching out past infinity in every direction). Eyes have no pupils--instead, where that black circle would be is instead angles--triangles formed of seven corners and squares with uneven sides and a line that stretches out into a thousand dimensions (and you can *SEE* them, beholding 'directions' and 'dimensions' that the mind was never capable of comprehending--but as you look on it, and it looks onto you, it forces you to understand and that understanding tears away parts of your soul. Pieces of you are replaced with angles unconnected to lines or to spaces or to anything else that would define it as an angle).

Of course, if you don't come to the table with the proper attitude, you won't appreciate it at all.

A Pathfinder game that touches upon the cosmic horror genre and the Lovecraftian mindset doesn't need to end with all the player characters dying (in fact, it shouldn't--this isn't Call of Cthulhu or Paranoia), but that doesn't mean that the inherently unknowable couldn't be made horrific. And there exist in this world beings of power just as great as these Things That Should Not Exist, and considerably less inimical to life; through healing magics and time, even insanity can be cured. And since when were adventurers of the everyday sort of person anyways? While any normal person would lose their grip on reality and be thankful for it, a player character is that one-in-a-million individual with the capacity to resist even the corrupting influence of the Things Beyond.

I'm making a world--well, several worlds, there's some planet-hopping going around--where I don't intend to ignore technology, or write it all off as being magitech.

Can anyone point me to some books (Pathfinder or 3.5, although preferably Pathfinder) that have good rules for technology? From weapons to gadgets to power-armor to full-on mecha, from steampunk to dieselpunk to modern to cybernetic high-tech stuff, anything works. And magitech (I said I wasn't writing it *all* off. There's still room for it).

If anyone can help with this, I would be eternally grateful and might name my first-born child after you, unless your name has numbers or symbols in it. Sorry, ExAmPLe245@*.

Personally, I've never had a problem with playing paladins--one of my favorite classes, truth be told. I always found the paladin to be a paragon of good and champion of law--and of the two of these, the former is the most important, so the "to be lawful or to be good" problem was never an issue for me when it came up.

I've done a few cross-class paladins, even a rogue/paladin at one point. Balancing class abilities with the code or the need for justice was never a problem. Even played an a%&&%%$ once--being a jerk didn't stop the character from doing the right thing.

So the worst paladin RPing I've seen didn't come from me (but then, if it did, would I admit it?), but from a fellow player--I also happened to be playing a paladin at the time.

He... didn't quite understand the concept (or just didn't care), and had a few levels of stupidity on top of that. He once killed another character when she was at low HP so he could use a reincarnating magic item to bring her back with more health. He once followed some people he didn't know into someone's house and helped them break in and steal stuff, never even asking what they were doing in there. In the process, he killed some priests.

My paladin only got bits and pieces of what was happening until he found the other coup-de-grace-ing a bunch of unconscious opponents I was hoping to turn in to the local constable. I confronted him on it, and the rest of the party chipped in to tell their own tales of what crap he pulled that my character hadn't known about. I told the other character that what he had done was a serious matter, and that I would be bringing it up with his church once we got back to civilization.

He attacked. He was outnumbered, but the other party members weren't in any condition to fight (having used up most of their spells for the day). Eventually, he tried to use smite evil on my paladin. Yes, on the paladin.

I was sort of pissed at that, so I used smite evil on him. Guess what? Turns out, he wasn't a paladin anymore. Or good aligned anymore. Funny how that works out.

When I first saw that name, I was interested. Rubicante shows up in both Dante's Inferno and the Ars Goetia, and also happened to show up a couple of times in various other stories I've read, so once I saw him mentioned in the Bestiary I was very interested.

Does anyone have any information on Rubicante? I know he is a Malebranch and was worshipped in Thassilon, but that's about it.

In particular, I'd like to know about that title of his. He Who Grows Red. Does anyone have any idea how he got that? Sure, he's probably red colored--but the title looks like it's a lot more than that. I'd like to use him in a campaign (not to fight, really, but as a presence), and I'd like to know what is special about him.

Or barring that, get some ideas about what *you'd* make special about him--how would you work with the title, "He Who Grows Red"?

I'm looking to join an existing game.

I only know D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder, although I'm not too picky; I'm willing to pick up Exalted, Magical Burst, World of Darkness (old or new), Anima, In Nomine, Call of Cthulhu, or any of a half-dozen other systems.

If anyone could respond, I would be extremely grateful!

Thank you! I really appreciate the feedback, and think that it will help in my upcoming campaign.

I've been looking through the Pathfinder Chronicles books, and there are a lot of unanswered adventure hooks in there (as there should be).

I'm trying to make my own campaign world. How many adventure hooks should I really plan out? Should I answer every "mystery" my players could discover, or should I wait and only come up with answers when it looks like the players will take the hook? Do you think the Paizo writers already know the answer to every hinted problem listed and unanswered in the books?

Different religions--even in a world where you can flat-out ask the gods for their opinions--almost always have different creation myths. As campaign maker, should I decide what the *real* story of creation is, or should I only care about the creation myths that the religions tell their followers (and thus, that the characters know about)?

In this respect, how should I find the balance between details that give life to the world and details that are just unnecessary?

I was reading through The Great Beyond, and it spoke about how proteans would argue in Pharasma's Palace to win over souls for the Maelstrom. But... why?

The proteans are older than the rest of the multiverse, and thus are not created from souls. In fact, they want to return all creation back to being chaos, so they don't really need souls for that either. What does drawing souls to the Maelstrom do to further the cause of The Speakers of the Depths?

Is it just to turn a handful of tiny souls back into chaos? To prevent the others from getting a hold of them themselves? Are the only proteans arguing in the courts representatives of chaos gods? I'm afraid I'm not too good at coming up with reasons for things that aren't outright explained for me (which can cause some problems when I try to mess around with as-of-yet-unanswered mysteries in the world. Sigh...)

And how does a being of pure chaos represent itself in something as necessitating order as a court?

If this is answered in another book, I apologize--I don't quite have them all yet.

If anyone could answer this for me, I'd be very grateful.

An excellent point. Thank you.

I don't know if this was a mistake, or if they are just meant to be so alien that their alignment can't really be described as "evil", but the Zoog don't look Chaotic Neutral at all.

They are described as spiteful, nasty, enjoying the flesh of other sentient beings, base and vicious, as attacking and eating intruders or using them as living sacrifices to deities described as "debased". They only become familiars for depraved spellcasters.

This overall does not look anything like CN. Chaotic Evil, perhaps, but that doesn't seem Neutral.

In Ultimate Magic, we got to see the Vermin Companion, which I thought was a rather nice look at a group of the animal kingdom that Druids otherwise weren't able of working with. However, the Bestiaries have since come out with more bugs and crabs and critters that there aren't any rules for, such as the Solifugids and Cockroaches, the Dragonflies and Mosquitoes, the Flies and Maggots, and Jellyfish (having accidentally swam through a small cloud of Jellyfish before, I don't really think they should exist, but if I ever ran an aquatic horror campaign they would fit in) as well as variant individual critters that had different types of poison, of attacks, etc.

To say nothing of whatever is in this Bestiary 3 I've only just cracked open.

These are all very interesting, and I was wondering if Paizo would ever make an online attachment/article/errata with rules for having one of these as a companion.

Of course, if they already have and I just can't find it, I'll feel like an idiot. But since I feel like that all the time, I might as well ask.

The Imperial Dragons are missing entries for their breath weapons. The damage their breath weapon deals is shown, but we don't know what they are breathing (the Underworld dragon, for instance, does fire damage, but it also has magma-related abilities; is it breathing lava? Does the Sky Dragon breath lightning, or stormclouds?) The only one we know is the Sea Dragon, and that's only secondhand from another ability entry.

Thematic details like that are very important to help establish the 'feel' of a monster.

I see. Thank you, this has been most informative.

I think the Proteans are marvelously interesting, but I don't understand why the outsiders of chaos incarnate are snake-like. I also wonder why all the Proteans share similar forms, if they are the agents of chaos--but I'm guessing that relates back to why they are serpentine in the first place.

Does anyone know the answer to this, or am I looking for meaning where there isn't any?

Thank you.

We've got a second Bestiary out, and are soon to get a third.

With all the new monsters introduced, there's got to be a lot more abilities some monsters have that simply weren't covered by the original shapechanging spells simply because those abilities haven't been created yet.

How likely is it that a section could be added to the appendices of future Bestiaries to have updated information for polymorphing for an curious transmuter?

"That is not dead which can eternal lie..."

Pathfinder takes a lot of inspiration from Lovecraft's work, and I just happened to remember this quote. It just so happens that we actually *have* a monster called an Aeon, and one of those Aeons does, in fact, look over the dichotomy of life and death.

We also know that Aeons can (albeit very rarely) go rogue--or 'strange', favoring a single aspect of their split purpose over the other.

Is this just a coincidence? If it isn't, what Adventure Path covers this? If it is--has anyone ever looked at the idea and fit it into their own campaign or adventure?

Or, am I just crazy (likely the correct answer, but still)

I'd like to see more information on the Dark Tapestry--of course, I can't get enough of that Lovecraftian stuff, so I'm a bit biased there...

More alternate magic systems would be nice--I really liked the wordspells from Ultimate Magic. Although that might be more for the Pathfinder system as a whole than the Campaign setting.

It would be amazing to get some PrCs, feats, alternate class abilities/archetypes from the history of Golarion. Secrets lost to the ages and that sort of thing are always extremely interesting.

A book covering magical and extraordinary plants; using them for spell components, growing them as a druid, possibly even having plant companions (again, as a druid). Harvesting these plants for special effects, or growning them on your own skin to get special bonuses.

Cover the roles of the races in the countries that haven't really been covered yet. I've only read Halflings of Golarion so far, but the 'Nations' section didn't cover everywhere--I know there a lot more that weren't mentioned. Are these races just not very present there, or is it something that will be covered later? If they aren't present, what races are taking their place?

I know the Distant Worlds book is coming out, but it isn't very large for something covering all the other worlds; they each look interesting enough to have their own 64-page little books, if not entire campaign settings devoted just to them.

Also (although this again might be more related to Pathfinder as an RPG than to the setting specifically), I'd like to see more variant classes along the lines of what has been done with the Samurai and Ninja in Ultimate Combat; classes that are the same at the core, but remade to the point where they look and feel completely different.

Each country has its own delicious and wonderful flavor, each race its own beautiful, uniquely Paizo artistry. I'd like to see more alt. class abilities, archetypes, PrCs, and feats for them.

I would like to see a CR 20 Prothean... the highest CR in the Bestiary for one is 17, which puts them behind the other major Outsiders.

I'd also like to see some lower-CR Nightshades.

There should be a monster--or an entire group of monsters--that were created for the sole purpose of serving as familiars.

A Lovecraftian horror made available as a familiar.

Some more of the existing categories--Azatas, Gremlins, Aeons, Hags, Oni, Angels, etc.

More class-level-based monsters, for the players.

Dragons. Gotta have more dragons. Never enough dragons.

A snake-dragon.

An elemental of Fire and Water (that has nothing to do with steam).

Oriental-type dragons.

Some weaker Linnorms.

Things of such utter and incomprehensible horror that the book, unable to contain the squamous and eldritch nature of such wretched images, will twist and turn in my hands in foul rage, an protestation that eyes were NOT MEANT TO SEE the ancient, abominable things within, inimical to all life. If I do not go mad reading about them, I will not be satisfied.

Raw God-stuff, taking on a form of its own independent of any deity.

Fey of the cities.

An undead that isn't evil--or at least, that is evil but can get along. I'm pretty certain my barber is evil, but I haven't tried to smite him yet--why can't an undead be the same?

Constructs that a low-level magic-worker could create.

A monster formed from botched alchemy, that isn't an ooze.

An intelligent ooze that hides inside dead (or living) bodies and makes them move around in an attempt to mimic real people which it so desperately wants to be.

A construct that wants to become a real boy.

A monster that is very romantic.

Dire Chihuahua.

More Dire animals in general.

A dragon with feathers.

A horrific eldritch abomination that is really a very nice and pleasant, good aligned crusader.

An Angel or Archon that is focused on powers of darkness and night.

An armor construct that you wear.

A spider that spins webs made of blood.

A scorpion-like magical beats with a huge sword for a stinger, that changes the material that composes its body in accordance with its surroundings (not merely camouflage--actually different composition).

Magical creatures that would make good family pets.

Monsters inspired by modern fiction -- Pygmy Puffs, Dementors, Skrewts, Inferius (Harry Potter), Darkspawn, Grolm, Korlm, Ogier (Wheel of Time), Husk, Varren, Klixen, Thorian (Mass Effect), Angels (Evangelion), Chaos Things (Warhammer), Ssi-Ruuk, Wampa, Mynock, Tentacle Bird of Pelemax, Gundark, Krakana, Bantha (Star Wars), Necromorphs (Dead Space), amongst any of a thousand thousand thousand other amazing ideas.

Starfish, Anglerfish, Hamsters, Shrimp (see the Bullet shrimp! Awesome), Lobsters, Ostrich (they are related to the Tyrannosaurus!).

Beings called into existence by instabilities in time and space

Cerberus/Erebus, or otherwise multi-headed power-dog.

Variant Elementals (Carbon, Zinc, Helium, Einsteinium, Plutonium, Radium, etc.)--that can only be "summoned" by an Alchemist or a mage with high ranks in Craft (alchemy), but that are actually only temporarily existing things that cease to be animated after a short period of time.

Cyborgs, or otherwise a mix of construct and organic.

More fey - Sidhe, Sluagh, etc.

A more classically fey player race than the belovedly eccentric gnome.

Fairy Godmother.

Ouroboros

A mushroom that, like cordyceps (but on a much more horrific scale) grows inside of and mind-controls humanoids.

More monsters from non-European mythology.

Rodents of Unusual Size.

A sentient disease.

A Slender Man monster! Also, more creepypasta type things.

Small things, resembling shards of glass floating through the air, or cracks on a wall that exist floating in space, that are actually sentient remnants of those realms of existence that came before the current one. They show images, flashes of existence and memories, that cause physical pain.

Thank you! You've been most helpful.

I just got the Pathfinder Bestiary. Unfortunately, a fair number of the monsters criminally small descriptions--the Shaitan Genie, for instance, doesn't get much described about it other than telling us that they are proud and from the Plane of Earth, which is rather jarring considering that the previous Genie spent a good two paragraphs describing the Marid.

It looks like the descriptions of the monsters got cut short just to make sure that each monster completed the page that it was on, which meant that for some of theme I don't very much other than what they look like and their alignment.

Is there anyplace where we can find out more about the monsters that got short-changed in the Bestiary? Other books, articles, websites, etc?

Thanks.

Thank you!

There are different errata for the different versions of the Pathfinder books, but I don't know where to look in my books to see what versions of the errata I should download. I've looked through them, but I can't see where the version is listed.

Where is this listed? I don't see anything about printing numbers at all.

Thank you.

Hi. When will we get the option to order back issues? Because when I look around, I can not see the option to order the back issues of Dragon now in a link or anything, but I have entered in that I do want back orders of Dragon. So will we only be able to order them after our subscription ends, or am I just really inept and unable to find it? If so, could you give me directions?
Thank you

What will happen to the PDFs? Will people still be able to buy them? Will they be free, or even available at all?

What is the "online model" mentioned on the press release? Are you (or WotC) still going to produce cool gaming content (for D&D)? Will it be in downloadable form, or just a link you click on? Will it be like Dragon or Dungeon, but in an internet form? Will you have to pay? WHere would it be? And any other information you feel I (or anyone else) may need to know would be appreciated.

Thank you for viewing and answering this.

Ah. THank you. I'll see into that. Thanks.

Hi. Um, I got my subscription of Dragon from amazon.com, not from here, so how would I convert my remaining issues to ordering back issues? ALso, how do I find the transition page? I've been looking for twenty minutes and I still can't find it.