Talon Dunning's page

Wondering about the progress of Beauties & Beasts and Book of Divine Love. Any word?

2018? Wow, I REALLY need to check the forums more often. My deepest apologies.

Unfortunately, Beauties & Beasts, as well as the Book of Divine Love, has been cancelled. The former due to issues with the writers, and the latter because future revision plans makes that book obsolete. While T.Catt is still planning a revised edition, now called "Ultimate Edition," I believe, the plan is to make the new version compatible with P2E, which neither I, nor T.Catt has had much experience with yet. We've also both been busy with other projects (including SoR 5E which, I believe lacks only cover art to be completed), so no development has yet happened there.

The truth of it is that the original development for SoR was done for D&D 3.5, and the PF version is a conversion done, mostly, by a third party. Since it was a conversion, much of it still doesn't really match the Pathfinder design approach. The Ultimate Edition will (hopefully) be an attempt to make the class Pathfinder-native rather than just a conversion from 3.5. 5E is a very different approach to the class and includes a lot of improvements (we think), improvements that can also be made for PF. For example, the Love's Blessings are no long tied to specific deities, but rather one of three categories, Passion, Romance, or Empowerment, that each love goddess represents. That way, the class becomes more adaptable to any setting and conceivably any love goddess. We very much like that approach and feel that will work just as well in a new PF edition as it does in 5E.

There has been some discussion of presenting both a revised P1E class and a P2E class in the Ultimate Edition, but that decision hasn't yet been made. I'm still hoping to rework my Modern PF game, The Modern Path 3.0 to be P2E-compatible as well, but, again, its hard to develop for a system you've hardly played. Our hope is that TMP3 will see a release first so SoR UE can include TMP3 material as well. We'll see how that goes.

Thanks for your interest. You can keep up with SoR news by following T.Catt on Facebook, Twitter, and deviantART, and Fantastic Gallery on Facebook.

This is more detailed than I can answer so I ran this all by T.Catt. This is his reply:

Wow, that IS a lot, and its a little hard for me to address every specific thing here as its been almost 10 years since I did the development for this book (the first thing I'd ever attempted to develop). This book has long been laid to rest as far as revisions go, so while some of these ideas are pretty decent, there's not a lot I can do about it at this point. Now, that having been said, I'm actually considering putting together an anniversary edition and revamping the whole thing but, honestly, that's a LOT of work, and I'm not sure I'm willing to crack open this particular can of worms again, particularly in today's social climate. Regardless, I'll try to address some issues:

-Horses. The SoR weren't inspired by the actual Amazons of legend, but rather by fantasy artwork featuring nude and scantily-clad female warriors. Almost none of the art that inspired me to create the class featured mounted warriors, so, honestly, giving them mounts never even occurred to me. I likely should have made Ride a class skill, and if I move forward with the anniversary edition I'll keep that in mind, but otherwise, I don't see them as being particularly mount-based.

-Spells, Skills, and Other Stuff. I don't have a lot to say here except that I did the best I could at the time, and I'm sorry you don't like them. Like everything in the book past the class, the skills and feats and such are optional. If you don't like them, you don't have to use them to play a Rapturous character. That includes the spells. If you don't like the Carnal spells as written, feel free to revamp or replace them with spells of your own design. Honestly, I don't mean to be dismissive -your complaints are valid and your ideas are good- but I'm just not sure what you expect me to do at this point. Perhaps if I do, indeed, decide to work on a revision of the book next year, we can discuss some of your ideas more directly. I could definitely use the help.

-Individual questions:
-Can a Rapturous use a Kiss on herself? The target is a living, corporeal creature, so as long as she fits that description, yes.

-Sacred Prostitute: I don't understand the question.

-Trading spells between the Abbess and the Sacred Prostitute: neither of those archetypes alters the SoR's spells known that I can recall, otherwise, this is a question for your GM.

-What happens if a Rapturous is turned male? Well, that's a good question. The answer is ultimately with your GM, but I would say it depends on the circumstance and whether or not the change is permanent. Strictly speaking, the class' prerequisites includes being female so if your character is permanently re-gendered, then he would lose access to the class, much like a paladin or monk who no longer qualifies for their class. The same thing would happen if an SoR's alignment was changed to any non-good. My reasoning for the female-only restriction is that that's how the goddesses want it, but GMs are the final arbiter over what is and isn't canon in their games, and are free to come up with whatever explanation they like, or even ignore that prerequisite.

-What happens if she has to act among other races or cater to a certain kink? That sounds like a story question. I don't know what you mean here. I don't see how anything in the class would prevent that. As long as she's not violating her good alignment or the edicts of her particular religion or the SoR faction, then she's free to do whatever she wants.

-Could there be spells like...? Sure. You GM has the final say over what spells are allowed in your game, including ones you make up yourself or pull from third-party sources (the BoEF has plenty of interesting sexually-themed spells that could work great for an SoR character -once translated into Pathfinder, of course). Go nuts.

I've gotten a lot of feedback over the last decade regarding the mechanics of this book, and a lot of it I was able to implement in the early days. Some of it was worked into the 5E version (that book is on hold while we figure out how to handle the layout), and, if I do decide to revise the PFRPG class next year, then I will address them there as well. Otherwise, this book is pretty well cemented at this point, and further revisions aren't likely to happen. I do appreciate your thoughts, however, and I do regret that the book didn't live up to your expectations. I hope you'll be able to get some enjoyment out of it, regardless. Thanks for your feedback and support!

-T.Catt

I'm currently running this adventure path and we just finished this module. One of my players wants to salvage the tank that held The-Stars-Whisper (the shipmind in the decomposing dropship) as part of some elaborate plan. As part of the rotting ship, I decided that it's in just as bad a shape as the rest of the vessel, and now questions are coming up as to what spells might be used to restore it. Since the module provides very little information on Dominion biotechnology, I'm not sure how to answer him. I assume that since it was never truly a creature, that raise dead or resurrection won't bring it back to life, but what about spells that stop decomposition or fix objects? Will gentle repose arrest the decomposition? Or, is it, despite it's organic nature, still just an object, and therefore subject to make whole? A combination of both? What keeps Dominion biotech "alive" in the first place? If repaired, will hooking it up to a power source keep it from decaying? I can, of course, just make these answers up, but I'm hoping, perhaps, some of you fine folks might have some insight so that my ruling might be more well informed.

Thoughts?

Thanks, everyone, for your input. This is a difficult question and one I have continued to struggle with since making my initial post back in December (although mostly internally now, not wishing to spark more arguments at the game-table). The scenario that started the initial discussion revolved around my CG rogue's slaying of an evil fey prisoner during one of the early modules of the Shattered Star series. I felt justified in doing so because I assumed (admittedly out of game) that an evil fey could never be anything other than evil, so I was ridding society of a dangerous menace. My fellow players disagreed and basically accused my character of murder, and me of not properly playing my character's alignment.

Regardless, I appreciate y'all's insight into this topic. I can't argue with anything that has been said here, and I feel that, perhaps, my position isn't as well thought-out as I initially believed. I still don't like the "alignment is technically optional" approach (I feel that it makes the entire mechanic rather pointless), but I definitely see your various points regarding what might and might not have a soul, and how that might pertain to alignment and the machinations of the gods. Perhaps, I am being overly simplistic about the whole thing, wanting a clean game with black-and-white motivations, and perhaps the more realistic moral ambiguity does make for more interesting roleplaying. Unfortunately, in my experience, this kind of "interesting" usually just means inter-party conflict, which is something I happen to hate, but I do see what you mean there.

Anyway, thanks again for taking the time to answer my question. This has been very helpful to me, even if it did take me 6 months to remember to check the thread for replies... :-P

Hi there. I don't post to this forum very often, so I hope its okay to post to an older thread like this, but I have an alignment-related issue and this seems like the right thread to address it in.

The question of the nature of monsters' alignment has come up in my group and is causing some serious problems. I maintain that in order for adventurers to be justified in what they do, alignment must be absolute in most cases, meaning we can be assured that certain creatures are always evil and, therefore, as good-aligned heroes, we are always justified in killing them without mercy or remorse, even if we haven't personally witnessed their evil acts. Such as if we explore a dungeon and find a black dragon at the end of it, we're justified in attacking and killing that black dragon simply because it's a black dragon and we know it, without a doubt, to be evil and, therefore, a menace to society.

I further maintain that there is a clear reasoning for absolute alignment that goes beyond mere assumption of guilt or speciesism or racism: only humanoids (monstrous or otherwise) have souls, and therefore, only humanoids can determine the fate of their souls in the afterlife by way of their actions in life, thus determining their own alignments. All other creatures are, specifically, soulless and do not gain punishment or reward upon death. This is evidenced by the interest the gods play in the lives of mortals, where they take an active role in guiding their fates, both on a societal and personal level, while, for the most part, utterly ignoring even intelligent monsters such as dragons and fey. I maintain that all other monster types are, for various reasons, soulless by nature, and therefore have neither afterlife nor ability to choose or voluntarily alter their alignment. They are born/created with their alignment, which they will and must maintain throughout their existence (barring outside influence).

In other words, humanoids have a "nurture" alignment, while everything else has a "nature" alignment. This allows PCs to be justified in their often proactively violent habits in relation to these beasts and still consider themselves good-aligned.

My fellow players (and, unfortunately, my GM) vehemently disagree with me on this. My GM, specifically, claims that only creatures that bear an alignment subtype (Good or Evil) have a "nature" alignment and that all other creatures, regardless of type, are the specific product of their society/upbringing. To me, this means that all intelligent creatures must have souls, and that we are never justified in attacking any intelligent monster without direct evidence that it has committed an evil act (or is detectable as evil by detect evil). Killing in self-defense or the defense of others is one thing, but without the concept of a knowable, absolute alignment, the concept of invading a dungeon to kill the "evil" monsters living there and stealing their treasure, which is the D&D/Pathfinder adventure at its most classic and most basic, becomes paramount to home invasion, robbery, and murder (depending on circumstances, of course).

So am I right in assuming that most monsters lack souls and, therefore, have no control over their alignment, or are they, as my GM claims, the products of their culture or environments and may be redeemed or have atypical alignments if raised under different conditions?

Thanks for considering.

[wince]...and since it clearly wound up more backhanded than I intended, I apologise unreservedly.

No worries. The book's intent is simply something that we all want to make sure people are aware of. While there's certainly a certain level of prurience to the material, its existence as an homage to a specific fantasy illustration troupe should be first and foremost in people's minds when they read it.

Addressing some of the recent posts...

Yes, most of the artwork shows rather more naughty bits than is usually found in gaming products, but to my eye, every single piece is entirely purposeful and relevant to/illustrative of the text.

Indeed it is, especially since, according to T.Catt, the entire point of the book is to explain the presence of the traditional semi-nude and "chain-mail bikini babes" in fantasy illustration. While many people simply complain about how unrealistic such characters are, T.Catt wrote this book as a way of explaining why and how they might exist in the first place. As such, NOT having such illustrations in the book would have undermined the very point.

Unfortunately, I have the sort of eye and mind which automatically pick out, then get unreasonably hung-up-on, otherwise-minor typos and other writing issues. :S Alzrius, Talon Dunning: where would be the best place to submit a list of errata and corrections?

At this point, we've edited and re-edited both versions of the book several times, correcting not only minor grammatical errors, but problems with the system as well. To be honest, while we certainly appreciate your vigilance in this regard, chances are that, unless there's a further problem with the game rules themselves, it's doubtful that we'll be putting out yet another errata edition just to dot a few I's and cross a few T's. The work that goes into that is considerable and, frankly, at this point, we need to be looking forward to new projects, not constantly perfecting past ones. Alzirus has sent me your errata list, though, and I'll be looking it over soon. I do appreciate your efforts in this matter.

And while we're waiting for The Book of Divine Love: what is the team's position regarding fan-created original goddesses (or fan-conversions of goddesses from other published worlds) for use as sponsoring deities for Sister of Rapture? Say someone's working up, say, one or more of the Forgotten Realms' goddesses as members of the SoR movement, including unique Love's Blessings. Would T.Catt and the team be okay with a fan-work like that being posted into a thread like this, or would you prefer that fans not do things like that within your sight for legal reasons?

I'm fine with it in principal, however, you might be interested to know that we have plans to include such as you're describing in the Book of Divine Love. While we can't, of course, use copyrighted names, our plan is to include "original" fantasy goddesses that will be similar enough to goddesses like Sune and Shelyn so that they may easily stand in for those characters. We'll also be including a few wholly original characters. We don't like creating in a vacuum and, as such, we've always invited fans to help us with our development process. Several of the feats, spells and magic items in the initial OGL version of Sisters of Rapture were created by, or at least suggested by, fans. So while you may post original SoR stuff here, even fan-made stuff for existing settings, please be aware that it's likely that our official material will eventually override it and you'll lose the chance to have it appear in the actual book, as we won't consider anything that's already been released to the public. If you send it to us privately (or, more specifically, to T.Catt at tcatt@comcast.net), we'll look it over and see if it's something we might want to eventually use. If we do, you get a free PDF copy of the book and a special thanks credit.

Is this book and the classes/prestige classes/feats inside strictly for women characters?

The base class and prestige classes are as that was, as explained, the point. Most of the feats supplement the class, so they'd be limited as well. Other aspects aren't so restricted. For instance, the Carnal domain is available to the Rapturous, but also to clerics of love, lust, feminine power or other conceptually related deities (as you GM allows). The spells are appropriate for clerics of both Sheylyn and Calistria (even though Calistrian philosophy is incompatible with that 0f the Sisters of Rapture). 'm currently playing a Calistrian cleric in a Pathfinder campaign and was able to take a feat from Sisters of Rapture, so there is material there that's useful to non-Rapturous... Just not a lot.

That said, we have looked into the concept of how the Rapturous deal with their menfolk and how to include them in the fun as well. We've had some idea submissions from a fan on the subject matter and will likely be addressing that issue in a future supplement... Although it's not appropriate for any of our current projects, so we're not sure where it will go at this point. But, even when that does happen, the Sisters of Rapture will remain an all-female organization and the SoR class will remain limited to female PCs.

Are there any neutral evil erotic monsters? My Sorcerer of Lust will eventually take the leadership feat and he's looking for an interesting cohort. :P

Alzirus did a good job answering this one, but I'll go ahead and add that T.Catt and Co. are currently working on a book called Sisters of Rapture: Beauties & Beasts which will essentially be an erotic monster manual. While I'm not 100% certain of the alignment of every monster currently in development, it's possible that something more suited might eventually be found there. We're hoping to have that book ready later this year (2013).

First off, I LOVE the SoR books. Much better than the BoEF.

As for the future Book of Divine Love, I have a deity in my custom campaign world who is the goddess of passion, both love and battle. If you need an extra deity, let me know and I can send the info your way, as well as a paladin of passion who is her descendant/champion.
Looking forward to more great work from you guys.

Again, sorry for the late reply. T.Catt is, indeed, looking for new ideas for original goddesses for The Book of Divine Love, so when the time comes, we may just contact you regarding your idea. Catt is currently working on the SoR Modern Path edition and Beauties & Beasts, so BoDL isn't really gotten underway yet, but it IS on the docket for future development and we're hoping we can get to it sooner rather than later. None of us does this primarily, so work is a bit slow-going... The down-side of small-press publishing, I suppose.

I'm very pleased that you like our book and I hope the upcoming supplements will live up to your expectations! ;-)

-Talon

I did the cover to the original Sword & Sorcery edition of Rappan Athuk 3. Any chance you'll be reusing that piece of art? If so, I can provide you with the original hi-res files (as well as a version where the mariliths are appropriately topless). I'm glad to hear that these books will be making a comeback. They were definitely definitive and helped set the bar for early OGL publishers.

-Talon

Thanks for your support! It's taken a bit longer to get the POD ready for purchase, thanks to an embarrassingly prominent typo that made it into the print files (but not the PDF), but it should be a very soon.

A lot of the book's reviews have touched on the lack of ability to play these characters at 1st level due to the CR adjustments. As such, I have something of a "fix" for that. It's not perfect, but I think it might do...

Basically, take all the special qualities of each template and put them in a pool. The player creating the character then chooses two of these qualities/abilities for his character, replacing the two traits she'd normally get at first level. This means that each template has a decreasing trait pool to choose from as it gets further away from the draconic ancestor. The individual trait pools would looks like this:

Legacy Half-Dragon trait Pool

• +4 natural AC
  
• ability adjustments
  
• immunity to sleep and paralysis
  
• immunity to energy of the same type as draconic breath weapon
  
• wings (fly speed)
  
• claw attacks
  
• breath weapon
  
• fast flight (Req: wings, gold legacy)
  
• fog vision (Req: silver legacy)
  
• graceful flight (Req: wings, silver legacy)
  
• luck (Req: gold legacy)
  
• paralyzing breath (Req: breath weapon, silver legacy)
  
• repulsion breath (Req: breath weapon, bronze legacy)
  
• water breathing (Req: bronze legacy)
  
• weakening breath (Req: breath weapon, gold legacy)

  Quarter-Dragon trait Pool
  

• +3 natural AC
  
• ability adjustments
  
• immunity to sleep and paralysis
  
• immunity to energy of the same type as draconic breath weapon
  
• wings (glide speed)
  
• claw attacks
  
• breath weapon
  
• fog vision (Req: silver legacy)
  
• luck (Req: gold legacy)
  
• water breathing (Req: bronze legacy)

  Greater Draconic Legacy trait Pool
  

• +1 natural AC
  
• ability adjustments
  
• +2 to sleep and paralysis and energy of the same type as draconic breath weapon
  
• claw attacks
  
• breath weapon
  
• fog vision (Req: silver legacy)
  
• luck (Req: gold legacy)
  
• water breathing (Req: bronze legacy)

  Lesser Draconic Legacy trait Pool
  

• ability adjustments
  
• claw attacks
  
• fog vision (Req: silver legacy)
  
• luck (Req: gold legacy)
  
• water breathing (Req: bronze legacy)

Indeed, thanks for the great review, Endzeitgeist (and a special personal thanks for the kind words regarding the art and layout!)! As Alzirus notes, the decision to only include gold, silver and bronze dragons was intentional, to a certain degree. The reasoning here was that I didn't want to exclude the original half-dragon template, so I focused on dragons that could shape-change naturally, which was, it turned out, only the three. Essentially, only dragons that mate with humanoids (or whatever) while naturally shape-changed can beget Legacy Half-Dragons. All other dragons, who must use external spell casting to change into a humanoid-compatible form, can only beget STANDARD half-dragons, as listed in the Bestiary (and keep in mind the limited durations of such spells, as opposed to Shape Change, which lasts indefinitely, leaving plenty of time for romance and wooing and the possibility for some pretty awesome roleplaying opportunities). The children of standard half-dragons (for the purposes of this book, anyway) cannot pass on their draconic heritage to their children, except in the form of draconic sorcerous blood. So a red dragon, say, that mates with a human will produce a standard red half-dragon. A red half-dragon that mates with a human will produce a human with a chance of being a draconic sorcerer: since the draconic traits weren't passed down naturally (i.e., genetically), they disappear after only a single generation. A half-dragon that was naturally shape-changed (Change Shape is a Supernatural ability, after all) can pass on his draconic legacy to his children and on down the line, for about 24 generations before the physical traits disappear entirely leaving only sorcerers in its wake.

That's the reason the book is limited to only three dragon types. Of course, all of this is just MY interpretation of it. For GMs that might want to include other dragon types, simply replace the Draconic Inheritance abilities available for each template with choices from the Bestiary listing for dragon types in question (generally the three least powerful ones) and go from there. The rest of the templates are pretty much applicable as they are. This will, of course, necessitate replacing the standard half-dragon with the draconic legacy version, since it would make little sense to have them both.

Creating a "dragonborn" -like race would have been pretty cool, I'll admit, but I would have had trouble justifying their appearance in the book since the book's stated theme is, specifically, characters literally descended from a single dragon/humanoid coupling, and a race, by definition, would have to breed true with no "dilution" of the draconic blood (as Dragonborn in 4e). Yes, all four templates carry a CR bump, which was, unfortunately, unavoidable. The most "PC-compatible" of them is, of course, the Lesser Draconic Legacy Creature, which was designed to essentially be the draconic equivalent of a tiefling. At only CR+1, they're pretty playable, even at first level if you apply some of Paizo's own techniques for playing such creatures a level early (personally I think allowing a CR+1 character at 1st-level will rarely break a game, but I know that most GMs are a bit more more concerned with play-balance than I am in my own games).

Any chance of getting it at the Paizo store ?

Unfortunately, not at this time as our contract with DriveThruRPG/RPGNow is exclusive, which seemed the best option for me when I set Fantastic Gallery up in 2008. It was up for renewal last year, but I unfortunately forgot about it and let it auto-renew for another three years. So, in 2014, I'll have the opportunity to end the exclusivity and sell here. I'll decide then if I think that will be a profitable idea or not (DriveThru takes a bigger cut for non-exclucivity). The good news, though, is that this book will be available for Print On Demand through DriveThru in the next couple of weeks! Yay!

All four versions of the class (OGL, Pathfinder, d20 Modern and The Modern Path) can be purchased together as a single discounted bundle HERE! Yay!

A Big Thank You to Fantastic Gallery for thier support of the Modern Path system with: The Sensitive pdf and Hero Labs data set!

I see your "Big Thank You" and raise you an ever bigger "Thank You," for your help in putting it all together! Also, thanks for introducing me to HeroLab! It's a very cool resource, and one that I'll definitely be taking advantage of in the future!

Very Cool!

Thanks, Kevin! It's a book I'm pretty proud of, so I hope everyone enjoys it.

Just curious but after a year of exclusive deal can't you then sell on other places as well? I only ask cause I know Purple Duck Publishing did that and after a year added their products on Paizo as well.

I need to check back here for replies more often... As I recall, the length of exclusivity (and how long you're with DriveThru in general) is determined by the contract one signs when they sign up for the service. I signed a three-year contract, covering 2008-2011. However, the contract automatically renews for another specified period unless one takes steps to cancel it at the end of its run. Honestly, had I thought about it before it renewed, I would have considered changing it to a non-exclusive contract and selling through Paizo as well, but I literally forgot about it until it had already rolled over into a new contract period. I'm not terribly broken up about it, though. DriveThru gives a decent percentage for exclusive members and it does make the bookkeeping easier.

Looking forward to the further books. Is there any chance that Beauties & Beasts or The Book of Divine Love will include an alternate class like the Anti-paladin (Sisters of Lust?)

That's a cool idea, actually, and one I'd not considered until now (outside of Shane's female supremacy faction that eventually became the Autarch Sorority). I'm not sure what book it would be the most appropriate for, but I bet we could find a home for it somewhere. I ran it by T.Catt (SoR's creator and author) and he liked it as well. If we use it, I'll make sure you get a "Special Thanks" credit! Thanks for the idea!

Edit: On a completely different not, absolutely love your work. It was one of my favourite things about the 3e Ravenloft line. You really captured the feeling of the setting and the different character portraits.

Thanks! The work I did for White Wolf's Ravenloft setting still remains a highlight of my career and the work for which I am most regularly recognized. I was disappointed to learn that WOtC dropped their plans for a 4e Ravenloft boxed set. While I didn't anticipate getting any work for it, it would have been nice to see se setting in print again. First and foremost, I'm a fan!

On a conceptual level I am o.k. with this but was the inclusion of graphic art necessary? Please tell me you don't have any mechanics for the deed like that infamous book did.

Alzirus fielded this one pretty well. I'll add that the Sisters of Rapture were, from their very beginnings, an homage to "erotic" fantasy art, or, at the very least, the common inclusion of the mostly-naked heroines in the genre. T.Catt himself has said that he was originally inspired to create the SoR (originally called the "Warriors of Rapture") after viewing the work of Luis Royo (These two pics, specifically: "Immaculate" and "The Seeds of Nothing") and discussing with friends why a woman would chose to fight demons in the buff. The Sisters of Rapture are the answer to that question. So, not including nudity in the book would have been something of an injustice to the original inspiration. Also, there's the fact that T.Catt is a near-legendary "Rule 34" artist who's been around for, like, EVER. One of the things that made me want to take up this project was the art. We were both very disappointed in the photographic illustrations in the BoEF (although they DO get points for thinking outside the box) and wanted to make sure that our book looked really spectacular. NOT putting erotic art in the book was never even a question.

As for "rules for sex," we wanted to specifically avoid that. That was something I was very adamant about during the book's development. I thought that was a bad idea to begin with, for one thing, and, frankly, the BoEF had that covered. I saw no reason to repeat what they'd done, aside from the inclusion of the Perform (sexual techniques) skill, which was simply necessary to cover some mechanical details of the classes and such. I was hesitant to allow Alzirus to alter the skill's mechanics for the PFRPG translation, but I saw his point rather quickly and relented to allowing it to actually DO something in-game.

Also, wouldn't Hathor have been a better choice than Isis?

I ran this question by T.Catt. Here's his response: "I considered that, actually, and with Hathor being the Egyptian goddess of love and mirth, it seems like a great idea, but the fact of the matter is that Hathor just doesn't have the prestige and instant recognizability that Isis does. Also, I wanted the Trinity of Love to represent three basic approaches to SoR characters: romance, passion and feminine power. Aphrodite is romance, Freya is passion and Isis is feminine power. While each certainly has aspects of all three traits, I thought that these three goddesses each represented those particular concepts pretty strongly. That said, I did give Hathor her due as the more dedicated Egyptian love-goddess by including her in the Love's Blessings of the base SoR class. Her Rapturous don't carry the political power within the faction that the Isisians do, of course, but they are represented. Hathor may get a more detailed entry in The Book of Divine Love, though, as will the lusty cat-goddess, Bast (who will also have some interesting representation in Beauties & Beasts -assuming I can make that one work out). We'll see how that goes. And yes, I'll admit that her having a cow's head DID play a factor in picking Isis over Hathor, but not as much as you might think."

Thanks for your comments and questions!

-Talon

Hey there folks! Talon Dunning, artist and publisher for Fantastic Gallery here. I thought I'd address some of your questions here directly.

-Publishing via Paizo: I would love to distribute our digital products via Paizo's store, however, we are under an exclusive contract with OneBookShelf (they run DriveThruRPG and RPGNow). When we signed up for DriveThru's service, I had to decide whether to be exclusive and get a higher percentage of the sales or settle for less and try to make up the difference here. I figured that it would probably work out to about the same and went with that was, essentially, the simpler choice. It has nothing to do with Paizo not allowing adult content in their store. As far as I know, there is no such ban on adult material here. The only thing that the book's adult content prevented us from doing was including the Pathfinder Compatibility logo or otherwise claiming PF Compatibility on the cover (hence the use of the term "PFRPG" instead of "Pathfinder Roleplaying Game"). Otherwise, it's just another OGL product.

-Pathfinder goddesses for SoR: I ran this one by T.Catt. Here's his response:
"This has been brought up before. Obviously, I can't include the Golarion goddesses, specifically, due to copyright, but, that doesn't mean I'm not planning on addressing them. I'm currently in the planning stages of an SoR supplement called 'The Book of Divine Love' that will detail just about every mythological love-goddess I can find as well as a handful of original 'fantasy' goddesses. The fantasy goddesses will contain obvious allegories to proprietary characters such as Sune from Forgotten Realms and Shelyn and Callistria from Golarion. They will sport different names to avoid infringement, but will be close enough to the originals that they can easily be used as substitutions for SoR characters playing in those settings. I'm aware of the challenge that Callistria poses to the established mantra of the SoR and that will be addressed in her doppleganger's entry. Callistria is one of my favorite deities from the Pathfinder setting, so I'm looking forward to finding a place for her in the Sisters of Rapture."

In the meantime, we suggest that if you want to play a Sister of Rapture in a Golarion game, stick to Shelyn and either assign her Aphrodite's Love's Blessings or make up some of your own.

-SoR as Oracle mystery; Frankly, that never occurred to me. The Oracle (or Pathfinder in general for that matter) didn't exist when T.Catt was writing the original OGL book and the Oracle class came out while Shane and I were in the process of doing the PF conversion. To rework the class as an Oracle mystery would have, essentially, completely undermined the Sisters of Rapture as a stand-alone product. The book exists as a base class and crunch support for that base class. Without the base class, the book becomes a much weaker product, more along the lines of a $4 supplement rather than a stand-alone book. So even if we were designing this thing from scratch today, it would probably still be its own thing. It makes more sense from a business standpoint. Now, that being said, making an SoR Oracle mystery isn't a terrible idea. Shane's creation of the SoR as a stand-alone faction actually opens them up to other classes, and Oracles would fit in nicely, as would clerics or even paladins. I would imagine that the vast majority of the Rapturous would still have levels of SoR, though.

-Sacred AC bonus: From T.Catt: "I did consider, very carefully, if I wanted the Distracting Beauty ability to stack with other bonuses and I eventually settled on 'yes.' The reason for this is, essentially, conceptual. The entire inspiration for the SoR in the first place was the classic fantasy art depictions of naked or semi-naked women who are obviously efficient warriors despite their total lack of physical protection. I figured in order to achieve this, I needed to make it so that the SoR characters could still maintain a decent AC even without armor. If the Distracting Beauty bonus didn't stack with other non-armor-provided bonuses, it would be difficult to make a naked character with a decent AC. The SoR may be spellcasters, but they're also supposed to be able to handle themselves in melee combat as well, so its essential that their AC be as high as one can get it without wearing any armor."

-The BoEF: Valar's Book of Erotic Fantasy was, indeed, the book that caused WOtC to alter the old d20 System License to prevent the inclusion of adult material, which forced Valar to publish under the OGL instead. By the time we were ready to publish the original SoR book in 2008, the d20 GSL had been pulled by WOtC in general in favor of the new 4th edition GSL (which also includes a community standards clause preventing us from ever creating a 4e version of the class), so the OGL was literally our only choice. Honestly this didn't bother us too much since "OGL" has become synonymous with "d20 System" anyway.

Thanks for your interest in the Sisters of Rapture. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask them and either myself, Shane or T.Catt will be glad to get you answers.

-Talon

Nirvana: agathions and angels; Elysium: azatas; Heaven: archons.

It seems to me that the angels were meant to be universal to both Nirvana and Elysium, making them the answer to my initial question as to who the second celestial race in Elysium is. I see now that the discrepancy between the Bestiary and The Great Beyond is one of setting vs. generic write-up. My curiosity is satisfied. Thanks!

One minute per caster level, as indicated by the polymorph spell. That being equal to HD, yes.

That does seem...rather short.

Indeed, especially considering part of what I'm doing specifically involves the "natural" creation of a humanoid half-dragon (as opposed to one created via magical experimentation). Even a great wyrm (base CR + 16) is only going to stay polymorphed for 20 minutes or so if its Shape Change ability is as limited in duration as the polymorph spell. Even at 3 x day (a total of about an hour), that's hardly time enough to do the deed, much less actually meet and woo an unsuspecting elf maiden without the help of something like charm person, which is a questionable thing for a good-aligned creature to do, to be sure (even something as enigmatic as a dragon). Then again, wooing an unsuspecting elf maiden without warning her that you're actually a dragon is a little iffy for a good-aligned creature in and of itself, especially considering how dangerous a birth I imagine that would be (all those horns! yikes!). But I digress...

If, indeed, the Shape Change ability is as limited in duration as polymorph, then the use of the aforementioned feat sounds like the solution to my dilemma, although I may need to wait on its release in order to use it in my project.

But as a general rule... dragons in the Inner Sea region are not normally going to be of the type that masquerade as humanoids. That trick is something dragons in Tian Xia are more about.

Okay, the coolness of a Tien Xia supplement aside, what you're indicating here is that, if a bronze, gold or silver dragon had reason to use its Shape Change supernatural ability to live amongst human(oid)s, in order to do so indefinitely, it would need this feat, otherwise, its limited to a round per hit-die as indicated by the polymorph spell?

So, then, it it should read like this: Nirvana: agathions and angels; Elysium: azatas and angels; Heaven: archons and angels. That right?

Sorry to pick up an old thread, but I have a follow-up question: I'm assuming that a supernatural (Su) ability such as a the draconic Change Shape ability in question, has the same duration as the spell it references (in this case, polymorph, with a duration of 1 minute per hit-die). However, in the Dragons of Golarion supplement for Rise of the Runelords, it's indicated that unrepentant chaotic bronze dragons will use their shape change ability to hide in human communities, often taking protective jobs such as town watch or bodyguards. Is this an indication that the duration of draconic Shape Change is indefinite and not limited to a minute per hit-die or am I mistaken regarding the duration of supernatural abilities?

Okay, this thread's rapidly aging, but I'm going to post to it anyway and see if I can't get an answer. I see that under the description of the Archons (pg 37) it says "Unlike the other good-aligned planes of Nirvana and Elysium, only a single race of celestials populates Heaven: the archons." Looking over the section on Nirvana I see that there are, indeed, two celestial races covered there, the agathions and the angels. But under Elysium I only see one race of celestials mentioned, the azatas. The only other creature listed there are the Titans, and it calls them refugees from another, unknown plane. So are the Titans Elysium's second celestial race or does Elysium only sport a single race as well?

For those converting LoF to PRPG: here's a site that one of my players found that converts all the NPCs and monsters from all the modules to the PRPG system. I've found it very useful.

http://nethys.karuikage.net/conversions.htm

Wow, sorry I'm, like, REALLY late with this reply, but I just don't check these boards very often, and I didn't realize it had been so long...

Hey there, cool race man!

Have you gotten around to doing your version of the dvati yet? I’d love to see it, sounds exactly what I’m looking for. :)

Well, as it turned out, I didn't have to. I didn't realize when I posted this reply that Paizo had already done a d20 conversion of the Dvati in the Dragon Compendium. I thought this was all still regarding my old AD&D version. So, since they've been converted already, there's really no reson for me to try my own version. I would like to go ahead and put together an Ecology article, in the style of the Ecology articles in Dragon, but there's no telling when I'd get the time to do that.

A few questions:

What are the dvati homelands like?

Whatever your DM wants them to be like. I originally invisioned them as being native to the Outlands in the old Planescape setting, but now that Planescape is pretty well defunct, it's up to you to put them wherever they fit best in your world. The world I invented for my players had them in a desert setting based heavily on Melanie Rawn's "Dragon Prince" novels, but that was mostly because my world was a hodge-podge of settings and ideas taken from various sources, from comics to novels to movies.

If you were going to put the dvati into forgotten realms or eberron, where would you pu them and what changes would you make to them? I DM eberron while my friend DM’s FR; any chance of a “dvati conversion download” or at least a post with a few pointers? ;)

That's an interesting challenge. Eberron: well, they're pretty alien, so if they were located on Khorvaire, it wouldn't be in large numbers, probably not even large enough to call any single nation their home. I see them more as being scattered around everywhere. They're pretty civilized, so they'd probably be found in the more "civilized" areas. Their alienness, might make them suitable for Xen'Drik, but only if they were sort of like oases of civilization in the sea of wilderness and ruins that is that continent. You could place them on Argonnessen if you connected them somehow to dragons. I don't know anything about Sarlona, so I can't say if they'd fit in there or not, other than to say that seems like a pretty alien, ordered place, so maybe that's a good spot for them

As for the Realms, the same thing that stands for Khorvaire would stand in Faerun. I just don't see them being populous enough to have their own area. Faerun is pretty well mapped out with very little space to put an entire culture of people that isn't already part of the setting. I could see an alternate idea being placing them on one of the Unknown Lands or islands out beyond the Trackless or Eastern Seas, if you don't mind the possibility of possibly breaking canon should a future Realms book reveal the secrets of those areas. In eaither case, making them planar isn't a bad idea either, you'd just have to change their type to Outsider and you're set.

Any other discussion regarding their culture, that I haven't already mentioned, is a little beyond the scope of what I can do here. All I can say is that they are a lawful, ordered society and that their art and architecture and whatnot is based off off the concept of duality.

Do you think they make for a cool "psionically inclined" race?

Oh, definitely. The one time a friend of mine played a Dvati set (way before the release of the Dragon Compendium), he played them as psions. The ability to share powers between them was of great advantage to him. Of course, he was playing them as two separate characters, as opposed to one-character, two-bodies, as Dragon set them up. As they are officially, they share class-levels between them, so there's only one list of powers anyway. Still, there's no reason they couldn't be psionicists. Personally, I think they make excellent rogues and their innate frigility makes them poor fighters. Spellcaster types, who stay away from claws and swords, would probably last longer.

I hope that's helpful to you!

-Talon

Wow, I have to admit, this is cool. I love that not only has paizo updated my "Beastly Research" entry (something I JUST learned about, like, 20 minutes ago), but its generating real discussion on the boards. Thanks, all for giving them due consideration and not just blasting them as the creation of horrible cheese-monkeys!

Unfortunately, I had absolutely nothing to do with their conversion to third edition, so I can't really answer your questions regarding their balance. I will admit that the balance issue was something that I struggled with even back in the day. My solution back then was to split the pair up between players, letting the set be played as separate characters by separate players. That's how they were originally intended; as separate, but tightly connected characters. Whether they were played by two people or one was really left up to the DM.

I don't have the Dragon Compendium yet (as evidenced by my total ignorance of the Dvati's return), and I'm very excited to learn that my creation was chosen to appear in the first volume. I'll have to make an effort to pick up the book now. Way-cool. :-)

Are they balanced? Well, I can't say, since I don't know the new rules yet. I will say this: like most things in D&D, I'd imagine that their "balance" has a lot to do with party and campaign dynamics. In other words, they're as balanced as the DM makes them. d20 is a rather flexible system and has a lot of room for interpretation. Every campaign is different and one DM's balance is often another's munchkin. It really sounds to me that the d20 Dvati walk a delicate balance (tee-hee!) between these two extremes. Heed the warning, play them with caution and try to enjoy the roleplaying opportunities they provide.

Earlier tonight, I posted a reply to another thread on this forum regarding the Dvati's ecology and (ahem) mating practices (hey, she asked). I guess since the race's development is out of my hands, you can take anything I said there and here regarding their personality with a grain of salt (indeed, when I made that post, I had yet to figure out that they'd been converted and thought we were talking about the AD&D version). You should definitely fall back on the "official" rules and information published in the Compendium and in Dragon #271. But if I can be of further help, please don't hesitate to ask me. I can be reached at everwho@comcast.net.

Anyway, thanks again for giving the Dvati your consideration, and thanks to Paizo for including them in their apparently cool book. Obviously, they have great taste! :-)

-Talon

1)Argos uses bardic music to Inspire Courage,can Argent use another use of bardic music to fascinate while Argos does that?

2)The pair decide the best course of action during a fight is to perform a hilarious song lampooning their enemy to inspire their allies. Argos uses one Bardic Music to Inspire Courage while Argent uses one Jester's Performance to insult the orc in a series of hilarious rhymes in the same round. Can this be done?

Hi. As the creator of the Dvati, I thought I'd throw in my opinion and see if it's helpful. The thing to remember about Dvati is that, like human twins, they still retain their individually without being too dissimilar to each other. What this effectively means is that, technically, you're playing two distinct characters. This means a DM should treat them as such. If the rules allow for bards (or whatever) to work together and stack their abilities, then the fact that they are identical twins sharing an emotional bond shouldn't matter. Each member of a Dvati set should have his own abilities and stats and be treated, by the rules, as separate characters. The only thing they should share is initiative (and even that would be up to the DM... After all, the DM IS always right). I hope this helps. Thanks for giving my creation a try.

-Talon

this is where it gets difficult, do dvati do everything together, what if we start going out? does that mean both of my dvati twins are going out with the rogue? what about marrige and children? can dvati mate with humans?

Hi there. I know this thread is rather old now, but I just came across it for the first time and, as the guy who created the Dvati, I hope I can shed some light on their rather complex and admittedly confusing ecology.

The main thing to remember about the Dvati is that they are identical twins, not clones. Despite the theological notions that they share a single soul, they are, pretty much just like real-life twins in that each tends to develop a distinct personality. That being said, however, the relationship between a Dvati and its sibling are far greater than that of other humanoid twinnings. They tend to be very similar to each other, in that non-Dvati often have great trouble telling them apart, even when they speak, but to those who really get to know them, the difference becomes more apparent. Dvati twins share a strong emotional bond that is extremely difficult to sever. This is why they never part after reaching adulthood and tend to do everything together as a set (well, that and the fact that separating a set causes them to shrivel up and die, but that's beside the point right now).

Dating outside their race is very difficult for them. The Dvati (their language is roughly Slavic, BTW, "dva" being Russian for "two") see the world in dualities. Although I didn't emphasize it in the old Dragon entry, they're a very lawful people who tend to put everything in even, equal terms. When they mate, they mate pair-to-pair, each partner in the mating sharing time with the others equally. It's unusual for a marriage to produce only one set of children. Usually, the wife-set will become pregnant simultaneously. Indeed, it takes donations from BOTH males of a set to make a dvati female pregnant. Since overpopulation can be a problem, it is extremely rare for a Dvati female to birth a set more than once in her liftime.

Can they mate with non-Dvati? Technically, yes, although only with humans and only with a set of identical twins. In other words, Dvati females can only reproduce with a set of male twins, either human or Dvati. The really twisted thing is, the offspring is almost always a single being, a Dvati/human hybrid. These hybrids are pretty much pale, small-nosed humans, probably about the same size as a half-elf. Since identical human twins are rare, such parings are all but unheard of and, as such, I've never bothered to come up with half-Dvati stats.

Biology aside, Dvati, being twined beings of duality, find single beings to be rather curious creatures. While they certainly don't distain or avoid them, they would find the notion of dating a single individual as confusing and odd as we would find dating a set of identical twins simultaneously to be. The relationship would brobably be rather strained since the set would expect equal treatment and time from the single individual who would find his attentions pulled in two directions at once. It's not an impossible situation, but it would require a lot of work. This can also cause rivalry to develop between the siblings, which is very, very bad. Rival sets tend to become weak and sickly the more polarized against each other they become.

So, does that mean that the Dvati do everything together? You betcha. Their emotional bond makes separation very difficult. In fact, as mentionmed above, Dvati who separate tend to grow weak and sickly and eventually die a slow, miserable death. This is why when one dies, the other tends to suicide. They simply cannot bear to be separated from their sibling (more evidence, their clerics claim, to support the notion of a single soul shared between a set). As such, the Dvati have very little notion of privacy. They tend to do everything together and find the singled-races' notions of shame and privacy to be a little silly. This is part of their culture's great fondness for honesty. There are very few secrets among the Dvati. So, a Dvati who became involved with a non-Dvati would expect her sister to share the single mate equally. If she doesn't, then conflict could arise, and sickness could result (the truth of it is that no one can ever be more important to a Dvati than its sibling, so if it comes to a choice, the singled individual will pretty much always get the boot).

I hope this answers your question and helps you understand the Dvati a little better. Eventually, I hope to convert them to D&D 3.5 rules and clairify a lot of these ecological type questions. Until then, good luck with your campaign and thanks for giving my creation a try! if you have any more questions, feel free to contact me at everwho@comcast.net.

-Talon