Virellius's page

I am vibrating with excitement for this to ship.

I was really hoping subscribers would be able to avoid the DnD Beyond situation of having to pay for things we already own, especially since we already have them in digital form. I can't see myself ever using Pathfinder infinite when I have the pdfs from subs and Pathbuilder exists. :/

I don't know why they went with a Cthulhu theme for the vaults when he, and tentacles in general, have absolutely nothing to do with the eldritch being involved in the vaults story. Sort of an unusual, generic 'great old one' theming with these. Not bad by any means, but when the article reads that they based these on the lore and plot... I don't think they did.

They could have for example used a mossy skull instead of a Cthulhu head, because those are listed numerous times and specified to be on the walls. These don't even work for the top floor, as that is mostly just a ruined building around a lighthouse, neither of which are oozing with octopus vibes.

Disappointing. Feels like some sort of something was lost in translation here, so to speak. Quality looks nice though and these would work well for a different old god themed dungeon.

So, I was doing some thinking, and something strange stuck out to me. Golarion doesn't have a 'wildmother', Mother Earth, Gaea type deity.

There's Gozreh, but in every depiction I've ever seen, they seem very closely tied to weather, wind, and waves, and less to animals and green things.

There's the Green Mother, but she's very much DANGEROUS flora, seductive aspects of nature, and also evil.

There's a few empyrean lords focused on things adjacent to the concept, like farming.

Am I just missing something? The Green Faith exists, as does worship of individual Green Men, but afaik, there is no neutral or good aligned plant and animal themed natural divinity.

I wonder why that is? I feel like such a clear and obvious gap in traditional divinity concepts is intentional.

On a side note, IS there anything in setting tying Gozreh more strongly to terrestrial nature? It may be just my recent reading of Mwangi Expanse but They seem so specifically tied to a more... Wet nature.

I'm just rocking back and forth waiting for my pdfs. This is gonna be amazing!

Otari as a whole is a pretty tolerant/chill town. I mean, they openly just allow a thieves guild to exist. The sheriff is a bit of a curmudgeon, but a reasonable party face could easily pull 'he almost died, isn't that punishment enough? No harm done!' type of argument.

Sprites are unique among ancestries in that their heritages specifically are what KIND of sprite they are; a jungle orc or an Arctic orc are both orcs, but a Melixie and a Grig are two entirely different things. So if instead, you choose undine for example, what is the 'base pixie' you are assumed to be, RAW?

In my own game, I'm house ruling that the type of sprite you are is mostly flavor if you choose a versatile heritage, since you technically can't be an ifrit Nyktera, but it SHOULD in theory be possible.

What's your input?

Do you know/can you say if Malevolence and/or the upcoming Galt adventure will have Adventure specific backgrounds?

This is a silly question. My wife is drawing a portrait of Belcorra for our SECOND GROUP running through Abom Vaults, and I need your input: when you thought her up, what hair colour did you have in mind?

Also, once again, thank you for such a great adventure.

Even happy,loving good deities can pull morally dubious things. I seem to recall something about Shelyn possibly kidnapping Urgathoa's child out of revenge of Urgathoa trying to influence Nedri.

Old articles also implied about Shelyn and Xon-Kuthon sharing a bed and Calistria's temples letting foundlings die in the wilderness if they couldn't be bothered taking them in.

See, I'm personally of the opinion that it's much more adorable if the Precious Thing Shelyn stole was Urgathoa's HEART and my favorite Hel-ish deity can find LOVE.

Because honestly, if ANYONE could find a way to melt Urgathoa's heart, it's the goddess of love.

<3

What if they implement a hand-and-a-half sword that can only be used with a buckler because thats like having half your hand free?

;)

Virellius wrote:

Yqatuba wrote:

I hope so.

Considering I have it opened right now, I can confirm through Personal Experience that it does, indeed, exist.

ugh, anecdotal evidence

XD

Look, we have as much proof of the .pdf existing as we have evidence the Ancient Phoenicians existed.

I can show you the cuneiform and the old pottery, but without meeting one in person, it's all going to be assumed and extrapolated information. ;)

I hope so.

Considering I have it opened right now, I can confirm through Personal Experience that it does, indeed, exist.

Been wondering about this for awhile now: Dragons creation myth is very different from others, and involves Tiamat quite heavily.

Apsu went to Golarion to handle Dahak, leaving Tiamat focused elsewhere along with all those other DnD-centric beings. Would a mortal follower of Apsu, perhaps a draconic sorcerer/cleric, have any knowledge of Tiamat? Are there followers of her on Golarion, or do they follow Dahak instead? Do Dahaks followers even KNOW the original myth involving his mother?

Going to be starting up an AoA campaign so I was sort of curious as to how far that knowledge goes.

Finally got my pdf and I am so SO stoked to run this. The shootist archetype plus the repeating hand crossbow alone is an amazing addition, but using the lenses in the final fight is a really cool mechanic, so much more than just 'i hit the monster'.

Just wanted to compliment the team on this whole AP. Otari as a town is extremely fun and I love it.

I was able to save the images individually from the PDF using Adobe, no password interference at all.

WPS Office won't let me, requires a password. Gonna try downloading Adobe and seeing if this will work. I was hoping to start loading these into Foundry and using them for my game and this is... actually proving to be HARDER than just saving the images from AoN.

How can I use these in foundry? I figured I could download the PDF and upload the images but the thing has password protection so I cant even extract it to use it. What is the literal, actual point of these .pdfs if I can't use it digitally?

A Warhammer:Total War type game set in Golarion would be AMAZING, on the topic of mass armies!

An actual question though: I saw a post on Reddit where a user claimed that the being or force which had corrupted Dou-Bral into ZK had already been revealed. I won't quote it on the off chance somebody accidentally let something slip and I don't wanna cause drama there, but as far as I know, that's still a mystery.

Am I wrong? Was it maybe revealed in some Starfinder material? Or is this person just making stuff up? They seemed pretty sure or else I wouldn't have even thought twice.

Lucerious wrote:

Yes, but only in their attack proficiency. They should get to master rank.

Time to repeat myself.

Ever heard of ad absurdum? Try this out:
Give your Alchemist Legendary proficiency in bombs at lv1. See if your playstyle works.
If the answer is no, proficiency is not your issue.

Legendary Proficiency at level 1 with quick alchemy would indeed make the alchemist able to not only hit, but more often CRIT, every single attack they rolled, and would absolutely make bombs devastating.

Are you sure you know what point you're trying to make? Adding LEGENDARY PROFICIENCY to your weapon at LEVEL 1 is absolutely going to make a huge numerical difference, which will allow you to hit with your titular subclass-focus ability, I.E.: Bombs.

You'd be the damn Morshu of the dungeon. Bombs? Bombs? Bombs? You want em? They're yours, my foe, as long as I don't roll a one!

Edit: QuickMath:

Trained- You roll a 10, with +3 Dex, and +3 proficiency. You roll a 16 total, may hit, may not. Some low level enemies have 17 or more ac.

LEGENDARY - You roll a 10, with +3 Dex and +9 proficiency. You roll a 22 total, which is ABSOLUTELY going to hit anything at level one.

Like, yes, this does solve a problem of making bombs reliably able to hit. It's also overpowered and stupid, frankly.

There are certainly numerical problems with the alchemist, but I think the biggest problem is that they basically don't get to do anything new after about 5th level. They just get better versions of the stuff they already have. That's like playing a caster whose actual spell list ends after 2nd level, but they can still use higher-level slots to cast heightened spells.

Here's my theory on what happened with the alchemist. The 1e alchemist was basically a semi-caster, like the bard or the magus, except their spells were reskinned as "extracts" and they had to pay a feat* tax to be able to use them on others. The advantage of this is that spells are a known quantity, so it's reasonably easy to balance their access to extracts with the spellcasting of other classes. So there's no difference between getting Expeditous Retreat from drinking an alchemist's extracts or from having a wizard cast it on you.

For some reason, the devs didn't want the alchemist to stay a caster — either because the class setup didn't really support semi-casters, because their spell list didn't fit into the four traditions, or just because they wanted it to be something else. But this meant that alchemy had to use something other than spells, so they had to build a whole system around alchemical elixirs, tools, poisons, and bombs. So in PF2, there's a huge difference between a Cheetah's elixir and a Longstrider spell.

And since alchemist elixirs are available to anyone for plain old money, and because they are defined as non-magical, and because alchemists can use all their daily resources to make their best stuff, their best items can't really be that amazing. A 1st level wizard can cast Longstrider for +10 ft speed for one hour, but a 1st level alchemist can only make a lesser Cheetah's Elixir that gives +5 ft speed for one minute — but the alchemist can make ten of them, while the wizard can in theory only cast Longstrider four times.

But look at that comparison at, say, level 10. The alchemist can now make a Greater...

You're really making me miss the 1e Alchemist so much lol. It's the only class that cannot be the same character as they were in 1e, and it's a huge, glaring gap in an otherwise fantastic and balanced game.

I'm almost tempted to homebrew my own alchemist because it makes me so sad.

Alchemist carries over too many PF1 design complexities without enough upside. It's very clunky and has tons of seemingly arbitrary roadblocks and taxes which just make it less of a smooth experience than most other classes. Mostly when I read it I get frustrated at how many nitpicky decisions were made with it, and how much cross-referencing is required to play it. Bomber is alright once you get a few levels in, but it struggles with resources for a while.

Per the OP here, I'm mostly looking at this from a newer player perspective, and the class is frankly a mess.

---

Keeping track of a formula book can be a pain in the ass. You don't automatically learn higher item level recipes for all of your formulae, just two every level (unless you get new ones), so if you want to upgrade your arsenal you need to go back through every formula and learn the higher level formula. The initial dynamic between reviewing the Alchemical Crafting feat and the class feature can be confusing too, and you need to read every feature carefully to understand which item types you're getting from Alchemical Crafting, from your formula book, and from your research field. You also need to remember your signature items, which you get three of when you make with advanced alchemy, and when you level you can swap signature items with other potential signature items in your research field (as long as they're already in your formula book). Just typing that out was a laundry list of caveats.

From a beginner standpoint, infused reagents and advanced alchemy and quick alchemy are a lot of text to wrap your head around. Once you figure it out it's not so bad, but it is not an elegant design and ends up being a lot of micro-management. This can easily bog down newer players. You start the day with a bunch of reagents. You make items at the beginning of the day, and they come in batches of two, unless they're signature items. Then you have quick alchemy, which you have to remember only lasts until your next turn, and only lets...

This has been absolutely my experience as well. I played one from first to about 5th level and I just hated how comically useless I was. The bard did more reliable damage with cantrips while also providing constant, non-item-based buffs, and our rogue, the other ranged/dex-based/shortbow-wielding PC was just running circles around me.

I think I hit around 1/3rd of my bombs? So, you know... Rope? Lamp Oil? Bombs? You want 'em? I don't got em. Sorry Link.

I recommend to anyone wanting to play a damage focused science type to just go Investigator. Or a healing focused, since the Medicine focused method blows chirurgen out of the water especially ifyou take Medic archetype.

Besides, there absolutely are forests in the Darklands.

Oh god she looks so horrifying I love it!

All the darklands ancestries are cool, but let's be honest: when it comes to serpentine people's I want to see playable, I really want to see Vishkanya. With the HUGE Mwangi book coming out, a massive text on Vudra would also be amazing to see in the future, especially with the lovely lore dump we got in the AoE book. (plus its the one ancestry we don't have yet which a previous 1e pc was using in a campaign so I'm biased)

As an input/feedback/idea: a cool idea for a drow-focused campaign COULD BE a group of Drow who are the primary NPC faction in the AP who have rediscovered perhaps a lost elven goddess of their own, to replace the demon worship, and the story would be about their rise to power sort of as a 'Drow Ravounel'. Some kind of Drow-Focused deity who isn't a Lolth-analogue but maybe more in-tune with a dark, majestic, noble queen type figure?

The biggest issue I have with the alchemist is that it's the only class that, coming into 2e, absolutely CANNOT be the same character from 1e without significant issues. It breaks the fundamental rule of 2e which was 'continue telling the same stories as 1e' because there is no way a bomber focused alchemist from 1e could function in 2e the same way at ALL, not to mention all the other alchemist styles.

All in all, it should have been an archetype as-is. After having played one for a significant amount of in-game time, it actually makes me MORE disappointed than I was before, lol. My opinion on the alchemist got WORSE having played one from levels 1-7, not better. Those levels make up a significant portion of most players adventuring experience (most games never make it to high level) and if you don't feel validated by your class SEVEN LEVELS IN you've got an issue.

Note, I am playing in two simultaneous AV campaigns, and I went alchemist in both to try and test it out. First one I swapped to Investigator with Alch Science and the second I stayed alchemist, and even KNOWING WHAT EACH ENCOUNTER WAS and actually metagaming a bit, I still didn't matter in-game. Even with full foresight, the prep meant so little.

Investigator however is always useful, every round, every day.

Ediwir wrote:

ShadowFighter88 wrote:

Haven't done much with the Alchemist myself, but stumbled across this video this morning related to people finding the class underpowered. Not sure how much help it'll be but might be a help anyway.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRRYLlhgXJg

Linkified for convenience. It's a good video. Lots of reasonable points.

I get serious "young Jason Bulmahn" vibes from him. Am I the only one?

I already know you're talking about NoNats without even clicking the link because my wife and I both are convinced he's a Time Travelling Bull Man.

Just started book 2 after having done the first book on roll20, and lemme tell ya: foundry is way more in depth but SO worth it. I don't know if anyone else has this issue but some of the monsters weren't in the compendium for me so I had to manually roll the creatures in B3 but it wasn't an issue. Heavily recommend the mods previous people have recommended, as they make it so sleek. If you're skilled enough at running the program you can honestly make combat feel almost like a turn based mmo which is... Actually very cool imo. Really enjoying foundry.

Belcorra was defeated by the Roseguard. Players get the Roseguard's signature artifacts, and they're all low level items. How did Belcorra lose?

Anyway if I were to replace these with levelling Relics, that could level with the PCs and attain the required level of power to challenge Belcorra, would there be a problem with book 3? Should I emphasise or ban certain powers when creating these?

I already decided to use relics before I found out the items were statted out, Otari's Lockpick kit aside, so I made a few changes. The dagger he left in the minotaur skeleton became his 'relic' for our rogue, and I'll be adjusting some of the others. However, our overly-inquisitive investigator may find the copy of The Whispering Reeds to also be calling to him...

Virellius wrote:

Grankless wrote:

It was going to be the same guy, but the art basically came back as a scary skeleton with a big spear, when it was supposed to be like,

** spoiler omitted **

First off, thanks for not roasting me for my autocorrect Carrion Clown.

Second, thats super interesting. I kinda wish we got to see the intended art.

Well, I wasn't going to say anything about Carrion Clown but...

Yes, illustrating Belcorra as she existed in life would be helpful. We're moving toward having images of the significant AP characters earlier in the process, and we already had Belcorra's illustration as a ghost, but art of her as a living person would be helpful too!

I appreciate the reply.

Like I said, I'm not trying to sound heated or anything. It's a criticism from a place of love. I absolutely adore Paizo art and APs, and so does my table. I really just don't wanna let them down with having to come up with... Non-canon depictions, for example. We've got two players playing sibling changelings and I wasn't sure if I should lean into the spooky 'oh she looks like she could be friends with your mom!' or unrelated. I was considering having their green-hag mother be an associate or at least informant of Belcorra and so I was really hoping to maybe get them thinking Bel WAS their hagmother for Extra Drama.

I just would hate to seed that and then have the art show up completely disconnected and either have to skip using the official art or retcon our entire depiction up to that bit.

Like I said, no hate, just probably a tad too warm of a reply from me. Apologies if I came across as anything but. Love the work you're all doing.

It was going to be the same guy, but the art basically came back as a scary skeleton with a big spear, when it was supposed to be like,

** spoiler omitted **

First off, thanks for not roasting me for my autocorrect Carrion Clown.

Second, thats super interesting. I kinda wish we got to see the intended art.

Virellius wrote:

Did uploading the maps to foundry via the pdf mod absolutely crush the resolution for you guys too?

No. Foundry VTT in Vol 2 supports importing the Scene from the Interactive Map PDF. The resolution of that map image is quite decent. The wall nodes could use a little editing here and there on some curves, but the result is very decent, a real time saver and "acceptable".

Weird. Maybe its because I used it from the AP in general and not the Map Files. I'll probably re-upload it that way. Thanks for the tip!

I just feel like if there is ONE single piece of art that should be pushed through the pipeline first, it's the Primary Antagonist of the Entire AP who Visually Appears within a Few Hours of Play. If anything, scrap the art of Boss Skrawng or something, he looks great but doesn't look like a Mitflit at all.

Also, I never knew about the Carrion Clown boss!

Yep, given one of the creatures on level 1 is carved in her likeness having a picture of her would have really helped.

Not just that, but the painting, and the (SPOILERS) the entire SERIES OF FLASHBACKS TO HER that you get in her personal quarters, showing her having conversations and appearing in the flesh, essentially. Also the blood mist being called 'recognizably appearing as her'.

Paizo, I love y'all, but this stuff is pretty important for an AP lol. Nobody wants to play through FFVII and just have everyone give you the 'oh, as you know, thats Sephiroth. You've seen him! We all have! Very recognizable!' and then you first see him during the final boss fight.

Virellius wrote:

For anyone curious, I just found out if you watch to the very last seconds of the new video they posted about the AP you can see a little low-res image of the cover of 3 with Belcorra looking spooky. Still not a great image since it's a tiny screenshot on a youtube video but at the very least we can say she's not an ancient hag and much more a fancy, beautiful woman in a poofy dress

thanks , but that image represent Belcorra as a ghost. What i would like to see is the image of Belcorra before she became undead.

I mean, I completely agree. I really hope there isn't another oversight with her like with Graveraker in AoE, where there's this ambiguous MASSIVE BUILDING SIZED OBJECT that is both a plot point and a dungeon and it's NEVER depicted aside from some descriptions of its limbs.

I know we have the art for this book on that video y'all released, could we get uploaded here? ;)

Did uploading the maps to foundry via the pdf mod absolutely crush the resolution for you guys too?

For anyone curious, I just found out if you watch to the very last seconds of the new video they posted about the AP you can see a little low-res image of the cover of 3 with Belcorra looking spooky. Still not a great image since it's a tiny screenshot on a youtube video but at the very least we can say she's not an ancient hag and much more a fancy, beautiful woman in a poofy dress

Hey, finished book one of Gauntlight and absolutely loved it. Just starting book two and I had a bit of an Otari lore question: I don't recall if this was mentioned somewhere but was Morlibints husband given a name? Also, I just wanted to say props on giving Otari as much flavor and depth as Sandpoint. It really makes me feel nostalgic and my entire table loves the similar feelings of having such a well developed 'starting town.' I had Morlibint carry books on the adventures of our previous parties, so when they found a Highly Embellished version of the heroes of Sandpoints journey as told by the storyteller bard from a LATER adventure we ran, they absolutely went wild.

Thank you so much for creating this world and this adventure. It's been an absolute blast.

I really don't get how people have trouble with APs.

I will be honest: My table has played through all of Agents of Edgewatch and had only a SINGLE player death. We came CLOSE, but battle medicine, aoe heals, breath of life, smart choices, good teamwork, etc all really matter. We got halfway through AoA before the pandemic hit and we took a break from our in-person campaign without a single death.

I had only a single death on my three playthroughs of Plaguestone, and none in the Beginner Box/Troubles or Slithering.

Maybe, and I mean this in the most respectable way possible, you need to get better at playing/running Pathfinder 2e.

Three cramped ass floors, assumedly with stairs or at worst a rope to climb, which takes up even MORE of the already limited space.

That Zwillow ad was spectacular.

That's another question. Do the servants simply appear with the food already prepared? Does the food just 'exist' in an edible state for 24 hours? Is it always Hot and Ready?

Is this Little Taldors?

Like there's small dungeon rooms that are a bit cramped (the Shemhaizen ink guy in Agents of Edgewatch comes to mind) but uh... What if a giant wizard used this spell? Guys screwed.

Even just a vague physical description would be cool. Or like maybe if it would be possible to publish the art? My changeling player isn't sure if she should be like 'oh that looks like mom' or 'oh hey is that Lady Dimitrescu? ;)'
I really do appreciate the replies, btw. Not trying to be difficult, I just like to be consistent with my npc depictions.

Most of the magic changing to be a bit more weak is fine, imo. But spells like this, which are AMAZING tools of fantastic RP, in a role playing game, absolutely should not be.

My 20th level PC in Agents of Edgewatch spent all her money at the end, before the final boss encounter essentially, and got lucky with a nat20 on the ritual for Create Demiplane as a 10th level spell.

She made an entire paradise for the party, based on their own interests, and I allowed the player to add in a 'if she doesn't make it, they become effectively the owners of the plane'. The amount of emotion and feeling from that, a potential parting gift from a beloved friend, was amazing.

Fast forward to now where Magnificent Mansion is more like 'Abadar's Adequate Stonks Tower'.

Virellius wrote:

JJ mentioned I should ask here if Mr. Lundeen has any input on Belcorras appearance? She wasn't described in this book but it is implied she is visible in her painting and her appearance is 'recognizable' by the time the players face a certain enemy.

The cover of the third adventure has Belcorra on it. That's not *quite* updated yet, but when it is, that'll be the best place to look for a description (and it's an awesome image!).

Any chance we have an ETA on that? Finished book one and the party physically sees echoes of her in one part, I felt real bad giving them a hand waived description of her. :/

That's not a mansion. That's Sarenrae's Emergency Soup Kitchen.

Paizo, esplain! Lolol

I have a serious question about the Magnificent Mansion spell. It states it holds enough food for a multicourse 150 person feast. How the hell are 150 people fitting into a 40x40 room?

'a mansion featuring a magnificent foyer and numerous opulent chambers. The mansion can have any floor plan you imagine as you Cast the Spell, provided it fits within a space 40 feet wide, 40 feet deep, and 30 feet tall'

40x40 isn't even a single opulent chamber, much less a foyer and numerous.

Honestly this spell is broken as written and simply doesn't work as intended.

If there's one thing that CR has taught me, it's that there is nothing game breaking or OP about letting a character make their own wizard mansion. Limiting the spell so much is just wild to me, and the 9th level one isn't much better as the spell conjures a literal physical structure, severely limiting it's usage since it's impermanent.

Anyone else just house rule that the size is bigger? Does anyone else think perhaps the rules intend that EACH CHAMBER AND FOYER can't be larger than 40x40, and not the full structure itself?

On the note of apelike cryptids and Golarion, would some of the more 'Faulkner/Southern Gothic' areas of Ustalav make for a good skunk ape area? Sinaria County perhaps?

Honestly, Appeasing Besmara should be EVERY PCs goal.

I'm going to stick my neck out a little here and voice a concern. The last printed thing I think which has been posted to the internet was a brief update at the start of July by Legendary Press which stated the first draft of the AP had been turned over to Paizo at some point previous. The update before that, at the start of April, lent the impression that from Legendary Press' perspective they were almost complete. April link

As of April, from an outsider's perspective, things seemed ok. Skimming back through the PaizoCon Q&A there's a reply by Lisa Stephens which, in retrospect, sounds very cautious about release dates (about 1:07 in) . But I think the impression I got from her response is that it sounds like this is an undertaking that James is doing almost single-handedly? Moreover, it sounds like there's a lot of rewriting going on, and that the subsystems are only being put together now?

So, I think from a backer, and an end-user's perspective, you can understand the confusion and concern going on. We have almost zero insight into the day to day activities at Paizo and I think, for the most part, we assume that things are fine unless we hear otherwise. I don't think any of us mind the increased delay if we have some understanding of where the project stands. These are difficult days, after all. Its just from our end, things looked on track for a Nov-Dec 2020 release date and now that timeline has doubled, at least. Its concerning. And as much as we appreciate the new art, to be honest, I have to concur - we love paizo for it's content, not its pretty pictures.

So if you could speak to these concerns I know I (and probably others) would appreciate the effort, even if the information conveyed is disappointing.

Thanks, and stay safe.

I hella disagree.

Paizo's art is great, and we have WAY more than enough content to satisfy us until this AP re-comes out. I'd gladly wait a year for more art to make my table feel really invested (especially since Paizo had a good track record of making hearthrob NPCs that my table adores).

Y'all got no idea how development for this kind of thing works. Let Paizo take all the time they need.

Virellius wrote:

Went on a deep dive into his lore (I'm assuming Doresain is a WotC copyright?) and the ties between him and the Leng Ghouls is one of those 'god I wish I knew the truth' mysteries of Pathfinder.

Is Kabriri himself undead or a former mortal-turned-demon who propogated undead? On that note, CAN a divinity like a demon lord or such become undead in that way? Would it be possible for, for example, Zura to turn one of the Malebranche perhaps into a vampire or does their spark of divine power make them beyond such afflictions?

As far as I know, Doresain is a WotC thing invented by Wolfgang Baur in an older Dungeon magazine adventure. I haven't done much with him at all.

The Leng ghoul, and in truth ghouls and ghasts as they mostly exist in D&D, is largely inspired from Lovecraft's writings, particularly things like "Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath" and to a lesser extent stories like "Pickman's Model" and "The Hound." Certainly, the thematic tie between ghouls and ghasts is fully from Lovecraft, since he has those specific dynamics present in "Dream Quest." A big part of the inspiration also comes from the writings of Clark Ashton Smith, and since he and Lovecraft were corespondents and friends there was a lot of idea cross-pollination there.

So I suspect that the inspiration I took for developing ghouls and Leng Ghouls in Pathfinder likely served as the same inspiration for whoever designed Doresain. It certainly was a primary inspiration for Gygax himself if you go back far enough. But CERTAINLY I know that Wolfgang has the same sort of ghoul inspirations I do as regards Lovecraft and Smith and the old pulps.

Kabriri started out as an elf, then became the first ghoul. That's my bit of attempt in lore to explain why elves can't become paralyzed by ghouls.

Demon lords and gods can become undead, yes, but not in the same "easy" way a human can. They need story lore to back that change up.

I realize just now I forgot to mention I meant Kabriri in the beginning and referenced Doresain as like the 'not Paizo equivalent' and then somehow deleted half a paragraph. Apologies for being confusing!

And the elf-ghoul thing for me is perfect. Really makes sense. My table just got the floor 3 of Gauntlight and everyone is suddenly super interested in ghouls so I just got very interested myself.

Secondary question: has there been a stated reason why the ghouls of Nemret Noktoria hate ghasts? Undead inter-species politics sound fascinating to me and honestly I'd love to see an in-depth write-up of places like Sekamina.