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Are there pre-built adventures where any of the iconic characters are pre-set as cameos/NPCs at all?

Either way, is it generally accepted that they live and are active during the same historical time period of Golarion, even though most do not have dates specific to their personal stories?

I've been trying to get some kind of a catalog for a generally typical campaign setup where the largest number of iconic characters can actually pop in and out, and so far all I can figure is to look into their backstories for where they originate from, and which of them essentially abandoned their homes and have good reason to avoid cause to return, and discover what others may frequent a given region, however very little info of that sort seems to be public. Any assistance with this endeavor?

Overall, I would like some insight into how alignment is treated in Pathfinder when it comes to a character's actions, and the viewpoints of what that means whether it be the viewpoint of the character, or the viewpoints of onlookers, as far as case-by-case goes, if anyone is plenty familiar with the Dragon Ball Super character Zamasu, that's basically the example that started this topic; a character who for all intents and purposes does *truly* believe in a racial superiority and disposition for justice, partially belongs to that race, but does go to great, sometimes violent lengths when this "justice" is defied or overlooked.

In this particular case, I know a future player who wants to emulate Zamasu's overall M.O. as a character who does what casual society would deem "wrong" to change the world into a proper, "just" one, and honestly full-heartedly believes that the new status quo would be the right one, and that the ends would justify the means. As the campaign he'll be playing in has a very religious bend, I've houseruled for this one that unless your class, feats, etc specifically specify you must be 1 step away from your deity's alignment, then instead, you must have an identical alignment with your deity *on one axis* and the other axis may be whichever. This player will emulate the inspiration, but substituting "gods are holy, righteous, and superior to the hubris-bearing mortals who.must be eliminated for the world to return to its previous beauty". out for "dragons are the superior lifeform throughout the multiverse, they should reign supreme, as they are the descendants of the first gods, and it is only right that dragonkind be nearly all that remains on Golarion." and may stick up for a dragon (or dragon-blooded creature) before someone else, and will put a plan into motion to set dragonkind on the path to having it all.

So in this case, is this character Lawful Good like they probably think, Chaotic Good as clearly there is no real precedent for draconic rulership over sentient races but they believe it to be "Good" still, Lawful Evil as steps in their plan may be heinous to a non-dragon, or even good-aligned dragons but draconic behavior is being followed overall, or do they count as Chaotic Evil because in reality, they're simply extremely delusional?

So I have stumbled upon a couple of threads discussing Tiamat, and IIRC, a few comments were from actual developers working with Paizo who clearly were an important part of the decision process on how to portray Tiamat in Pathfinder. While it's clear she isn't worshipped in ANY traditional sense (even by dragons it seems) it's easy to assume it's best to just worship her through Dahak (as they share an alignment and it's not a stretch to say they likely share favored weapons, sacred colors, domains, subdomains, etc) but on one hand, I recall said Paizo affiliates claiming they did mostly imagine Tiamat's design to resemble the many-chromatic-headed design from D&D, and her lair would again reside in a circle of Hell..... but her former identity as the "salt water" representing chaos cemented her as the Chaotic Evil counterpart to Apsu's Lawful Good.

With this said, wouldn't her lair exist in the Abyss? Or is Golarion so "far from Tiamat's sight", she resides somewhere else? For that matter, Dahak is also Chaotic Evil, but lore suggests Dahak made Hell to his liking, thus making it his home... or do these assumptions overlook that Dahak (and thus Tiamat) both have made their home (s) far from Golarion or the Outer Planes? This is really bothersome confusion lol Any good answers would be sweet lol

A discussion I hope will give me a little confidence in an idea I want to run with in a future campaign to GM. Making a semi-original setting split up into tales or stories with strong inspiration from fairy tales, and while I'm not intending to base it off Disney (or in some cases use anything exactly)I feel using Greek gods & goddesses works better for deities than Golarion's, and a handful of tales from Greek myth see themselves in the same pile as so-called "fairy tales", so I feel it's justified.

What I want to see a bit of evidence of a likely successful use of this, I'm currently considering what fairy tale characters would pray and pay lip service at least to certain Greek deities, and see if enough examples exist that it has merit.

So far, for myself, examples I could come up with for named characters and their potential greek religion, I've got:

Geppetto: Hephaestus?
Cinderella: Hestia
Aladdin: Hermes? (Patron god of thieves)
Snow White: Aphrodite (or blessed with beauty w/o her knowing)
Evil Queen: Hecate
The Huntsman: Artemis
The Pied Piper: Apollo (music)
Rapunzel's Witch & Captor: Demeter?

I'm a little disappointed at the lack of official Oracle Curses in the game. I see there's the typical blind, deaf, rotting, and a few coming from specific player companions, but hoping for more options.

Wondering what the most recent curse from a player companion or other source may have been, and if there is teasing/expectations for a new one (s) from an upcoming source I'm unaware of.

So from what I can gather, PF elves are not considered Fey like I believe they are in DnD, why is that in general? Why do they have "Fey Magic" as a racial trait?

(Primary reason to ask involves intertwining homebrewed Saint Nick with Bestiary 6's Krampus origin story, but curiosity and clarity are reasons enough)

With the Krampus backstory, Santa could be either summoned through an untainted portal to the First World (thus Fey) or a Material Plane Human with Human Heritage (Elf) for Elven racial feats (or perhaps some other method of having elf racial traits) or a Round Ears Half-Elf who is only semi-aware of his elven blood (somehow a being that aesthetically is Human but qualifies as a "jolly old elf" by word of mouth) perhaps destined to either fulfill the original purpose of the Krampus, (if a unique humanoid brought through an untainted portal) or to follow in the footsteps of the druids whom had summoned Krampus (if some sort of Mythic mortal human/half-elf who made it his duty to combat the Krampus and keep the winter festivities festive and promote Good)

So I know if, let's say you had a... dwarf, who was a 3rd level Fighter and.. 4th level Bard, it's notated as "Dwarf Fighter 3 Bard 4" (IIRC) but what if the dwarf is say... Gladiator archetype for Fighter, and... Diva archetype for Bard. How do you notate the classes + archetypes?

Already had a NPC(s) in the works who once was an adventure and travelled a lot and as a step towards Lamashtu's title of "Mother of Monsters", went through pregnancy after pregnancy with a number of different evilly racial fathers (vampire, werewolf, drow, etc) and eventually moved her growing family to her home nation of Ustalav, but kept them out of the public's eyes. It's said Lamashtu is NOT a fan of "typical beauty" and values deformity and such.

Is faith in Lamashtu, frequent pregnancy & childbirth, and remotely monstrous offspring, albeit with common physical appearances for their races enough to justify such a character?

The answer would be clearer if this particular combination were able to be accomplished using RAW, but I'm willing enough to bypass the one obstacle.... I just am not sure which way to do it.

So the Foo Creature template says only add it to an animal.
A werewolf is a humanoid, not an animal.

The Lycanthrope template says add it to a humanoid, and use "base animal."

Foo Creature template changes the animal to an Outsider (Good). Outsider (Good) is not Animal.

So, should I take a Wolf and add Foo Creature template, then use Foo Wolf as base creature for Lycanthrope template on a humnoid, or should I take a humanoid and add Lycanthrope > Foo Creature?

Is there a difference?

So I've tried for quite a while to craft some sort of mana/color system to tie terrain to mana and to caster characters and the matching colors as well, but haven't had any luck. While I'm beginning to accept that druids cast druid spells, not green spells, and warlocks cast warlock spells, not black spells, etc but I am really stubborn and don't want to completely let the flavor distinction to fall to the waist-side.

Does anyone have any stories (actual or hypothetical) about how they did or would DM and keep it in the storytelling?

I imagine not every MTG savvy player will know to do things like go and decide on a color for their character to adhere to and avoid learning or preparing spells uncharacteristic of their character's chosen color, (at least until developing their character to grow into a 2nd color) or to match colors with races or anything like that, and that's saying nothing about whether they would be able to identify what spells fall into what color categories. Plus, there could very well be non-MTG players who might play and understand little to nothing.

All I can manage to consider is just "as you begin to cast your spell, you feel your connection to the islands/coasts you've encountered in the past, and your body glows with a blue light... okay, you cast the illusion spell. Don't go casting fire spells now, they're Red. You're a Blue Mage."

So, an illustration for Paizo's Pathfinder Society Scenario #8-06: Reaping What We Sow (a trio of jack-o-lanterns, 1 of which depicted the holy symbol of Shelyn, and another depicted the holy symbol of Lamashtu) got me thinking: What other deities (gods, demigods, w/e) might match up well to better known thematic holidays?

Lamashtu was chosen for Halloween presumably due to her being the "Mother of Monsters" (ya need monsters for Halloween) and Lamashan being the Golarion equivalent of October.

Looking into the breakdown for the scenario, apparently the scenario contains a Shelynite pumpkin-carving festival... Is that a thing? I'm unaware if that has relevance with Shelyn or not.

Kuthona is the Golarion-equivalent of December, but I don't believe matches well with Christmas. Is there a Good deity I'm not thinking of off the top of my head who concerns him/herself with gift-giving, or tree-decoration, or anything of that sort?

On top of that, I could see a Santa Claus analog since Bestiary 6 will contain the Krampus. Perhaps Santa would be a follower of either Alseta or Yuelral?

For context, I started a thread over a month ago about Ustalav's xenophobia (targeting what/whom, commonality of the prejudice, and severity across different sources) for a campaign a number of members of my playgroup are convinced is a pet project I'll never have prepared enough to bring it to the table... Either way, the party is regardless set to contain varying degrees of non-humans or demi-humans, and so I'm deadset on making a lot of the fun and difficulty come from trying to complete heroic tasks whilst trying to discern where they would be most unwelcome and avoiding it and/or revealing their identities there.

So, it brings me to the main topic: EVEN with RAW, starting with your class' starting freebie outfit (such as "Cleric's Vestments") how much customization is recommended to give the PCs for their garments, free or purchased? It IS highly recommended that they cover up their not-so-human features if they have any, use disguise checks first and foremost, followed by bluff checks to cover up discrepencies, followed by diplomacy checks to alleviate the issue if it's complicated further, but I'm unsure if I want the problem to basically completely go away by a PC going "My Cleric Vestments include a particularly shady hood and gloves specially tailored to make my claws appear to be normal fingers" or "My starter outfit terrifically shrouds my tail." Not to mention, I'm aware Ustalav has its share of shady folk, but a party of 5 heavily cloaked individuals looking to solve a mystery/exorcise ghosts/whatever? How many alarms does that set off in townfolks' minds?

So, I'm still on a quest to staple down a mana system (5th Edition's spell point variant is a great start, but the difficulty comes with remodelling it to incorporate 2 things: 1. the notion of said points representing mana of different colors, and 2. the notion that said mana comes from terrain you've bonded with, and at a different rate than "equal to all your allotted spell points".

But what I'm currently trying to work out is what might count as a land for the sake of creating a mana bond? My current angle is perhaps size based on creature size fitting on it. So perhaps 20ft × 20ft is minimum parameters to start a mana bond. Also, atm think it could work to spend spell points (that don't refill after rest) when starting (or ending?) turn on ___ terrain of said size (the entire Gargantuan-creature-sized plot is all that terrain type, if viewed as a grid) to make a mana bond, and as a bonus action, add that 'land' to your list of currently available mana sources, then immediately add an equivalent number of mana points of the appropriate color to your mana pool for each land you choose to use. (So that turn 1 you get 1, turn 2 you get 2, turn 3 you get 3, etc)

BUT, even if that's satisfactory, I'm trying to emphasize things like "you're an Elf, while you can make choices as you progress, and you're not forbidden from using White/Blue/Black/Red mana, but you'll find Green mana easier to use as an Elf, especially an Elf Druid for example", a way to introduce this aspect and options to ADD colors to OR enhance the use of Green in this example so that it may be surmised your character is either a Green & White elf, OR a Green Elf with more Green-aligned magical prowess. Lastly, having trouble coming up with at what time IN or OUT of battle your mana pool and available mana sources should reset.

Is there anyone out there with a little insight or experience into a similar homebrew issue? I'm really on my own here, but I can't help but be bothered that playing Plane Shift: ___ doesn't do a good job of making the players feel like they're [Insert Color Here] and using [Insert Color Here] mana to cast appropriate magic. Don't get me started about the not-so-MTG Druid not being given a facelift for Plane Shift. If NOT a crazy system mechanically, does anyone have any advice on smoothly injecting description INTO player choices so that the act of casting a spell can have some meaningful background fluff in that it isn't 100% assumed random spellcasting PC (or NPC) oh-so-conveniently has ties to # of "mountains" and has exactly enough mana to cast Burning Hands for example? Perhaps merely a guideline saying "you're an Elf Druid for example, and the druid spell list comtains a number of fire/earth/lightning/mental/poisonous spells, however, you're limited to spells that as DM I identify as being "Green" spells until ___, then perhaps you can prepare and cast green spells and red spells, I'll do the roleplaying for you when it comes to the mana coming from the land and into you for you."

So I'm aware the average DM/player takes the simpler path and essentially ignores it, but I'm bound and determined to include a mana system including relationship between terrain types and color of mana and perhaps even color identity where it might mingle with chosen race, alignment, or even class. Getting this out of the way, I've decided to use the spell points variant, as it's more flexible and works best with mana.

If all else fails, I'm not 100% against simply reflavoring ("despite elves being green, and druids being green, and you being an elf druid, the druid spell list contains fire-based spells, which are fundamentally red, and you fancy yourself a Red & Green druid and thus would like to cast one of such spells now and then. Well, we're surrounded by mountainous terrain; go ahead and roleplay your character connecting with the mountain; meditate for a round or something. Okay, now despite you already having your allotted spell points, I'm going to describe your character as channeling red energy--red mana through your body and spending the necessary number of spell points to cast that fire spell you wanted.")

But I feel like I'd much prefer somehow build a system where making these mana bonds with terrain yields uses of a universal feature (but similar in usage to Wild Shape or Rage) that adds "mana points" to their "mana pool" preferably of the appropriate color, that is a fraction of the alotted number of spell points for their level based on some statistical factor (level, spellcasting ability modifier, etc) maybe even differing depending on if said color is the same, an ally, or enemy color to your base racial color (humans of course choose 1)

Does anyone have any insight or opinions on how to go about this? I feel like it's a ton more work and may not always jive properly to label spellcasting classes with colors and force them to pretend certain spells match (fire spells on the druid spell list shouldn't be green for example) and making a forced spell list of a certain color for each also undermines each class's strengths and weaknesses and flavor. I just want the players' (and certain NPCs/enemies) to believably draw mana from lands they've connected with and be reasonably believed to cast appropriate spells with said colored mana without messing up what the classes are ultimately all about. (For example, druids care about more terrain than just forests and they are capable of casting spells that aren't inherently related to grass, trees, and animals + in Magic, there are entities that a Cleric might worship that don't identify with White all the time)

So just looking for a simple enough way to enforce the flavor without harming the gameplay.

Well, I'm currently (still) working on a csmpaign set in Ustalav, and recently finished reading/listening to Bloodbound.

I'm looking to find any and all examples of superstitions true or false, prejudices against races and classes whether they be well-founded or not.

Seems Orcs and Half-Orcs get bad treatment due to historical wars.
Ratfolk, Catfolk, Vanara, Kitsune, Grippli, etc are treated as if they might as well be lycanthropic for some reason. I've read somewhere that Catfolk specifically find themselves as circus attractions.

Vampirism is a no-no for Pharasmins (aka most Ustalavics) and dhampirism is widely seen as no better than vampirism (though few enlightened or warm-hearted individuals might be capable of showing mercy due to the technicalities of dhampirism.)

In some circles, arcane spellcastic brands you a Witch, which is automatically evil for some reason, though you can be a Wizard/Sorcerer and be treated with the same prejudice.

Being undead in ANY way (and being recognized as such) is a severe taboo, and puts a target on your head, lichdom especially, due to the fear Tar-Baphon instigates.

Is there anything I'm missing, or any details I haven't read up on?

Where my campaign comes in, my PCs consist of a Skinwalker Brawler, a Tiefling Asmodean Inquisitor, a Catfolk Rogue (Cat Burglar) a Jian-Shi-Born Dhampir Samurai from Tian Xia, and a Ratfolk Wizard (Necromancy) and probably a Kuru Bloodrager/Cleric of a custom apocryphal sect of Jezeldans (whom believe Jezelda does NOT judge non-werewolf lycanthropes differently from werewolves) that does his best to hide his habits of eating humanoids whilst bluffing he is a Cleric of Pharasma and thus has solitary business with their deceased humanoid enemies and is coincidentally a bit of a chef. How much should this party be ostracized, and under what occasions?

So what is known within canon about the Moonbog and its Abyssal moon? I have an end game that I hope can consist of said moon appearing on the Material Plane and acting as a threat. Any stranger effects on lycanthropes, or sentience, or? In the Moonbog does it have its own phases, or? For that matter, as a celestial object, how do any of the moons work on lycanthropesm (for example, what would happen to a lycanthrope in the Moonscar? Are the moon's mineral properties a factor at all?)

I'm curious how most GMs have attempted to implement deities in temporary 'mortal' form, esp when not revealed to be such throughout most of a given campaign. Random inconspicuous halfling who's actually Asmodeus? One of the Ascended in what appears as their pre-ascension form? Tsukiyo appearing as a samsaran, as he is their patron deity?

So far my take is to depict them as if they were simply extremely devout characters of that deity's faith (cleric or otherwise) to the point they wear what the deity would usually be depicted wearing (perhaps in the deity's sacred colors) with 0 steps away from the deity's alignment, the deity's favored weapon over all else, the appropriate use of the deity's (un)holy symbol, and any opportunity the avatar's class provides to possess a companion/servant matching the deity's sacred animal. Perhaps full access to the deity's domains if in the form of a cleric, paladin, etc and limited access if in an appropriate non-divine class.

Starter question: In canon, how have deities taken mortal form in the past? Have they limited themselves to particular races/classes?

The example I'm trying to lead with for a campaign is an avatar of Urgathoa as a Kuru cook or something (Witch?) with the above parameters but could simply be mistaken as a highly devoted follower, not the goddess herself. Had it been Norgober himself, the avatar could appropriately wear a mask, but what's a big curiosity is if Urgathoa could manifest herself as a living mortal at her choosing, would her limitations for hedonisn be moot? (Beating around the bush here, but, wouldn't she be capable of indulging sexually if she were able to manifest as a mortal with undisturbed nether-regions?) How could she masquerade as a Kuru while also not being obvious walking around with skeletal pelvis and legs?

A PC set to be in my campaign is a Kuru and defines cannibalism loosely instead of literally, and I'd like to play around with options such as her being present when a wendigo attacks, and/or her becoming the PC's next meal leading to a form of ascension similar to Lao Shu Po ingesting Tsukiyo's former corpse and becoming a rat-deity.

Any interesting suggestions? If she did manifest with flesh and muscle on her nether-regions despite her divine form lacking it, would she exhibit warped privates and/or STDs, considering her affiliation with diseases?

So I've been thinking of peculiar phenomena I can trigger in my upcoming horror adventure, and wanted to see suggestions and/or feedback on things to play around with and perhaps when it makes sense to implement them.

For starters, maybe telling a player that their PC's hands are involuntarily shaking, or that their nose has started to bleed without cause. With this example, in what occasion would this have maximum effect?

Also, interesting idea is to describe objects/surroundings to a PC who just observed them (Perception check not always required) differently than to others who repeat the action. Player A: "Is there something on that table?" Me: "The book on the table is bound by what appears to be Orc flesh, and you can hear whispers emonating from the book." Player B: "Hey, what's on that table? I wasn't paying attention." Me: "Just an ordinary book."

Or *player Perception checks long and dark corridor* "You hear footsteps" *goes further to investigate, to find nothing* "You can hear the footsteps still, closer than before" *sees nothing* "You can now hear the sound of footsteps of something RUNNING"

I know as far as snakes go, there is the Nagaji, but I'm looking into a serpentine playable race that does or CAN (via alternate racial trait perhaps?) have a snake tail in place of legs. Now, a barely tweaked Merfolk seems like a possibility, but I'd already chastised a player for not conceiving his PC as a realistically-minded character, and merfolk seem to be one of the worst PCs in a group to roleplay, unless the reflavoring them to a playable variant of a "snake-tail-for-legs" sapient race makes them more open to adventuring in a party.

Any other suggestions I may be missing? (An alternate racial trait for Nagaji would be a bulls-eye)

So I'm trying to work with my one stubborn player in my (hopefully) upcoming horror campaign. For the longest time I'd agreed to let him play a squole, but due to his stubborn refusal to even play this already obscure 3rd party race straight (he claimed almost as if it were fact that he would be playing an alchemically created unique breed of humanoid ooze-- played as if it were a squole) and adding various unorthodox characteristics (one relevant one: When asked personal questions about the character that might give her--the squole-- depth, I asked what she considered "home". Despite the fact she'd spent years of her childhood in a monastery and was now an Ex-Monk, he claimed her "home" was a wooden wagon she'd bought. Maybe I'm being a stickler here, but that seems to be a tad too zany and unrealistic for the tone my campaign is designed to have) and I'd argued that perhaps a new character was overdue to be made as replacement so that the character he chose to play could be somewhat realistic (I say this, because even the Ratfolk in the party certainly has more humanity than this heavily-altered squole)

As of today though, he still defends her affinity for the wagon, but had offered to perhaps compromise on the squole being a living vessel for a spirit, one with more realistic former interaction in life (perhaps treated as a Soul Jar possession)

But at the moment I'm considering offering the option to divide his class levels/HD between a Spiritualist character and the former Monk/Druid humanoid ooze/squole acting as the phantom. Could this maybe work? Any advice on good ways to approach this solution?

While I'm aware there is no mechanically proper way to represent an avatar of a god (or the god itself I take it) but was curious what most thought would be appropriate inclusions into an NPC that is the avatar of a god, regardless of their role (afterall, gods don't ALWAYS appear in the flesh because "I'm here to smite you!")

So far, unless the god in question has reason to appear as a different race, usually whatever humanoid race makes the most sense based on their religious depictions/original mortal forms/most common race of worshippers...

Evangelist seems to give a list of classes (divine casters, arcane casters, and even non-casters) that most fit at LEAST the Core 20 pantheon.

They should always truly match the alignment of the deity.
Default weapon should be the god's favored weapon.
If a familiar/animal companion is chosen, most likely the deity's sacred animal should be the one.

Adorn themselves with said deity's sacred colors...

And idk, access to all of the deity's domains?? Divine Obedience boons w/o the obedience?

Ability Scores, Levels, CR, and Skill Ranks may vary?

According to Advanced Player's Guide, your chosen deity has to provide both the subdomain you want, and the affiliated domain for that subdomain. Well, currently I'm confused. One of Jezelda's subdomains is the Moon subdomain ... which associated with the Darkness domain... Jezelda's domains are Animal, Chaos, Evil, and Trickery. None of which are the Darkness Domain, OR are associated with the Moon subdomain.

What gives?

Has anyone had guesses, theories, or even their own in-game interpretation of what the Temple of the Ravenous Moon is dedicated to? I'd started to conceive a sympathetic NPC villain who was a lycanthropic lich who had gained pseudo-divinity by using the fragments of the Starstone to become a WereWhatever God Lich, but I hadn't considered there was already a werewolf deity, Jezelda...

I would use her, but then it would have been the Temple of Jezelda... all I know is its called The Temple of the Ravenous Moon, Kuru stay clear of it, sacrifices were made, and no one who's ventured in has returned...

Perhaps the Ravenous Moon is the lich-name of a lesser known Jezeldan Lich who ascended to be her Divine Servant?

Hey, what sorts of abilities and spells allow you to stand still and appear as something else? I'm wanting to give a Halfling the Creepy Doll alternate racial trait and 2-3 other abilities allowing him/her to pull off the "Looney Tunes hide inside a bush and tip-toe/Solid Snake in a cardboard box" kind of sneaking.

Quick question: I'm starting a campaign at lv5, and one of my players most likely is attempting to be either a Neutral or Chaotic Neutral ex-Monk starting first session with the excuse that his character was a Lawful Monk in his character's past but as of first session, he's going to be a Chaotic Neutral lv4 Druid lv1 Ex-Monk. Is this appropriate?

My only notion of leaving that be is enforcing him to reflect his character's lawful past through roleplaying his formerly Lawful currently Chaotic character appropriately.

I get GM discretion, but wanting to know a steamlined(streamlined?) method of adding certain monstrous powers/features (and sometimes which ones) to a non-player character player race to convey there is muddling of the character's actually physiology or spirit (in this case spirit)

In this specific case, I want the result to be a Rakshasa who, in the cycle of reincarnation followed by reincarnation and so forth, he/it surprisingly reincarnated into a Samsaran, instead of a Rakshasa again, and that Samsaran retained more than just a few foggy memories.

I felt like the "Amalgam Creature" template could do the trick, but it feels less like a Rakshasa in a Samsaran's body with whatever evil powers can be called upon by the Rakshasa, and more like throwing a Rakshasa and a Samsaran into a blender and hitting the start button.

Any advice on better mixing-and-matching features and stats and stuff between monsters and playable races?

So I've been hunting around for reasonable and plausible homebrew suggestions for the MtG "Plane Shift" campaign concepts, esp where it is mechanical, and focusing on Zendikar atm. Before I go crazy with colors and mana and stuff, I figured I'd get acquainted with 5th edition's character creation (as I've only played Pathfinder recently, and haven't played 4th Edition in a few years) so began making approximations of canon characters using 5th Edition's system.

Problem is, while Plane Shift: Innistrad provides SOME class-based advice on what 5E class could fill in for what MtG class or role, Plane Shift: Zendikar provided no such approximations for class.

So began with making a character for Nissa Revane, nothing too hard overall, until I come to her class. Druid is the obvious choice for all but one reason: Wildshape. It's the Druid's most fundamental class feature, and yet, not just does Nissa possess this ability, no races on Zendikar exhibit any such ability. Even a twist on Wildshape (Totem Armor) which could just summon an "umbra" as an animalistic aura emenating from the druid that functions like a larger-than-average animal or beast of some kind. Swell, however, again, Nissa does not exhibit this ability.

Any suggestions on a replacement class feature for Wildshape that toggles (or is up to the player upon investing a level into Druid) between something like Totem Armor and something else?

My first instinct is an animal/creature summoning spell-like ability X times per day that can be affected by unique Druid Circles to summon an umbra instead for Circle of the Umbra/Totem Armor or an elemental for Circle of the Land.

So, might be using the term incorrectly; I've come to understand "skyclad" to just be polite and mystical way of saying "purposely nude". Are there traits for characters who have a history of nudity? I have a player whom is set to play the 3rd party race Squole, and stubbornly wants to be nude 100% of the time AND not face ramifications of the setting's (Ustalav) authorities and rumormongering townsfolk. He already has a strike against him for being a humanoid variety of common monster, but to be a female character with slimy breasts showing all the time is likely to be detrimental to his social status.

Any advice I can give him (that he likely won't listen to) for him to play such a character?

So I've been playing around with the idea of A. Incorporating the players themselves as PCs introduced later in a future campaign I'm almost guaranteed going to do and/or B. Utilising characters as PCs from Earth in 4811 A.R.

For A. I wanted to have a campaign that played off of fairy tale tropes, the general premise being that the PCs find themselves on a demiplane designed by a very powerful caster to sort of mimic tales he'd heard and parts of history (such as the Azlanti being the inspiration for an underwater civilization of merfolk or something) and either the creator or some other cryptic fellow will appear frequently and each time says something that indicates they're "part of a story", which to the players should just sound like it's just genre-savviness considering the theme of the setting, but by the end the PCs should either die or be banished from the demiplane and a new set of PCs would be summoned in their place: with the names and as much appropriate info I can muster (3 are friends, 1 is my brother, and 1 is one of the friend's girlfriend) so for example, 1 works at a bank, so I thought to make her a cleric (cleric, clerical) with a trade/commerce themed domain, 1 is a satanist so she could be a cleric of Lucifer perhaps. Only thing I can't put my finger on is what class someone would be if they were a food delivery driver lol Also, besides the humorous conversion of the players into PCs via their occupation or other, I'm also torn between that and being realistic-- they wouldn't even have adventuring/heroic classes if they'd literally just been pulled through the 4th Wall to fight an enemy. How can I or should I handle this? Perhaps a Power Ranger-esque transformation giving them appropriate powers and knack at certain skills?

B. Similar situation. According to Pathfinder's lore, what sort of races and classes and such exist on planet Earth? I'm

So, I'd been curious about designing a custom class, and starting off simple with a hybrid class, and very recently I became fed up with coming up with a Paladin of Pharasma NPC for my campaign that worked appropriately. So at this time I've considered crafting my own Paladin class able to worship Neutral deities. So I decided to design a hybrid class with Paladin & Antipaladin as the parent classes, I suppoooose that has to be Any Neutral (or some way to word it so that a character with this class could be LN, CN, NG, or NE, but not N, considering a paladin has to be convictive in some way)

Good starting question: What would be a good name for this class? While I really, really, really want it to retain "Paladin" in its name, the current placeholder name I've begun using while I design it further is "Midknight".

What main obstacles does such a class have, that unbalance it from Paladin and/or Antipaladin? Any advice by chance?

So I'm working on a minimalist attempt at homebrewing for a 5th Edition D&D campaign utilising Plane Shift: Zendikar. The only 3 elements I feel NEED homebrewing are mana, the color pie, and classes.

Long story short about the first 2: Spell slots should be replaced by arcane points and an arcane pool, as described in the DMG, in this case re-labeled mana points and mana pool. Mana points should be obtained via connecting with locations of certain terrain types as of yet unused by each given character. Mana points gained may be determined by rolling a d2 (I presume) and using a secondary color-focused set of ability scores (which each race has high + like +2 to its own designated color score, a low + like +1 to its ally scores, and low - like -1 to its enemy scores. Of course a method of increasing scores should be used) adding a modifier appropriate to both the color score and terrain type.

Anyway, on topic question. So I'm currentky trying to translate common MTG creature classes to 5E classes. So far, this is what I've come up with. Druids, Clerics, Rogue, Wizard, and Monk are the same as their 5E counterpart classes. Barbarian and Berseker both correspond to the Barbarian class. Knight is same as Paladin. I believe 5E still uses Assassin as a prestige-like class, so Assassin = Assassin, though sometimes Rogue can fill this role. Scout and Archer both qualify together as Ranger. Soldier sounds like it should be Fighter, but I'm unaware whether Warrior falls into the the category of Barbarian, Fighter, or Paladin. Artificer falls under Wizard thanks to supplmental material for 5E classes. Lastly, I'm unsure if Warlock can be adjusted to play the part of Shaman, or if Druid can be played as either a regular Druid or Shaman, at the player's choice. All of the Bards in Magic are classified as Rogues... so I'm not so sure what to do about that. According to the Art of Zendikar book, a particular tribe of warriors are able to go into what is called a "Dragonrage" (so Barbarian) but that is often brought on by "battlesingers", so I guess there could be a type of bard with some synergy with Barbarians' rage ability.

Please leave any suggestions or feedback, any is appreciated, thank you.

So, only Natural Lycanthropes can pass the lycanthrope template to other creatures/characters?

When the template is passed from a werewolf to a non-lycanthrope, is the result always a werewolf?

I want a large number of lycanthropes in my campaign to be propogated by my main villain of my campaign, whom I fully intend to be affected by the sway of the moon, just like afflicted lycanthropes, but a small handful of the lycanthropes will be all sort of strange, exceptional types of lycanthropes, like Werewhippoorwill, Wereowlbear, Weresnake, etc.

At the current moment I thought perhaps by the time the villain takes an active role in the campaign, perhaps he might have gained an unprecedented edge over his lycanthropic condition, and learned not to control his transformations from man to beast, but WHAT bestial form he takes, become some sort of a chimeric or zoological lycanthrope.

Any advice on how best to execute this?

For 2 situations

1) I plan to give one of my players a custom version of the Consuming Creature template that lets his character consume (specifically oozes) to grow. I wonder how many oozes of a given size category she (his character) would have to consume in order to grow from Medium to Large. The same goes for Large to Huge, all the way up to gargantuan.

2) Odd circumstance, I want to give a dhampir party member an option to recruit vampires to his cause of going toe to toe with the final boss (a kaiju) that, upon the fight being triggered, his vampire loyalists would use Gaseous Form to meld together into ONE GIANT cloud of mist that a much larger vampire emerges from.

The ultimate showdown will likely be against a custom creature "Lunar Mogaru" my take on Pathfinder's equivalent of Space Godzilla, which should be CR 28+ so I'm trying to come up with any way to give the party access to cool kaiju concepts.

So, while I'm aware, as GM, I can change geography to my liking (to a degree) but I much prefer using maps as is, so my more specific question is on the map of Ustalav featured in Rule of Fear, what can I identify as just grasslands, shrubs & such, or an actual forest, or forested swamp/bog? Every time I think I've chosen a decent starting point for my campaign for societal reasons, geography gets in the way, but I don't want to make decisions that contradict canon. Can anyone help with this?

Also, according to Rule of Fear, the current year is 4711, but other sources claim it is 4716 A.R. So is there any material on Ustalav whatsoever set closer to this time period?

Same question as subject. Wanting to use Whippoorwills heavily in a Pharasma-focused campaign.

In general, if one of your players decides to play a class like a cleric and choose to follow a virtuous philosophy, by the books, does the character's alignment play any part?

Also, another by-the-books thing, if said cleric instead worships say, Asmodeus AND Erastil, they could and should be Lawful Neutral? What about if they are a polytheistic cleric who worships all of the core 20? Does any alignment count as "one step away" from at least ONE of the core 20 and thus is appropriate enough?

Someone please correct me and inform me that I am mistaken, but I could have sworn that out of all the Golarion deities, I'd read about one whom disliked being a god, and whom encouraged his/her followers to blapheme, or distrust the validity of the gods, when he is a god himself? Am I mistaken?

Currently I'm building a PC investigator, who through the use of what I call "backdoor feats" is dabbling in trademark features of other classes without ever putting class levels into other classes. For example, he uses sheer intellect and resourcefulness to research his geneaology to determine what, if any, his sorcerer bloodline may be, then essentially goes through conditioning training to awaken the diluted magical blood in him, researches what ki is and attempts to practice to tap into it, and most relevantly, is generally an agnostic at best or atheist at worst, but I'll give him "Believer's Boon" feat to represent him dabbling in what it's like to be a cleric ironically. "If there are truly gods out there, and you can gain divine boons from them, then I shall do the same, to prove it's all a farce" only to be surprised when the above-mentioned god bursts his bubble.