Zum-Graat's page

There is an apathy div called bushyasta, based on an actual Zoroastrian evil spirit that prevents mortals from doing anything productive and lulls them to sleep more. She was published in the Book of the Damned. Not that strong too (CR6) but above dretch at least. I know very few people care about divs or remember them at all, but she's there if you look for sloth/apathy-themed fiends.

I'd love to see a Ramayana-esque epic adventure in Vudra, heavily involving rakshasas and asuras as antagonists. Although there were quite a lot of good (or at least leaning to neutral) rakshasas in Hindu epics as well, which I'm not sure is easy to pull off in Golarion, where outsiders are pretty hard-coded in their alignment.

Alright, I see, it all comes down to the amount of the details. If you use kytons as some throwaway random encounter or minions of some other evil, then yeah, their sadistic habits do not require many details. But if they are major antagonists, then I think some graphic description of their atrocities is essential to make PCs more afraid of them, as well as fueling their hatred and disgust. Because if you just say "these guys are really bad, they like to torture people and stuff, go kill them now" - this can be applied to pretty much any evil group.
I wholeheartedly agree that overwordy description of violence can be tacky and immature when it's not needed, but a campaign focused on kytons is one of few situations when it IS needed. Of course, all players must be 18+ and okay with some gore, this goes without questions.

I didn't miss it. I just find the suggestion that torture should only happen off-screen and not be described in details pretty weird after they introduced a group of cenobites whose entire existence is based around torture and whose descriptions are filled with gruesome details.
Yes, it's obvious that in your own game you can include literally anything you want. I'm just kinda bothered that "we suggest torture shouldn't be a prominent theme in your game" and "here's a bunch of horrible torture-themed fiends in your core Bestiaries bro" seem kinda mutually exclusive? Unless kytons became muuuuch milder in the second edition or won't be included in core bestiaries at all.

Quote:

Torture

Torture is taboo now? How does this correlate with the fact that there is an entire fiendish race focused on torture and body mutilations aka kytons/velstracs? How do you even use them without a heavy focus on this subject?

Can a fiend demigod be served by fiends that belong to a different "faction"?
The reason I ask is that I homebrewed a sahkil tormentor. One of his themes is flies and maggots and he is also closely associated with kids, so zebub devils seem like ideal minions to him. But sahkils and devils even have different alignments (NE and LE respectively), so I'm not sure this is possible from the "canon" standpoint.

I think Four Horsemen are way too weak. Hard to take them as a terrible threat to the Universe when they are mere demigods. I'd make them full-fledged deities.

Honestly, I could pick a couple of examples of how Paizo butchered my native folklore (Russian). The most glaring is polevik - its name literally means "of the field" and it's a creature closely associated with open landscapes and sunlight. But in Pathfinder it's an underground mushroom man? Ehm... You are free to use our folklore as much as you wish, but why choose the name that has absolutely nothing to do with the creature?
Overall I think it's quite petty to expect 100% or even 50% mythological accuracy from a fantasy game. But then again, Russian folklore is not persecuted or oppressed (even if is barely known in the West), so maybe it's a more principal topic for striving minorities.

Reefclaws are the result of fleshwarping, so it makes complete sense to classify them as aberrations.

Oh, I didn't know this, the description in Bestiary just makes them sound like slightly intelligent eel-lobsters. I stand corrected then. Were rust monsters artificially created too?

Manasaputra on the other hand, I hope they never return, or at least only in Adventure Paths, I was never a fan of those.

Boooo, manasaputras are my favorite good outsiders (I wonder if they are considered Celestials now or their own separate thing). They are very cool Hindu-based beings, although I suspect they are inspired more by "The Secret Doctrine" and theosophy rather than directly by Puranas.

Can I just say that, as a biologist, I'm happy that fungi are finally separated from plants? Yayyy. It bothered me for so long. I mean, it makes total sense for the folk of Golarion to consider fungi plants (our world botanists considered them plants until as recently as the 60s), but Bestiaries seem to be written from an out-of-universe perspective rather than in-universe.
Also glad to see Monstrous Humanoid category gone, never made much sense to me. Not so sure about getting rid of the "Outsider" type. Celestial, Fiend, Monitor and Elemental are neat types, but "Astral" and "Ethereal" as separate categories? Ehh... Also, why wendigo is a beast??? It was a native outsider previously, would make sense to make it a fiend. Or at least aberration or maybe undead. Meanwhile, reefclaws and rust monsters are aberrations instead of beasts despite being just weird, but natural fauna? Ahhh, it's so confusing.
Other than that... Interesting to see some new outsider languages. Never made much sense to me that the entire Great Beyond speak only Celestial, Infernal, and Abyssal. Although their names could use some work. I mean, we have cool names like Requian for psychopomp language, but daemons speak... daemonic? Really? Not "Apocalyptic" or "Oblivion" or "Doom Speach"? Come on... Also, I'd rather rename daemons completely, but this is just wishful thinking at this point.
And my biggest complain - no sahkils! Gimme sahkils! I miss my twisted nightmare friends so much!

I don't know, maybe people of Caucasus like Circassian/Abkhaz/Ossetes/Dagestanis could be model instead?

Oh man. I've seen fantasy nations and races being based on the most obscure ethnicities, but never in my life I've seen anything in fantasy inspired by Caucasus region! It's like this part of the map is a blank space for Americans and Western Europeans, despite it holding some of the oldest still existing countries (Georgia, Armenia) and overall having a very distinct culture.

As for the "gypsy" word - aside from being used as a slur, it also means something akin to "adventurer" or "free spirit". Like, Jason Momoa's Instagram account is called "prideofgypsies" despite him not having any Roma blood or connection whatsoever.

Respect for the Gods of other cultures, I can see why people respect that, I would never use or touch the Rainbow serpent for example or other good-natured spiritual monsters

This seems to be Paizo's position as well. I've been rereading Bestiary 1 recently and noticed that all Empyreal Lords listed there (in archon and azata sections) are real mythological figures, including some culture heroes like Atonga or deities from still existing religions (like some Orisha and Buddhist entities). But then you have more modern sources that list a lot of Empyreal Lords, like "Chronicles of the Righteous" and almost all of them are made-up from scratch.

The made-up creatures can't compare to the mythology/cryptid/folklore ones.

Well, this is quite a bold claim. I myself love some mythological critters, but DnD and Pathfinder have a lot of memorable original beings. Why do you think modern people are worse at making up monsters than ancient people were?

Yeah, that recent wendigo controversy is quite tragic. Although I feel like it can be avoided by just renaming the creature. Like, call it "ventigo" or something, and this is no more a cultural appropriation, merely an inspiration. Not like the concept of a hungry cannibalistic evil spirit is that innovative, and creepy humanoid deer looks nothing like "real" wendigo anyway.