cappadocius's page

Thinking about dinosaurs, because of the Triceratops skeleton they dug up this week just down the road.

Pathfinder is well set with Cretaceous era dinos - 18 entries, and all of 'em pretty famous. A good spread, can't complain (well, I like my Therizinosaurus fluffy, but I know I differ from a lot of folks in that).

The Jurassic has half of that, 9 entries, but that's okay, because with the exception of Stegosaurus and the Sauropods, most Jurassic dinosaurs look a lot like Cretaceous dinosaurs.

But the Triassic - the great efflorescence of life following the massive Permian extinction - doesn't have anything. ZERO Triassic dinosaur entries. Now, really, you only need a Coelophysis to really cover any DINOSAUR bases for the Triassic, but we're including pterosaurs and marine reptiles under the dinosaur banner, so there are some GREAT critters that I'd love to see in the next Bestiary:

Tanystropheus, the coastal reptile that was 20 feet long - 10 of that neck. Shringasaurus,the real-life Slurpasaurus (check out TV Tropes). The Familiar-sized running crocdile Terrestrisuchis or the 9-foot long bipedal crocodile Carnufex. And definitely the weird little marine reptile Atopodentatus.

I mean, if we're wishing. :)

Or is there? I can't find one. I suck at game crafting or I'd create one myself. I'm working on ideas for my next campaign and the background story involves a former pit fighter who rose to become a god with the domains of War and (I had hoped) Freedom. But I can't find the latter!

The Liberation Domain has a Freedom Subdomain, which can be found in the Advanced Player's Guide.

Sooo...

** spoiler omitted **

Why isn't any D&D setting a magitech utopia?

Dragon78 wrote:

Not B6 style please.

After five low-CR bestiaries, I think it's about time for the pendulum to swing the other way.

I don't really have much use at all for Epic-Level stat blocks, but we certainly could use just a tad more variety in the CR 14-20 range.

I'm jumping in late, and freely admit I haven't read all 850+ posts, but I wonder if there will finally be a druid archetype that ditches shapeshifting altogether, or an arcane archetype that can be as nature-focused as the Druid.

Outsiders: Oitos Kyton, New Rakshasa, new Asuras, new Manasaputra, the last six Oni to finish out the roster from CR 2-20, Xiuh Couatl, other couatls.

Folklore: Isiququmadevu, Kamakiri (maybe as an Advanced Familiar option?), Bakunawa (it swallows the moon! How's that for high level!?), Huayramama,
The Children of Ana: Poreskoro, Minceskro, Lolmischo, Bitoso, Schilayli, Tçaridyi, Tçulo, Lilyi, and Melalo

Fearsome Critters: Terrashots, Slide-Rock Bolters, Squonks, Whirling Whimpuses, Agropelters

Literature: Uliri (the Martians from War of the Worlds), Aihai/Yorhi (Clark Ashton Smith's Martians), Sorats and Calots (ERB's Martian cats and dogs)

Yes, I do want all the martians I can get. Akiton is just WAITING for a module or AP. I'd be asking for Malacandrans if they were public domain.

Dragons: We haven't had a paired set of dragons since original D&D gave us Metallic vs Chromatic. I know we're only ever gonna get 5 True Dragons at a time, but it'd be nice if B7's set could be paired against the Primal, Outer, Esoteric, or Planar Dragons.

Lastly, I think the last of the closed content D&D Classics without Pathfinder Original or OGL substitutes are the Beholders - I'd love to see that last perceived gap plugged.

Eric Hinkle wrote:

Also, may we please get some information on these new Qlippoth previously listed?

I'll see what I can do. ^_^

Eric Hinkle wrote:

Qlippoth, Gongorinan

Qlippoth, Hydraggon

I didn't work on these two at all, but as Corvus noted, the gongorinian is a reprint from Shattered Star. I think the hydraggon is new, although it was mentioned in BotD2.

If the Hydraggon is a limbless dragon-y thing with a tongue with four grasping tendrils at the tip, that's from Mr. Jacobs' old 3rd Edition Armies of the Abyss book!

nighttree wrote:

So here is a question....what distinguishes the Rougarou (fluff wise) from any shifter ???

I mean are they tied to lycanthropic heritage as well ? or it something completely different ?

How many times does the "stop using the word 'fluff', it's derogatory" post needs to be repeated?

Possibly until it starts being derogatory, then once more?

Unfortunately, with his tapir nose and bright yellow coloring he kind of looks like a Smurfs villain or the anteater from the old Pink Panther cartoons. Not very mythos'y, not very scary or weird looking, very disappointed in that.

That's, um, what Yaddithians look like, though.

doc the grey wrote:

J-Spee Lovecraft wrote:

Does the titanoboa get anything to make it different from all the other big snakes? And are the megafauna more than just more rhinos and elephants?

Nahh, just a really big constrictor. It has swallow whole if the giant anaconda doesn't get that and the thing is colossal.

They really made it colossal?

Seems like any creature that's even remotely big is considered colossal, these days.

Pathfinder gorillas are 8 feet tall. The largest individual of the largest species of extant gorilla was 6'6". The Adventure Fantasy business demands you scale everything up a bit.

Does the Quetzalcoatlus actually have hair? I would think feathers would be more likely.

Pterosaurs did not have feathers, they had pycnofibers, which are something a little bit like hair, and a little bit like feather, but are neither.

Given his desire to help his master the King in Yellow, I assume he won't just seek out and fight the PCs outright but will look for the Briarstone Witch, or at least other followers of his lord in the areas? Or will he go back and try to fight them knowing they know his weakness?

Your usual Mythos horror is, like a cat, very unwilling to move from their home turf. What the Tatterman is likely to do, if he wasn't destroyed, is hang around the Asylum, and prey on anyone foolish enough to go back to the island. If someone rebuilds the place, he could be there for CENTURIES waiting for another casting of the ritual, getting his jollies on any inmates with sleep disorders.

So what you're saying is that we should swarm our military against them to win? (Joking.)

Doesn't work.

The Great Old Ones do not want your worship. They do not need your patronage. They will only grant you power if it advances their cause. For in the end, all they wish is for you to die.

The Great Old Ones do not want our worship, correct. They do not need our patronage, correct.

However, the Great Old Ones do not grant power. The Great Old Ones shed power, and some have figured out how to harness this excreta. An ant may feel that man has dropped a sweet to feed her colony, but man has only "given" this boon accidentally, and the ant only keeps its gift because man does not care that he lost something of his. We are but ants to the Great Old Ones.

The Great Old Ones do not wish us to die. The Great Old Ones do not even think about us, save when we directly bring ourselves to their attention. Man does not think of the life and death drama of an ant colony in his back yard; the millions of births and deaths and the wars between colonies do not even register on his radar, except as, perhaps, a few minutes amused observation as he goes about his day. Should the ants invade his pantry, should they be somewhere inconvenient for him, man will kill the ants, but only the pettiest man wishes for their death, rather than simply causing it as quickly as possible before returning to his business. We are but ants to the Great Old Ones.

The entire physical universe fits inside the smallest inner plane.

Which itself fits entirely within the mind of the smallest of insects.

Meditate upon this. Mu.

We need some kind of dragon race!

You've already got kobolds.

I'll bet he gets sick of those jokes.

What joke? Krune's too lazy to die. Dying is, like, work. He's shunted his deaths off onto the people of Haruka (and Varisia, lately) for thousands of years now. He really does intend to get around to fixing the problems caused by the Starstone, eventually.

Krune's getting around to a solution to surviving the Starstone. Any day now. Promise.

But seriously do goblins talk with a squeaky foreign accent, I'm thinking Spanish or Mexican???

Oddly enough, Goblins have an Azerbaijani accent.

How can you live with yourself, serving and aggrandizing history's greatest monster, who imprisoned and defiled the last true servant of the Monad, the Rough Beast who seeks only to tear down these flawed creations erected by demiurges like your foul sun-goddess, in cooperation with the very Devil himself?? Are you incapable of feeling any shame at how your goddess perpetuates a flawed cosmos in which only the strong prosper and death stalks us all by keeping our salvation tormented and bound in the gross material world he sought to transform? You wear such finery, as if your despicable sun-goddess deserves service from royalty, when she should be queen of NOTHING, weeping and broken, cast down for her hubris while Rovagug ravens and cleanses the cosmos of the lies and flaws of the demiurge! You claim evil when you see freedom! You strike with the sword while talking of peace! HYPOCRISY. You talk of iredeemability when your goddess is the worst of a bad lot! SHE should be driven from existence. SHE should suffer as the Cosmic Scourge has for millennia. SHE has chosen the Wrong by choosing a flawed and false Cosmos, and SHE has not DONE GOOD by subjecting a True and Faithful Servant of the True God to torment unimaginable. How could you like HER and not HE?

Imagine that you're hot-s!@@, a goddess of architecture, of art, of everything civilized in the world. Your people have reached out into the stars, and taken the beauty and culture of tens of thousands of years with them. You look around and, other than the Elves, you see in this world only savage, barbaric races, or the cowed slaves of monsters.

You turn your eyes from a single world in the glittering diamond necklace that is Elvendom for an eyeblink, less than a handful of generations of worshipers, and when you look back, the entire planet is covered by the descendants of those races that were scarcely better than APES the last time you looked. And their buildings are hideous, blocky eyesores that are built to a template that never considers the important things - tradition, the surroundings, the aesthetic milieu in which this building must harmonize with all the buildings around it. Their art is representational at best, and clearly derives from the scrawls they were making with blood and feces on cave walls when you looked away.

And do they have the DECENCY to venerate the entire Elven pantheon, the deities of a race that conquered the heavens? No, hate sex and frou-frou dreams are apparently all that these chattering, filthy mayflies consider worth taking from their betters.

You might be stand-offish too.

I see Rovagug as more pure chaos -- chaotically destroying for chaos's sake.

Rovagug seeks to destroy this prison cosmos, this flawed creation of petty puling rebel Gods who disobeyed their creator so that they could rule rather than be ruled. He will pull down these walls that keep us bound to a flawed cosmos, to die and be reborn and die again at the whims of poorly conceived laws and at the hands of lunatics and hypocrites. He is a liberator and a hero, maligned by the simpering lackeys of his enemies so often that their lies are taken as truths.

I have a pamphlet about it if you'd like.

all true dragons have blindsense

Smaug certainly casts a long shadow over his RPG progeny, doesn't he?

DungeonmasterCal wrote:

Amazon just pushed back their ship date again!!!

Why do they do that???

Because you touch yourself.

What time is it?

ALIGNMENT TIME! (with Finn and Jake)

Lawful Good: Finn the Human
Chaotic Good: Jake the Dog
Neutral Good: Lady Raincorn
Lawful Neutral: BUFO
True Neutral: Princess Bubblegum
Chaotic Neutral: The Magic Man
Lawful Evil: Gunter the Penguin
Neutral Evil: Ice King
Chaotic Evil: Marceline the Vampire Queen

Adventure Time is such a great show for illustrating that you can have a D&D alignment and still be a complex character! I intend to do some livejournal posts about that in the near future.

Because old fashioned gods of old-fashioned societies, such as those that rely on family farms and hunting, tend to reflect those societies, which are themselves male chauvinist? I personally object to Erastil's viewpoints on gender relations, but I don't see why one would object to his very existence, as there are plenty of religions, current and historical, that subscribe to such a view.

Throatwobbler Mangrove

hm.

‘A mature hyena is sold for one hundred and fifty thousand naira, but a cub is more expensive at two hundred and fifty thousand naira. This is because a cub can be trained. An adult baboon goes for fifteen thousand naira, a young one for eight thousand. A python goes for eight to ten, depending on the size.

150,000 naira is equivalent to 996.3 US Dollars (1 NGN = 0.006642 USD).

Figure out how much a US Dollar is worth in Katapeshi gold pieces, and you're set. http://www.d20source.com/2008/04/how-much-is-a-gold-piece-worth is a starting point for your work.

Hot damn, I bought this the other day and it's really a rollicking good time. Wellman wrote in such a fashion that I can't help BUT hear the narrator in Johnny Cash's voice, and picture a young Cash righting wrongs in the Appalachians.

Thanks, Planet Stories!

In the real world, without hands-on deities that give undeniable signs of their existence, we see syncretism (the merging of two religions into a new, hybrid) as an aspect of colonialism and cultural contact. Examples include the Greek Hermes being equated to the Roman Mercury, the Egyptian Amun becoming the Greek Zeus Ammon, or Amun becoming Amun-Re when encountering the other Nile deity Re. Before meeting, the resemblance between Hermes and Mercury may have been superficial, at best, but the differences were smoothed out as cultural contact continued. Neither Hermes nor Mercury seems to have minded.

In Golarion, however, the Gods show up, they've indicated some jealousy, but we still see signs of syncretism. The Ulfen deity Erastil is equated to the Stone Giant deity Estig, and the Garundi deity Gozreh is worshipped by the Avistan-native Cloud Giants as Ioz'om, the halfling gods are sidekicks to gods from separate pantheons. It raises the question of whether Estig and Erastil ARE the same, or if Erastil has subsumed Estig's duties, or something even more odd? When a human deity like Irori begins to see worship by Dwarves, does Irori create a new aspect that is a member of Torag's family, or are there new myths explaining his relationship to the Dwarven pantheon (and did those myths "really" happen on whatever reality the gods exist in?), or is Irori's worship independent of Toragian worship, and if so, do the Dwarven worshipers pick up other Vudrani customs, myths, and gods alongside their new god?

Pharasma has come out of Osirion, where I've no doubt she had a pantheon surrounding her, same as Taldor has Abadar, Shelyn, and Zon-Kuthon. What happened to those deities? When Pharasma is worshiped alongside Gorum, like in Brevoy, does the old Osirion god of war get turned into Gorum, or is there an entirely unique body of worship in Brevoy? do Brevic myths spontaneously appear in Osirion? The elven deity Curchanus was murdered by the demon Lamashtu, who is obviously not part of the original Elven pantheon - but is she now, since Lamashtu's myths have intersected with the elves'?

Following the development of syncretic beliefs is an important tool for tracking cultural history and the movements of people, and knowing how it takes place in Golarion can be extremely helpful in fleshing out the world for your players.

Maybe I run a different kind of game than most people, but grappling a Vrock at all is a good way to get raped.

It's a well-known fact that Dwarves pilot personal, steam-powered gyrocopters.

http://mythicmktg.fileburst.com/media/images/newsletters/05_2008/DwarfMount _t2.jpg

Elves ride Unicorns. Halflings ride Dogs. Gnomes ride Goats. Half-Orcs ride Half-Elves.

Well-known facts.

He was for all intensive purposes

For all intents and purposes.

(If I dimly recall from 1st edition you could be reincarnated as badgers and the like).

Anyone who's ever read Redwall and its sequels know that badgers are badasses.

In short, where can't you get a villian from?

Molthune. It's too lame to have villains.

From Jeff Rient's wonderful gameblog, comes this handy chart for when your adventurers suddenly burst in on the stupid little freaks. Just roll 1d20 and rock out.

What are the goblins up to?

1. Making rope out of human hair. A coil 1-100' long is already complete.
2. Boiling up a pot of mud and gravel stew.
3. Singing songs about hidden treasure.
4. Playing poker with blank cards. The printing on both sides is visible only to creatures with infravision
5. Dancing. At least one goblin will be playing an instrument, probably a fiddle or a concertina.
6. Playing tenpins with a skull and some legbones.
7. Interrogating a rat tied to a tiny chair. "I'm gonna ask you one last time: Where is the cheese?"
8. Building a house of cards with the deck from item 4.
9. Discussing the pros and cons of sexual congress with a wide variety of other monsters and races.
10. Eating meat pie. The pie might be stirge or it might be pixie. The goblins can't remember what they put in it.
11. Debating the crisis of succession that would arise from the untimely demise of the current goblin king.
12. Shining shoes of various sizes (kobold to ogre). They all radiate faintly under detect magic but have no known powers.
13. Three words: bunny eating contest.
14. Reading aloud someone else's love letters, preferably detailed notes to or from one of the PCs.
15. Sewing filthy rags into patchwork tunics. If a completed tunic is worn it protects as platemail+1. If the garment is cleaned the magic fades. 1-3 tunics have been completed.
16. Drawing obscene grafitti on the dungeon walls. Each goblin has d4 pieces of chalk in various colors.
17. Arguing vehemently over the proposition that cannibalism should be kept strictly in the family.
18. Strip chess tournament. There's a 1 in 6 chance at least some of the goblins are already in the all-together. Not a sight for the faint of heart.
19. Pickling sliced shrieker. 1-20 jars are done.
20. Trying on pretty pink dresses.

All information is according to the 3.5 SRD, as much of this is monster specific:

The Aquatic Subtype states that "An aquatic creature can breathe underwater. It cannot also breathe air unless it has the amphibious special quality."

Dragon Turtles, which are clearly air breathing creatures, do not have amphibious. Merrow and Scrag, which probably terrorize coastal communities, do not, and begin drowning after about 2 minutes. That's not terrorizing, that's a temper tantrum. Merfolk, which never do more than clamber onto a rock and look pretty, do have Amphibious and could stay out of the water FOREVER. Sahuagin have a unique special quality that lets them stay out of water for a significant period of time, without being able to survive indefinitely out of the water.

The Water Subtype states that "This subtype usually is used for elementals and outsiders with a connection to the Elemental Plane of Water. Creatures with the water subtype always have swim speeds and can move in water without making Swim checks. A water creature can breathe underwater and usually can breathe air as well."

Black and Bronze dragons are famously neither elementals nor outsiders. The only reason to give them the (Water) subtype is to avoid the hassle of giving them Amphibious on top of their hundreds of dragon SQs. In fact, having Amphibious built in is the ONLY reason for a (Water) subtype to exist by the RAW.

Please either eliminate one of these types, or create a more significant mechanical reason for there to be two types. Please go over the Aquatic creatures with a fine-tooth comb and determine, sensibly, who gets Amphibious (if there's a need to keep it), who else beyond the Sahuagin might be a better candidate for their Water Dependent SQ than the Amphibious SQ, and what else might be appropriate to gain Aquatic.

For Animals:
The "Hold Breath" special quality is neat, but is way under-statted - Porpoises by D&D rules can hold their breath for 8 minutes. They normally dive for 20 minutes. This is a DC 22 Constitution Check at a +1 Constitution bonus, by the end of their dive. I'm pretty sure a wild animal isn't going to wait until it starts drowning to catch a breath.

Sperm Whales are even more hilarious. They can dive for 20 minutes, which is great, sure. Unfortunately, real Sperm Whales can dive for up to 90 minutes, and an average dive is 45 minutes. THEY'RE making a DC 35 check with a +7 Con bonus at the end of an AVERAGE dive.

Meanwhile, Alligators can go five HOURS without breathing. I'm not even doing the math for the Hold Breath special quality for these guys. Why don't THEY have the Aquatic subtype, with Amphibious? Or an "Air Dependent" mirror-version of the Sahuagin quality?

And for a last bit of fun, an Elasmosaurus can hold its breath for about as long as an 8th level dwarf.

I know underwater/aquatic adventures are a very small niche of the realm of D&D adventuring, and so might not be a very high priority. However, the number of water-based creatures is small, and it doesn't take too much effort to apply some common sense and basic math to these issues. Bump up 'Hold Breath' multipliers, reconsider the meanings of Aquatic vs. Water, and give ALL diving creatures some sort of 'Hold Breath' ability. For all that, you make running these small niche games easier, and who knows, that might make 'em less of a niche!

Rovagug the Weak, who was imprisoned?
Rovagug the Impotent, who spits and rails against his captors?
Rovagug the Ineffectual, whose Spawn do not free him?

The Beast seeks to destroy, not create as my mistress commands.

Rovagug, against whom all Gods contended, and yet still survives, unharmed and simply imprisoned (incompletely and increasingly weakly). Rovagug, who bides his time, gathering his strength to burst forth and rend this flawed universe asunder. Rovagug, who does not seek any aid from his Spawn, but stands upon his own nine feet. The Rough Beast needs neither love, nor fear, nor even hate. His duty is singular, and the weakness shown by other so-called Gods is not his to display.

Best that the Beast destroy to make room for perfection, than to fill a universe overflowing with corruption with yet more filth, no matter the cloaca that spews it forth.

Greg A. Vaughan wrote:

All hail Lamashtu, Demon Queen!

Yes, praise her! Praise the Life Giver, She Who Brings Children to the Barren and Slayer of the Weak.

She who is lickspittle to the Gods, she who is complicit in the imprisonment of the True Slayer, she who births imperfections, stacking offense upon offense on a universe burdened by that which is corrupted and impure. The Demon Queen holds onto her title like a child clutches her teddy bear, trembling in fear of the return of the Rough Beast.

HAIL ROVAGUG. ROVAGUG FTAGHN!

bugleyman wrote:

Will it be 3.5E or 4E?!?

Whichever is the least effective gaming system.

Palladium it is, then!

I find people who argue about religion, politics, or sexuality on the internet to be tedious people without a glimmer of self-awareness and with egos the size of a Tarrasque. This is a thread about made-up characters in a made-up world that was made-up to facilitate a game of make believe. Shut the nine hells up about the real world.

Also, what subforum should I post Valeros/Harsk slashfic in?