"Get some rest, hero. The dead can sleep with both eyes closed."
In a chaotic realm where violence elevates the strong to godhood and the lives and dreams of others are cheap and readily spent, there needs to be a quiet voice of reason urging that you slow down... if only in death. Bonetongue is an old soul tasked with picking up the pieces when heroes are shattered and battles yield bodies, and even if the crowds turned on them before the end, the grim grinning of the undertaker is always there to pay one last kindness.
This product provides Game Masters with details on a uncommon undertaker found amongst the Faces of the Tarnished Souk, ready for immediate use in any campaign—but especially for use within the Coliseum Morpheuon. Each entry features ingenious stat-blocks from multiple OGL sources, history, motivation, secrets, and insight into the NPC's most carefully guarded dreams, along with complete game statistics for low, middle, and high levels of play.
Within you will find: Bonetongue, a gravedigging goblin with a rictus grin.
CR 16 Male eternal ogrekin goblin white necromancer 15
CR 11 Male eternal ogrekin goblin white necromancer 10
CR 6 Male eternal ogrekin goblin white necromancer 4
Eternal and Ogrekin creature templates, plus three additional templates from Rite Publishing
New magical items—coins for dead eyes, rings for casters, and a rod to lead a veritable zombie parade!
Authors: Matt Banach and Justin Sluder Cover Illustration: Rick Hershey Pages: 13
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This installment of the FoTS-series of NPCs is 18 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 2 pages of advertisements and 1 page SRD, leaving 13 pages for the 3 incarnations of bonetongue.
Who is bonetongue? Bonetongue is a somber, serene guarding of the dead, full of compassion to the point where he lost his dreams in duty to his watch. He is the sad custodian of the defeated, the wise and benevolent shepherd of those fallen in the Coliseum Morpheuon. Also, he's an immensely powerful white necromancer who happens to be a goblin that can't die.
Rite Publishing have a nice track record of excellent templates and complex characters and this installment of the FoTS-series is no exception providing 5 templates: Ogrekin, mystic creature, foul creature, death scavenger and eternal creature. The base-class is also interesting, finally providing a way to play white necromancers - if you don't happen to know it, be sure to check out KQW #19. For this particulr pdf, you don't necessarily need the class-write-up as all pieces of information necessary to run bonetongue are included. We also get new spells, summon dead I to IX and a spell called bone swarm, three new feats (one of which deals damage to people whose spells you counter) and 5 new magic items. I particularly enjoyed the fast-digging gravedigger's shovel, the coins placed on the eyes of a dead creature and a very cool ring that transforms foes into ashes and an urn to store the souls of the fallen until their resurrection.
The three different incarnations of bonetongue are an interesting evolution of the same character and range from CR 6 to CR 18, as we've come to expect: What is new, though, is that each incarnation of bonetonue comes with 3 variants, a Death-Scavenger, a Foul and a Mystic variant, i.e. minor statblock modifications that help you further customize your personal incarnation of bonetongue, which is awesome.
The background-story and advice on how to use the goblin caretaker is awesome and he makes for an interesting ally for the PCs, perhaps even more due to his relative pacifism and the hinted evolution of the character throughout a Coliseum Morpheuon story-arc.Being an eternal creature, bonetongue can only die via very specific circumstances and he fully knows that, standing up to foes to protect the innocent even if it means his death. A couple of times.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are quite good, although I noticed some minor formatting glitches like tabs not lining up etc. Layout adheres to the classic b/2-s-column standard by RiP and the pdf comes with bookmarks. The b/w-artwork of bonetongue is nice indeed. Bonetongue is an interesting character, as he is one of the few relatively unambiguous allies for the PCs in the FoTS-series. While he is solemn and may yet break his vows, his pacifism, wisdom and the fact that he's a white necromancer are enough to constitute an interesting character indeed. With the notable exception of a certain Ghost-light, this FoTS-installment is my favorite primary caster in the series as of yet - almost constituting a nice Yoda-like mentor. One that might yet crush all the depravity of the Coliseum below an army of vengeful dead. If it can't be helped, that is. My final verdict will, once again, be 4.5 stars due to the minor glitches and the fact that I would have loved a reason why he is eternal and a more specific means of granting him final death. I'll round up to 5 for the purpose of this platform, though...
I found out too late that we were using the white necromancer, to get permission from the publisher to reference their IP (the name of the magazine) like I did with 101 Renegade Class Feats.
I found out too late that we were using the white necromancer, to get permission from the publisher to reference their IP (the name of the magazine) like I did with 101 Renegade Class Feats.
Hopefully we can, to make sure that the magazine in question gets full and explicit credit for introducing the wonderful white necromancer class to the communal-use pool of ideas that is the SRD.
So yes, kudos to those ingenious toothy-snouted-lowCR-trapmaking-race fellows over at that magazine they run.
I love this guy! I'm sorry that I won't have time to give this the proper treatment for a while. Moving and starting a new job in the dead of winter and near the holidays introduces a number of problems that are not ordinarily present. I want to read this one and the Rabbit Hole also! So please be patient with me. Hopefully those clever mini-dragons are as equally patient. (And by mini, I mean mighty!)
Congratulations on the new job, Dawn! I'm looking forward to reading your reviews and will provide mine of the Rabbit Hole as soon as V.2.0 is uploaded. I'll also have to take a short break from the 29th to the 6th but after that, reviewing will resume. :)
Edit: Oh yeah, reviewed here, on DTRPG and sent to GMS magazine!
I contacted Wolfgang and got permission to use and reference the KQ articles. If things still aren't correct, it is solely my fault.
I'm glad folks are enjoying Bonetongue, it struggled at first to decide what class to use.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good fright!
Edit: I would love to hear more about what folks would like to see added to the Faces series.
Epic yakuza crime lord with their illicit gambling halls.
Smugglers.
Beggars guild.
Fu Manchu (Khan may be close enough, though).
Opium dens.
Auction house.
Adventuring center.
Temple complex dedicated to the idea of dead or powerless gods.
I was very happy to talk to Justin about it and point out that the White Necromancer is Open content.
I'm a little less happy that it wasn't acknowledged correctly according to the terms of the OGL, but I have every confidence that Steve will fix the problem.
Also, would love to see a diabolist or a straight-up CE blackguard, if they haven't been done already.
And hey, lots of discussion of the White Necromancer and this FotTS entry is all good. For those who want to see the class itself for a PC or NPC, you can find it in Kobold Quarterly #19 right here at Paizo.
Kobold Press
