Beyond the Void (PFRPG)

4.00/5 (based on 2 ratings)
PZOPDFLDGCC15LE

Landscape PDF

PZOPDFLDGCC15E

Portrait PDF

Facebook Twitter Email

Beyond the Void provides a terrifying addendum to the darkest edges of reality and their sanity-rending intersections with the mortal world. This rules supplement deals with the contact and summoning of alien entities whose dominions lie in realms of blackness beyond the stars. Sometimes the province of the dangerously curious, more often the patrons of the deliriously insane, these inhuman powers are utterly other, indifferent to human joy or misery, though always hungry and eager to devour any creature unwise enough to attract their attention.

Ideal for alchemists, summoners, and wizards, and for anyone wishing to delve into the sanity-rending realms of cosmic horror. This product includes three new character archetypes, the deranged alienist (summoner), the intrepid aquatic bathynaut (alchemist), and the far-sighted iridic mage (wizard). Add to this the Crawler in Darkness and Summon Star-Spawn feats; nine new spells from alien contact and cosmic communion to deform angularity and embryonic implantation; and the new alien and embryonic creature templates, including four sample embryonic aliens to terrify your players: the embryonic aboleth, embryonic intellect devourer, embryonic neh-thalggu, and embryonic shoggoth!

Written by Jason Nelson, with art by Frank Hessefort and Tanyaporn Sangsnit, this 15-page product continues Legendary Games' tradition of bringing you outstanding content by the best authors in the business, combined with amazing art and production values and innovative layout design. We hope you enjoy using our products as much as we enjoy making them, and that you'll keep coming back again and again to Make Your Game Legendary!

Download includes two versions: one full color and one printer-friendly.

Product Availability

Fulfilled immediately.

Are there errors or omissions in this product information? Got corrections? Let us know at store@paizo.com.

LGP020CC15PFE


See Also:

Average product rating:

4.00/5 (based on 2 ratings)

Sign in to create or edit a product review.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

4/5

This pdf is 15 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/SRD, 1 page how-to use, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 11 pages of content, so let's take a look, shall we?

Oh boy, have I been looking forward to this one! Why? Because I'm a fan boy of chthonic and xothic horror - but that also means that this pdf has to stand up to a LOT of comparisons on my behalf - can it stand up to? Well, the first page introduces us to the concepts herein - whereas Cultic Cryptomancia was about the secret societies and cults, this one is all about the mind-shattering knowledge lurking beyond the limits of our fragile perceptions and thus kicks off with new character options, first of which would be the Alienist archetype for summoners: His eidolons need to follow the aboleth or thing from beyond models (see Ultimate Magic) and have at least 1 tentacle evolution. The eidolons get an alien anatomy (with a chance to negate crits and precision-based damage) as well as additional tentacles instead of regular ability score increases and also are not particularly susceptible to emotion-based spells. Furthermore, these eidolons can't be healed via lifelink by their summoners and replaces shielding allies with new spells - culminating in better knowledge of mythos-related spells and beings as well as the option to gate in terrible cthulhoid creatures like Shoggoths and Neothelids - and even Star-Spawn of Cthulhu. And yes, the creatures that count as mythos-related are precisely defined and hyperlinked - neat!

Alchemists may now opt to become Bathynauts, who replace brew potion with the option to create an apparatus that doubles the duration of harmless extracts, mutagens, cognatogens etc. while underwater, making for a great option when playing a water-themed campaign or braving the foes from e.g. the Cerulean Sea's Azure Abyss or the Sahuagin of the Sunken Pyramid. They also get some enhancing abilities that make them more capable underwater and learn to craft underwater-exploration-related items. Furthermore, they gain armor proficiencies, can use these underwater and with their apparatus, essentially create a submersible suit that can have its combat capabilities enhanced by using bombs to propel it forward - rather cool, albeit not particularly simple.

The third archetype would be the Iridic Mage for the wizard base-class who gets no scribe scroll, but an arcane bonded object that enhances interaction with mythos-related creatures, spells and objects. Iridic Mages may also permanently sacrifice spell-slots to increase his/her sight, gaining (or increasing) low-light vision and after that gaining immunity to the dazed condition, darkvision or even immunity to the blinded condition and later even x-ray vision and immunity to gaze attacks. They may also detect mythos-creature and strip them of their invisibility and gain an anti-mythos-creature gaze attacks that deal not only out negative conditions, but also cha-damage.

Alchemists get 6 new discoveries herein - aquatic mutagens (breathing under water, natural attack, massive swim-check bonus, low light vision and endure elements versus coldness of the depths), immunity to pressure damage (and darkvision as well as DR versus constriction/grappling and cold resistance 10), depth charges (bombing underwater) and torpedos (actually throwing them underwater) and even making the torpedos homing and create mines that detonate with a delay.

We also get two new feats: One that lets you hide in the dark via stealth, even versus creatures with darkvision or low-light vision and makes it possible to even flank creatures with all-around vision, blindsight, etc. while crawling prone or climbing - neat! The second feat modifies the class of summon monster -spells by adding a n array of disturbing creatures to the roster you can conjure forth.

Next up are 9 new spells: The first 3 of which would be Alien Contact and its lesser and greater versions, which allow you to bind weird beings (which of course include aberrations and mythos creatures!) as if by corresponding (lesser/greater) planar ally spells. Speaking of variants - Cosmic Communion works like Contact Other Plane - only its results for failure tend to be more severe, include the chance of 5% of attracting the attention of star-spawn. (Gazing into the Shining Trapezoid, Cthulhu-fans, anyone? You may also fold yourself, buffing you with a miss chance, sheathe yourself in an insanely powerful shroud of stars, temporarily fade from existence (observing all the while, as foes temporarily forget you existed) or pluck an eyeball from your skull (!!!), acting as a disturbing and superior (if a bit risky) form of prying eyes.

We also get basic rules for casting spells beyond your usual capability as a mythos magical ritual - at a price. While I do like the basic premise here, I wondered - why reinvent the well here when there already are the supported and established incantation-rules by Zombie SKy Press t handle the like? Modifying that system's base formula would have made much more sense - at least to me.

Oh, and I forgot the embryonic implantation-spell, which allows you to implant an embryo of an aberration into a creature, sapping their sanity and health, making for a dread sleeper agent and story-telling potential galore - especially since we get full stats for embryonic aboleths, neh-thalggus, intellect devourers and even shoggoths as well as a rather complex, cool template to create more disturbing possible embryonic implants. We also get a short simple Alien creature template that clocks in at CR +1.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting, as I've come to expect from Legendary Games, are top-notch - I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to a 3-column full-color landscape standard and we get an additional version that is slightly more printer-friendly, but also with colored borders. The artworks are simply stunning and rank among the best there are. Both files come with extensive bookmarks - though at least in my version of the pdfs, they don't work. The pdfs also are hyperlinked extensively (with the good, helpful ones) to d20pfsrd.com.

I hate to say it, but Jason Nelson's Beyond the Void leaves me disappointed at a very high level - perhaps it's due to the level of quality established by Legendary Games, but overall, this pdf left me feeling a bit let down. Now don't get me wrong - the archetypes for example: Summoner with alien-theme? Great (though there's also the one in The Midgard Player's Guide to the Wasted West, they are different enough to both work) - but still leaves me wanting more. Aquatic alchemist? Cool, but I don't know, somewhat displaced in here. The wizard one? Cool, but I would have loved a second unique option beyond those provided, perhaps some unique arcane discoveries.

One of the feats is a winner, whereas the other, while not bad, is essentially a spell-list modification - nice to have, I guess, but nothing too special. Speaking of which - the variant spells herein take a lot of room and I wish they had been dropped in favor of original awesomeness like the embryonic implant-spell. Don't get me wrong - they rank among the better variations of spells, but in the end, they still only are "spell XYZ with Z modified and W added". And then there is the mythos-ritual rule, which, while nice, seems at best superfluous to me - though I do understand why it was included.

And usually I wouldn't complain about either the spell variants, the aquatic alchemist not feeling quite at home or these ritual magic rules. Or the exceedingly lame alien creature-template, for that matter. Were it not for one fact - when the pdf hits, it hits hard and is simply brilliant, showing the full force of creativity of the Legendary Games-team and the author - implanting creatures, for example, is awesome! All in all, that would still be good - if it weren't for this pdf's already sparse page-count, even when judged against other Legendary Games-supplements. At this concise length, I expect the crunch to hit home - hard, and unlike e.g. two combined Gothic Grimoires or Cultic Cryptomancia, several of the pieces of content herein left me with a distinct taste of "filler".

Now my first impulse was to rate this down to 3 stars - but the pdf honestly doesn't deserve this harsh treatment - while the variants are not wholly original, they do serve their respective niches and I think more than one player/DM out there will find some use for the aquatic alchemist herein. And while personally, I don't like the mythos ritual rules, some people will prefer their relative simplicity when compared to incantations. So, more so than usually, much of my gripes with this pdf remain subjective and only you can decide whether you mind them or not. While personally, I was rather disappointed by this offering, I think that several people out there will have a contrasting opinion and consider this mind-bogglingly awesome in all its facets. Hence, I will base my final verdict in-between, arriving at a final verdict of 4 stars - a good product, though, at least for me, not the legendary product I hoped to get - though it still has some pieces of content I absolutely adore.

Endzeitgeist out.


More Lovecraftian Goodness from Legendary Games

4/5

The latest PDF from Legendary Games, Beyond the Void is a 15 page PDF. It has a cover page, back cover (listing their other available PDFs), two pages for credits, leaving eleven pages for eldritch weirdness, so here we go!

This PDF is meant for characters of all sorts who wish to investigate, contact, and summon alien entities of mind-bending horror. As such it works very well with most of the 'Gothic Grimoire' PDFs LG sells, as well as their 'Gothic Campaign' line. The PDF proper starts off with several new character archetypes -- the alienist for summoners, who gains a be-tentacled alien eidolon. The alienist also gets some new spells and a few variations on their usual class abilities to better reflect someone who spends their time communing with Lovecraftian horrors. Maybe the best is the replacement for gate at 19th level that lets you summon such cuddly things as shoggoths and neothelids.

Next is the deep-sea diving bathynaut for anyone who wanted to play an alchemist version of Jacques Costeau diving off R'lyeh. I REALLY like this idea, simply for the new discoveries and class abilities revolving around exploring underwater. Not to mention mutagens that basically briefly turn you into a Deep One. Oh, and you learn how to make devices that allow your friends to join you under the waves as well. For some campaigns this will be a truly awesome archetype.

Last is one for wizards, the ocular-obssessed Iridic Mage that allows for you to take increasingly potent and bizarre eye-related talents as you gain in power It also makes you a more potent foe of Mythos creatures and aberrations, making you into a stronger foe of Mythos horrors even as your sanity crumbles. Very nicely done!

It then gives us some new alchemical discoveries for the bathynaut, new feats including one, Summon Star-spawn, that allows you to summon alien horrors in place of the usual beasts for summon monster, and some new spells for anyone who wants to conjure an eldritch abomination of their very own. Best(?) of the lot is embryonic implantation, which allows you to turn someone into an unsuspecting brood mare for baby aberrations. It grows to maturity and devours them as it does before bursting forth to attack your enemies. Nasty.

Lastly we get two templates, 'alien' for use with the new Star-spawn feat and 'embryonic' for use with the new spell mentioned above. With the latter we also get four monsters adapted with the template so you can immediately start implanting your own nameless abominations in unsuspecting innocents.

If I'm rating this four stars, it's only because it's not quite as amazing as some of Legendary Games other PDFs. It's still easily among the very best takes on Lovecraftian horror done for the Pathfinder game. If you like Lovecraftiana in your game, you want this one.


Shadow Lodge

Ohh just dropped! So cool that I just started up reading this line and I'm already knee deep in madness books and cthulhu themed content!


Best served with which Adventure Path(s) or module(s)?


I just got this today and it looks really good! Lots of possibilities...

I do have one question about the "Fade From Existence" Spell, in case one of the developers happens to stop by. Part of the text reads "While in this extra dimensional reality you can perceive the normal world around you and you can move through creatures or solid objects as if you were incorporeal, but creatures within normal reality can perceive you or affect you."

I don't want to give away too much of a spoiler, but based on the next sentence it seems that that sentence should read "but creatures within normal reality can't perceive you or affect you."

Thoughts or comments?

Shadow Lodge

I also want to ask, are any of these spells supposed to be witch usable as well?

Scarab Sages RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games

doc the grey wrote:
Ohh just dropped! So cool that I just started up reading this line and I'm already knee deep in madness books and cthulhu themed content!

Oooooppppssss....

You may have noticed that this product is currently available only in Landscape format on Paizo.com. That would be because it wasn't supposed to be available here at all, but when I uploaded the files I forgot to mark the embargo date on landscape (though I remembered it on portrait).

I guess that's what happens when you try to cleverly get some work done late at night when you're on vacation. :)

But, done is done and if it's out then it's out and I hope everyone enjoys the product. The weekend is upon us, so I don't know if the Portrait version will be made available before Monday, since there's no one in the office to do it.

If you would like the portrait version, I would encourage you to nip on over to the Legendary Games website and pick it up there.

Scarab Sages RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games

Bellona wrote:
Best served with which Adventure Path(s) or module(s)?

I believe the Paizo modules Carrion Hill, Wake of the Watcher, and to a lesser extent maybe Feast of Ravenmoor all have a strong "alien horror" vibe to them that would make them a great fit. AP-wise, Carrion Crown certainly has the market cornered on horror themes, but I think you could find a place for alien things in Second Darkness, Shattered Star, or the mysterious city at the north pole in Jade Regent.

Scarab Sages RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games

Frayn wrote:

I just got this today and it looks really good! Lots of possibilities...

I do have one question about the "Fade From Existence" Spell, in case one of the developers happens to stop by. Part of the text reads "While in this extra dimensional reality you can perceive the normal world around you and you can move through creatures or solid objects as if you were incorporeal, but creatures within normal reality can perceive you or affect you."

I don't want to give away too much of a spoiler, but based on the next sentence it seems that that sentence should read "but creatures within normal reality can't perceive you or affect you."

Thoughts or comments?

Accursed typos!

Yes, you have the right of it; the sentence is supposed to read "can't," not "can."

Scarab Sages RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games

doc the grey wrote:
I also want to ask, are any of these spells supposed to be witch usable as well?

As written, no. That said, if you had a witch with the Eldritch patron (introduced in The Sepulchral Swaths of Tanoth-Gha), I could certainly see making an exception.


This sounds really awesome. I will be picking this up, and I know one or two other people that will probably be interested as well.


Would an aboleth created by embryonic implantation have access to racial memories, or would it be a new, blank slate?

Scarab Sages RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games

Evil Midnight Lurker wrote:
Would an aboleth created by embryonic implantation have access to racial memories, or would it be a new, blank slate?

That's a flavor text issue that the template doesn't address, so the answer is "whatever you think it should have, it has." :)

Personally, as a just-hatched embryo I'd lean towards not having them, or having only bits and pieces of racial memories.

Scarab Sages RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games

Cthulhudrew wrote:
This sounds really awesome. I will be picking this up, and I know one or two other people that will probably be interested as well.

Thanks for the kind words and the referrals. Word of mouth is key for any 3PP!

If you like what you read, by all means post up a review!

Shadow Lodge

Yeah I've been reading this through and it has been absolutely excellent thus far, I really wish that this had been out about 3 months ago when we started carrion crown so I could have built an alienist. I do have to ask though why the insane spike in power that comes later in the summon star-spawn feat? As written you have CR 12 creatures summonable on the summon VIII list and some that are CR 14+ on the IX list.

Scarab Sages RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games

doc the grey wrote:
Yeah I've been reading this through and it has been absolutely excellent thus far, I really wish that this had been out about 3 months ago when we started carrion crown so I could have built an alienist. I do have to ask though why the insane spike in power that comes later in the summon star-spawn feat? As written you have CR 12 creatures summonable on the summon VIII list and some that are CR 14+ on the IX list.

I'm not sure it's an insane spike in power. Check it out.

Look at the SM IX list as it is:

CR 14: astral deva, nalfeshnee demon, trumpet archon
CR 13: ghaele azata, glabrezu demon, ice devil

It's already populated with CR 13-14 creatures, so adding CR 14 creatures is nothing new.

For the SM VIII list, the three listed creatures are CR 11 (hezrou demon, elder elemental, and barbed devil).

Which leaves CR 12 creatures in kind of a no-man's land. Yes, they're a bit stronger CR-wise than the CR 11 creatures already there, but they'd be way behind the CR 13-14 creatures on the SM IX list. So, where do you put them? If you look over at summon nature's ally, you see that the CR 12 purple worm is listed on the SNA VIII list along with the CR 11 cloud giant (and the oddball pixie with irresistible dance).

The simple argument here is that, if you're going to make it cost a feat, I don't mind giving a small boost at the very top of the SM lines - i.e., more actual effect, not just more versatility. I'm not sure it even is much of a boost, though, given that the creature CRs all slot within the established precedents set in the Core Rulebook for SM and SNA spells.

Make sense?

RPG Superstar 2009, Contributor

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the thoroughness and lengths to which legendary Mr. Nelson goes to ensure he's delivering quality stuff. :-)

Shadow Lodge

Nice. Happy to see the balance is being thought of. Now second question, when you summon a mythos creature does it proc a sanity check from the caster and everyone else from seeing a mythos creature?

Scarab Sages RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games

If you're using the madness rules from Tomes of Arcane Knowledge, the answer is YES! Of course, the more times you encounter the same creature the less mind-bending it is, so if you keep your list of mythos summons narrow and stick to the same ones over and over again, or if you always summon things whose CR is well below your level, you probably won't go COMPLETELY insane... :)


I have waited for ages for a mythos based Pathfinder supplement, and this one more than scratched my itch. Yet another fantastic product from Legendary games. :D

Scarab Sages RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games

Thanks to Eric Hinkle for the review, but alas for our own high standards! Even though he calls Beyond the Void one of the best Lovecraftian supplements out there for Pathfinder... only four stars because it's not quite as ausgezeichnet as some of our other offerings.

As always, we aim to excite and delight and to exceed your (you = everybody) expectations every time. Glad you enjoyed the product, and I hope we knock your socks off next time around!


Jason Nelson wrote:

Thanks to Eric Hinkle for the review, but alas for our own high standards! Even though he calls Beyond the Void one of the best Lovecraftian supplements out there for Pathfinder... only four stars because it's not quite as ausgezeichnet as some of our other offerings.

As always, we aim to excite and delight and to exceed your (you = everybody) expectations every time. Glad you enjoyed the product, and I hope we knock your socks off next time around!

I'm sure I'll love your Kingbreaker PDFs.


Reviewed first on Endzeitgeist.com, then submitted to GMS magazine and NErdtrek and posted it here, on OBS and d20pfsrd.com's shop!

Scarab Sages RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games

Thanks for the review Endy!

The aquatic alchemist I put in here because it seemed like a lot of mythos-flavored stuff involved cities sunken beneath the waves (Atlantis, Lemuria, Azlant, Rly'eh, etc.), so I figured it was a natural fit for exploring those kinds of ruins, but I can see how it could also seem a bit incongruous.

Glad you loved the parts you loved, and hope that next product you review you love even more!


I get the reasoning - it's a matter of whether one prefers a broader focus or a more narrow one, I guess. Next up from LG in my queue is btw. the Coldwood Codex and after that one UR. Cheers!

RPG Superstar 2009, Contributor

Queue'em up, Endy. Even if you measure us against all our other products (and your own understandably high expectations for mythos content), it's a good review. We appreciate it, in addition to any future ones you may do. And it's always good to raise the bar on us...lest we become complacent.

/salute


It's a testament to LG's quality that the "worst" review I've written for you is a very positive 4 stars - so yeah, there still is the awesomeness I've come to expect from you guys in here. Novices to the mythos probably are rather blown away by this. So yeah - good job and looking forward to posting the next reviews. I just hope irl eases up (it's been crazy for two weeks now) and lets me return to a more productive schedule.

Cheers!

Scarab Sages RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games

Take care of real life; Legendary Games will be here waiting for you when you get back!

Thanks for all the time you spend on reviews. It is certainly appreciated by us.

Community / Forums / Paizo / Product Discussion / Beyond the Void (PFRPG) All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.