With a hip-hip and a clippity-clop He's out looking for a head to swap So don't try to figure out a plan You can't reason with a headless man!
Turn your NPC or favorite humanoid monstrosity into a decapitated rider who haunts the trails, paths, and roads that pass through the wilderness. Turn the quest for its lost head into your next adventure or make him the servant of your true villain though the possession of the horseman’s head. Give him unique mounts or leave him with the traditional horse. Let him be the iconic mercenary or perhaps a female dragon rider. Enjoy the classical terrors or throw something truly new at your players while still taking advantage of the emotional response players have to the headless horseman.
Brought to you by the same author who has brought you The Book of Monster Temalates, 101 Not So Simple Monster Templates, 101 Monster Feats, 101 Variant Monsters and a new free monster template in the Pathways e-zine each and every month for over 30 issues. Bring dread and terror back into your game with the Headless Horseman!
Author Steven D. Russell Cover Artist: John Quidor Pages: 4
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This supplement from Rite Publishing's mastermind and veteran of templates (no-one has done that many great ones for PFRPG so far) Steven D. Russell is 9 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, 2 pages of advertisement, leaving us with 4 pages of content, so let's take a look, shall we?
As the name implies, we get a template herein to create headless horsemen. The template adds a +2 to the CR of the base creature, and turn the creature into an augmented undead (with d8 as HD) and also DR - 5/good, DR 10/magic + good for CR 10+ and 15/magic, good, slashing for CR 15+, SR 11+HD and...well, if that weren't enough...fast healing equal to their cha-SCORE. Yes, not the modifier, the SCORE. And no, I'm 100% positive this is NOT a glitch - these guys are nigh indestructible! OUCH!
Of course, no template by Rite Publishing would be complete sans an array of defining, unique signature abilities: Headless Horsemen may emit cackle-induced panic. Worse, each attack by the horseman is infused with hellfire, dealing more damage - and should one of these creatures actually be destroyed, they may draw the soul of their slayer to hell. As HORSEmen, these beings also get a cavalier-style mount and they also rejuvenate when not destroyed the "proper" way - for they do have their own weaknesses to offset the deadly powers of the template:
Possession of the Horseman's head allows a creature to control the horseman and also allows for a way to destroy the horseman by annihilating or returning the head. Which is a wise decision, for combat is not a smart option - the horseman, in addition to its impressive ability-array, treats ALL weapons they wield as vorpal.
Following Rite's tradition, we also get a sample creature ready to drop in your campaign, this case a headless horseman gendarme cavalier 10 - both said adversary and his mount get full stats, but that is not where said foe shines - instead, he is depicted in a great in-character monologue that tells us about the driving force of this sworn foe of adventurers, a member of the so-called Hero-Killers - the dread Harn, erstwhile servant of the immortal lich-king Cynmark (or substitute Tar-Baphon in Golarion..) - awesome prose here and complete with lore-DCs!
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any significant glitches. Layout comes with a pumpkin-covered, appropriately helloweenish full-color border and adheres to a 2-column standard. The pdf comes fully bookmarked in spite of its small size - commendable!
I've so far seen various takes on the headless horseman and all failed to impress me in one degree or another - not so this one: Deadly to the extreme, full of nasty tricks, an almost unstoppable juggernaut, these horsemen are glorious adversaries WORTHY of the iconic horror-trope and most definitely rank among the finest horror-critters out there: Exceedingly deadly, while at the same time vulnerable, these beings will make your PCs run (if they're smart!) - and all for a fair price-point. My only gripe is an utter nitpick of epic proportions, namely that I would have loved the Horseman to optionally utilize Hellfire as portrayed in e.g. the Genius Guide to hellfire Magic, but those spells are easily added, aren't they? This far-fetched nitpick is ALL I can muster against this superb template - a purchase well worth the asking price and deserving of 5 stars + seal of approval! There's a reason I call Steven D. Russell the "Master of Templates"...
Rite Publishing brings us a template for the headless horseman, and a CR 11 headless horseman to challenge your players.
I firstly have to acknowledge the perfect choice in the scary pumpkin background of this pdf. I like it a great deal. On the template, the vorpal ability is pretty nice and ensures there will be plenty more heads being lopped off. The others are very thematic and related to the fluff, but I don’t want to give them away here.
Concerning the headless horseman of CR 11, he can certainly kill. The hellfire is a nice touch. The vulnerabilities are the AC and the hp weakness of the Sygian mount—making dismounting the headless horseman a very real possibility. A dm may want to improve the horse. It isn’t bad offensively, but a horseman and horse against a party may lack the AC and HP to last long. There is also some lore and description which leads into feats and the spell to create the horseman.
This was a very enjoyable read, allowing the headless horseman to quickly be placed into a mid-level game, or for a player to assume the role of the horseman following their demise.
5/5. It has a central idea and runs with it, fully realizing the headless horseman for pathfinder games.
Hmmm. I just picked this one up, and hitting the ‘Defensive Abilities’ block made me come up short.
Possible errata:
Is the Headless Horseman’s fast healing meant to be equal to their Charisma modifier (which also determines their bonus hit-points per HD, as normal for undead), or their Charisma score (as written in the .pdf)? Because if it’s the latter, this thing is going to be near-impossible to put down.
Reading the stat-block on Harn, the example HH included in the document, suggests that the latter case pertains. Which is scary. O.O That said, Harn’s Cha score is 24 and the stat-block only gives him fast healing 22, so something might be amiss there...
