Little is known about some of the deadliest horrors inhabiting the world of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, and that's just how these denizens of dream and thought like it. The less their secrets reach the average adventurer, the more easily they can hunt in the Dimension of Dreams, steal the minds of unsuspecting victims, and spread fear and discord throughout the multiverse. But their secrets are finally revealed! The perfect companion to Pathfinder RPG Occult Adventures, this grimoire of new monsters is a must-have for any Game Master running an occult campaign, whether or not the player characters are themselves psychic spellcasters. Within these mysterious pages you'll find:
Nearly 50 new creatures that possess psychic abilities or are based on occult themes.
New playable races, including variant duergar and samsarans, as well as munavris—albino humanoid denizens of the Darklands' Sightless Sea.
Aliens from Golarion's planetary neighbors and beyond, including yithian elders, enlightened contemplatives, and Liavaran dreamers.
Denizens of the mysterious Dimension of Dreams, including rival azatas and demons who vie for control of sleepers' minds.
Seven creature templates to turn your favorite monsters into mind-bending foes such as alter egos, animus shades, relentless psychic liches, or thought-sapping psychic vampires.
Statistics for powerful aboleth omnipaths, neothelid overlords, and the unique otherworldly horror known as Tychilarius—the perfect capstone to high-level occult adventures.
Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Occult Bestiary is intended for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and the Pathfinder campaign setting, but can easily be used in any fantasy game setting.
ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-767-3
Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:
I love bestiaries and Paizo doesn't disappoint in quality and variety when it comes to there monsters.
The Good
-A new Aeon, Azata, Azura and Rakshasa.
-New 0HD races.
-New fey(Boggart and Fear Eater)
-Some alien life forms like the Shotalashu.
-Alternate/more powerful versions of many creatures.
-Psychoplasmic creatures! and other interesting templates.
-New type of Naga(Dream).
The Bad
-A lot of alternate versions of existing creatures.
-No new elementals.
-Almost half the book are outsiders.
As the title suggests, this is a sourcebook of critters for the new Occult Adventures source material. Most of them use psychic magic or rules or variant class skills, so if you don't intend on buying the master volume, leave this one on the shelf. There are however, a handful of psychic-flavoured adversaries that don't use these rules. The creatures presented have a scale of OA knowledge, so DMs can jump right in with some of the less complicated offerings. Tychilarius the BBEG is actually free of psychic rules, strangely enough.
The creatures presented are of all CRs and most, if not all, major creature types have something added to them. This book is packed cover to cover with usefulness, the inside cover having the standard bestiary breakdown of CR, type and role. I wish Paizo would release this page as a preview for perspective buyers.
Flavour-wise, we have denizens of any place dark, mysterious or dark and mysterious place. The Dominion of the Black gets a major nod in Tychilarius; the underdark has many new hazards; Vudra and Tian Xia get foes to fit with their exotic feel; and many of these critters have ties to the shadow plane, astral plane or dreamscape.
Players have complained that some of the more recent creature offerings feel uninspired. I do not feel this way about this book. There are variants for some creature types, but mostly the creatures feel exotic and fresh. My favorite so far is the tattoo guardian, a construct with a wonderful flavor appeal. There are also lots of templates.
My only major complaint is that the book seems to have a disproportionate number of undead. Woe betide the psychic spell caster who dies any sort of death! All in all, a book I'm excited about. I really have to commend the designers on having a variety of creatures of all types, CRs and with varying amounts of OA rules.
Monsters enjoy an interesting privilege in roleplaying games. It seems that no matter how many there are, there are never too many. There are a lot of monsters in Pathfinder and there's a very good chance that many of the ones in Occult Bestiary will never see use in any of my games. But I like having them nevertheless. And some will see use. Maybe a lot of use. Overall, Occult Bestiary is a great addition to any GM's bookshelf.
At first when I heard that the Occult Bestiary was meant to be appended to Occult Adventures I was irritated that we weren't getting the book all in one.
After reading the book, however, I've totally changed my opinion. I loved the flavor of the monsters in this book, and especially the templates, and having to wait a little longer to get just that little bit more out of the first burst of truly weird and wacky baddies now seems totally justified.
There are more than a few occult reskins of traditional monsters, which I am personally a big fan of, a smattering of templates that help bring the monsters they didn't give an eldritch makeover into the fold, and more than a couple brand-new ones that hail from places like The Dimension of Dreams or The Dominion of the Black.
This book has got me all kinds of excited for Bestiary 5!
It's just a booklet people, calm down. Nothing makes it clear that we won't get a hardcover Bestiary this year.
Forgot about the small 40-monsters inner sea bestiary? That one also replaced the Bestiary that year, so big chance.
Replace what? Where is it written that Bestiaries should be annual releases and that any book is "replacing" another?
They can take as much time as they need to make a 5th Bestiary, I'm not pushing these guys to release half-baked and rushed products. We'll get a 5th book when it's ready to be released, not on a set date.
Set releases are the worst kind of releases anyway. We already have games and movies that do that, I don't need to see this happening for PF books.
It's just a booklet people, calm down. Nothing makes it clear that we won't get a hardcover Bestiary this year.
Forgot about the small 40-monsters inner sea bestiary? That one also replaced the Bestiary that year, so big chance.
Replace what? Where is it written that Bestiaries should be annual releases and that any book is "replacing" another?
They can take as much time as they need to make a 5th Bestiary, I'm not pushing these guys to release half-baked and rushed products. We'll get a 5th book when it's ready to be released, not on a set date.
Set releases are the worst kind of releases anyway. We already have games and movies that do that, I don't need to see this happening for PF books.
People are referring to Bestiary 5 coming out THIS YEAR.
Not whether we will ever get a Bestiary 5 at some future date.
Although I suppose the latter will have more to do with how successful Bestiary 4 was.
Nah, I do like monsters more, but too many bestiaries and they stop feeling special and start to feel like they run out of monsters from mythologies to fill in :P Give them more time between bestiaries and they feel more special
Plus I need more canon fodder <_< And would be nice to get APG, ACG, UM, UC and other npcs on codex
Nah, I do like monsters more, but too many bestiaries and they stop feeling special and start to feel like they run out of monsters from mythologies to fill in :P Give them more time between bestiaries and they feel more special
Plus I need more canon fodder <_< And would be nice to get APG, ACG, UM, UC and other npcs on codex
There are actually hundreds of myth monsters still left to explore, and the AP's lately don't venture very well into that area...
I hope there will be thought eater, brain mole, psychic vampire, creatures from the dimension of dreams(some non-evil ones would be nice), psychic/occult related new 0HD races, psychic energy creature(possibly invisible), crystal golem, psychic creature template, something from the astral plane, something from the ethereal plane, and one psychic powered swarm of aberrations.
Bestiary 5 should include:
-all the creatures from the APs bestiary sections that have not already appeared in previous volumes.
-all missing Demon Lords
-the Archdevils
-the 4 (or 5) Daemon Lords.
-lots of Great Old Ones
-stats for tiny, small, medium and Colossal chromatic and metallic Dragons that were left out in the first Bestiary
-stats for skeletons and zombies of large, huge, gargantuan and colossal size.
Fill the rest up with some new monsters and voila - instant classic! ;-)
If they introduced gem dragons(or psychic/occult dragons) it would be in a hardcover bestiary.
Dominion of the black would be interesting but creatures from the astral, ethereal, dimension of dreams, dimension of time, and the positive energy plane need a lot more love.
I'm hoping for lots of weird creatures from various esoteric philosophies, as well as providing some creatures for the astral and ethereal planes, and the dimension of dreams. Also some stranger, more supernatural and just bizarre aliens that fit into the concept of occult things. I hope there's relatively few traditional 'psionic' monsters unless they fit into an occult theme.
I am fine with less traditional "psionic" creatures as long as we still get the thought eater(skeletal platypus like creature that is not an undead) and brain mole(possibly a template for any animal).
Monsters with psychic powers? ... Dare I hope for gemstone dragons with psychic powers, like in earlier editions of this game?
Gem dragons are apparently D&D trademark so they can't appear. Plus there are quite lots of dragons already, so I don't think there needs to be five dragons for all possible categories. Maybe like, one psychic dragon?
Also, if they bring back thought eater, it'd be nice if the would go with something like this (thats fan art update of thought eater's original design pre skeletal design with skull shape of actual platypus skulls. Geez, why does their skull split open in beak like that?)
I would like to see 5 new psychic dragons(Astral, Chakra, Dream, Esper, and Spirit) but in a hardcover bestiary. This book doesn't have enough room to put that many of one creature type.
August release?! I could have sworn it said July when it was announced.
It most likely was, because now there's no Campaign Setting coming out in July. Releases get pushed back frequently enough. Not as frequently as they used to though, which is nice.
I can't wait to find what creatures are in this one. I hope that there will be at least 1 psychic related dragon, fey, giant, elemental, magical beast, ooze, and plant.
Really would be bummed off by another boring NPC codex...
And there are likely just as many of us who want NPC Codex 2. Or at least something with Paizo's idea of sample builds for the APG/UC/UM classes. Right now there's nothing other than those Open Design/Kobold Press PDF releases for each class, and those only have 3 builds per class.
Now as to what this book will actually have, I'd be very interested to see some sort of psychic dragons, or maybe psychic monster templates, along the lines of the ones in the Monster Codex.
I am sure we will get a psychic related template of some kind in this book. Now wether it would be what your looking for or not will remain to be seen.
I hope we will be getting some old school monsters in this one. I also hope we will be getting some new monsters and not just psychic versions of existing monsters.