I'm pretty sure that's the final cover. :-)
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Hey folks, probably too early to tell but if I were looking to add a bestiary to go along with this AP, which would like be the best value for usage here? I have Bestiary one but am not too familiar with the mix of Lovecraft monsters in 2,3,4 or 5. Bestiary 4 looks like an obvious one but just because of the cover which I realize doesn't necessarily reflect the rest of the options inside the other books. Just curious on anyone's thoughts/opinions thanks! Looking forward to re-subscribing for this one as well!
Bestiary 2 has:
-Hound of Tindalos (on the cover of AP #112)-Gug (on the cover of AP #111)
-Leng Spider
-Shantak (on the cover of AP #114)
Also Neh-Talggu, Serpentfolk and Shining Child are kind of Cthulhu monsters.
Bestiary 3 has:
-Zoog
-Moon Beast
-Yithian
Also Dybukk and Zuvembie feature in some Cthulhu Tales.
Bestiary 4 has:
-Bhole (on the cover of AP #114)
-Bokrug
-Cthulhu
-Hastur
-Dagon
-Elder Thing
-Mi-Go
-Nightgaunt (on the cover of AP #109)
-Spawn of Yog-Sothoth
-Color out of Space
-Flying Polyp (on the cover of AP #113)
-Star-Spawn of Cthulhu
Also Ratling (Strange Dreams in the Witch House´s Brown Jenkin)
Bestiary 5 has:
-Deep One
-Deep One Hybrid
-Leng Ghoul
Bestiary (1) has (for completion´s sake):
-Ghoul
-Ghast
-Gibbering Mouther (on the cover of AP #110)
-Neothelid (servitors of the Great Old Ones and kind of lesser Shub-Niggurath´s)
-Shoggoth
-Zombie
Also Derro, Lich, Intellect Devourer and Vargouille are kind of Cthulhu compatible.
In Pathfinder Nel-Talggu are related to the Dominion of the Black wich has nothing to do with the Mythos stuff.
You forgot about the worm that walks.
But they are based on Lovecraft correct?
Neh-Talggu (or however you spell it) are not from any of Lovecraft's works
I don't think Bestiary 4 has Spawn of Yog-Soggoth
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The Neh-Talggu, while not from Lovecraft (which i wrote above), are connected to the Dark Tapestry, in which both the Outer Gods and the Great Old Ones exist.
The Worm that walks creatures are not exclusively connected to the Mythos.
Some are, some not.
Bestiary 4 HAS Spawn of Yog-Sothoth, look it up if you don't believe me. ;-)
Creative Director
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The brain collectors (AKA Neh-Thalgghu or however they're spelled) first appeared in D&D back in X2: Castle Amber. They were intended, I believe, as a BECMI version of AD&D's mind flayer, but were different enough that they really went on to become their own creature. The fact that Castle Amber was based in part on Clark Ashton Smith's writings means that there's a thematic link between the brain collector and Lovecraft... but a tenuous one that's as much coincidence and parallel design as anything else.
We can use them in Pathfinder because 3rd edition D&D picked the neh-thalggu (or however it's spelled!) for the Epic Level Handbook, which is in the SRD and thus open content for anyone who uses that license to make games. We thus were able to pick up the name and concept for the monster in its epic incarnation, but then scaled it back down to a normal monster for use in the bestiary (similar to what we did with the demilich).
If you'd like to see a variant and D&D official take of Paizo's version of the monster, check out adventure 6 (I think it was, maybe 7) of Savage Tide!
And yeah, the Spawn of Yog-sothoth lives in Bestiary 4.
ah yeah I see it is in the Bestiary; For some reason I was thinking of Dark Young of Shub Niggurath, which have only appeared in the special Mythos article for the Lovecraft-themed volume of Carrion Crown.
Yes, Dark Young aren't in any Bestiary. Star Spawn of Cthulhu AND Spawn of Yog Sothoth are in Bestiary 4.
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The Dark Young, in fact, can't appear in Bestiaries - they, along with the dimensional shambler and gnoph-keh, were only licensed for Carrion Crown. (I believe Strange Aeons will be benefiting from similar licensing deals.)
As such, picking up Wake of the Watcher in addition to a Bestiary might be wise, if only for the bestiary section and the article on the Old Cults. ^_^
Kal,
You mean that Chaosium has the controlling rights to those critters?
Huh. I did not know that. Thank you! :)
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Kal,
You mean that Chaosium has the controlling rights to those critters?
Huh. I did not know that. Thank you! :)
Correct - while Lovecraft's work is in the public domain, the same can't be said of all his contemporaries. Some of those authors, or their estates, may have licensed their intellectual property to Chaosium. In addition, some monsters are partly or entirely creations of Chaosium.
I couldn't tell you which is which, though - I'm not that much of an expert, either of the Mythos outside of Lovecraft's work, or of the Call of Cthulhu RPG. ^_^
Thanks for the excellent feedback everyone, quite insightful!
I'll definitely be checking some of the non-bestiary books too, hadn't considered that so thanks for the suggestion.
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Yup; taking the Dark Young as an example... that's a monster that was more or less entirely created by Sandy Petersen for the Call of Cthulhu RPG. While the quote he chose as its description, and the quote he used for the monster's inspiration, was taken from Robert Bloch's EXCELLENT short story "Notebook Found in a Deserted House," in that story, the monster that CoC uses as a description of the Dark Young is implied to be a shoggoth instead.
What Sandy Petersen did was to take that unusual description of a shoggoth and turn it into its own monster, one that's since gone on to take a life of its own in the Call of Cthulhu game, including appearing in fiction commissioned by Chaosium. And as with so many things Lovecraftian, these creations tend to seep out and infiltrate/infect other works as folks borrow them or build upon them in their own creations. That follows in the footsteps of Lovecraft himself, who encouraged his writer friends like Robert Bloch, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, etc. to borrow names and conventions from his stories. Something he did as well, borrowing from them. The result is a shared universe before that phrase really got invented, and it makes the stories of all these authors take on a heavier and more compelling weight, since it feels less like a single story written by one person and more like a story drawn from an established cultural mythology. Which, in a way, is EXACTLY what it is.
ANYWAY. As awesome and incredible as I think this is for the genre, and as IMPORTANT as it is, I personally feel very strongly that folks should know the history behind these things and should be able to learn where things come from. Likewise, I strongly feel that the original creators of certain concepts should be respected and given the honor and attention they deserve, and that means that for things that aren't in the public domain, staying public about who owns what and respecting folks' wishes as to how their work is disseminated into the world. With the OGL, that gets tricky, since once something is made open content, it's freely available for eveyrone who uses the OGL to use, and that takes away creative control over something. Not every one is equally comfortable in that loss of control. Even Paizo; we don't release our world flavor content under the OGL, for example. Mosnters are a particularly hazy/strange corner case here, since they are such a perfect fusion of rules and flavor, and for monsters that aren't from the public domain, previously established in the SRD or OGL, or aren't something we made up whole-cloth on our own, we generally do not put those monsters into the OGL.
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ANYWAY. As awesome and incredible as I think this is for the genre, and as IMPORTANT as it is, I personally feel very strongly that folks should know the history behind these things and should be able to learn where things come from. Likewise, I strongly feel that the original creators of certain concepts should be respected and given the honor and attention they deserve, and that means that for things that aren't in the public domain, staying public about who owns what and respecting folks' wishes as to how their work is disseminated into the world. With the OGL, that gets tricky, since once something is made open content, it's freely available for eveyrone who uses the OGL to use, and that takes away creative control over something. Not every one is equally comfortable in that loss of control. Even Paizo; we don't release our world flavor content under the OGL, for example. Mosnters are a particularly hazy/strange corner case here, since they are such a perfect fusion of rules and flavor, and for monsters that aren't from the public domain, previously established in the SRD or OGL, or aren't something we made up whole-cloth on our own, we generally do not put those monsters into the OGL.
Agreed. ^_^
The same goes for the coeurl; if it weren't for Legacy of Fire, I would have just assumed it was a random Final Fantasy monster. In fact, most of the content of my above posts is stuff I learned from Paizo.
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Alright, I'm done with July.
Can it be August now?
Thank you for that insight Mister Jacobs.
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Well I ended up picking up Bestiary 2 &4 based on the advice and feedback here so thank you everyone. I also nabbed "The Dragons Demand" and it's looking like a fun and semi related read as well while I wait eagerly for the subscription page to offer the first volume of this AP.
Just wanted to pop back and say thanks again to everyone and James too for the conversation as it feels too rare a thing on the internet these days and I wanted folks to know the help was appreciated!
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Well I ended up picking up Bestiary 2 &4 based on the advice and feedback here so thank you everyone. I also nabbed "The Dragons Demand" and it's looking like a fun and semi related read as well while I wait eagerly for the subscription page to offer the first volume of this AP.
Just wanted to pop back and say thanks again to everyone and James too for the conversation as it feels too rare a thing on the internet these days and I wanted folks to know the help was appreciated!
Pdfs for Strange Aeons should beginn to ship august 15th, so i think the "start your subscription with AP #109" option should be possible the first week of august.
That said, i can absolutely recommend AP #64 "Wake of the Watcher" for it's double size mythos bestiary (which is exclusive to this issue and mostly not reprinted in the Bestiaries) and great Innsmouth tribute adventure and the module "Carrion Hill" which also takes place in Ustalav and is a tribute to another classic Lovecraft tale. :-)
I completely agree with Marco's suggestions.
I loved Wake of the Watcher for its Bestiary and more; Carrion Hill had the best take on a classic Lovecraftian tale.
Except AP#64 is Beyond the Doomsday Door...
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Yup; taking the Dark Young as an example... that's a monster that was more or less entirely created by Sandy Petersen for the Call of Cthulhu RPG. While the quote he chose as its description, and the quote he used for the monster's inspiration, was taken from Robert Bloch's EXCELLENT short story "Notebook Found in a Deserted House," in that story, the monster that CoC uses as a description of the Dark Young is implied to be a shoggoth instead.
What Sandy Petersen did was to take that unusual description of a shoggoth and turn it into its own monster, one that's since gone on to take a life of its own in the Call of Cthulhu game, including appearing in fiction commissioned by Chaosium. And as with so many things Lovecraftian, these creations tend to seep out and infiltrate/infect other works as folks borrow them or build upon them in their own creations. That follows in the footsteps of Lovecraft himself, who encouraged his writer friends like Robert Bloch, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, etc. to borrow names and conventions from his stories. Something he did as well, borrowing from them. The result is a shared universe before that phrase really got invented, and it makes the stories of all these authors take on a heavier and more compelling weight, since it feels less like a single story written by one person and more like a story drawn from an established cultural mythology. Which, in a way, is EXACTLY what it is.
ANYWAY. As awesome and incredible as I think this is for the genre, and as IMPORTANT as it is, I personally feel very strongly that folks should know the history behind these things and should be able to learn where things come from. Likewise, I strongly feel that the original creators of certain concepts should be respected and given the honor and attention they deserve, and that means that for things that aren't in the public domain, staying public about who owns what and respecting folks' wishes as to how their work is disseminated into the world. With the OGL, that gets tricky,...
James,
Will any of the Pathfinder Mythos book on which you are helping be licensed for use in Paizo products?
*pats Marco on the shoulder*
Don't worry about numerical mistakes. You at least got the title correct.
I mean it's not like you confused Wake the Watcher with Iron Gods.
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Well I ended up picking up Bestiary 2 &4 based on the advice and feedback here so thank you everyone. I also nabbed "The Dragons Demand" and it's looking like a fun and semi related read as well while I wait eagerly for the subscription page to offer the first volume of this AP.
Just wanted to pop back and say thanks again to everyone and James too for the conversation as it feels too rare a thing on the internet these days and I wanted folks to know the help was appreciated!
I just read on the "july 2016 new release shipping and gen con pickup thread" that you can begin to subscribe to Strange Aeons on august 4th. I eagerly expect this too, so have fun with it.
The "Flip-Mat: Asylum" that will be available in november will feature a part of the starting location from this book on it!
Also in september there will be a "Flip-Mat: Mythos Dungeon".
Personally i think the green side of "Flip-Mat: Flooded Dungeon" already is a Cthulhu dungeon.
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Creative Director
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James,
Will any of the Pathfinder Mythos book on which you are helping be licensed for use in Paizo products?
Unclear at this time... but we're already well into Strange Aeons and I haven't done much work on the other book at all yet, so probably not for Strange Aeons. We'll see....
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Updated with final product description!
Ooh!! Dangerous Realm?!! Nice. I look forward to seeing more info on this.
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A collection of weird and frightful new monsters, by Eric Hindley, James Jacobs, Jenny Jarzabski, and F. Wesley Schneider.
Hey, look at that!
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I can't wait to read that article about the dangerous realms.
Indeed, that article has been on my radar for quite some time. Any info on the mythos will be very interesting.
I can't wait to read that article about the dangerous realms.
Might want to take a long a flashlight, Dragon. I think it might be...dangerous! ;)
Generic,
I have strong hopes for this one.
That and the 20 different Outer Gods and Old Ones helps alot.
Also thank you for clarifying that statement Mister Daigle.
Well I suspect you're right, Generic.
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Sooo excited. I'm very curious about the potential to play this with characters named and modeled after the likenesses of Francis Wayland Thurston, John Raymond Legrasse, Henry Anthony Wilcox, Abdul Alhazred, Robert Olmstead, Zadok Allen, Dr. William Dyer, Danforth... only time will tell if you'd run into a doppelganger NPC... doubt that would be the weirdest thing going on too!
I'm just interested in playing a Tortured Crusader Paladin of Iomadae/Vildias.
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I'm just interested in playing a Tortured Crusader Paladin of Iomadae/Vildias.
Agreed, religious classes will be superb. All the mythos stories that I've read have such a "your silly human existence and theologies are uttery inconsequential" vibe to them. I can really see a character that has self-defining stake in a god that these horrors mock being really fun.
Well Iomedae probably has a list and I'm sure the Old Ones are somewhere on it. ;)
Nope, no list, in case you hadn't noticed, I've been kinda busy lately.
I'm sure but I thought it was like ON the list, not like top or even middle of the list, Great Lady.
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I have a list, it's pretty long though.
Actually looking at the oath against corruption paladin archetype it seems one of the best choices for a deity in this adventure might actually be shelyn,
Reasons?
1. She is the only non-lawful deity listed under the oath archetypes suggested.
2. Her brother was corrupted whilst in the dark tapestry so a personal vendetta would be there.
3. She is about the natural beauty of the world and the deities in this pantheon are about twisting it.
4. He faithful also act as psychiatrists for those who dealt with encounters like this if they don't go normally to an asylum.
Surprisingly a goddess like shelyn may be perfect for this adventure.
Zergtitan,
Maybe but I like Iomedae better, or else Ragathiel.