Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Bestiary 6 (PFRPG)

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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Bestiary 6 (PFRPG)
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Bow Down in Fear!

Monsters have long stalked us in the darkness. Within this book, you’ll find a host of these creatures for use in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Face off against archdevils and the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, planar dragons and the legendary wild hunt, proteans and psychopomps, and hundreds more! Some creatures, such as the capricious taniwha, the mysterious green man, or the powerful empyreal lords, might even be willing to provide your heroes aid—if they deserve it!

Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 6 is the sixth must-have volume of monsters for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and serves as a companion to the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook and Pathfinder RPG Bestiary. This imaginative tabletop game builds upon more than 10 years of system development and an open playtest featuring more than 50,000 gamers to create a cutting-edge RPG experience that brings the all-time best-selling set of fantasy rules into a new era.

Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 6 includes:

  • More than 200 different monsters.
  • New player-friendly races, like the crazed monkey goblins, the telepathic albino munavris, the river-dwelling fey naiads, the wolflike rougarou, and the yaddithians of the Elder Mythos.
  • Numerous powerful demigods, from archdevils and Great Old Ones to empyreal lords and qlippoth lords.
  • New animal companions and other allies, such as fierce devil monkeys and loyal clockwork hounds.
  • New templates, including the entothrope and the mongrel giant, to help you get more life out of classic monsters.
  • Appendices to help you find the right monster, including lists by Challenge Rating, monster type, and habitat.
  • Expanded universal monster rules to simplify combat.
  • Challenges for every adventure and every level of play.
  • AND MUCH, MUCH MORE!

ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-931-8

Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:

Hero Lab Online
Fantasy Grounds Virtual Tabletop
Archives of Nethys

Note: This product is part of the Pathfinder Rulebook Subscription.

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Sometimes Less is Just Less.

3/5

While this is a good bestiary, it is not nearly as good as the others.

The good
-Kaiju, love these guys, wish there was more.
-Some cool new 0HD races such as the naiad and rougarou.
-Some interesting fey like the alp, boggle, and wild hunt.
-Some interesting plant creatures like the green man, giant sundew, and crypt flower.
-A lot of cool new oozes especially the oblivion.
-Several new proteans.
-Finally the nekomata.
-A lot of cool new vermin especially the giant starfish.
-Some really cool constructs including clockworks, golems, and the charnel god.

The bad
-Not enough types of dragons, giants, and 0HD races.
-No elementals (but I already new that).
-Way too many evil outsiders.
-Wasn't impressed with most of the monstrous humanoids.
-Disappointed with the new true dragons.
-Very few interesting undead and once again most are humanoid in form.
-I knew there would be much less monsters this time but still a little disappointed.

Other
-Was disappointed that the mountain giant wasn't colossal CR20 giant but at least we finally have it.
-Would have liked Krampus to have been a lower CR.


No Danger of Running Out of Monster Ideas Yet

5/5

Once again Paizo has knocked it out of the park with their latest Bestiary, proving that if there is such a thing as too many monsters that they have not reached that point yet.

This book has more high level threats than previous books, with Archdevils, Kaiju, and Great Old Ones. It also fills out some gaps in the categories of monster not usually encountered at higher levels, with high CR vermin, plants, and oozes.

The incorporation of Archdevils, Empyral Lords, and the Horsemen of the Apocalypse means that this book is slightly less generic than previous Bestiaries as these are based on Golarion's Cosmology but this is more a strength than a weakness - as unique individuals they require some sort of a background and they can still be easily transplanted into another setting.

I love the inclusion of the troop subtype as it allows low level threats such as goblins or bandits to challenge higher level parties through strength of numbers and also allows the PCs to feel awesome for mowing down dozens of enemies without the hassle of running a combat with that number of enemies. I loved the first appearance of troops in the Hell's Rebels AP and am delighted to see them appear in a hardback. Hopefully they will be a mainstay of future adventures and we will see many more varities of troop to come.

A final thing to mention is that there are far more two page spreads in this book than the previous Bestiaries, creating room for even more fantastic flavour material which draws heavily on real world mythology and provides plenty of ideas of how to use the creatures in a campaign. The flavour material has always been my favourite part of any monster book, as it is the flavour which makes each monster different and memorable to encounter, and it was great having so much of that in this book (apart from for the dragons but that is a long standing issue with how dragon stats are presented taking up a lot of space)

Overall this is a fantastic book and I highly recommend buying it.


Amazing

5/5

Having used monsters from this already, this book will keep giving. Amazing monster designs all around.


Quite Possibly the Best of All the Bestiaries

5/5

For an explanation of how I use the five star review method, see my entry on So What's the Riddle Like Anyway? HERE.

Bestiaries have three purposes: first, to provide adversaries for the player characters in the game; second, to help GMs with building their worlds and populating them with potential allies as well as threats, creating legends to draw adventurers in to the plots they’ve contrived; and third, to entertain the reader with a list of fantastic creatures both baleful and benign to stimulate their imagination, as well as beautiful artwork to please the soul.

This is the sixth Bestiary put out by Paizo for their Pathfinder RPG and some would rightfully point out that there are now more monsters in existence for this game than could reasonably be encountered in any campaign. Is there such a thing as too many monsters? Let’s take a look.

First thing to be noticed is the amazing cover by Wayne Reynolds, featuring a Brimorak demon, Charon, and Mephistopheles. It is a brilliant intro to the book, which covers threats for low-level adventurers (like the brimorak) to stuff of nightmares for the toughest mythic heroes (the boatman and THE archetypal devil).

The artwork throughout runs from the very good to the spectacular. My particular favorites are the portraits of Tawil at’Umr and Krampus by David Melvin, the Olethros Pschopomp by David Alvarez, the Whisperer by Will O’Brien, all of the members of the Wild Hunt by Roberto Pitturru, and the Animus Shade by Audrey Hotte. The artwork is up to the usual standard of Paizo: superb. There are a few I don’t like as much due to their caricature nature, as I prefer images as realistic as possible to help feel the threat level, but that is a personal preference and by no means a slight towards any of the artists who contributed to this volume.

The monsters are varied and intriguing; a good number are drawn directly from world folklore, literature, and even occasionally film. The fact that there are so many monsters of unique appearance and abilities after six volumes shows the depth of those resources have yet to be fully tapped. There are also constructs made especially for the game and at least one old classic from Gary Gygax’s AD&D Monster Manual II: The thessalhydra. Having it in Pathfinder in all its vicious lethal glory warms my nostalgic heart.

The threats range from CR ½ to CR 30 and all points in between: yes, ALL. It something that they have been careful about at Paizo to make sure each Bestiary has threats from the entire range to make sure a GM has options to challenge his players accordingly.

The arrangement of the book is the same layout as the previous and this is an example of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” design philosophy. You can quickly find what you need to run any monster in the book without much fuss. Lists of types of monsters, terrains, animal companion stats, monster roles; in short, everything a GM needs to create populate her adventures with appropriate threats.

As to the threats themselves, this is one of the strongest showings in some time. The variety of creatures is quite mindboggling. I’ve looked through it and there aren’t many entries that I could call weak. There are some that look mundane like a piranha swarm, but then you realize things like, “how many swarms work underwater?” The ones we are familiar with have a practical use; the ones we don’t recognize fire the imagination.

I’ll bring one of my favorite entries: the Wild Hunt. This is based on Celtic folklore about fey who charge through the world on a manic hunt, trying to bring down prey; sometimes human prey. People who hear the horn of the Master of the Hunt are often drawn to join in and follow, not necessarily of their free will.

The write up takes the real world folklore into account and weaves it in with Paizo’s take on the Fey—which is easier than in many games as the Fey in Pathfinder have been deliberately kept close to the real world folklore. They add in their own game mechanics and describe not just one monster entry, but the descriptions of five different creatures that make up the hunt. They describe the different types of hunt that occur, including drawing in characters and making them Fey members of the Wild Hunt, right out of the folklore. I can think of not just side-treks or adventures, but whole campaigns out of the Wild Hunt entry alone. Wonderful.

There are Kaiju to slake the disaster monster fan in all of us, Archdevils and Great Old Ones to act as masterminds behind the scenes or end bosses for Mythic campaigns. There are creepy undead (whoever thought up the Lovelorn…wow, that’s disturbing. EDIT: It was Crystal Frasier!) and Empyreal Lords to champion the good guys. As I said the range is truly amazing.

If I am going to lay a criticism here it will be about the Dragon entries. Sadly, the format given that Paizo has admitted they are stuck with leaves little room for flavour text for each specific dragon type. A few lines to help convey the mood really doesn’t do them justice, especially these planar dragons which are just magnificent. I am at a loss to how to correct this problem, so I will let it slide.

I’m going to call out my favorite monster as the Conqueror Worm. Drawn from a poem by Edgar Allen Poe, it is a disturbing mastermind, manipulating beings from the shadows for its own amusement, eventually taking its minions and devouring them after making them destroy their entire civilization. Its actions as described in the entry could explain the country of Galt in Golarion quite well and makes you wonder whether the eternal revolution is the result of human depravity and corruption or something far more sinister. This is a campaign in a single monster entry.

Final Thoughts: All in all, Bestiary 6 fulfills all the criteria I gave at the start and then some. Adversaries for every level of play, creatures with back stories and flavour to inspire world and adventure building, and beautiful artwork and strong characterizations of motives and actions to fire the imagination. You really can’t get better than that. This may be the best Bestiary of them all. Five out of Five Stars.


Oh here we go

5/5

This book is AWESOME.

It's almost too much to go over with two new awesome player races to homicidal flying weasels that work very well as BBEGs to the all the demigods... I'm going to get so much mileage out of this bestiary.


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Contributor

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Milo v3 wrote:
Part of me hopes that the Four Horsemen will be the biblical ones....but for some reason I'm guessing they're going to chuck Conquest out and shove Pestilence in....

I imagine they'll be the Four Horseman from Golarion, because while the Bestiaries are setting neutral, they are designed for Golarion first and foremost. (Similar to how all of the demon lords and empyreal lords we've gotten so far are prominent in Golarion.)


True Alex, but so far no Orcus or Jubliex..


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Thomas Seitz wrote:

Milo,

Uhm Golorian's arch daemons are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. IE Death, Famine, War and Pestilence.

Ugh *facedesk*

That is not the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Conquest (or Victory), War, Famine, Death.

Quote:

I imagine they'll be the Four Horseman from Golarion, because while the Bestiaries are setting neutral, they are designed for Golarion first and foremost. (Similar to how all of the demon lords and empyreal lords we've gotten so far are prominent in Golarion.)

I don't know Golarion lore and stuff.


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Eric Hinkle wrote:

Ye gods, another Bestiary? Well, that's it, I'm done with these books, no way will I ever get anoth --

Strange new player-character-suitable races like the canine rougarou,

Okay, maybe just one more. PS: Please let the rougarou be wolflike, and not humanoid pugs or something.

And more on the Four Horsemen, Archdevils, and the Wild Hunt and Krampus is good too. More templates are always great.

Wannabe Demon Lord wrote:

Little nervous about the Rougarou. I'm worried that it won't be used to its full potential as a lot of the abilities it had in the myth are beyond what PCs are capable of by default. Kind of similar to how I feel about the Kitsune and Tengu. I think Cynocephali might have been a better choice for the role of PC dog-men.

Still, I'm glad to see it in some form. Nice to see something from Cajun folklore. I'm pleased that the roster of new world creatures is slowly but surely expanding. Another Cajun creature I'd like to see is the Letiche, or Honey Island Swamp Monster. Especially if they use the less down-to-earth version, with reptilian and crustaceal features along with hominid ones. Another is the Parlangua, a near invulnerable crocodilian humanoid with a potential sonic attack.

A bit OT but I never even heard of Letiche or Parlangua, though I've never read a lot about Cajun folklore besides Rougarou, Peremalfait, and the Cajun version of the Wild Hunt. Oh, and those legends about Jean Lafitte's Black Dogs. Do you know of any websites with information on these critters?

Parlangua. MMCJawa brought this one to my attention in the Arcadia thread.

Honey Island Swamp Monster/Letiche

In the case of the Letiche, this is actually an older Native American term for a monster that was very similar to the modern HISM cryptid reported by Cajuns. There may not even be a connection between the two, but it's very easy to simply conflate them in order to give the HISM a less clunky name, which would be absolutely necessary here considering that it would exist in settings other than Earth. And I'm almost certain that at least a handful of sightings have described it as having crustacean pinchers, though neither of the websites I linked to have mentioned that. The cartoon Secret Saturdays, which featured numerous B & C list cryptids and folklore creatures featured it that way. Suffice to say I like it better when it isn't just another Sasquatch variant.

Never heard of Peremalfait, but that one's pretty cool. I love moss monsters, and a mossy Bogeyman would be unique considering my personal collective interpretation of Bogeys as a collective group. Thanks for mentioning it, it will be very useful to me, and I hope to see it in the game. I can't seem to find anything on the Cajun Wild Hunt. Got a link?


Milo v3 wrote:
Thomas Seitz wrote:

Milo,

Uhm Golorian's arch daemons are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. IE Death, Famine, War and Pestilence.

Ugh *facedesk*

Quote:

I imagine they'll be the Four Horseman from Golarion, because while the Bestiaries are setting neutral, they are designed for Golarion first and foremost. (Similar to how all of the demon lords and empyreal lords we've gotten so far are prominent in Golarion.)

I don't know Golarion lore and stuff.

Fortunately that's what the internet is for! :)

*sings*The Horsemen are drawing near, on leather steeds they ride!

Silver Crusade Contributor

Thomas Seitz wrote:
True Alex, but so far no Orcus or Jubliex..

Note that he said "prominent in Golarion". Both of those demon lords are so infamous in D&D that Pathfinder does very little with them, preferring to focus on their own content.

The only reason either of those can even be mentioned by Paizo is because of their inclusion in the Tome of Horrors, which made them Open Content (typo and all). Thus, another likely reason they haven't appeared in the Bestiaries is because their existing statblocks are the only reason they're accessible at all.


Mmm you raise a good point Kal.

*still thinks about transplanting Rappan Athuk to Golarion*

Back to the thread: MORE MONSTERS!!! :D

Silver Crusade Contributor

It bears mentioning that, if I recall correctly, they include them so that people who prefer them can use them canonically. This is why early mentions of Tiamat are semi-canon, and why Demogorgon's name appears in the first Bestiary. As a recent miniseries proved, that name has a pedigree outside of D&D. (As does Tiamat's, technically.)

If you want to use WotC's Product Identity in home games... they've included just enough linkage that you can do so. ^_^


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Nah. I'm good with Charon and Szuriel atm.


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Thomas Seitz wrote:
Nah. I'm good with Charon and Szuriel atm.

Oh sure, play up my siblings and forget all about me why don't you?


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Uhm...someone got a holy avenger lying around?

Dark Archive

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

*faintly hopes thier steeds will be included*


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Yes, but you're going to have to answer some questions. Or overthrow Cheliax.

Your choice.


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Milo: Even if you don't pay attention to Golarion lore, it was mentioned as far back as Bestiary 2:

Bestiary 2 wrote:
Undisputed in his power among their kind, each Horseman rules a vast realm upon the bleak plains of Abaddon and a distinctive method of mortal ruin: pestilence, famine, war, or death from old age.


Milo v3 wrote:
Thomas Seitz wrote:

Milo,

Uhm Golorian's arch daemons are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. IE Death, Famine, War and Pestilence.

Ugh *facedesk*

That is not the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Conquest (or Victory), War, Famine, Death.

Quote:

I imagine they'll be the Four Horseman from Golarion, because while the Bestiaries are setting neutral, they are designed for Golarion first and foremost. (Similar to how all of the demon lords and empyreal lords we've gotten so far are prominent in Golarion.)

I don't know Golarion lore and stuff.

I'm extremely happy they went with Pestilence, that is SO much more interesting than conquest, which I can't seperate from War at all.

I'm afraid this book has very little normal mythology monsters this time around, more P-races, AP/Other Book-re-uses, big-guys, outsiders of all types and normal animal familiars.

Also, many people on facebooks aren't happy with yet another Bestiary, but if it was on them, they would never have released Bestiary 2, 1 would be enough for them, because all the monsters you'll ever need are rainbow dragons, bears mixed with owls and only 4 fey.


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So, what empyreal lords are you hoping to see?

Me, I'm hoping to see Zohls (I can relate to asocial intellectuals), Olheon (for Kingmaker), Lymnieris (so wonderfully unusual), and Arshea (very obvious reasons).

Silver Crusade

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Well we're getting Dispater in this book so....


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Rysky wrote:
Well we're getting Dispater in this book so....

Ah, right, Ragathiel‎!

Silver Crusade

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SQQQQQUUUEEEE!!!!

Silver Crusade

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I hope Ragathiel gets finally errata'd to LE with CE tendencies.


Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Gorbacz wrote:
I hope Ragathiel gets finally errata'd to LE with CE tendencies.

That's... unlikely.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I know. At least Dammerich could go LE...

Silver Crusade

Gorbacz wrote:
I know. At least Dammerich could go LE...

:(

Why all the hatin on Dammy?

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Rysky wrote:
Gorbacz wrote:
I know. At least Dammerich could go LE...

:(

Why all the hatin on Dammy?

As a proper, well-conditioned citizen of the United Godless Republiks, Kingdoms and Grand Duchies of Yurp, I find any implication that capital punishment is anywhere within "Good" alignment as abhorrent and insane.

But it's OK, Paizo was smart to balance Empyreal Lords so that AlgaeNymph gets Arshea and Lymnieris while Beckett gets Ragathiel and Damerrich.

Silver Crusade

Gorbacz wrote:
Rysky wrote:
Gorbacz wrote:
I know. At least Dammerich could go LE...

:(

Why all the hatin on Dammy?

As a proper, well-conditioned citizen of the United Godless Communist States of Yurp, I find any implication that capital punishment is anywhere within "Good" alignment as abhorrent and insane.

But it's OK, Paizo was smart to balance Empyreal Lords so that AlgaeNymph gets Arshea and Lymnieris while Beckett gets Ragathiel and Damerrich.

Well I will disagree on that but that's all I'm gonna say to avoid this thread getting flamed then salted.

I like the Empyreal Lords.


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"troops of goblins"

Please tell me that there's a troop template :D


JiCi wrote:

"troops of goblins"

Please tell me that there's a troop template :D

This would be appreciated. I loved the troop concepts in Rasputin Must Die! The template would make many low level adversaries more easy-to-use and useful in higher level games without relying on creating smaller groups of class-statted NPCs / monsters. Plus, I just LOVE the good old "few heroes against a throng of enemies" scenario - this would be easy to simulate with troop template without clogging the grid and taking loads of everyone's precious game in turns that go on forever.

In case we don't get the troop template now, in next installments, pretty please?

Liberty's Edge

Milo v3 wrote:
Thomas Seitz wrote:

Milo,

Uhm Golorian's arch daemons are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. IE Death, Famine, War and Pestilence.

Ugh *facedesk*

That is not the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Conquest (or Victory), War, Famine, Death.

If we're going to be picky about it then only one of the horsemen is named in the original text; Death. The other three are merely described, but have been given various names based on those descriptions (and different translations and interpretations thereof) over the centuries.

Granted, the interpretation / naming of the first horseman as 'Pestilence' has only been prominent for a century or so... but after a hundred years of general acceptance the *facedesk*ing seems excessive.


I happy to see Krampus, wasn't expecting to see him. I hope they give him a Santa outfit though green would look better then the red one.

I hope there will be a lot of fey, elementals, giants, dragons, and plant creatures.

I hope there will be some proteans, oni, kami, inevitables, aeons, azura, and angels.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

James says no aeons this time.


He said there will be no demi-god level aeons, azura, psychopomps, and kytons.


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Nightterror wrote:
Milo v3 wrote:
Thomas Seitz wrote:

Milo,

Uhm Golorian's arch daemons are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. IE Death, Famine, War and Pestilence.

Ugh *facedesk*

That is not the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Conquest (or Victory), War, Famine, Death.

Quote:

I imagine they'll be the Four Horseman from Golarion, because while the Bestiaries are setting neutral, they are designed for Golarion first and foremost. (Similar to how all of the demon lords and empyreal lords we've gotten so far are prominent in Golarion.)

I don't know Golarion lore and stuff.
I'm extremely happy they went with Pestilence, that is SO much more interesting than conquest, which I can't seperate from War at all.

The Horseman of War should more rightly be attached to the concept of "bloodlust" and wanton destruction. War as a bloody, hate-filled, bestial urge.

"Conquest" as a Horseman can have little to nothing to do with "battle" -- instead, it's significantly more about "subjugation" and/or "domination" and real-world history is ripe with examples of "conquest" without real "war." Or War being but a tool in the trade of subjugating and dominating a people.

Going to a place and planting a flag, declaring "This is ours" is an act of conquest that requires resistance to become War, but if you use pestilence and/or disease or even famine to destroy a population, then there's no need for war.

Conquest can best be the "frontman" of the Four Horseman. Even if his leadership of them is tenuous, he's the one wearing a crown and armed with a bow -- a ranged weapon that allows him to sling arrows at his enemies from afar, behind a wall of subjects that will die before he's ever even within range of attack.

Comparatively, I dislike Death being a Horseman. Its not a single thing, its all of them. Isn't war about the death total? Isn't famine about increasing death from starvation? Isn't even pestilence and disease just one more way for us to die? So if you take away violent death (War's domain), and death from need (Famine's domain), and death from disease (Pestilence's domain) -- what unique power should Death retain? In Pathfinder, perhaps undeath and negative energy stuff, but that's kind of stretching the concept.

Alternately, if you're going to keep War and Death, I'd still argue keep Conquest and get rid of Famine for Pestilence. Pestilence can "branch out" a bit, killing a people not just by direct disease but by giving a mold or fungus to destroy plants and crops, poison wells, and so forth. Even the "tool" which Famine is given is hard to make interesting compared to the flaming sword of War and bow of Conquest etc.

No, Conquest is about domination, and even democracies have allowed themselves to let the Horseman of Conquest rear its ugly head in our past (Nazi of Germany and Soviets of Russia conquered their own people without waging 'war' on at least all of them).


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Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

As I already noted above, in Bestiary 2 it specifies that the Horseman of Death (ie, Charon), rather than being a generic death, is specifically the death that comes with old age. So I presume that Charon will have various aging-related attacks, causing things to wither and die, as well as abilities related to his infamous skiff. And remember, the Four Horsemen are the rulers of the daemons in Pathfinder...

Bestiary 2 wrote:

The Four Horsemen

Four dread lords, infamous across all the planes, rule the disparate hordes of daemonkind. Risen from among the ranks of their terrible brethren to displace those fiendish tyrants before them, they are the archdaemons, the End Bringers, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. In the blasphemous annals of fiendish lore, they are the prophesied architects of multiversal ruin, destined to stand triumphant over cadaverous cosmoses and infinities of silence before also giving way to absolute oblivion. Undisputed in his power among their kind, each Horseman rules a vast realm upon the bleak plains of Abaddon and a distinctive method of mortal ruin: pestilence, famine, war, or death from old age. Yet while each archdaemon commands measureless influence, daemons know nothing of loyalty and serve only those they cannot overcome. Thus, though the Horsemen stand peerless in their power and manipulations among daemonkind, they must ever defend their thrones from the machinations of ambitious underlings and the plots of other archdaemons.

Upon the poisonous expanses of Abaddon, lesser daemonic peers carve petty fiefdoms and posture as lords, but despite their world-spanning intrigues, all bow before the Horsemen—though most do so only grudgingly. Ancient myths also tell of a mysterious fifth Horseman, the Oinodaemon, though nearly all mention of such a creature has been scoured from the multiverse.


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Thanks guys that is awesome info on the horsemen. Gonna use some of that for my own project, though I keep famine, pestilence, death (leader) and war, i'll add the Mysterious fifth horseman named conquest as endboss, being their mysterious leader that pulls the strings.


Yeah, Luthorne, I know that much has already been written about the daemonic Four Horseman. In fact, haven't they already stat'd them out in-world with the Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Book of the Damned - Vol 3: Horsemen of the Apocalypse? Why even bother restating and reprinting? They were even named already in Bestiary 4, so those names (for the Horsemen, not the Golarion specific ones) are Open Game Content very likely but I guess demi-god (or whatever their classification would be) stats could be good to have OGL'd.

I was mostly responding to Nightterror's notion that Conquest and War are the same thing. They aren't. Not really. (outside of Pathfinder).

In Pathfinder though, I don't know if a Dread Lord of Famine is really as scary as one that is the voice whispering in every tyrants ear to conquer, conquest, subjugate, and dominate a people for wicked and cruel ends.

Silver Crusade

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They weren't statted up in Book of Damned.

And entire worlds dying causing everyone on it to die of starvation isn't horrifying to you?


I love the meladaemons, the daemons of starvation. Also Gashadokuro is a monster of famine, and the chichevache.


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Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Nah, they didn't stat them up in that volume of Book of the Damned, that was before mythic rules were out, so they were shying away from statting up demigods in general, I think...though we did get the erodaemon, lacridaemon, obcisidaemon, phasmadaemon, sangudaemon, suspiridaemon, temerdaemon, and venedaemon. But yeah, even if they had been printed before, I think it's good to have access to them in a Bestiary, I know plenty of people stick to the bestiaries, even if others just utilize resources like Archives of Nethys and the d20 Pathfinder SRD. Not to mention, pictures are nice. I totally have all the Books of the Damned myself, along with other Campaign Setting books that suit my tastes, but can't blame people for not wanting to get those, especially if they're not invested in the Golarion setting and aren't the type to scavenge elements.

And, of course, if you have these guys statted up as examples, they could probably serve as inspiration for similar Horsemen, since there will presumably be a Horseman subtype printed up just like we have for all the other demigods of similar abilities, so if your own setting swaps out some or has five or eight or thirteen (lucky lucky thirteen) you'll have a nice starting point if you like...


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Wannabe Demon Lord wrote:

Parlangua. MMCJawa brought this one to my attention in the Arcadia thread.

Honey Island Swamp Monster/Letiche

In the case of the Letiche, this is actually an older Native American term for a monster that was very similar to the modern HISM cryptid reported by Cajuns. There may not even be a connection between the two, but it's very easy to simply conflate them in order to give the HISM a less clunky name, which would be absolutely necessary here considering that it would exist in settings other than Earth. And I'm almost certain that at least a handful of sightings have described it as having crustacean pinchers, though neither of the websites I linked to have mentioned that. The cartoon Secret Saturdays, which featured numerous B & C list cryptids and folklore creatures featured it that way. Suffice to say I like it better when it isn't just another Sasquatch variant.

Thanks for the links! My own personal take on HISM, at least for game purposes, would be to make him a lizard man that's bigger and more savage than usual. Kind of like the Scape Ore Swamp Lizard Man.

Wannabe Demon Lord wrote:
Never heard of Peremalfait, but that one's pretty cool. I love moss monsters, and a mossy Bogeyman would be unique considering my personal collective interpretation of Bogeys as a collective group. Thanks for mentioning it, it will be very useful to me, and I hope to see it in the game. I can't seem to find anything on the Cajun Wild Hunt. Got a link?

Peremalfait is best known these days for having been one of the more unusual monsters in the original Kolchak:the Night Stalker. Basically a living nightmare summoned from the dreams of a comatose Cajun, it was sort of like a more human-like shambling mound with an appetite for crushing people to death, and it left pools of stagnant water and swamp weeds behind when it killed people.

As for the Cajun Wild Hunt I'll have to ask a friend of mine who has the only book I ever read that mentioned it; it was pretty rare, being one of those little collections of local legends that he got on his one trip to the Big Easy.


Lucus Palosaari wrote:


The Horseman of War should more rightly be attached to the concept of "bloodlust" and wanton destruction. War as a bloody, hate-filled, bestial urge.

"Conquest" as a Horseman can have little to nothing to do with "battle" -- instead, it's significantly more about "subjugation" and/or "domination" and real-world history is ripe with examples of "conquest" without real "war." Or War being but a tool in the trade of subjugating and dominating a people.

Going to a place and planting a flag, declaring "This is ours" is an act of conquest that requires resistance to become War, but if you use pestilence and/or disease or even famine to destroy a population, then there's no need for war.

Conquest can best be the "frontman" of the Four Horseman. Even if his leadership of them is tenuous, he's the one wearing a crown and armed with a bow -- a ranged weapon that allows him to sling arrows at his enemies from afar, behind a wall of subjects that will die before he's ever even within range of attack.

Comparatively, I dislike Death being a Horseman. Its not a single thing, its all of them. Isn't war about the death total? Isn't famine about increasing death from starvation? Isn't even pestilence and disease just one more way for us to die? So...

The daemons are about destroying mortal life and eating their souls, not subjugating them, so Conquest doesn't really fit.


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What would be really cool is making a more compressed statblock or more page space per monster so more flavor text or more mechanical complexity could be included. I really liked the old ecology and combat sections of AD&D and 3rd edition.


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Alex Smith 908 wrote:
What would be really cool is making a more compressed statblock or more page space per monster so more flavor text or more mechanical complexity could be included. I really liked the old ecology and combat sections of AD&D and 3rd edition.

Ecology is, or was, nice. :)

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