Meet the Crew of the Zoetrope!

The only downer about books like this is that despite their being loads of new monsters and ancestries, we no longer get any Pawns to use them. It really affected my use of Book of the Dead as making my own pawns from the artwork in the PDFs is very time consuming. For the same reason it will probably effect my enjoyment of this book and likely the Tian Xia ones too.

All these years I've wanted a merfolk ancestry, but never had a game that put everyone in an aquatic setting. It never occurred to me to combine the combat wheelchair with an on-land adventure. Brilliant.

This book is going to be so ridiculously good.

Options to make bunny rabbits!

All these years I've wanted a merfolk ancestry, but never had a game that put everyone in an aquatic setting. It never occurred to me to combine the combat wheelchair with an on-land adventure. Brilliant.

This book is going to be so ridiculously good.

Hopefully they avoid the pitfall that was the PF1E merfolk + wheelchair combo, where a merfolk still had a speed of only 5 ft. while in a wheelchair.

Presumably there will be a Merfolk specific wheelchair item in the book since the Grand Bazaar mobility devices key off your ancestry's (land) speed. Probably something that keys off your swim speed instead.

Finally. At last. I can make my Wombat Barbarian...!

I think wombats would object to calling their distaste for magic a 'Superstition instinct' but the end result is the same, a character who has no trust for any kind of half-baked wishy-washy nonsense like magic... or gods, for that matter.

Digger as a barbarian is a fascinating read. I'd think she's more like a rogue, with a barbarian multiclass.

Gosh, I love that PF2 makes that work so smoothly.

Okay, but are these new Awakened Animals more Disney or Narnia based? It looks more like Disney but I want an option more like The Noble Wild 3rd party supplement PF1 had.

Bunnybarian of Caernanog would be amazing if they could actually blend in with bunnies.

Kent Hamilton’s illustrative abilities are sublime. Now I need a paraphernalia-off between Kent and Wayne Reynolds. Oh, wait, Wayne will, unless more things are changing, paint the cover of this new book.

Said book unfortunately sounds incredibly boring. Didn’t Dragon Magazine serialise the voyage of an airship called the Princess Ark a time beyond time ago? And this book has what? New ancestries. “Wild” options for…you guessed it. - Featfinder 2.5R. “Wild” items? Gosh. And…monsters! Yaywn. I really want to be a fly on the wall in the meetings that decide the coming themes for books, and who all votes for them. Would love to know the “direction” of PF2, and PF2R that makes something like this envisaged as a Big Idea. I have terrible memories of the Wilderness Survival Guide from ADnD and the PF 1 book that had the Shifter in it. *shudders*

The crew are very cute. Can we lose the classical Greek names for Centaur and Minotaur - they aren’t even both tauric. The further we can move away from Earth analogues in Golarion the happier I will be.

Add me as a surkis fan. The cicada-like burrowing to sky (much better than the dwarven one!) and hints of growing magical power with possible shedding is very cool. Love the fish-guy’s look too. No, Locathah wasn’t coined by Wizards, kids, there was a time when Wizards didn’t own DnD. Yikes, where’s my lawn?

And yes, I agree, talking Badger is iconic! I also agree: awakened animals are way more interesting to me than talking animal-people. Go Dr. Pom!

Would love to see some of the crew in their own comic or even as Iconics rather than marginalia in a boring options book. Give me a new class already, obvs.

As PF2's ample options have always been its strongest selling point to me, I believe I am personally quite happy to see Paizo put out as many beautifully-written "options books" as they like.

Especially if they keep the hits coming with these amazing framing devices. I like that these books, since I wanna say Book of the Dead, have all had such fun and inventive ways to tell the stories of their mechanical options.

New Ancestries and setting lore are the two things that get me to buy books.

Yeah, classes are honestly easier to browse via the AONPRD, anyways. :P

Digger as a barbarian is a fascinating read. I'd think she's more like a rogue, with a barbarian multiclass.

Gosh, I love that PF2 makes that work so smoothly.

I admit at first I'd only picked the first "made of muscle" class concept that popped into my head, but then when I remembered that there is a Barbarian that distrusts magic, I sold myself on the concept. In reality her story involves a lot more talking, making friends, cunning, and extensive knowledge of tunneling, but on the other hand, "Remember Tunnel 17!!!"

As someone who loves nature documentaries and animals, this book and the options inside really excite me. The meta-narrative is perfect and i think just animals and beasts are so cool, and really underrated options for encounters. Often times they are treated as mindless monsters.. but animals are complex creatures. They can be allies, scenery, combatants. And there is something fascinating about mundane fantasy creatures. Perhaps because they can often highlight aspects about real life animals that are fantastical.

One thing I'm curious about I'd like to know more about.

The Awakened Animal: This seems like it's walking a vague line somewhere between "literally just an actual animal that started walking, talking, and using hands" and "an anthropomorphic animal that has retained the aesthetics of the base animal but increased in size and given 100% humanoid characteristics" and I'd like to know where it is going to land.

We already have plenty of humanoids that look like animals but we DON'T have "literally a squirrel/dog/bear/badger that can talk, cast spells, and manipulate things as if they had normal hands" so I would very much be more interested in the latter but at least based on the art it seems like you're targeting something closer to beastkin and at the risk of seeming like I'm looking down on anyone by labeling it thus but there isn't a much better term/classification to describe it, the furry demographic.

My guess is the lore is going to be a little back-and-forth, if only because PF2's standard realistic art style doesn't play nice with "improbably wielding swords without opposable thumbs". Mechanically, in hoping we'll be able to play with either interpretation, the same way you can play a catfolk as a guy with cat ears and a tail or a full furry catperson.

Sometimes people want to play Disney's Friar Tuck. Sometimes they want to play Trufflehunter. Both should be possible.

My first thought was to have a Beastkin awakened animal to put an animal in your animal to have an animal squared. But then I remembered that Beastkins have to be humanoid. I hope that restriction is removed in the remaster.

Well what you need to do is give that beastkin awakened animal the Ursin Avenger's Cowl to get Animal Cubed!

Bear bear bear!

Digger as a barbarian is a fascinating read. I'd think she's more like a rogue, with a barbarian multiclass.

Gosh, I love that PF2 makes that work so smoothly.

She's actually Miner background Investigator with Barbarian multiclass, imo.

And with gnolls...

...NAME is ED!

So we'll have ibuxis, which are lizardfolks... but not awakened lizards??? This is gonna get confusing XD Are catfolks and shoonies gonna be turned into awakened animals as well?

How is it gonna work?

So we'll have ibuxis, which are lizardfolks... but not awakened lizards??? This is gonna get confusing XD Are catfolks and shoonies gonna be turned into awakened animals as well?

How is it gonna work?

No, Iruxi, Amurrans and Shoony are all their own distinct ancestry with their own cultures and history who just have some animalistic features and are not just like "cat who talks". They are separate from awakened animals who are literally animals that somehow gained sapience.

As someone who loves nature documentaries and animals, this book and the options inside really excite me. The meta-narrative is perfect and i think just animals and beasts are so cool, and really underrated options for encounters. Often times they are treated as mindless monsters.. but animals are complex creatures. They can be allies, scenery, combatants. And there is something fascinating about mundane fantasy creatures. Perhaps because they can often highlight aspects about real life animals that are fantastical.

One thing I am happy about with the loss of alignment is that we will ditch the All animals are True Neutral nonsense.

So we'll have ibuxis, which are lizardfolks... but not awakened lizards??? This is gonna get confusing XD Are catfolks and shoonies gonna be turned into awakened animals as well?

How is it gonna work?

Just as an example... You could always make a catfolk inspired by Puss in Boots, but awakened animal lets you actually play Puss in Boots. Similarly, awakened animal wouldn't be great for making Thundercats.

To me, awakened animals seem like they have more in common narratively with an ancestry like poppets or leshies (where they're singular individuals or at best forming small secluded communities), than with any given animal-folk ancestry like lizardfolk, ratfolk or catfolk (who have entire well-established cultures and nations unto themselves).

When is this book releasibg?

From the announcement: Howl of the Wild, Coming Spring 2024!

Good artwork. Cool to see Merfolk are in.

Wears a kelp shawl around her shoulders to help keep her hydrated throughout the day.

Hooded cowl...

...to keep her hydrated when above water.

Her top is a seaweed wrap to keep her hydrated when above water.

Starting to sound like the hydration problems that the darn Gillmen have.

Good artwork. Cool to see Merfolk are in.

Quote:

Wears a kelp shawl around her shoulders to help keep her hydrated throughout the day.

Quote:

Hooded cowl...

...to keep her hydrated when above water.

Quote:

Her top is a seaweed wrap to keep her hydrated when above water.

Starting to sound like the hydration problems that the darn Gillmen have.

Those actually sound like solutions to the hydration problem.

Glad to see the Awakened Animal. Had plenty of players who wanted to play an anthromorphs. I take it the Anthropomorphic Animal spell will be coming back as a ritual alongside awaken animal? Or will awaken animal add the ability to make the animal anthromorphic?

So we'll have ibuxis, which are lizardfolks... but not awakened lizards??? This is gonna get confusing XD Are catfolks and shoonies gonna be turned into awakened animals as well?

How is it gonna work?

Think the context for awakened animals is they'll lack the cultural context as their more established counterparts. An Amurrun has Garundi culture associated with it, but an awakened cat would not, and would be reliant on it's creator's culture to establish itself. A kitsune would be a transforming mystical creature with a Tian culture association, where an awakened fox would not. Kind of like dealing with a planar scion. Any societies of them would be relatively small, and closely tied to the context of the individuals who raised them. A druid could raise a troop of bears to act as guards, and foxes to act as scouting agents, and they might follow a culture tied to the druid, whereas a wizard doing the same with the same two species, might have a completely different culture.

A Disney's Robin Hood inspired character might, for example, be more appropriate with an awakened animal than with a kitsune. As the kitsune involves transformation into a human, something that character might never use, and would be tied into Tian culture, whereas the other would likely skew Taldan.

Truthfully I was writing up a 3rd party book for "The Awakened" which was essentially this concept (Guess I gotta scrap it now). And frankly the approach above was how I was planning on approaching it.

Awakened Animal as a playable race?

Wellp. Time to live out my fantasy as Sif from the souls games -- just not as debilitatingly depressing.

This is great.

Love the way the books introduce new rules and mechanics.

So we'll have ibuxis, which are lizardfolks... but not awakened lizards??? This is gonna get confusing XD Are catfolks and shoonies gonna be turned into awakened animals as well?

How is it gonna work?

Its the difference between a human and an awakened orangutan.

Yeah both are apes, but one was born with the capacity of getting an int score of 10 or more while the other was stuck at 3 and needed magic to go beyond that.

Btw the much bigger issue is the lack of opposable thumbs or some other prehensile limb which is a very important feature to a character. No thumb == no carrying stuff in hand == no using most of the items in the game and not being able to open doors.

I think the largest limiter is the lack of developed vocal cords. Like how many animals naturally possess the biology to make most of the sounds in normal language. Sure, they can speak some languages, and can understand most of them, but can a dog make even 75% of the sounds necessary to speak common?

I imagine the magic would take care of that.

I imagine part of Uplighting/Awaking an Animal is not just giving it the intelligence of a human (etc.) but also giving it the tools (opposable thumbs, developed vocal cords, etc.) that it would want, given that intelligence.

Like a real badger cannot hold a pen. An Awakened Badger should be able to. Giving an animal a mind that would want to read books, without the ability to turn the pages would just be cruel.

I wish more internet debates could be resolved with the answer, "magic."

I imagine part of Uplighting/Awaking an Animal is not just giving it the intelligence of a human (etc.) but also giving it the tools (opposable thumbs, developed vocal cords, etc.) that it would want, given that intelligence.

Like a real badger cannot hold a pen. An Awakened Badger should be able to. Giving an animal a mind that would want to read books, without the ability to turn the pages would just be cruel.

Yep that is entirely dependent on how they became "awakened".

If its the spell that was already in Pathfinder, that spell raises intelligence and charisma and allows them to speak. But it does not grant thumbs or the ability to walk upright. It's why I mentioned thumbs specifically in my previous post.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I imagine part of Uplighting/Awaking an Animal is not just giving it the intelligence of a human (etc.) but also giving it the tools (opposable thumbs, developed vocal cords, etc.) that it would want, given that intelligence.

Like a real badger cannot hold a pen. An Awakened Badger should be able to. Giving an animal a mind that would want to read books, without the ability to turn the pages would just be cruel.

Yep that is entirely dependent on how they became "awakened".

If its the spell that was already in Pathfinder, that spell raises intelligence and charisma and allows them to speak. But it does not grant thumbs or the ability to walk upright. It's why I mentioned thumbs specifically in my previous post.

The forthcoming remaster is a great opportunity to address the "Awaken Animal" ritual with some text like "the magic also works to give the animal in question improved motor and vocalization abilities, etc." So you can write the ancestry with that in mind.

Because practically it should work based on the principle of "the player and GM will make it work." If you want your awakened snake Swashbuckler to wield a sword with your tail, you have the dexterity you'd need to do that.

Whose Antenna Is Askew is going to be needing to tie their scarf around their mouth a lot, with that smoking cook . . . ugh. Fortunately, Whose Antenna Is Askew seems not to have the abdominal spiracles that actual Earth arthropods have, that would come out in the abdomen, but have them redirected to where they can actually put the scarf. But from the experience of having had to deal with this myself, it doesn't help very much . . . .

Oh, and the Awakened Animals has me wanting to see a sneaky Awakened Racoon . . . .

I expect Awakened Racoon to be extremely popular. Maybe it will be a specific OP Heritage.

I am extremely excited for this book release. (I had said elsewhere that I'm really feeling nostalgic for both Pathfinder and Starfinder and I'm seriously thinking about getting back into these RPG systems/settings.

Howl of the Wild looks and sounds amazing, incredible, and FUN! Not familiar with Kent Hamilton but his artwork is stunning. The attention to minute details is awe-inspiring. I'll definitely be picking up this book. (Related question ... will there be a pocket edition? It's become my new favorite style for RPG books).

Not a deal-breaker if not (it seems to me that the Lost Omens books don't have pocket editions).

Not sure if I'll re-subscribe to the RPG line or not. But seriously thinking about re-subscribing to the AP line.

Thanks for rekindling my interest in Pathfinder (and Starfinder).

Dean

One of things I liked about the 3PP The Noble Wild is that the Animal characters were able the get human followers with Leadership. I wonder if it will continue in the book.

I see a lot of potential for this book for things I'd like to play, but I'm worried about all the pitfalls that can so easily crop up.

5E Centaurs solved the whole "Large size means more people can be in base-to-base melee contact" by just not having them be Large size. And while yes, Centaurs should be big, the addition of more people being able to surround them strikes me as more "artifact of the game system" than "an inherent thing that would happen even in "theater of the mind". But then they screwed that up by making them Fey. Easily-spotted pitfall, yet still fallen into.

I'm concerned that there may be too much emphasis on merfolk overcoming their inherent aquatic natures through mechanical/external aids. I'm glad they're there for the players that want to express that fantasy, but I'll feel better if we get word that players could also overcome these through feats or alternative traits (my favorite merfolk race in P1E was the one from the Jon Brazer Enterprises Book of Heroic Races Compendium).

But my major concern is that I have no confidence at all that any character I might imagine from one of these ancestries would ever see the light of day due to the whole ancestry rarity thing. I don't think Paizo realized the pressure that introduced.

One thing I'm wondering for is if the merfolk can benefit from things like "fleet" and class features that give you more speed (e.g. being a monk, or a swashbuckler")

Since if a merfolk has a land speed of 5, being a 3rd level monk with the fleet feat puts you at 25 which is good enough. At 15th level you'd at a speed of 40 so you're faster than everybody else.

Outside of PFS if a GM would not let you play a Centaur cause they’re Uncommon they probably weren’t going to let you play a Centaur even without Rarity.

I see a lot of potential for this book for things I'd like to play, but I'm worried about all the pitfalls that can so easily crop up.

5E Centaurs solved the whole "Large size means more people can be in base-to-base melee contact" by just not having them be Large size. And while yes, Centaurs should be big, the addition of more people being able to surround them strikes me as more "artifact of the game system" than "an inherent thing that would happen even in "theater of the mind". But then they screwed that up by making them Fey. Easily-spotted pitfall, yet still fallen into.

I'm concerned that there may be too much emphasis on merfolk overcoming their inherent aquatic natures through mechanical/external aids. I'm glad they're there for the players that want to express that fantasy, but I'll feel better if we get word that players could also overcome these through feats or alternative traits (my favorite merfolk race in P1E was the one from the Jon Brazer Enterprises Book of Heroic Races Compendium).

But my major concern is that I have no confidence at all that any character I might imagine from one of these ancestries would ever see the light of day due to the whole ancestry rarity thing. I don't think Paizo realized the pressure that introduced.

I believe there is an option for Medium centaurs, so going Large would be a choice, not something forced by the designers.

One of things I liked about the 3PP The Noble Wild is that the Animal characters were able the get human followers with Leadership. I wonder if it will continue in the book.

There is no Leadership feat in PF2. Never has been and likely never will be.

Outside of PFS if a GM would not let you play a Centaur cause they’re Uncommon they probably weren’t going to let you play a Centaur even without Rarity.

"Probably" still leaves room open for GMs who would otherwise be perfectly fine with allowing uncommon or rare ancestries deciding not to allow it because of the rarity. I'm glad for all the players not fussed over this. For some of us, it's still a roadblock that takes away from fully enjoying the game.

Rysky wrote:

Outside of PFS if a GM would not let you play a Centaur cause they’re Uncommon they probably weren’t going to let you play a Centaur even without Rarity.

"Probably" still leaves room open for GMs who would otherwise be perfectly fine with allowing uncommon or rare ancestries deciding not to allow it because of the rarity. I'm glad for all the players not fussed over this. For some of us, it's still a roadblock that takes away from fully enjoying the game.

That's a narrow band you're describing, and it's probably smaller than the number of GMs who don't want those ancestries but would feel pressured into allowing them without the rarity rules. At the end of the day, rarity rules are there for the GM to be supported in expressing what they're giving access to.

Plus, I don't think we would get stuff like fleshwarps, poppets, pixies, and centaurs without the rarity system there to support how to handle them.

Rysky wrote:

Outside of PFS if a GM would not let you play a Centaur cause they’re Uncommon they probably weren’t going to let you play a Centaur even without Rarity.

"Probably" still leaves room open for GMs who would otherwise be perfectly fine with allowing uncommon or rare ancestries deciding not to allow it because of the rarity. I'm glad for all the players not fussed over this. For some of us, it's still a roadblock that takes away from fully enjoying the game.

As a GM I am thankful every day for rarity tags to empower and back me up with restricting things and I genuinely think they're one of the greatest boons to the system. Every time I see a player complain about them I am reminded exactly why we need them.