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With the announcement of Mythological Creatures and the immediate return of speculation over Fey Revisited, got to thinking about this...
Does PFRPG have enough cryptids in the stable yet to make such a book possible? They've certainly gotten a lot of love from Paizo over the years at least.
Going off memory, we've got:
Chupacabra
Death Worm
Mothman
Yeti(and possibly Sasquatch)
Maybe it qualifies, maybe it doesn't, but it's certainly evocative of a cryptid: The Sandpoint Devil
What else do we have? There are Mokele-Mebembes in the Mwangi Expanse IIRC, but you just have to point at dinosaurs for those.
Devil-fish and Krakens?
Sea serpents?
Creative Director
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Anyone who's spoken at length to either me or Wes or James Sutter, or anyone who's been following the type of monsters we've been putting into the Pathfinder Bestairies, knows that all three of us are huge fans of cryptids, to the extent that us talking about and concepting a book like "Cryptids Revisited" would approach 100%, even though we haven't said anything about it.
Would folks be interested in such a book? I know I would be. And I know we've got enough cryptids in our books to fill a 10 page book... or close enough that we WILL have enough cryptids by the end of the year to do so... with ease.
The ones that come to my mind include:
Chupacabra
Death Worm
Mothman
Yeti (sasquatch is a different monster, and thus would be a different chapter)
Mokele-Mebembe
Sea Serpent
Water Orm
Sandpoint Devil
Bunyip
So assuming that sometime soon we'll have bigfoot/sasquatch stats handy... that's 10 chapters right there.
I would love this book to pieces.
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I am 100% in favor of more cryptids. Aside from being a general fan of the concept (seeing the Chupacabra in Bestiary 2 was glorious), I find that (if I may be so bold) it only strengthens Golarion's concept as an "everything *and* the kitchen sink" setting. Cryptids definitely posess their own special flavor, and can color the tone of an adventure in very significant ways, just like powerful undead, dragons, fiends, and dinosaurs. As a DM, I like having crytpids available as one of many tools to build an atmosphere.
Additionally, monsters that aren't "real" cryptids but can fit the general flavor (things like chokers, mobats, gryphs, and crocottas) would also be appreciated.
Would folks be interested in such a book?
Sandpoint Devil
My first Pathfinder game was Rise of the Runelords, and I think the thing that got my hooked on Pathfinder was the fact I recognized the Jersey Devil was present in Golorian.
I would be interested in such a book. Keep on making cryptids!
+1d100+1 for the Water Orm!
Stuff like Yeti and Sasquatch seems like it skirts the line for such a collection, at least in an RPG context, since they are more humanoid on part with Ogres or Hobgoblins... On the other hand, I think it would be cool to also include those, just with enough format freedom to explore more stuff like societies and Class Level modifications, etc.
Would folks be interested in such a book?
So assuming that sometime soon we'll have bigfoot/sasquatch stats handy... that's 10 chapters right there.
Consider me pre-ordered. You can always debut stats in the book. I believe you did so already with Misfits Revisited. Unless this is a sneaky way to announce that Sasquatch will appear in Bestiary 3.
Would folks be interested in such a book?
YES!
Would folks be interested in such a book?
Yes. And I have some favorites...
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Creative Director
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Consider me pre-ordered. You can always debut stats in the book. I believe you did so already with Misfits Revisited. Unless this is a sneaky way to announce that Sasquatch will appear in Bestiary 3.Would folks be interested in such a book?
So assuming that sometime soon we'll have bigfoot/sasquatch stats handy... that's 10 chapters right there.
Do I strike you as the sneaky type like that? Interesting.
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Would folks be interested in such a book?
Yase! :)
Yeti (sasquatch is a different monster, and thus would be a different chapter)
This is really good to hear, because Sasquatch is a gentleman and deserves his own chapter exploring his world, hopes and dreams beyond the scope of the Henderson family and beef jerky commercials.
srsly, glad to know sasquatch would get his own treatment :)
Unless this is a sneaky way to announce that Sasquatch will appear in Bestiary 3.Do I strike you as the sneaky type like that? Interesting.
Who is your favorite Iconic again? ;)
Volpertiger
The Pope Lick Monster, aka Louisville Goatman. He lures people on to train trestles and then disappears or jumps off when a train comes. Sneaky bastard. Had to give a home shout out ;)
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Does PFRPG have enough cryptids in the stable yet to make such a book possible?
Even if they don't have the magic 10, who's to say that Cryptids Revisited couldn't introduce one or two to fill out the book?
Ninja'd due to my own laziness. I kinda intended to make a request for a Cryptids Revisited book when I first saw Mythological Creatures announced, but I put it off for a few days...
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Would folks be interested in such a book?I don't quite understand how the concept of "cryptids" works in a world of "actual" dragons and aboleth and such. When your world really does have things like yetis and giant sea monsters it seems to me ridiculous to have the concept of cryptids at all. I think this concept is way too modern and based on relatively modern scientific thought to fit into a fantasy themed RPG. Where would the skepticism come from? When you can summon an actual demon from the Abyss and speak to it why would someone doubt a "Chupacabra" exists? A coelacanth is not a "cyptid" when you have actual dinosaurs in many parts of the world.
This concept would fit more into an RPG set in the 1800 or 1900s and based on actual history, not in PF.
Pathfinder #1 described the Sandpoint Devil. Just because there are real monsters out there doesn't mean that there aren't hidden creatures which are more misinformation than actual knowledge.
Cryptids have a place in Golarion just as dragons and lovecraftian horrors do. Your average peasant will probably never meet a dragon. Just as your average American might never meet an elephant. Yet the Jersey Devil and the Sandpoint Devil have stories that live on around camp-fires, or in cautionary tales.
Yes I would be interested and you didn't list the Hodag. ;)
I don`t think a book covering all of these would need to treat all of them exactly like real-world Cryptids, for the above mentioned reasons, and besides: that would be rather setting specific. You probably COULD use the stats for a real-world Earth d20 game (with appropriate Cryptid setting role), but in other settings they would certainly `fit in` more to the mix of sundry monsters and aberrations that the game already has... Alot of them probably ARE ripe material for a `cryptid` like role (in a world like Golarion), not so much in exactly the same sense as the real-world (like aetheism doesn`t mean exactly the same thing in Golarion as the real-world), but as the more mysterious creatures roaming an area: Goblins aren`t mysterious. That doesn`t imply that core Besitary creatures can`t already fill similar roles, it`s just part of the flavor that would go into the mix when writing up these type of creatures. And if ancient mythological creatures can get Bestiary analogs, why not these freaks? Again, it doesn`t have to carry 110% of the exact cultural role that these have in the real-non-magical-world, but that doesn`t mean there can`t be alot of carry-over, flavor-wise.
The more cryptids you could put in, the more I'd love it. I do wish, though, that the illustrations better reflect the reported appearance of certain creatures. For example, I really don't think I've ever seen a chupacabra rendered as a small blue dinosaur before.
And I know the Yeti has always had the cold touch ability (or heat draining) since the 1e days, but is that an actual reported ability of the creature? I've never seen such, if it is.
Now, having gotten my gripes out of the way, I would love to see the ropen (glowing flying reptiles from New Zealand)
http://www.cryptozoology.com/cryptids/ropen.php
The soucouyant (a monster from the West Indies)
http://listverse.com/2011/07/21/10-monsters-that-inspire-dread/
Ebu Gogo (small hominid from Indonesia)
http://listverse.com/2010/07/25/top-10-bizarre-cryptids/
Shadow Children
http://listverse.com/2010/07/25/top-10-bizarre-cryptids/
The Pongo
http://listverse.com/2010/07/25/top-10-bizarre-cryptids/
The Maryland Goatman
http://listverse.com/2010/07/25/top-10-bizarre-cryptids/
I apologize for all the urls. I don't know how to just make the name of the creature into a link. If someone could tell me how to do it, I'll post even more cryptid suggestions. And as you can see, most of these come from a single article on Listverse, which is a good centralized site to track down lists of creatures (and pretty much anything else).
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Creative Director
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Would folks be interested in such a book?I don't quite understand how the concept of "cryptids" works in a world of "actual" dragons and aboleth and such. When your world really does have things like yetis and giant sea monsters it seems to me ridiculous to have the concept of cryptids at all. I think this concept is way too modern and based on relatively modern scientific thought to fit into a fantasy themed RPG. Where would the skepticism come from? When you can summon an actual demon from the Abyss and speak to it why would someone doubt a "Chupacabra" exists? A coelacanth is not a "cyptid" when you have actual dinosaurs in many parts of the world.
This concept would fit more into an RPG set in the 1800 or 1900s and based on actual history, not in PF.
The first thing to realize is that while such monsters might be classified as cryptids in the real world... they're just monsters in Pathfinder. That's why when we stat them up in the game, we don't actually call them cryptids.
The idea of a cryptid is far from modern though. Things like dragons and mermaids and the kraken were the cryptids of the medieval era, after all.
Yes I would be interested in this book.
Also be interested in books like this one but for:
Fey
more Dragons
Angels
Azatas
Agathions
Qlippoths
Aeons
Proteons
Misfit monsters redeemed 2
etc....
Let me see... You've already got the Tatzelwurm somewhere around here, right?
Jade Regent would be a good spot for the Tsuchinoko if you have any open bestiary slots left.
More American folklore critters... like the gardinel! A house that eats people, was in one of the Silver John stories.
Swamp auger.
Rods, a.k.a. skyfish.
I'd much rather have cryptids and beasts from folklore than another book filled with monsters just made up whole-cloth (like proteons, for example. If there is a folkloric precedent for this creature, I couldn't find it.) Even the agathions and qlippoth bear little to no resemblance to the mythological creatures from which they are derived. I don't think any other major game company has ever done a book such as this before, and it would be great to be the first to do so.
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Creative Director
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I'd much rather have cryptids and beasts from folklore than another book filled with monsters just made up whole-cloth (like proteons, for example. If there is a folkloric precedent for this creature, I couldn't find it.) Even the agathions and qlippoth bear little to no resemblance to the mythological creatures from which they are derived. I don't think any other major game company has ever done a book such as this before, and it would be great to be the first to do so.
While there's no real world mythology on which proteans are based, their name is based on the word Proteus, and were we to do a book about proteans, that'd be one of several places we'd go to for further inspiration. Proteans are more based on the idea that if the multiverse is a living body, and if in that living body the existence of order is a disease, then proteans are the antibodies that go out and cure that disease.
But since we've already published an article about them (Pathfinder #22) that's about the same size as what a monster gets in a Revisited line, we're unlikely to include proteans in any upcoming revisited line as well.
Would folks be interested in such a book?
Yes...I would be interested in this.
Sasquatch is not really a monster, not dangerous enough
Sasquatch is not really a monster, not dangerous enoughI spent enough of my childhood terrified of sasquatch to know that this is a fundamentally flawed comment. ;-P
Sorry, but what made sasquatch scary in real life?
In the 70's (when I was a kid) Sasquatch was normally some sort of pseudo-superhero (Six Million Dollar Man or Bigfoot and Wildboy) not some nasty monster.
In the 80's we had Harry and the Hendersons who (one Robot Chicken Episode notwithstanding) seemed pretty nice.
And lately, he's just some big Beef-Jerky-Eating camper.
Never quite understood what made Sasquatch so facinating. Not that he might not be for you. But why did he scare you as a child?
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Creative Director
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Sorry, but what made sasquatch scary in real life?
In the 70's (when I was a kid) Sasquatch was normally some sort of pseudo-superhero (Six Million Dollar Man or Bigfoot and Wildboy) not some nasty monster.
In the 80's we had Harry and the Hendersons who (one Robot Chicken Episode notwithstanding) seemed pretty nice.
And lately, he's just some big Beef-Jerky-Eating camper.
Never quite understood what made Sasquatch so facinating. Not that he might not be for you. But why did he scare you as a child?
The same thing that would make seeing a gorilla looking through your window at night or running into a gorilla in the woods when you live in Northern California scary—the simple fact that it's a HUGE humanoid creature that, if it wanted to, could rip you limb from limb.
Combined with the fact that most of the people who see bigfoot report the experience as being incredibly frightening. A lot of them involve hearing horrific howls at night, or having things thrown at you, or in a few cases actual attacks. I read a LOT of bigfoot stuff as a kid, and saw movies like "In Search Of..." or "The Legend of Boggy Creek" (note: This is NOT the one that got onto MST3K!!) that portray sasquatch type creatures as being closer to wild animals than big cuddly dudes who might move in with John Lithgow. I grew up in the '70s too... I think I was just watching the exact opposite type of bigfoot stuff as you were, I guess.
Growing up in a region where sasquaqtch lives is a HUGE factor, though. But beyond that, I've just been interested in monsters of all sorts, and the closest thing the real world has to monsters are cryptids. So when you put those two together, a kid with an interest in monsters/cryptids can't NOT be interested in the cryptids supposedly living in his own back yard.
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Sorry, but what made sasquatch scary in real life?
In the 70's (when I was a kid) Sasquatch was normally some sort of pseudo-superhero (Six Million Dollar Man or Bigfoot and Wildboy) not some nasty monster.
In the 80's we had Harry and the Hendersons who (one Robot Chicken Episode notwithstanding) seemed pretty nice.
And lately, he's just some big Beef-Jerky-Eating camper.
Never quite understood what made Sasquatch so facinating. Not that he might not be for you. But why did he scare you as a child?
The same thing that would make seeing a gorilla looking through your window at night or running into a gorilla in the woods when you live in Northern California scary—the simple fact that it's a HUGE humanoid creature that, if it wanted to, could rip you limb from limb.
Combined with the fact that most of the people who see bigfoot report the experience as being incredibly frightening. A lot of them involve hearing horrific howls at night, or having things thrown at you, or in a few cases actual attacks. I read a LOT of bigfoot stuff as a kid, and saw movies like "In Search Of..." or "The Legend of Boggy Creek" (note: This is NOT the one that got onto MST3K!!) that portray sasquatch type creatures as being closer to wild animals than big cuddly dudes who might move in with John Lithgow. I grew up in the '70s too... I think I was just watching the exact opposite type of bigfoot stuff as you were, I guess.
Growing up in a region where sasquaqtch lives is a HUGE factor, though. But beyond that, I've just been interested in monsters of all sorts, and the closest thing the real world has to monsters are cryptids. So when you put those two together, a kid with an interest in monsters/cryptids can't NOT be interested in the cryptids supposedly living in his own back yard.
Grew up in the 70's so cal and hated camping = so +1000.
I still can scare the crap out of my older brother when discussing Bigfoot.Hell, I remember driving home after a game listening to Coast to Coast on the radio (while getting lost in downtown/south LA due to freeway closures) playing some Cryptid/Bigfoot howls,....yeah, that stuff will scare the crap out of you.
I would love to see this book, but I would also like to see some extra rules/tips on keeping cryptids secret, hard to find/trap and generally anomalous vs. other creatures.
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The ones that come to my mind include:Chupacabra
Death Worm
Mothman
Yeti (sasquatch is a different monster, and thus would be a different chapter)
Mokele-Mebembe
Sea Serpent
Water Orm
Sandpoint Devil
BunyipSo assuming that sometime soon we'll have bigfoot/sasquatch stats handy... that's 10 chapters right there.
What, no globster? ;-)
For reference, here is the original list James posted for this book.
I like the inclusion of the Bunyip on the new list and will not mourn the loss of the undead aquatic ooze that could have been the globster! I’d almost like you to cheat and put Yeti and Sasquatch under the same heading so that you could sneak one or two more in there, I would like to see something like the Thunderbird or a Black Dog or something similar.
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In Oklahoma, the 'mythical' beastie was some sort of panther. Officially, there are no big cats in that part of the country, but growing up there, hearing the blood-curdling screams at night, it was hard not to buy into it.
We had a panther here in Sydney too – there were numerous sightings of ‘the Penrith panther’, a big black cat (or sometimes dog) sighted all over western Sydney and the Blue Mountains. Probably just various large feral cats and stray dogs, but still, it’s nice to have a cryptid.
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Creative Director
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The ones that come to my mind include:Chupacabra
Death Worm
Mothman
Yeti (sasquatch is a different monster, and thus would be a different chapter)
Mokele-Mebembe
Sea Serpent
Water Orm
Sandpoint Devil
BunyipSo assuming that sometime soon we'll have bigfoot/sasquatch stats handy... that's 10 chapters right there.
What, no globster? ;-)
For reference, here is the original list James posted for this book.
I like the inclusion of the Bunyip on the new list and will not mourn the loss of the undead aquatic ooze that could have been the globster! I’d almost like you to cheat and put Yeti and Sasquatch under the same heading so that you could sneak one or two more in there, I would like to see something like the Thunderbird or a Black Dog or something similar.
I could see the globster getting on that list pretty easy.
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I could see the globster getting on that list pretty easy.
Hmmm, another hint of things to come ... ?
The problem (and potential!) with a globster as a monster is that we ‘know’ (or do we?) that they are the partially decomposed remains of something else ... so you either go the route of making the globster as it appears the monster (the undead aquatic ooze type thing maybe) which is kinda cool but probably doesn’t have that much connection to the real world phenomena, or you decide that the globster is the remains of something else and stat up what that something else is ... which defeats the purpose to some extent IMO.
Anyway, those are just my musings, I have supreme confidence that nothing in this potential book will be mishandled with Doctor Jacobs at the helm.
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Creative Director
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I could see the globster getting on that list pretty easy.Hmmm, another hint of things to come ... ?
The problem (and potential!) with a globster as a monster is that we ‘know’ (or do we?) that they are the partially decomposed remains of something else ... so you either go the route of making the globster as it appears the monster (the undead aquatic ooze type thing maybe) which is kinda cool but probably doesn’t have that much connection to the real world phenomena, or you decide that the globster is the remains of something else and stat up what that something else is ... which defeats the purpose to some extent IMO.
Anyway, those are just my musings, I have supreme confidence that nothing in this potential book will be mishandled with Doctor Jacobs at the helm.
We also "know" that...
1) Alien abductions are nothing more than night terrors...
2) The Patterson footage and the famous Loch Ness monster photo are hoaxes...
3) Those big bones in the earth aren't from thunder beasts...
4) Mammoth skulls aren't the skulls of cyclopes...
And so much more, but that doesn't mean those things are any less fun to write about!
And in any case, even if a globster IS nothing more than a big blob of flesh... they're still gross, and they're still perhaps from something we haven't seen before.
2) The Patterson footage and the famous Loch Ness monster photo are hoaxes...
Ok...I remeber reading someplace that the famouse death bed confession of the Loch ness monster included material used for the 'model' that was not invent till something like 20 years after the photo was revealed....though that might have been misinfomation.
But as far as I know not only has the Patterson film not been revealed to be a hoax....most of the analyisis has concluded it is not a hoax...or at least one not detectable as of yet. Did I miss something?