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Northern Crown, an older 3pp d20 supplement, might come in handy. I used it for planning a "historical" pirates campaign. It describes a circa 1692 magical counterpart to our world (including close to RW cultures and geography, but it does have a bestiary).
Also out there, but not d20/PF, is Witch Hunter, which is a darker take on the same concept.
Colonial Gothic, I think, has a d20 version.
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Don't forget that Arcadian deities could correspond to Tien deities, too—Sun Wukong (Animal, Chaos, Liberation, Travel, Trickery), might be a good match for Coyote, and Hei Feng (Domains: Air, Chaos, Destruction, Water, Weather) could correspond to Guabancex (same domains but different gender, which may matter for some deities more than others).
Odraude, I did a fast run through of the B3 and came up with:
Adlets (well, more Inuit but)
Hodag (more US than native, and fake, but regionally yes)
Kamadan
Pukwudgis
Sasquatch
Tetzlwyrm?
TzitzimitlThe rest seemed very Slavic, Japanese or Polynesian.
I went fast, probably missed something.
Yeah, there's a lot more. Kamadan is kind of an original monster and the Tatzlwyrm is actually from the Alps and Austria. So far, the creatures from the tribes and peoples of the Americas (both old and new) include:
Adlets (Inuit)
Ahuizotl (Aztec)
Akhlut (Inuit)
Baykok (Ojibwe)
Carbuncle (From Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges. Said to be found in Latin America)
Guecubu and Huecuva (Both based on alternate spellings of Wekufe, from the Mapuche)
Hodag (USA Folklore)
Pukwudgie (Wampanoag)
Sasquatch (USA Folklore and various tribes in the West Coast)
Tupilaq (Inuit)
Tzitzimitl (Aztec)
I believe that covers it in the Bestiary 3. Of course, there's always room for more :)
Don't forget that Arcadian deities could correspond to Tien deities, too—Sun Wukong (Animal, Chaos, Liberation, Travel, Trickery), might be a good match for Coyote, and Hei Feng (Domains: Air, Chaos, Destruction, Water, Weather) could correspond to Guabancex (same domains but different gender, which may matter for some deities more than others).
Ah, I didn't realize they had the same domains. Interesting. Admittedly when I was first writing up the domains, I wasn't sure about destruction. But, I figured hurricanes are heavily linked to that in the Caribbean so I should throw it in. Although I did think about putting Sun instead. But yeah, interesting thoughts to consider.
The Vargouille resembles the Chonchon (a Mapuche monster) in significant ways...
There's another creature from Native North American mythology that it resembles, but I'll have to check my notes at home (can't recall it offhand).
Well... Chonchons are already statted up in Pathfinder.
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I'd probably steer clear of having too much Inuit-inspired stuff in the Arcadian north, since the native cultures and monsters of the Crown of the World seem to be kind of all about that. Of course, there's no reason that they couldn't have a presence on both continents.
Frerezar's point about Peru is well made; Andean civilization has deep, deep roots and the Inca didn't appear until a few centuries before the arrival of Europeans.
The "Norte Chico Civilization" represents the earliest known city-building people in the Americas, appearing in the archaeological record around the 30th century BC. They seem to have dominated a network of inland trading routes, growing a local species of cotton as a cash crop, but also relied heavily on fishing and even hunted whales.
They seem to have been relatively peaceful, or at least to have lacked any powerful enemies, as no defensive buildings or unambiguous signs of violence have been found at Norte Chico sites. Their society appears to have been organized around their religion, which involved pyramid-like platform mounds and a "leering figure with a hood and fangs" that archaeologists call the "Staff God." Oddly, however, they don't seem to have created much of any visual art, or else no such art has survived to the present. The aridity of the region has preserved some cotton bags, nets, and quipu, however, as well as a number of flutes carved from pelican bone.
The Staff God seems to have remained a major deity in the region cor centuries, but almost nothing is known about it. The figure is usually depicted holding a staff in each hand, and often has snakes on its head or clothing. The Inca period creator-deity Viracocha, whose name means either "sea foam" or "sea of fat," may have represented the final form of the Staff God archetype. Some myths describe him as a "pilgrim preacher of knowledge" who ultimately disappeared over the sea, and some have compared him to the Mayan Kukulkan or the Aztec Quetzalcoatl.
*Lots* of potential inspiration there, but on the religious front an Arcadian deity similar to Viracocha/Staff God could be interesting. Just going off of his wikipedia article, he could be Neutral Good, with the Good, Knowledge, Sun, Travel, and Weather domains, and the quarterstaff as his favored weapon.
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Sounds kinda like Jatembe, although the sea stuff is unique...
The Iroquois and a lot of the Lakes nations had the variously named Flying Heads of the Forest, which were generally just called the flying heads.
Ah! Beat me to it. The Iroquois Flying Heads are indeed what I was thinking of.
Never heard of the False Face Society. What are they?
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Never heard of the False Face Society. What are they?
They are an Iroquois secret medicine society. (Wikipedia)
They still exist; the wearers of the masks embody ancestral and friendly spirits who drive away misfortune, disease, and evil spirits. The Haudenosaunee are fiercely protective of the tradition and European-American collection of the masks and the secrets of the group is seen as offensive. But a fictional variation with different spirits, masks, and altered activities might not be so.Interestingly, the False Face society was invoked against owl spirits and snake spirits.
Interesting. That sounds really cool actually. Could definitely see an entire society ruled by these masked shamans (druids) from behind the scenes.
Why not having one local humans civilasation riding, living and fighting together with Centaurs?
Throwing out there something I did for my own home Golarion game. A player wanted to be an enslaved gnome taken from Arcadia by Chelish colonists/slavers. So together we whipped up a southern Arcadian culture of forest-dwelling gnome tribes that worshipped entirely fictitious deities that were actually based on refugee heroes from Azlant that came west after Earthfall. The gnomes had a strong alchemy tradition from their ancient Azlanti patrons but cobbled it into their largely rural lifestyle.
An offshoot of their culture venerate another false deity, "The Foreigner" who is an embodiment of everything negative more recent colonists have brought over in their eyes: Gold, the idea of nobility/titles, metal weapons and armor, firearms, etc. This culture of gnomes became somewhat Mayan in terms of human sacrifice/building cities/etc and welcomed over foreign Hellknights who aided in "civilizing" them.
The character in question is a dali-lama style figure among the tribal people (a bleachling; the kind that are born that way mentioned in Gnomes of Golarion). Basically to this culture any gnome born a bleachling is "pure" and not tainted by the world around them and capable of being a host for this particular person's spirit. All actually just superstitious hogwash, but a fun concept to play with. They see the bleaching effect that some gnomes suffer as a karmic struggle towards purity, sort of like ritual starvation. Gnomes that die of the bleaching are believed to advance on to an enlightened life, though they understand not everyone wishes for that same enlightened path.
So, I'm just rambling here now.
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I'd probably steer clear of having too much Inuit-inspired stuff in the Arcadian north, since the native cultures and monsters of the Crown of the World seem to be kind of all about that. Of course, there's no reason that they couldn't have a presence on both continents.
Frerezar's point about Peru is well made; Andean civilization has deep, deep roots and the Inca didn't appear until a few centuries before the arrival of Europeans.
The "Norte Chico Civilization" represents the earliest known city-building people in the Americas, appearing in the archaeological record around the 30th century BC. They seem to have dominated a network of inland trading routes, growing a local species of cotton as a cash crop, but also relied heavily on fishing and even hunted whales.
They seem to have been relatively peaceful, or at least to have lacked any powerful enemies, as no defensive buildings or unambiguous signs of violence have been found at Norte Chico sites. Their society appears to have been organized around their religion, which involved pyramid-like platform mounds and a "leering figure with a hood and fangs" that archaeologists call the "Staff God." Oddly, however, they don't seem to have created much of any visual art, or else no such art has survived to the present. The aridity of the region has preserved some cotton bags, nets, and quipu, however, as well as a number of flutes carved from pelican bone.
The Staff God seems to have remained a major deity in the region cor centuries, but almost nothing is known about it. The figure is usually depicted holding a staff in each hand, and often has snakes on its head or clothing. The Inca period creator-deity Viracocha, whose name means either "sea foam" or "sea of fat," may have represented the final form of the Staff God archetype. Some myths describe him as a "pilgrim preacher of knowledge" who ultimately disappeared over the sea, and some have compared him to the Mayan Kukulkan or the Aztec Quetzalcoatl.
*Lots* of potential inspiration there, but...
Interesting thing about Wiraqucha is that on his incan incarnation is believed to be an attempt to subjugate philosophically the different detities of vanquished cultures. The full name of the deity is Taitaintiwirakuchaipachacamakon, which is an amalgam of many other revered gods through he Andes. He was only worshiped by an iluminated elite during the incan empire during their first attempt at unifying the andean cosmology under the banner of a monotheistic entity (meant to replace the cult of the sun and the earth as the main patrons).
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Interesting; sounds a little like what Akenaten tried to do in Egypt with the omnipotent Aten, or what the Roman emperor Aurelian might have hoped to accomplish by promoting "Sol Invictus" as the patron of the empire as a whole. Somehow religious "reform" movements like that never seem to work out when they're imposed from the top down.
Departing from real-world cultures for the time being, a bit of historical fantasy that I find amusing as a Califonian is the origin of my state's name. The word "California" was first used in around 1510 in a popular chivalric romance called Las Sergas de Esplandian by Spanish author Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo. It was the name of a wild and craggy island somewhere east of Asia inhabited solely by beautiful black-skinned warrior-women "robust of body with strong passionate hearts and great virtue" and ruled by the ambitious and powerful queen Califia.
The pagan Californians were allies of the Moslems and sailed to war against the Christians of Constantinople equiped with golden armor and weapons and accompanied by a flock of trained griffons. Califia in particular was supposed to be of tremendous stature and a fearsome fighter, but in the end she is defeated in a duel with a Christian king, makes peace with the Europeans, converts to Christianity, and marries a handsome knight before returning to her island kingdom.
Obviously, this story would require some adaptation if you wanted to transplant it into Golarion, and it has some pretty obviously misogynistic and ethnocentric themes. Still, I could totally see something like the Island of California fitting right in with places like Irrisen and Numeria, and I think it would be cool to include some stuff inspired by the fantasies of the various peoples on whom much of the culture of the Inner Sea Region is based.
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*The Syrinx live there. In case you don't know, the Syrinx are a mostly-Lawful Evil race of owl people who want to bring peace to the world by enslaving basically all other sentient beings. They appear to have kept, and possibly created, the Stryx (a group of whom live in the mountains of western Cheliax) as a servitor race, and they may have armies of the guys in their homeland.
Running with the idea of flying evil people, cliff cities build under overhangs, to make them invisible from the air (and immune to attack from directly overhead) such as the Anasazi supposedly built might be common in areas close to Syrinx-dominated lands. Pueblo-style underground rooms might also be in vogue, not merely to stay cool out of the desert sun, but because the night sky holds flying predators / slavers / raiders.
And yeah, less 'noble savages,' or 'they'd be dirty savages if not uplifted by those superior white Azlanti folk.' It'd be a nice twist if their encounters with Avistani Ulfen didn't advance *their* levels of culture or technology, but if the Ulfen instead *learned some tricks from them.*
And wow, if there was ever a place for a nation of humans who openly worship (or, at least, propitiate, with massive bloody heart-ripping ceremonies) the Great Old Ones, it would be a fantasy analogue of the Aztecs...
And those Nazca lines? Not to summon things.
Option 1;
Warding glyphs, warning intelligences vast, cool and unsympathetic, that look upon Golarion with envious eyes, to stay the hell away.
Option 2;
Also warding glyphs, but to keep things imprisoned beneath them from bursting free.
Option 3;
Yes, to all. Including the 'to summon things' option, as some (foolish?) spellcasters draw upon the power of the ancient glyphs to power their workings or call forth lesser beings, unaware (or uncaring) that they weaken the glyphs with each such working, causing that which rests unquietly beneath to stir, or that which bides its time above to wet its lips in anticipation of the glyphs failure and it's time to descend and feast.
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Departing from real-world cultures for the time being, a bit of historical fantasy that I find amusing as a Califonian is the origin of my state's name. The word "California" was first used in around 1510 in a popular chivalric romance called Las Sergas de Esplandian by Spanish author Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo. It was the name of a wild and craggy island somewhere east of Asia inhabited solely by beautiful black-skinned warrior-women "robust of body with strong passionate hearts and great virtue" and ruled by the ambitious and powerful queen Califia.
I love that story, and would skip the ending about her being defeated and converting and being married off, and leave her as the leader of a land of Mwangi-descended 'amazons' who ride griffons into battle. Awesome visual, that.
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Contributor
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Departing from real-world cultures for the time being, a bit of historical fantasy that I find amusing as a Califonian is the origin of my state's name. The word "California" was first used in around 1510 in a popular chivalric romance called Las Sergas de Esplandian by Spanish author Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo. It was the name of a wild and craggy island somewhere east of Asia inhabited solely by beautiful black-skinned warrior-women "robust of body with strong passionate hearts and great virtue" and ruled by the ambitious and powerful queen Califia.I love that story, and would skip the ending about her being defeated and converting and being married off, and leave her as the leader of a land of Mwangi-descended 'amazons' who ride griffons into battle. Awesome visual, that.
It is cool. California in Las Sergas may be derived in turn (since the Chansons informed Spanish chivalric literature - the stuff satirized in Quixote) from Califerne in the Chanson de Roland, which is transparently derived from "Caliph" - i.e., the land of the Caliph, at that time either Cairo or Baghdad.
For some reason, the size of North America was so exaggerated in early charts that California (often an island) was close to Japan. In Boiardo's and Ariosto's poems the situation of Morgan's island of Avalon also migrates to the Pacific, hence the North Pacific becomes an archipelago of mythical, exotic islands from Western legend...|
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In Boiardo's and Ariosto's poems the situation of Morgan's island of Avalon also migrates to the Pacific, hence the North Pacific becomes an archipelago of mythical, exotic islands from Western legend...
Yeah, as the map gets filled in, the 'Here there be dragons' inscription keeps getting pushed back and pushed back until there's no longer a place for it. Such it is with all those places 'over the horizon' or 'just out of reach' like Avalon.
There better be a lost city of gold and a fountain of youth, is all I'm sayin'... :)
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It's been done before, but I've always found the idea of a place you can only find when you're lost kind of charming. Maybe you could have some kind of artifact or mythic-level illusion effect that conceals one of these magical islands from anyone who's looking for it, but not from someone who stumbles across it by accident. It could be a flaw in the magic, but an interesting question would be why some powerful magical being would be trying to specifically attract lost sailors...
Grippli should be a fairly common race; the Pathfinder interpretation appears to be based on South American poison-arrow tree frogs.
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It's been done before, but I've always found the idea of a place you can only find when you're lost kind of charming. Maybe you could have some kind of artifact or mythic-level illusion effect that conceals one of these magical islands from anyone who's looking for it, but not from someone who stumbles across it by accident. It could be a flaw in the magic, but an interesting question would be why some powerful magical being would be trying to specifically attract lost sailors...
Would be great for a certain triangle of islands... ;)
Incidentally, I was in D.C. and visited the Native American museum they have down there. I think you could get a lot of great ideas for creatures from some of the masks and such used in ceremonial dances.
Little bump. Sorry if I've been quiet here of late. I've been making some monsters based off of Native American legends here and there. I'll post up one tomorrow. In the meantime, a guy over at the Ask James Jacobs Anything had a cool idea to use. The Alebrije would be awesome for constructs.
Animated Objects?
I could see it as its own construct that does something, as they are full of inspiration, color, and culture. I think we can think of something cool inspired by them. Let's see.
According to the wiki article, they were created from Pedro Linares's dreams when he was ill. So perhaps there can be a connection between an alebrije and dreams. Like, they are protectors of the ill and their dreams from the predations of night hags and animate dreams. Maybe even have the option to make them a familiar. I think there's a lot we could do with them though.
Hmm... Maybe make them similar to the Aballonians from Distant Worlds? Each can have different combinations of abilities. So they are unique Constructs but can potentially get Animated Object Upgrades.
I could see the option for Construction Points perhaps. I'm actually brainstorming some dream abilities for them. Though that'll have to wait till when I wake up. Time to leave work and head to bed.
So I've started stating up some creatures from Native American folklore up into our own little Bestiary. Here's the first, the hupia. You can also access the bestiary listing from the document in the first post. I plan on updating it with everyone's monsters and I even will contribute more. If you guys have any cool ideas for more monsters, either from folklore or completely original, lay them on me! I could use the monster-making practice! Hope you all enjoy and tell me which one to do next.
Also if someone wants to do art, that'd be cool. I'll try, but I can't promise it'll be awesome.
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Thoughts on alebrijes - The little psychedelic wooden Mexican statues are very cool. I have several from various trips to Oaxaca. The last time I went, however, they were trending less payote-inspired psychedelia and more technicolor cute. The big ones in Mexico City are paper mache. Different teams make big models and parade them around the city, kind of like Mardi Gras floats and crews. I could see either of these as being animated objects in an Acadian culture, and the idea of some fevered dream connection works especially well with the little wooden ones. Finally, the translation of "alebrije" is "jabberwocky," so you could also make a nice connection between either the little or the big ones and the First World tarn itself - maybe they were first built as homages to the real jabberwocky after a particularly destructive visit to Arcadia.
Interesting. I couldn't find a definitive translation for the word, but it would be cool tying them to the First World or Dimension of Dreams or something. I'll definitely ponder it a bit.
Hopefully we can get some more ideas here.
Actually tinkering with a nahual template. Will be a bit since it's a little more complicated than a normal monster. Wasn't sure if nahual should be an archetype or a template. Was going to do an archetype but I couldn't decide on which class it should be for, the witch or the druid. So I decided on a template with some druid and witch flavors to represent both the older view of the nahual and the more modern evil connotations of the nagual.
I think you can make Arcadia interesting, novel, and respectful of NA cultures without undertaking a doctoral dissertation. Look at Tian Xia's treatment compared to previous attempts at East Asian DnD setting. Presumably the staff didn't extensively interview Koreans, Cambodians, etc when designing the setting.
I do agree it'd be nice for Paizo to definitely do a bit of research on it. It may be a bit hard though, since many tribes aren't very willing to part with some of their stories. I consider myself lucky that my grandfather knows as much about Taino culture as he does.
As for owls, most I know Taino-wise is the chickcharney, which is a land owl that gives people bad luck. But, I'm actually not sure if that's Taino folklore or more modern Caribbean folklore.
Anyways, good to see more people posting. Let's keep this thread rocking!
As for owls, most I know Taino-wise is the chickcharney, which is a land owl that gives people bad luck. But, I'm actually not sure if that's Taino folklore or more modern Caribbean folklore.
It's in Isles of the Shackles, so there's another predone.
Yeah I saw that a bit ago when I started looking at what creatures to populate my home setting. They also have the soucouyant and lusca, which I thought were cool.
Just a bit of initial brain storming/idea pitching:
Perhaps the Azlanti that lived in arcadia were not the same Azlanti from the inner sea region (I'll think of a name for them later). Perhaps they were a renegade sect that were in a kind of cold war with the Azlanti. During their cold war arms race they created several "experiments" such as geneticly (magically) engineered races designed to fight their wars for them. IE lizardfolk, beastmen...or any thing else.
Then the earthfall happened and like their azlanti cousins they were wiped out. But their creations, which were designed to survive harsh conditions, lived on and created their own cultures and socities some hostile and some peaceful (perhaps a empire of lizard folk that mirrors the Aztecs/Mayans similar to warhammer fantasy)
Then you have the PCs show up build a colony, set up relations with the "strange" locals, or just raid the "azlanti" ruins for treasure. Sounds like tons of fun.
Lizardmen in canon seem to predate human civilization though, and personally I would prefer they avoid doing something that similar to Warhammer.
For the monster category, I nominate the Raven Mocker
Raven Mocker would be more in-line with a Sub-Race for the Syrinx(Spelling?).
Just a bit of initial brain storming/idea pitching:
Perhaps the Azlanti that lived in arcadia were not the same Azlanti from the inner sea region (I'll think of a name for them later). Perhaps they were a renegade sect that were in a kind of cold war with the Azlanti. During their cold war arms race they created several "experiments" such as geneticly (magically) engineered races designed to fight their wars for them. IE lizardfolk, beastmen...or any thing else.
Then the earthfall happened and like their azlanti cousins they were wiped out. But their creations, which were designed to survive harsh conditions, lived on and created their own cultures and socities some hostile and some peaceful (perhaps a empire of lizard folk that mirrors the Aztecs/Mayans similar to warhammer fantasy)
Then you have the PCs show up build a colony, set up relations with the "strange" locals, or just raid the "azlanti" ruins for treasure. Sounds like tons of fun.
Idk, it's cool but we kind of already have the renegade Azlanti Empire done with Thassilon in Varisia.
I think you could do the Raven Mocker as an undead creature. Honestly in most folklore, the line between witch/undead is pretty thin, and the Raven Mocker has already appeared in tons of fiction as a spirit or demon
MMC has a point. Look at creatures like the nahual (both modern and pre-Columbian) and the soucouyant, which can blur the lines between witches and monsters.
Raven Mocker sounds awesome though. I might jump on making that after I finally finish the nahual template I'm working on.
Half-Undead Race or even a Dhampyr-Style Race?
But an Intelligent Undead would be nice as well.
You know... Soucouyant and Raven Mocker would be better fitting as Templates...