Monster Core Speculation: Who's In, Who's Out?


Pathfinder Second Edition General Discussion

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

We know that purely OGL monsters will no longer be in Pathfinder products. Some, like the drow and the otyughs, will be basically retconned out because they're too strongly associated with D&D to be brought into compliance. Others, like the chromatic and metallic dragons, will be retired until such time (if ever) as they can be sufficiently differentiated from their OGL origin. Still others will be reworked to be ORC compliant by altering them to better reflect their mythological origins. This group includes genies, hags, and imps. Others are being changed/retconned to better fit in with Golarion as it is becoming. The Hryngar (formerly known as duergar) and Kholo (formerly known as gnolls) are in this group. Purely Paizo creations like Treerazer and the Sandpoint Devil are definitely in, as are those monsters who have already been significantly changed by Paizo (Alghollthus, formerly aboleths). So: who's in and who's out?

Please feel free to give your opinions on what you expect. For example: while I expect that most of the really prominent celestials and fiends won't make the cut, we will have the Succubus in some fashion because it's basically taken from folklore. The Fire Demon and the Tyrant Devil will probably also appear at some point, but not in forms we currently recognize as balors and pit fiends (somewhat ironic, considering the balor's origin in D&D). We're going to lose the solar and the planetar, but we will likely get the Seraphim and Cherubim in their places, and I don't know whether I want them to be humanoid or weird (or maybe they'll have alternate forms; I'd be happy with that).


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Frankly, the fact that nobody has made an "I'm done with you Paizo, no thanks for BETRAYING MY FEELINGS" thread over the fact that flumphs are likely going to fade into oblivion kind of concerns me. Are you OK, nerds?


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Pathfinder flumphs do have distinct lore compared to dnd ones, so i can see them getting a rename and redesign and remaining that way.


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Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:
Frankly, the fact that nobody has made an "I'm done with you Paizo, no thanks for BETRAYING MY FEELINGS" thread over the fact that flumphs are likely going to fade into oblivion kind of concerns me. Are you OK, nerds?

I’M NOT OK!!!


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I think gugs seem safe since they originated in Lovecraft and not D&D itself, which I am pretty happy about. I like those big terrible monsters that are also sweet parents.

Radiant Oath

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Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:
Frankly, the fact that nobody has made an "I'm done with you Paizo, no thanks for BETRAYING MY FEELINGS" thread over the fact that flumphs are likely going to fade into oblivion kind of concerns me. Are you OK, nerds?

I mean, I kind of made my peace with that a while back: flumphs never made the kind of splash in Pathfinder beasties like otyughs and mimics did (unless there was some prominent flumph NPC in PFS I never found out about). They're much easier to ignore going forward than the drow, while D&D leaned into them more in terms of merchandising with flumph figurines and plushies.

I'll miss them, of course, but as far as I know, they never appeared outside their Bestiary entries and Misfit Monsters Redeemed, so frankly they were barely here in the first place...


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Rakshasas have been confirmed to be sticking around (even if they might not be a Monster Core 1 reprint), so my bonnet is bee-free. They're one of my personal faves, even if it's just for bits of lore that don't actually come into focus.

The reworked categories of monsters have all hit the spot for me. Hag rework leans more into fairy tale stuff, and I like that we're going to have a hag with Gingerbread Witch vibes. That just has more pizazz than "sea hag" or "blood hag". Hopefully it'll have some fun spillover to Changeling.

The new dragons seem very cool. I know we had stuff like planar dragons in PF1, but the new ones are getting a ton of design work put into them that I love.

The hryngar rework from duergar is chef kiss. Ran into them once in a campaign, and their whole deal was almost painfully generic. They locked people up and made them work. Evil MLM culture? That I can do something with.

Absolutely thrilled to have kholo move out from the shadow of litigation that gnolls had hanging over them.

As for what's sticking around and changing... I've got no problem with getting a fresh batch of outsiders, or some renames, since I'm pretty sure all the big categories that made it to PF2 get to stick around. (Notable exception being Inevitables, which had the writing on the wall ever since their demotion.) I hope that we get a new round of aberrations. Those had a lot of things inherited from D&D, and I'd really like to see Pathfinder doing some more of their own.


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I'm super sad that we're losing phase spiders. They've always been a huge favorite of mine. That said, web lurkers will likely be salvageable in some form. Maybe they'll do more with them here to distinguish them--it would be cool to see more kinds of web lurkers to reflect terrains, spider types and different roles.

Wayfinders

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I'm very curious what the fate of the owlbears will be (they are moderately iconic to D&D at this point, and even a bit of a namesake for the uncommonly-used subgenre term "owlbear fantasy" that games like D&D and Patfinder represent) - I suppose another kind of dangerous hybrid forest animal is an obvious swap, though I hope it's more than "instead of owl-bears, it's hawk-wolves now!".


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Evan Tarlton wrote:


Please feel free to give your opinions on what you expect. For example: while I expect that most of the really prominent celestials and fiends won't make the cut, we will have the Succubus in some fashion because it's basically taken from folklore. The Fire Demon and the Tyrant Devil will probably also appear at some point, but not in forms we currently recognize as balors and pit fiends (somewhat ironic, considering the balor's origin in D&D). We're going to lose the solar and the planetar, but we will likely get the Seraphim and Cherubim in their places, and I don't know whether I want them to be humanoid or weird (or maybe they'll have alternate forms; I'd be happy with that).

I think I have a vague recollection that Solar and Planetars are from New Age occult belief. At the very least, Theosophy has a rank of celestial being called Planetary spirits.

I wonder what changes are going to be made to Kobolds. While Paizo has completely redesigned the appearance, a lot of the personality plus there relationship to dragons is a straight DnD invention. In folklore, Kobolds are pretty generic mine spirits or house spirits, and certainly don't have any draconic traits.

Radiant Oath

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I think in the Ancestry Guide they seeded lore that suggests the draconic aspect of kobolds is, more or less, artificial: it was introduced into them by the Vault Keepers of Orv, somehow infusing some of their pech creations with dragon blood, similar to the implications made about the Qunari in Dragon Age: Inquisition.

If I'm remembering that correctly, it wouldn't surprise me if they focus more on that going forward: having the kobolds become more in touch with their "earthy" side and maybe forming stronger bonds with their pech cousins. A kind of "We don't need to be dragons! We're US!" mentality.


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A totally left-field call would be to make kobolds more elemental/fey in origin. They're not dragonkin, they're embodiments of the dangers of mining under poor conditions: fire (explosions), poison (gases), cold (frostbite due to being worked too hard), electricity ("miners" scrapping old tech ruins; could be a Numerian-centered variant), acid (acid mine drainage; yes, I'm reaching). They could add some for collapses, coal dust (a choking/obscuring breath weapon), drowning, and/or suffocation. Kobolds are drawn to dragons because a dragon is the ultimate mining hazard: "Oops, we mined into a dragon's lair."

They could keep their current design, and you could add a Draconian versatile heritage to allow players to patch over their old kobold concepts.

This won't happen, but it would be pretty cool. I would be unbelievably excited if they did this.


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”It’s you who’s out, Gobby. Out of your mind!”

Liberty's Edge

No more Worm that walks. Sad.

I still hope we can get a humanoid swarm ancestry some day.

Radiant Oath

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keftiu wrote:
”It’s you who’s out, Gobby. Out of your mind!”

"You're too late, Anadi-Man! Flayleaf has been legalized!"


The Raven Black wrote:

No more Worm that walks. Sad.

I still hope we can get a humanoid swarm ancestry some day.

My hope is that worms that walk will stay in the game, but be renamed. IIRC the Worm that Walks is a singular entity in D&D, rather than a magical process that a spellcaster can undergo in general, so that gives me some hope.

I'm pretty worried about the outsiders, mostly. I suspect a lot of them are going to have to go, or be reworked or renamed. My hope is that doing so will give the outsider families more of an identity, like what Paizo is doing with other monsters.

I'm also guessing we'll be losing some of the classic dungeon fodder monsters too, like rust monsters, gelatinous cubes, and possibly mimics.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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One of the kinda weird things about the worm that walks is that it's something that got into the OGL via Epic Level Handbook's SRD entry, but got into the Epic Level Handbook from the d20 version of Call of Cthulhu that WotC published early on under a license with Chaosium.

AKA: The Worm that Walks is from Chaosium, inspired by a quote from a Lovecraft story.

The Worm that Walks doesn't appear in Lovecraft's stories as a human made of worms, but is implied that worms who eat a wizard's dead body might inherit some of that wizard's magic and ore; an idea Sandy Petersen ran with in the first Call of Cthulhu campaign, "Shadows of Yog-Sothoth."

In that adventure, there were two things–a Crawling One (which was a wizard made up of a bunch of worms) and the Worm that Walks (which was a worm-eaten wizard zombie). I'm not sure why the folks at WotC decided to convert the Call of Cthulhu Crawling One but instead call it a Worm that Walks, when the Worm that Walks is more like a soggy lich type thing, but in any event, the result is that the OGL "worm person" is a "Worm that Walks."

I'm not sure what the plans are going forward yet for this creature, but I'm of the opinion that we could keep it in our game as-is and call it a Swarm that Walks... which is more akin to how we've been using it. A Swarm that Walks could be made up of worms, ants, crabs, flies, or whatever, with the basic idea of a bunch of tiny vermin eating a spellcaster and taking that spellcaster's soul and power into themselves to become an amalgamation type thing is, I believe, fine for us to keep in the ORC version of the game.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Captain Morgan wrote:
I think gugs seem safe since they originated in Lovecraft and not D&D itself, which I am pretty happy about. I like those big terrible monsters that are also sweet parents.

Gugs are 100% safe. They're in the public domain, courtesy of "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath" (Which, as an aside, is also pretty much where the D&D and Pathfinder versions of the ghoul and ghast come from.)


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James Jacobs wrote:
Captain Morgan wrote:
I think gugs seem safe since they originated in Lovecraft and not D&D itself, which I am pretty happy about. I like those big terrible monsters that are also sweet parents.
Gugs are 100% safe. They're in the public domain, courtesy of "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath" (Which, as an aside, is also pretty much where the D&D and Pathfinder versions of the ghoul and ghast come from.)

Unexpected side benefit of everything going on is getting to learn the origin of a lot of monsters that I never thought about too much.

(Also, thanks for a great PaizoCon!)


Evan Tarlton wrote:
The Fire Demon and the Tyrant Devil will probably also appear at some point, but not in forms we currently recognize as balors and pit fiends (somewhat ironic, considering the balor's origin in D&D).

Balor is from Irish mythology, and other than being one particular demon (or demon like creature) instead of a type of demon, is prey much the same, so they are probably fine.


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Balor from DnD is pretty much a "in name only" adaptation of the mythology Balor. I think they just looked for a evil monster with a similar name to swap in for Balrog.

The "real" Balor was a deformed Formorian giant with an enlarged eye that if opened (he needed minions to actually lift the eyelid up), it would generate a destructive beam of energy destroying everything in front of it.


MMCJawa wrote:


The "real" Balor was a deformed Formorian giant with an enlarged eye that if opened (he needed minions to actually lift the eyelid up), it would generate a destructive beam of energy destroying everything in front of it.

Wait, really? They should totally change it to that, then. Sounds awesome.


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Another monster I just realized we will probably lose is the demilich, at least as it stands now. Liches pop up all over the place but the only place I recall ever seeing a demilich was in D&D.

Silver Crusade

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Perpdepog wrote:
Another monster I just realized we will probably lose is the demilich, at least as it stands now. Liches pop up all over the place but the only place I recall ever seeing a demilich was in D&D.

Eh, those were rare enough that "lich that decayed/went supernova and now there's not much physical left to them" can still show up as unique creatures.


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The changeling is being remastered in order to reflect the new hags. We are also getting a remastered dhampir. That's a strong indication that the vampire is getting a remaster.

Silver Crusade

Evan Tarlton wrote:
The changeling is being remastered in order to reflect the new hags. We are also getting a remastered dhampir. That's a strong indication that the vampire is getting a remaster.

Annis Hag should be okay since that's from folklore, I believe?

Very curious what Vampire stuff would need an overhaul.


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Rysky wrote:
Evan Tarlton wrote:
The changeling is being remastered in order to reflect the new hags. We are also getting a remastered dhampir. That's a strong indication that the vampire is getting a remaster.

Annis Hag should be okay since that's from folklore, I believe?

Very curious what Vampire stuff would need an overhaul.

Anything that had a thematic link or appearance to Strahd/Ravenloft would definitely need a rework.


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I'm really excited for the new hags. More fairy taleish hags sound fantastic, but I also hope we get more visual diversity from them in the future; blood hags are really cool! "Pretty" hags are just as much a staple of the genre as "ugly" ones. Give us the problematic hot girls, Paizo. The people demand it. It's me. I'm the people.


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Rysky wrote:
Evan Tarlton wrote:
The changeling is being remastered in order to reflect the new hags. We are also getting a remastered dhampir. That's a strong indication that the vampire is getting a remaster.

Annis Hag should be okay since that's from folklore, I believe?

Very curious what Vampire stuff would need an overhaul.

I'm wondering that myself. I doubt that it's for OGL reasons, because Pathfinder's Moroi Vampire clearly draws from the same sources as the OGL vampire, not from that vampire itself. However, the Moroi is a hodgepodge of vampire traits from various legends, so maybe they are reworking it to reflect just one.


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Wei Ji the Learner wrote:
Anything that had a thematic link or appearance to Strahd/Ravenloft would definitely need a rework.

Wasn't Strahd literally just "Discount Dracula"?

But Dracula is literally in the public domain now, so the Count himself can show up on Golarion.


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Perpdepog wrote:
Another monster I just realized we will probably lose is the demilich, at least as it stands now. Liches pop up all over the place but the only place I recall ever seeing a demilich was in D&D.

It's (the look at least) actually based on a Ffahrd and the Grey Mouser/Fritz Leiber story, so... maybe OK?


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Also the thematics of the two demiliches are kind of different--I don't know if that would be enough, but the D&D demilich is supposed to be an ultra-powerful version of the lich that has attained some kind of next level of lichdom, while the Pathfinder demilich instead is one that has crumbled to dust without its soul cage, and which is only more powerful by dint of its uncontrolled magical power lashing out.

The fact that they both have special magic gems encrusted into their skull might be something, though, unless that element is also common with Fafhrd.


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Kobold Catgirl wrote:
I'm really excited for the new hags. More fairy taleish hags sound fantastic, but I also hope we get more visual diversity from them in the future; blood hags are really cool! "Pretty" hags are just as much a staple of the genre as "ugly" ones. Give us the problematic hot girls, Paizo. The people demand it. It's me. I'm the people.

Rust Hag Changelings, please.


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Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Bamboo and Jade 'Hags', please!


Will we be losing the claddic devils and denons?


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James Jacobs wrote:
I'm not sure what the plans are going forward yet for this creature, but I'm of the opinion that we could keep it in our game as-is and call it a Swarm that Walks... which is more akin to how we've been using it. A Swarm that Walks could be made up of worms, ants, crabs, flies, or whatever, with the basic idea of a bunch of tiny vermin eating a spellcaster and taking that spellcaster's soul and power into themselves to become an amalgamation type thing is, I believe, fine for us to keep in the ORC version of the game.

So, assuming you're able to salvage the worm-that-walks in some form, how long before we see an AP where you...

Spoiler:
...start out looting an ancient Thassilonian tomb, deal with a cult dedicated to combining the three Starstone deities to bring back Aroden, journey south to the Mushfens and help out some lizardfolk, go to Magnimar and fight in a tournament, venture to the Sodden Lands to investigate ancient corruption before sailing through the Eye of Abendego, deal with rune giants bound by those who built the very tomb you looted, and eventually defeat a swarm-that-walks BBEG? ;)


Evan Tarlton wrote:
The changeling is being remastered in order to reflect the new hags. We are also getting a remastered dhampir. That's a strong indication that the vampire is getting a remaster.

What would they have to change? Vampires in DnD are pretty generic pop-culture versions, and so I struggle to think of any aspect of the lore in Pathfinder that WotC could claim as product identity?


Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti wrote:
Will we be losing the claddic devils and denons?

That's going to be the big one I think. While the demon lords/archdevils are pretty safe, almost all the demons at least require a name change, if not more radical design.

At least Paizo already kind started that process of taking those things away from their DnD roots back when 2E started


MMCJawa wrote:
Evan Tarlton wrote:
The changeling is being remastered in order to reflect the new hags. We are also getting a remastered dhampir. That's a strong indication that the vampire is getting a remaster.
What would they have to change? Vampires in DnD are pretty generic pop-culture versions, and so I struggle to think of any aspect of the lore in Pathfinder that WotC could claim as product identity?

It's entirely possible that it's less a case of "have to change," and more a case of "want to change." Paizo may have a vision for their vampires going forward that they'd like to cleave more tightly to; we saw a few glimmerings of this with the introduction of the sort of ur-vampires in Shadows at Sundown.


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Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti wrote:
Will we be losing the claddic devils and denons?

Most of them, yeah. They have reworked the imp, and the succubus is straight out of folklore, but the rest are straight out of the OGL. The balor is a blatant Balrog knockoff so WotC wouldn't have a case morally and shouldn't have much of one legally, but I doubt they'd risk it.

Silver Crusade

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MMCJawa wrote:
Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti wrote:
Will we be losing the claddic devils and denons?

That's going to be the big one I think. While the demon lords/archdevils are pretty safe, almost all the demons at least require a name change, if not more radical design.

At least Paizo already kind started that process of taking those things away from their DnD roots back when 2E started

They already have been doing a bit of that with demons and devils, with referring to them more often as things like "treachery demon" instead of glabrezu

Dark Archive

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:
Rysky wrote:
Evan Tarlton wrote:
The changeling is being remastered in order to reflect the new hags. We are also getting a remastered dhampir. That's a strong indication that the vampire is getting a remaster.

Annis Hag should be okay since that's from folklore, I believe?

Very curious what Vampire stuff would need an overhaul.

Anything that had a thematic link or appearance to Strahd/Ravenloft would definitely need a rework.

Not so sure since a lot of that stuff is tied to dracula is it not?


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As long as we still have the hot evil vampires, I'm happy.

... I'm kind of one-note, huh.


Cori Marie wrote:
MMCJawa wrote:
Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti wrote:
Will we be losing the claddic devils and denons?

That's going to be the big one I think. While the demon lords/archdevils are pretty safe, almost all the demons at least require a name change, if not more radical design.

At least Paizo already kind started that process of taking those things away from their DnD roots back when 2E started

They already have been doing a bit of that with demons and devils, with referring to them more often as things like "treachery demon" instead of glabrezu

I hope those get to stay in. I like the through-line for demons of each one being molded around a particular transgression, and of daemons all being formed around a particular kind of death. Actually, now I think on it, the remaster could be a chance for Pathfinder's devils to have a similar through-line. Right now they have the unifying theme of "each of these guys has a different function in Hell," but it's not as standout as the other two evil D's.

Wait, sorry, three evil D's. Divs are also a thing, and also have a through-line of each being based around ruining a particular mortal endeavor.

Liberty's Edge

MMCJawa wrote:
Evan Tarlton wrote:
The changeling is being remastered in order to reflect the new hags. We are also getting a remastered dhampir. That's a strong indication that the vampire is getting a remaster.
What would they have to change? Vampires in DnD are pretty generic pop-culture versions, and so I struggle to think of any aspect of the lore in Pathfinder that WotC could claim as product identity?

Maybe the dhampir being Remastered is more something about errata or giving them access to some Undead Vampire PCs' options rather than something linked to OGL.


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You know, OGL monsters being removed or changed from the Bestiary seemed like kind of a distant thought to me (sure I'll miss owlbear, and I really like the ghostly white 'teleporting' phase spiders, but like those stats still exist ready to go) but I have to say, the realization that many of the different celestial and fiend species might have to go is the note that actually hits me a bit. Like, I've finally after 10 years started to get a grasp on the different types of devil, demon, and angel and what they stand for (thanks in no small part to 2e really busting out some cool unifying concepts for them), and only just started to convince my players they aren't all just a miscellaneous horde of arbitrary distinction (which, admittedly yeah they kind of are but--).

On the other hand, starting with a fresh slate, maybe Paizo will be able to take this space and really sell these new unified concepts from scratch rather than trying to fit what already existed into these categories.


Thulgant is doing its own job to wipe demons who still prefers OGL name(When searching its name, pathfinder's one comes first)

Dark Archive

I'd be suprised if Kobolds wouldent need a significant re-work (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong but them being lizrard/dragon like creatures are more the D&D twist on them with them traditonally being little dog men?


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Paizo has published some original fiends of their own too. I recall James Jacob talking about how he invented the Vavakia (soul consuming dinosaur demon, go figure) and I'm pretty sure they made the wrecker demon and worm demon too. So we aren't losing all the critters but likely our oldest ones.


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Kevin Mack wrote:
I'd be suprised if Kobolds wouldent need a significant re-work (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong but them being lizrard/dragon like creatures are more the D&D twist on them with them traditonally being little dog men?

There was mention of kobolds going in PC2 so they'd be after the new dragons, so I'm guessing that the different and immediately distinguishing design of PF2's kobolds might be doing a lot of heavy lifting. I wouldn't be surprised for there to be some additional changes, but it at least doesn't sound like a dragon connection needs to be stripped entirely.

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