Monsters You Wish Got Stats in Pathfinder?

[Arkat]

Dragon78 wrote:

It is funny that D&D/Pathfinder couldn't legally use the Couerl(without permission) but video games like Final Fantasy could.

They probably could, but litigating copyright claims might just be too expensive and not worth fighting against.

The Final Fantasy folks' pockets are likely MUCH deeper that Paizo's so they CAN afford fight a copyright claim if needed.

[Sysryke]

Copyright laws also vary depending on the type of media involved. The monster in question might be too similar in TTRPGs in print media, competing in the same market. But, being depicted with a video game animation style, with entirely different game mechanics, in a not directly competing franchise creates enough difference for it to likely not even be a legal issue. While I'm not familiar with this particular monster, since many/most are pulled from folklore and mythology around the world, much of this could be considered public domain, at least to names and very general characteristics (i.e everyone has a fire breathing dragon).

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

Displacer beasts first showed up in 1975 and Final Fantasy first used coeruls in 1988. van Vogt was still alive at this time.

[Warped Savant]

Coeruls first showed up in "Black Destroyer" back in 1939.
Displacer beasts were inspired by coeruls.
If FF is using them more similarly to how they were written in the original story compared to a displacer beast, D&D wouldn't be able to stop them.
But I imagine converting a coerul to Pathfinder would probably end up with a creature too similar to a displacer beast.

[Set]

Balor

Not the 'not a balrog, really...' balor, but the deformed Formorian giant with the massive lethal 'evil eye.' I have no idea if PF1 ever got around to exploring the magically mutated and highly variable formorians, but I think the idea is pretty cool, and coming from real world mythology, not one that other people's versions of them (like the Formori from White Wolf's Werewolf the Apocalypse game) should put out of Paizo's reach.

The Palraiyuk, described here as a six legged arctic alligator/dragon/sea-serpent thing, but I've also heard called a palraujak and described as a furry arctic 'dragon' (like one seen on a classic Dragon magazine cover!) that breathes a freezing wind (that, in PF1 terms, might blow people back as a gale force/hurricane force wind, chill them as exposure to severe/extreme cold, and encrust them with ice acting like a tanglefoot bag).

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

The beholder strikes me as a cross between the Balor and Medusa (post-Perseus encounter).

Giant, single eye, deadly vision, just head no body.

[TOZ]

He's out of line, but he's right.

[Dragon78]

Glad we already have stats for flying medusa heads.