#rhino unicorns

[honourablejester]

PF2e Ancestries That Intrigue Me

So I’ve been browsing the various PF2e ancestries and heritages on Archives of Nethys, and I just want to mention a few that sparked joy.

Ancestries:

Grippli: Frog people! Frog people are always a guaranteed sell for me, I seriously just love frogs, and grippli are specifically arboreal frog people. You are a tree frog. There’s even a specific heritage, the Windweb Grippli, that eventually lets you be a gliding tree frog. I love it. I just wanna be a frog, man.

Leshy: You’re a plant. You are even, depending on your heritage, a specific type of plant. Want to be a tiny fungus being? Fungal Leshy. A squat grumpy cactus person? Cactus Leshy. You can be a vine, a root, a seaweed, a fruit leshy. If you decide you want to be a pumpkin leshy and choose the Gourd Leshy heritage, you don’t have a brain (your knowledge and personality are stored in your spirit) and can store things inside your empty pumpkin head. Which makes them harder to steal. I don’t … I can’t even. Amazing. Also, cannot possible overstate this, leshy are adorable. The art is just amazing.

Ysoki/Ratfolk: Much as with Grippli, sometimes I just wanna be a rat, dude. Possibly specifically a Sewer Rat, although the Longsnout Rat is also cool, and has a feat called ‘Plague Sniffer’ that lets you smell disease on people, which feels interesting and evocative of a lot of things. Also, the bit of me who grew up with The Pied Piper of Hamelin as my favourite fairytale wants to go in a lot of directions with a ratfolk character.

Fleshwarp: Bit of a switch of direction here, but … me and horror, me and cosmic horror, me and dark fantasy. Fleshwarps are fantastic. You have been horrifically transformed/manufactured by magical/alchemical/otherworldly forces. Each fleshwarp looks completely different, depending on what their particular horrific transformation did to them, so you can go absolutely wild with the body horror details so long as you keep to a broadly humanoid shape (bipedal, one head, four functional limbs – you can have more if a) they’re vestigial and non-functional or b) you take a feat). The heritages for fleshwarps are essentially how you were created, and you’ve got some options from ‘made in a vat’ to ‘warped by wild magic’ to ‘magical cybernetics ate your emotions’. And their feats are fucking gnarly. Weapons grown from your bodies, making enemies pay for wounding you by sickening them with the sight of your innards and the strange behaviour of the wound, gaining a sheen of acidic slime on your skin … Like. Okay. Body horror is not usually my horror cup of tea, but hot damn I would play around with this! They are fantastic. And there’s a lot to play with thematically with the consequences of such a difficult and warped existence. Like. Lots of story meat on this ancestry. Amazing.

Kashrishi: You know that thing where unicorns might have been rhinos? And the slight difference in vibe that gives? Kashrishi are halfling-sized empathic rhino people with crystal horns. I repeat. You are a three foot tall, built as hell bipedal psychic rhino unicorn with empathy and a crystal horn that glows when you use magic. Whoever came up with this idea and then put it in a book so that people could actually play it, I hope you got paid big money for it. This ancestry somehow hits a perfect bullseye dead centre on the venn diagram of the bits of me that love dwarves and the bits of me that love unicorns. I want it.

Versatile Heritages:

Firstly, I’m gonna say that I love the idea of taking these and making them heritages and not ancestries, so you can put them on any base ancestry. DnD 5e was starting to head this way with the dhampir and reborn, but because of 5e’s structure when it comes to races/ancestries, they still mostly just replace the ‘original’ race. PF2e’s ancestral heritage and feat structure lets you have both from the get go and choose elements of both to build on. I can have a tiefling dwarf. That’s still dwarfy. I can have a dhampir dwarf. An aasimar dwarf. An elemental dwarf.

And yes, instinctively, I pretty much do want to put all of them on a dwarf. I just like the idea of taking the quintessential dwarfness of a dwarf and adding something bonkers onto it. Dwarves are just so solidly dwarfy that they warp whatever you put on them around it. A dhampir is one thing, all cool and gothic, but a dhampir dwarf is something else. An aasimar dwarf is the grumpiest, most pragmatic half-angel on the planet. The sheer … solidity of dwarves just shifts the vibes, and I love it. Get your dwarf vibes all up in planar business!

Though, you know. Once my brain lets go of dwarves a bit, I can see some interesting potential for other combinations. An aasimar fleshwarp, for example, would be interesting. Which came first, the destruction or the grace? Were you born beautiful and blessed, and warped from jealousy or cruelty or bad luck? Or did some benevolent deity recognise the beauty of your spirit even in your shattered and twisted physical state and confer some touch of celestial grace upon you (my personal favourite)? How much of the aasimar shows through the ruin of warped flesh? I love the image of the halo feats you get from an aasimar on a fleshwarp. You are a shambling mound of twisted and tortured flesh, but you shine with a gentle heavenly light, that possibly even heals people. An absolutely stunning combination of the profane and the divine. I love that.

Versatile heritages are just a fantastic idea. Pulling those out and letting them be taken by anyone. You can have a heavenly frog. You can have a vampiric cactus. You can have a demonic dwarf. Absolutely excellent system decision. I love it.

A specific new-to-me versatile heritage that sparks interest is the Duskwalker, a heritage where your soul was basically allowed to knowingly reincarnate by a death deity. There’s a lot of psychopomp-adjacent lore and abilities that definitely intrigue me.

Specific Heritages from Ancestries

For those ancestries where it’s a specific heritage that sparks interest for me as much as the ancestry as a whole:

Witch Gnoll: Don’t get me wrong, I definitely do enjoy gnolls as an ancestry option in and of themselves. Gotta love the chance to play a hyena person. But the Witch Gnoll in particular just makes me want to play exclusively that heritage, because it’s a spooky gnoll. It’s the hyena laugh made manifest as a heritage. You’re a sly, shaggy, dark-furred hyena person with spells to throw sounds and freak people the hell out. I love it. I want to play a witch gnoll saboteur rogue, for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

(Sidenote: Between gnolls and kashrishi, I’m strongly considering trying to get my hands on the setting source books, Mwangi Expanse and Impossible Lands. They look cool)

Trogloshi Kashrishi: You’re a subterranean empathic rhino unicorn. With subterranean albinism, and you automatically get the kashrishi feat that makes your crystal horn shed light. Not going to lie, probably going to be my first choice for kashrishi.

Death Warden Dwarf: Look. We have discussed that I like spooky dwarves, along with generally weird dwarves. And the Death Warden cannot help but evoke the childhood memories of the Mines of Moria for me. You descend from a line of tomb guardians. You get bonuses against undead. Your family stood watch in the dark against the defilement of the dead. I just. I like it.

Unbreakable Goblin: I suspect this heritage probably annoys people in play and possibly in concept once it gets old, but I just really enjoy the entire idea of a small creature heritage that boils down to ‘we bounce and we don’t go down’. You’re just a tough, excitable, bouncy little dude. Heck yeah.

Summary:

You can possibly tell where my general interests lie from this selection. Heh. But yeah. I like a) cute things and b) spooky things. And dwarves. And generally short, stocky creatures who may or may not be also unicorns.

I do want to doodle out that aasimar fleshwarp character, now that I’ve been waxing poetic about it. Gonna go have a further think. Heh.

I do think Pathfinder 2e’s structure for character progression, the way it’s built on feats per level, does make ancestries and heritages a lot more flexible and customisable and combinable. Your ancestry is not just one-and-done, it’s a thing you consistently interact with and consider over the course of your character’s career. I like that. And I love the versatile heritages and how they can be added to anything. Ancestry feats were an excellent game design decision.

And, to reiterate, whoever made the stocky rhino unicorns? You deserve a raise. Full approval!

[kinerxy]

Honrses

[victusinveritas]

Worst or...best?

[cryptids-of-the-world]

The Magdeburg Unicorn is an alleged Unicorn fossil that is on display at the Museum of Natural History in Magdeburg Germany. The Magdeburg Unicorn is described as bipedal horse-like fossil with little to no body, a horse-like head, a long tail, and a very long horn on its head. The fossil was first discovered in 1663 in Germany and the people that discovered the fossil thought they found a Unicorn however after the reconstruction, they realized that something seemed off. Later, testing was dine on the fossil and it was determined to be the fossil of a Wooly Rhinoceros and not a Unicorn. The Magdeburg Unicorn has been deemed as one of the worst fossil reconstructions of all time but, it still sparks the imagination that Unicorns and other creatures may exist and be out there.

[lesbianshepard]

you know how marco polo saw an indian rhino in sumatra and, instead of thinking, "perhaps this is completely different creature than the one I am thinking of," he just went "oh man, we really got our depictions of unicorns wrong" ? monsignor pruitt and the horrifying murderous blood drinking "angel" in the cave.

[almost-nostalgic]

Marcille let me know that my usual style wasn't going to cut it, and instead I resorted to colour pencils.

A rough sketch, but I enjoyed it. I don't think of myself as good with colour, but it's definitely fun to use. I have a bad habit of making colours look muddy and gross... I have banned myself from using my usual black pen on this, because I know I'll go overboard. I'm very bad at making things look soft with black ink.

Personal life below the cut.

I have a job interview on Tuesday for a receptionist role. Turns out some place kept my resume from 3 months ago, so I guess it's good to know that the hundreds of job applications I sent out aren't just going in the bin. I haven't had a single call or email back for a job since Feb, so it's exciting, but nerve-wracking. After I quit after 3 days at my freight forwarding job, I feel a bit useless. I had a commission from a friend, but obviously that doesn't mean a shiny new career as an artist has begun lol.

I'm not sure that a receptionist job will be the right fit, but I really should give it a shot. People always tell me I'm great at customer service and that I'm charismatic, but it really drains me. Hopefully, a receptionist job will be more emails and waiting around rather than constant face to face customer service. I'm really good at interviewing, but I just can't stop myself from promising too much of myself. I have a bad habit of giving 100% of my energy to a job, which is a great way of being sucked dry and burning out.

I also can't say I'd be good at just sitting around either because I always feel the need to do something if I'm working. I remember working in the bakery and my boss literally volunteering to have me for as many hours as I want and to pretend to look busy because she had an excess of hours to give to employees and refusing because I couldn't handle busywork. I'm sure I can find a balance somehow...

[hoofpeet]

SORRY OKAY SO you made a tweet about how you thought itd be painful for unicorns to nurse bc of the horn and immediately my brain went "." like. there what if there was just a bump there right? hear me out. baby bumb pforehead... is the base of the horn but since im assuming the horns would be made of like keratin wouldnt it just grow with time?? so like... infant unicorns just have this like. mump. and it gets sharp cause they do some haxorus shit or something. im very tired

Yeagh... Unicorns having little horn buds my beloved

[crabussy]

I seriously love seeing more and more cloven hooved twilight/rarity art as time goes on.. yes.. yes!!! incorporate historically accurate mythology and more realistic zoology into your colourful magic horse art!!! so wonderful to see

[chimeride]

Magdeburg Unicorn, the 231st Known One.

[tootditoot]

The two types of unicorns (according to my niece)

[counterfeitphantoms]

2 guys. sent in for a stealth mission in jamaa but they barely get along at all and thus have gotten nothing done

[rogdona]

[annaholak]

"So, Esme, I gather you're finding your new mug to your liking?" (Gytha)

"Huh...? Yes. Very much so. Thank you, Magrat" (Esme)

"Oh, you're welcome, Granny. I thought you might like it, when I saw it had bees on it. How many Axolotl t-shirts did you end up buying, Nanny?" (Magrat)

"Dunno... Lost count... I just hope I didn't forget anyone. And that the kiddies like them." (Gytha)

"Oh, I'm sure they will." (Magrat)

"Very kind of you. Ermm... What's with the pangolin though...?" (Gytha)

"It's not a pangolin, it's an armadillo. And it's very soft, and cuddly." (Magrat)

"So... basically the opposite of the real thing...?" (Gytha)

"Umm.... yeah, I suppose.. When you put it like that..." (Magrat)

Inktober - Prompt 15: Armadillo

[orinoxide]

Boys of Summer

WOOL BOYS COOL BOYS POSING BY THE POOL BOYS 2022 

[acrashoframpagingrhinos]

The Unicorn - by Eurwentala

It's late May in the mammoth steppe somewhere in Eastern Europe, about 40,000 years ago. The steppe is in bloom with carnations, buttercups, goat's-beards, and wild chives. A lonely Elasmotherium sibiricum has alarmed the lapwings (Vanellus vanellus) by walking too close to their nests hidden among the grass. The giant rhinoceros has still matted strands of winter fur hanging from it's coat.

Elasmotherium, the great one-horned rhino of Pleistocene Eurasia, has been suggested as the origin of the unicorn myth. It has been speculate to have lived into historical times, supported by some interesting, though vague historical records of giant one-horned bulls and Chinese depictions of big, dark unicorns. There is also a probable cave painting from France, on which this reconstruction is mostly based. The painting's location in France is a bit of a mystery, though, as there are no known fossils from Western Europe.

[taski-guru]

Image description: art showing a stocky and wooly unicorn with a saddle, and bags tied to the saddle, the unicorn has a piece of rope from one of the bags in its mouth and seems to be pulling on it. end Image description

Old line art of an adopt (adopt was sold)

NOT a free line art!