#they're a living bestiary more or less

[titleknown]

Hello, I am Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel. I hope you forgive my absence, as I have been... busy. 

But to you today I bring a special for this time of fell omens: Profiles of thirty-one citizens of the states of Hell, a place most misunderstood in your material plane not for the depths of its horrors but the nature of what those horrors are.

To understand the state of Hell you must understand one fundamental truth: The Devil is a loser. 

His best chance at dethroning God was the fall, and it was doomed from the start. He is never going to get a chance like that again. 

Heaven considers his place a cosmic backwater, no threat when compared to things like The Machine or Nemesis The Anti-Sun. But he cannot bring himself to understand this, for to do so would shatter further his thirteen faces.

His realm is a cosmic mistake, a wound where generations toil in service of a goal that can never be completed to start a war they cannot win. 

It is a place where not just the tortured but the torturers live in misery. Where power crushes love beneath its foot and they say that every demon is a king, but in a way that belies no comprehension of the horror of that statement.

It is, perhaps, more akin to your world than you or I would perhaps care to admit. 

Unto this realm they tell you to abandon all hope, ye who enter here, but here I tell you to hold onto your hopes, as tightly as possible. You'll need them to survive here.

-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel

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SO! I have yet another project, this time it's a simple one, 31 demons over the rest of this Halloween season! Because I made a few and then decided that's what I was going to do!

The vibe of the hell-scene here's meant to make one think of John Martin-type grandiose scenes but combined with the very specific US-based hell-nightmare of a non-walkable city! My version of Hell is generally a lot like this, half great and terrible grandeur, half shitty mundane Bush/Trump-era America vibes. Hopefully the opening text provided that.

I hope you enjoy, as I've got a lot in the pipe, and as per usual the whole descriptions, designs, ectcetera from this project are free to use as you see fit under a CC-BY 4.0 license so long as I; Thomas F. Johnson, am credited as their creator!

[monstersdownthepath]

Monster Spotlight: Heikegani

CR 4

Neutral Evil Small Aberration

Bestiary 5, pg. 141

Easily among the most bizarre creatures found in Paizo's later Bestiaries, the Heikegani (which I'll be calling "Heike" from now on) are based on a real world crab with a much less berserk backstory than the ones on Golarion; on Earth, the shell of the Heikegani merely look like faces through sheer serendipity. On Golarion? They're one step away from being Undead, because they're inhabited by the ghosts of warriors who died at sea but who have refused to actually become Undead due to the disgrace such a transformation would bring them. So, instead, their soul seeks a suitable host to inhabit, and what's more suitable than the pinnacle of evolution?

Now, let's address the crab-that-used-to-be-an-elephant in the room: the bonkers lore. While the book itself states ALL Heikegani are born from the souls of, very specifically, samurai who died from a magical catastrophe near a crab breeding ground, that's... More than a little goofy, if I'm being honest. Now, I'm normally all for ludicrous backstories for a monster species, but the idea that there's enough samurai dying in magical explosions around newborn crabs that their restless souls create a noteworthy population of murderous crustaceans (which can travel in groups of up to seven!) is too much, even for me. If you've seen my more ridiculous homebrews, you'll know that the bar for the lunacy I can tolerate in lore is embedded four feet in bedrock, so this should REALLY tell you how silly I find the idea! So, in my own take on the lore, Heike are born from any sufficiently motivated warrior perishing at sea whose soul refuses to give in to the temptation of undeath, and multiple Heike showing up means the warrior had an especially powerful soul, so much so that it couldn't be contained in a single crustacean body. If you want to go in a different direction, Heike could be born from fragments of the soul rather than the entire thing, much like how a ghost is just the negativity left over by the true soul, its presence weighing the rest down like an anchor. They do, after all, carry little else but hatred for the living and a need to fight greater and greater foes until they can finally die an honorable death... or kill everyone else trying.

The first sign that the party is dealing with something far more than just a common crab that happened to pick up a dagger is the Unnatural Aura cascading off the thing, the Heike's aberrant nature causing common wildlife to tremble in their presence. No animals willingly travel within 30ft of a Heike, leading to the amusing possibility of a party's horses suddenly flinging their riders from their backs because a big crab reared up at them. Less amusing is the possibility of it terrifying the party by rearing up, because it can use Intimidating Glare as a full-round action to make an Intimidate check (+9) against everyone within 30ft of it, potentially shaking up the entire party for multiple rounds in a single move. It doesn't even suffer from the normal penalty it'd take by being Small-sized!

Once the party is debuffed, the Heike can issue a Challenge to a foe it wishes to slay as a swift action, making it more vulnerable to the attacks of other creatures (its AC goes from 18 to 16 vs anything but its target) but vastly more dangerous against its victim, not only gaining insurmountable DR 2, but +4 damage. Its twin claws already deal 1d3+4 damage each, but with +4 damage on top of it and the threat of Power Attack looming in the wings, suddenly the encounter is no longer a joke... Not that battles against crabs should ever be treated as a joke. Giant Crabs only seem silly until they're tearing the Rogue in half after drowning the party Wizard, and the Heike's damage output vastly eclipses its un-possessed kin while giving up none of the crab's normal tricks. Despite being Small, its Grab attack can latch onto Medium targets without needing to do anything special, and it's got a +10 to grapple checks--enough to cancel out the penalty it would normally take for grappling larger targets--AND it constricts its grappled victim for 1d3+4 additional damage each round... which is also augmented by Challenge, as the damage boost applies to all damage rolls it makes. One round of being grappled by a Heike could mean taking upwards to 30 damage, or even higher if it Power Attacks! Really, the fact they can wield a dagger almost feels like a waste when their normal claws are powerful enough weapons, but a Heike will always choose to wield the weapons it did in life... and if the DM is feeling mean, this means they have permission to have the things armed with whatever magic items they've scavenged from the sea floor.

About the only mercy granted here is that a Heike's size means it cannot easily drag victims into the water to drown them, as normal Giant Crabs are infamous for (their grapple modifiers aren't quite unbreakable in Pathfinder, but they're still high, people!). They're also less inclined to do so thanks to their obsession with honorable combat (which is why they prefer weapons), but going full dishonorable is the best way to beat them; unlike a Giant Crab (a Vermin), Heike are vulnerable to mind-affecting effects. Unfortunately, the aforementioned obsession with honor allows them to tap into their Memories of Honor 1/day to grant themselves a +4 bonus to any saving throw they make, something they normally reserve for a battle-ending ability like the Slumber Hex or Color Spray, the latter of which they're still vulnerable to at only 5 HD.

The problem is that fighting dishonorably will cause it to fight dishonorably in turn, abandoning its weapon in favor of its (normally) vastly more dangerous claws. Whatever spell or ability you try and end the combat with had better end it, or you're likely end up as just another tallymark scratched into its blade.

You can read more about them here.

[rox-of-iu]

just another one of the many, many NPC Shen Yuan AU's out there

this one is an author SY in PIDW, bingyuan flavoured very briefly about it under the cut if u wanna

ok like i said i'll go over kust the brief basic stuff cuz I'm not good with words. but basically its sy dropped in pidw like, mid endgame ig, with already blackened protag and no system. so he's like, this might as well happen and goes to vibe and explore bc he's been dropped with the basic necessities to live for a bit. after some time he realizes he's in PIDW and after the initial outrage decides to capitalize on it and uses knowledge from his days spent editing the pidw wiki for fun. so he's running along having fun cataloguing things into several bestiaries and herbals (and cartography stuff etc just compiling worldbuilding) and decides to publish them with an actual success and he becomes a bit of a well-known author in the encyclopedia scene. so he's living out his best life, traveling from place to place, using his meta timeline knowledge to stay clear of the places that are plot-relevant at the time, happy to stay clear out of the path of his blackened blorbo.

that is until someone publishes a binghe biography that is so bad and so 'conquests' focused that he cant help but write his own (leaving out too personal things that he's sure lbh wouldn't want out there) under a pseudonym as a deliberate critique of the other one, which he even clearly states in the prologue of it (that the work is a disservice and disrespectful to the lord and wives alike and much more flowery vitriol, just letting his old angry commenter out)

so its published and it doesnt actually do half-bad because over the years of writing he has gotten pretty decent and that's it for a while. Until it gets to the demon lord. it gets brought to his attention by his court which takes care of notifying him of any possibly slanderous works (lbh doesn't actually care that much about stuff like that but they insist on it and its less tiresome to just let them do whatever than to keep telling them off) so they're like, there's one book, which isn't technically, a critique of the lord, but does criticise the other one which sings praises to him to all heavens so?? technically? (lbh knows of the first one but thought nothing of it bc it was mid and mostly inaccurate but again, he doesn't acre about that stuff rly) so they hand it over and he skims through it and slowly realizes that there is a lot of things that no-one or just a select few should have any idea about so, ok much more concerning than any bad portrayal of his person, even if nothing actually too-secret didn't get exposed in it. its about the principle. so he first conducts a search of his palace and his circle of people if the author is any of the people around because, who else could know about all this (trying to ignore the stuff that no-one except from him should be aware off) but it turns out with no results. so he orders his people to try to find them but the lands are vast and there's authors of plenty so of course that is also almost impossible.

what i think would be funny tho is if liu mingyan was like can I take a look/help, skimmed through it and was oh yeah I've seen this before and is able to trace it back to sy because he used unconsciously a modified phrase from his previous world that is not at all common here that he already used in one of his previous works (or maybe in an angry review of a novel, to scratch that forum commenter itch, that'd be maybe more probable for my to come across) so she notices that immediately because the first time she saw it she was left puzzled so she was sure it has to be most likely the same person again. and so bingge is set to go get his man hsdakhj

idk rly about the rest, maybe he finds him in a forest sketching down demonic beasts so he shapeshifts and a demon hound to get to him and spy on him (idk if he can but he's op so I say he can) or maybe he just comes over and invites himself him Idk. and the plan at first was just to squeeze the information out of this pesky scholar of how he knows about the shit he knows so he doesn't have to stress about it, but the plan turns into "ok new plan I'm keeping this one actually" sajdhkh and i didn't really think of what of next so thats that, whatever floats your boat is next cuz this is already a few days old so new brainrot took its daydream place haha xD

......wait thsi was supposed to be brief why is this wall of text here how did this happen (also I'm not rereading it so if it doesn't make sense I'm sorry lol)

[eldritchamy]

Hello darling. After that one post. May I ask what your solution to the Abundance Of Hypercarnivores problem in DND style fantasy settings is?

So the "Abundance of Hypercarnivores" problem exists for a specific reason: DND is a very combat-heavy game. Most of the mechanics of the entire system are dedicated to combat encounters.

And as such, DND type settings tend to focus on "things you can fight". Even more so "things that want to fight YOU." And the problem is made significantly worse by how POWERFUL player characters get, which requires more and more absurd encounters to give them a believable threat to overcome.

The worldbuilding for the natural world is a 'bestiary' of things that have 'challenge ratings' because you're playing the "I kill things and become a hero of the realm" simulator, not the "I'm wood elf David Attenborough and welcome to Mutual of Gnollmaha's Wild Kingdom" simulator. Exploration in DND is not very fleshed out.

If you can't fight it, they don't bother describing it.

Are there things like weird flies and beetles and harmless snakes and rodents and songbirds and fish and lizards and frogs and other animals in DND settings that just don't come up in a monster manual?

Well. Rules as written? No.

Because they're not written.

Realistically? There sure as hell would be. An ecosystem can't exist without having multiple trophic levels to it, but in DND you don't care about any trophic level that isn't a combat encounter. Which is .... FINE, I GUESS, it's what the system is built for, but it also means the worldbuilding is pretty limited in terms of fleshing out The Nature. There's less of an ecosystem and more of a hit list.

First point of fixing this problem is to just mention that there are other things in the world that don't exist to be fought. There's a balance to this for a book, because you're not writing a wilderness survival guide; you still have a story that you need to get to. There's also a balance to doing it for a TTRPG setting, because you gotta pay for the pages you want published, and it's expensive to waste pages on anything not relevant to the game mechanics.

For Issliss, we do have things in the world that you can't fight, and the best example of it is something I came up with called Boneflies. They're swarming insects that feed on the undigested bits of other creatures' prey (including bones). They have a symbiotic relationship with large stationary predators (like carnivorous plants, of which we have several) in that they clean up the evidence of other dead things. Issliss has a lot more wilderness survival type mechanics than DND, so boneflies actually do serve a game function: someone trained in certain skills would notice them, and know oh, we have to be careful around here, because if there are boneflies, there's remains to feed on, which means there's a large predator nearby.

As a DM or a writer, you can help make the world feel more fleshed out with some minor scene building. Mention things like bird sounds or movement in the corner of your eye that turns out to be a lizard catching a beetle or a snake darting through the underbrush. And don't make everything VISUAL. Sounds and smells can build a more believable environment too.

BUT, that's the boring half of the answer that you could have figured out on your own. You asked for MY solution.

There are definitely some details here that I have to skip over, but in the most general terms? Dragons, as high fantasy tends to depict them, do not exist in the Uneiverse.

High fantasy dragons are GARBAGE worldbuilding.

An intelligent, aggressive, territorial creature that lives for hundreds or thousands of years and reaches kaiju size and has a huge range cannot reasonably exist in the world. It just can't. That's not a naturally occurring species with a breeding population.

So how do you have a legendary creature in your fantasy world?

Well, it's a magic setting.

A very ambitious wizard who sets out to become immortal will probably, either by intention or by accident, end up becoming a lich, a monstrous zombie wizard that lives forever but loses a large sense of self in the process. Instead of giving a prolonged life to THEMSELVES, they instead end up creating something NEW that goes on in their place. The LICH, of course, feels no remorse over this. Who they used to be is irrelevant.

Necromancy is only one flavor of magic.

What happens if BIG magic goes wrong (or tragically right) in some other direction? What if creatures on the scale of dragons only exist because Somebody Fucked Up?

You would end up with rare occurrences of super apex predators that allow for a legendary narrative encounter, but these things are isolated. They don't take hundreds of years to grow into small kaiju only to be taken down by a group of adventurers at the first sign of a dragon taking up roost a bit too close to a kingdom. There's no breeding population of them. There's no unexplained centuries-long gap in their existence until they just suddenly become a problem.

You can have a huge magical monster suddenly appear, but their SUDDEN appearance suddenly has an EXPLANATION. It has a start point that doesn't break the suspension of disbelief of the world.

For the Uneiverse, with my very "magic is the energy of creation redirected through the power and intent of the caster" style magic system, I have a classification system for large scale magical anomalies like this, but I can't talk about it in any meaningful detail (and it needs a lot of work and refinement anyway).

But the tl;dr is I have a couple acronyms that basically mean "somebody fucked up real bad" and "a massive dangerous organism just exists in the world now, congrats" and "this entire landscape or ecosystem has been irreparably magically altered and is now unnatural in some way, possibly affecting plant and animal life and creating new species in a localized area."

These events can vary a lot in scale, severity, and flavor.

I was actually just looking up different kinds of birds earlier to try to decide which ones would be cool if they were somehow turned into living stained glass. For instance.

There might be a place like that in the world. It's either relevant or not relevant. You don't know. (It's not relevant to the story.)

Kelp bed mirage in the middle of a desert, ghost fish, haunted coral, go nuts. Why not? It's magic, be creative with it.

Enormous magical monster that's causing problems? Well, that's one less unethical wizard in the world experimenting with scary magic. Better hire some adventurers to go kill it.

So the short answer is to do a bit more scene building to make it feel like there's a lot more LIFE in the world, and in the case of big monsters, have a good explanation for how they GOT there. At least often enough to fool your audience into thinking you've put in that level of work for everything. They WANT to buy into that illusion. Give them enough reason to believe you HAVE an explanation, and they'll believe you even when you don't.

Winged squirrels. Raccoon pigeon griffins. Feathered dragon lizards instead of hawks or vultures. Songbirds made of glass. An origami salamander that came to life when some magic ink got spilled on a scroll. Colonial organisms that float around in the low atmosphere feeding on the ambient debris of magical pollution.

A big fuckin flamethrower dinosaur that happened because a pyromancer REALLY should have double-checked that arcane symbol before doing a ritual that required a level of power they didn't have any real control over. A tarantulaceratops, I don't know. It's not BAD for there to be predators in the world. An ecosystem needs them to exist TO SOME DEGREE. Just make sure you're putting herd animals and herbivores and birds and insectivores and harmless things in the world too, the predators need a food source.

And maybe not that tarantulaceratops thing, the horns would really get in the way. That's stupid. Don't do that. Make it a giant crab and put it underwater instead, the horns could be coral.

There, it fits in an ecosystem now. Look how much happier it is. It's smiling! I think. Let's not go in the ocean.

Remember that magical monsters can have magical origins. And in some cases, they SHOULD. Hundred foot long highly territorial dragons that live for a thousand years just don't goddamn work. Too many carnivores in once place also doesn't work.

Put some magic ungulates in there for god's sake. Make your fantasy setting touch grass. Give it antlers and a weird mating call.

And look! A little bird that eats parasites off its skin. Three whole trophic levels just like that.

[amelias-zelda-calamity-quintet]

Monster Ecology w/ The Marksmen

Saddiqah: "You want to know more about monsters? Suppose that's not a half bad idea, so long as you're not going around trying to fight them. I know we might make it look easy, but that's years of training talking."

Link: "That's not entirely true. Most people can handle the little ones."

Saddiqah: "You're going to get someone hurt making it sound that simple, Sayre."

Link: "Maybe it'll give some people some confidence! As long as you've got a heavy enough object, a good stick or broom, just about anyone could handle the lowest threat monsters, things like Chus and Rats and Keese. But yeah, Saddiqah's right. Monsters like these aren't dangerous on their own, but they like to stay in groups. And the more monsters you have, the more dangerous it is to deal with them. You can only swing at one thing at a time."

Saddiqah: "Speak for yourself. But that does move beyond untrained fighter."

Link: "If you know the proper end of a weapon to use, you could probably handle basic monsters. Most town guards can, also in small numbers. That's things like Bokoblins, Wolfos, Deku Babas, Gibdos, Skulltulas, uh...what else?"

Saddiqah: "Something not local at that point. Oh, Poes, if you're anywhere near graveyards. Or Miniblins. Tektites. Kargarocs. Actually, there's a lot more, isn't there?"

Ambrose: "They don't need the whole bestiary."

Link: "Doesn't hurt though. Never know what you're going to run into these days."

Ambrose: "True. In that case, you should warn them about greater threat. Monsters like Wizzrobes, Redeads, and Moblins."

Saddiqah: "Now there's something nasty. Not only are they bigger, and mean enough to do real damage, they're smart too. Monsters in this tier of, what, three? (L: "We were counting?") Will start rallying monsters of lower threat levels. A Moblin's a tough fight. A Moblin with a pack of Wolfos helping it is deadly for most combatants. That's what we train to deal with."

Link: "And some! When you start talking about even more serious threats, like Lynels and Moldugas, even the guild doesn't send in members alone. The smallest hunting party I've seen for a Lynel was the three of us, and that was a close fight."

Saddiqah: "We were both barely out of apprenticeship then though. We could probably take one on our own now, Sayre. (L: "Ha, you think?") Particularly after what we've been up against lately. The real terrifying creatures, like the one we fought in the temple."

Link: "Oh, Boss Monsters, right. Those things are the stuff out of legends. Yeah, I'd definitely agree, that thing was probably pretty close to a Boss."

Saddiqah: "You think there's something worse out there than that thing?"

Link: "I mean, we don't know where that thing came from. Who knows if there's anything else out there worse."

Ambrose: "Threat levels of monsters aren't the only thing to worry about though. It's also their impact on where they settle that's an issue."

Saddiqah: "Old man's right. Monsters are always invasive in every habit they find, and they're highly adaptable. Which makes them good at being invasive. And all the magic left over the Convergence means they'll eventually come back."

Link: "That's why any monster hunter with real experience will tell you it's important to leave natural predators alone. Animals like bears and wolves and big cats provide a line of defense before folks like the Marksmen can get there to deal with problems, and can keep bigger monsters from being able to make camps or rally allies."

Saddiqah: "It's why trophy hunting is widely disliked in the guild. Your nice pelt just made our lives harder. And everyone in the area less safe. Unless a predator is regularly entering a settlement, leave them alone! They're doing more good than a stuffed head."

Ambrose: "Doubt that'll stop most knights, El Amin."

Saddiqah: "Yeah, well, they've all got stuffed heads themselves. Right, Sayre?"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mark of a Hero (Updates on Tuesdays & Fridays, 1 of 9)

Hyrule is at peace, or so the Royal Family would have its people believe. Something is afoot in the kingdom, and someone needs to do something about it. Least likely would be Marksmen Link Sayre- a mercenary and monster hunter doing his best to get by. Until a job goes wrong, and he gets roped into the secret plans of Hyrule's princess. Now Link must play the part of the Hero to dive deeper into the mystery, and maybe stumble into a legend of his own.

AO3 - Wattpad

[sepublic]

I love the Castlevania show, but I can't help but be miffed by how much of the source material and colorful bestiary the show tends to ignore in favor of more vampires. I love characters such as Striga and Morana, but then you've got fairly generic ones like Dragan or Nikolai, who are just there to be obstacles and don't have any real personality themselves.

It's just a little confusing, because why do the writers keep trying to come up with OCs when they have plenty to pull from the actual games? In the games, vampires themselves are actually very rare; They're usually only represented by endgame bosses like Dracula, Bartley, Brauner, etc. Otherwise, the vast majority of enemies are night creatures, ghosts, haunted suits of armor, and the like.

But instead of embracing the weirder monsters like the Minotaur or Werewolves, the Castlevania show keeps defaulting to regular old vampires who are basically just humans with pointy ears and teeth. The show keeps defaulting to Vampire melodrama, like it's trying to emulate other pieces of Vampire media, instead of embracing what sets Castlevania apart from those stories. It has a concerning lack of weird castle exploration for a show called Castlevania.

Skeletons only appear in one scene, and I'm sorry but a common staple of a series should not be reduced to a mere fanservice cameo. It's like the Resident Evil live-action films making everything about zombies and reluctantly including a Licker as the ultimate monster. It's like if the Super Mario Bros. Movie barely had Goombas, they made the show too normal from the source material.

That isn't to say the source material is a perfect narrative, far from it; It can get pretty damn repetitive at times, especially with certain character roles and dynamics. I'll die on the hill that Annette's reimagining was justified, and Ortega and Hugh Baldwin are admittedly less interesting versions of Maxim Kischine.

The repetition makes sense! Castlevania's priority is gameplay, and each installment is meant to be its own thing. But when you're doing it as a TV show, a story, and having each story arc play a part in a larger narrative, you have to mix things up in terms of story and characterization, because you can't rely on different gameplay mechanics and levels to differentiate entries in an animated show.

But all that said, it's tiring how much the show will ignore aspects that wouldn't conflict with the writing at all in favor of more generic vampires. I don't want to see vampire politics and melodrama, but it's infinitely more interesting if its melodrama and politics between slimes and minotaurs!

I dunno, it feels like the show is limiting itself on an aesthetical level. What difference does it make in terms of writing if there's a flying Medusa head, or an Axe Armor? I think the writers are afraid of coming across as 'corny' as if Castlevania itself isn't crazy and anime as hell, but this just makes them come across as lacking sincerity. It's like how people complained about a bunch of 2000's movie adaptations of superheroes watering down everything to be more 'serious' and 'realistic' and 'believable', but it just made it grey and boring and cut away what made it unique.

The writers could've easily replaced characters like Dragan with, say, Sir Grakul from Super Castlevania IV, or had freakish looking night creatures be the ones to monologue (instead of treating Flyseyes as the one exception). There's acceptable departures from the source material, and then there's just straight up ignoring it, and then going out of its way to make up new things when stuff is already there to use. It's not as if the animators struggle with animating non-humanoid beings, considering how many unique night creatures they've come up with. So can we please stop being lowkey embarrassed of the source material???

It'd honestly make the show so much more memorable if we got to see Richter fighting a Skull Knight or Mummy. It's just so much wasted potential, especially when they ignore game Richter's compelling narrative of a Fallen Hero, in favor of making up something completely different. I can understand revising protagonists who barely have anything to them, like John Morris from Bloodlines, but Richter HAD a meaningful storyline to expand on, and one that deconstructs his role as a vampire hunter!

Given the show's attempts to be a grittier deconstruction and its suggestion that killing vampires isn't 100% good, I don't know why they didn't go with the idea of Knight Templar Richter whose desire to be needed in battle leaves him vulnerable to Shaft's brainwashing. The deeper, character-driven writing does not have to be mutually exclusive from fantastical and weird elements.

[samueldays]

Ritual magic in fantasy: a small rant

It's fine when writers use the standard trappings of a genre without detailing the underpinnings of the worldbuilding - we can take it for granted, we don't need it explained again every time, not everything needs a new plot twist. Tropes are tools; wizards are part of the grammar of fantasy and don't need their definition explained at the start of every book.

It's fine when writers skip the underpinnings entirely, and treat the wizards as convenient plot devices for the hero to go do something or be somewhere. Some munchkins will say "but then why couldn't the wizard solve the entire plot?" and I say to them "if what you want to read is a list of wizardly constraints, put down the novel and go play D&D". ;^)

But it bugs me when writers seemingly forget that the underpinnings ever existed and act confused as to how the trappings work with no underpinnings. This strikes me as both lazy and ignorant. It's the mark of a writer who is cribbing standard fantasy tropes and hasn't taken the time or effort to understand why those tropes were like that in the first place, and also is poorly read, not having seen the original explanation (nor any of its variations), only the superficial tropes among other people cribbing those same tropes in a game of telephone and losing the underpinnings along the way.

Today I want to talk about ritual magic and the mages doing it. Rituals are for someone; freestanding rituals make no sense!

I've written before on how one of the features that helps fictional magic be "magical" as opposed to Spicy Engineering (e.g. Fireball is Spicy Grenade) is if it involves a thinking entity other than the mage: intercessory magic is less prone to being operationalized into just another craft. Sometimes this is a powerful patron, sometimes it's a specialized sidekick.

To use a less fancy word, magic is often social - it involves a deal, explicit or implicit, between the mage and some goblin, ghost, or other gribbly. (The faeries in Dresden Files take their payment in pizza.)

If you pick up some old medieval grimoire like the Key of Solomon, it is deeply social. Its ritual magic is in some ways like a court order: things have to be done properly, forms filled out, visit during the correct opening hours, appeal to the right judge (God) for a sign-off, then speak with the authority of the judge and the legal system backing you for some specific purpose. Rituals are powerful but inflexible, for comprehensible internal reasons.

Fast forward 500 years to Jack Vance's Dying Earth series (you probably know this as the origin of "Vancian" magic in D&D) and you see more social magic. In the distant future, wizards are living in the ruins of dozens of civilizations that rose and fell, leaving behind relics and creatures. One facet of their magic involves calling on "sandestins", powerful genie-like creatures hinted to have been bound or created by a previous civilization, and the sandestins have to be commanded and persuaded and contracted and threatened with the Great Name, in a word, they have to be wrangled. Libraries of Wizard Lore are not just lists of spells, they're also bestiaries of sandestins, advice on how to wrangle them, collections of rumors by travelers to find other sandestins, etc.

When Gandalf is at the Gates of Moria, pondering the riddle "Speak, friend, and enter", this is also a kind of social ritual. Password-access systems are not found spontaneously generated in nature. The gate itself is not intelligent, but it's the result of an intelligent mind engaged in deliberate design to control access. Gandalf has to jump through hoops to make the gate open, and figure out that the clue to the password is hiding in plain sight.

Social rituals make sense. Rituals for formal polite interaction with another creature (or its proxy) are one of the many reasons the classic fantasy genre looks the way it does.

But skip ahead a couple generation of writers cribbing, pastiching, and repeating tropes they don't understand...

These days I'm seeing an increasing number of works where rituals are treated as a sort of brute fact about the universe, with nobody on the other end. For example, there's a song that heals people when sung word-perfect. It does nothing until it's finished, it does nothing if you get a single word wrong. Why?

A social ritual of this form can be explained with "the genie is picky". There's a genie or some other intelligent creature, acting as a middleman to hear the magical song and cause healing. A brute-fact ritual has to treat the universe as having countless special cases and carve-outs in the laws of physics where certain actions cause unusual effects. Somewhere in the nature of reality is a reaction to a song - in a specific language, of a specific era - which results in "healing", a simple concept for an intelligent mind, but an otherwise complicated concept both fantastically specific and carefully customized to do the right thing for humans.

Brute-fact rituals make for a frankly nonsensical setting. Some writers notice the nonsensical setting, but since they're ignorant of the social origins of the ritual, they think this is a problem with rituals and complain that ritual magic makes no sense.

Worse, how are rituals discovered/created in the first place?

Social rituals: by talking to the genie or fairy or other critter that the ritual is to communicate with.

Brute fact rituals: well, uh,

Harry Potter and the Natural 20 plays with this trope in book 3 chapter 9, doing a little lampshade-hanging:

Chant a little Old Aramaic, burn a little sandalwood, sprinkle a powder made from the canine teeth of a child murdered by his brother over a bowl containing stone from a fallen star under the light of a crescent moon and, in three days, it will rain vinegar. And nobody knows why. That terrified Lucius. Who out there was watching, waiting, to see that someone performed the ritual and had the power to follow up with the effects? More troublingly, why would they do it? What possible gain could this shadowy entity get from powdered teeth and space rocks? Or maybe there was no entity, and it was a fundamental property of the universe that vinegar would rain in the middle of the lunar month because somebody said the right words in a dead language? Lucius wasn't sure which was worse. All of this brought up the uncomfortable question of who it was who first figured that out. It can't have been coincidence, or even experimentation. (...) Rituals, it appeared, wanted to be discovered—and, more troubling, wanted to be shared.

Lucius Malfoy is a bit preoccupied with Voldemort, so he's excused for not being sure which is worse. But from my OOC perspective, "fundamental property of the universe" would be worse writing. Shadowy entities with mysterious motives are a staple of fantasy fiction, and practically required in some sense to be the sharer-of-rituals making rituals be discovered by human wizards.

[nyktomorphia]

Another entry in the Night Land bestiary, giants are the most prominent of the various "abhumans" - Hodgson's word - that have some human genes in their ancestry. Giants are mammoth-sized, covered in warts and stiff red hair, and have eyes that glow red and green in the dark; some of them have claws, and at least one is a blotchy white... In other words, they're kind of boring, which unfortunately I still have to mix in with the more fun monstrosities. They don't have much to them beyond being feral and hungry, but they are known to catch and eat Night Hounds.

Hodgson didn't focus on the idea of half-human monsters nearly as much as certain other horror writers, but "less obsessed with racial impurity than H. P. Lovecraft" isn't exactly a difficult standard. Still, Hodgson didn't show much about what their lives and perspectives are like (there's fanfic for that of course), but the impression I got from the narrator is somewhere between "atavistic brutes" and "tragic grotesques". Less Deep One and more Morlock. The Night Land actually has a fair amount in common with the universe of The Time Machine.

[tyrantisterror]

Can you tell me about the magic system in your Midgaheim setting? What are some limits, things magic can't do? I've been trying to develop a magic system for my own fantasy world, and it feels hard to do so without ripping off some other media.

The Midgaheim Bestiary has an introduction chapter that explains magic in more detail than I'm going to here, so read there if you're interested.

My basic approach is that magic is imagination made real - i.e. if you can fantasize something, magic can make it happen, though the cost may be more than you can bear. Most magical creatures are only subconsciously, and thus magic affects them based on their basic desires - i.e to be stronger, hardier, smarter. It's why you get so many big bad wolves and eerily smart cats and things running around. Some creatures attune stronger than others, and get stranger adaptations - dragons in particular are highly attuned to magic, which is why most of them look way different than their monitor lizard ancestors.

Humans can attune to magic subconsciously, in which case they become paragons - stronger, more durable, more long-lived, etc. - or they can attune consciously to magic, in which case they become wizards, and can create complicated spells.

It is generally accepted by civilized species that magic has four elements, though the names and definitions of those elements have changed over time. They are Fire/Choleric/Destruction magic, Water/Phlegmatic/Creation magic, Wind/Sanguine/Chaos magic, and Earth/Melancholic/Structure magic. Thinking about magic this way is helpful to wizards, as it allows them to figure out what they're doing when they're casting spells - but there's also an argument to be made that the "four elements of magic" is less inherent to magic itself and more something that humans made up while trying to understand magic, and magic conformed to because magic is imagination, and if you imagine it has rules, it makes those imaginary rules real.

Which is, really, the only rule magic sticks to hard and fast: magic makes imagination real. Elements, conscious or subconscious attunement, that's all just bullshit mortals have made up and magic has decided to roll with because it sounds fun. Ultimately, magic does what sounds interesting, what's fanciful and impossible and impressive, anything that makes the world vibrant and new. Magic abhors the status quo, loves an underdog, and wishes for nothing more than to upend what is and replace it with what could be, or better yet, what couldn't be.

[thewapolls]

So the Adult Mags boss fight became a recurring thing starting with Wild Arms 3.

In their first appearance they feature the NPC Claudia, whom Melody had disguised herself as in an attempt to seduce Gallows and Clive, which of course notoriously failed. It's not entirely clear what was on the back cover.

In Alter Code F is has the dream demon, Elizabeth on the cover and also the interior pages.

Then for WA4 and 5 they use the same cover art with the Raid Buster enemy on the front?? for some reason, and the Doctor Gob on the back.

Weirdly, they did make an overworld model of the Adult Mag in 5 that doesn't match the one used on the actual enemy model in battle; It features Yulie, from WA4.

It's actually kind of odd that the enemy stuck around, because for WA4 and WA5 there aren't that many magic book enemies, where as they had been kind of a staple of the Wild Arms bestiary in the early games, starting with Cecilia's prologue dungeon being the hidden library. And in fact, I want to kind of trace the history of this family of enemies while we're on the subject...

The seminal entry to the bestiary is the Blue Book, found in Cecilia's prologue in the original Wild Arms, and as a sort of throwback, also appears in Lilka's prologue in WA2. Despite the seemingly overly literal name, it's actually a reference to the above pictured style of British almanac.

I like the idea that it's a kind of living magical book, not because it's some cursed grimoire or ancient tome of magic, but just because it's an encyclopedic collection of information that happens to include enough aetheric truth about the nature of magic that it manifests magic itself. It also accounts for why it's such a low level monster, because it's not really a deliberately magical being.

(I had trouble getting a good shot of its front cover in WA5 but I assume it's the same as in 4 and F)

After that the obvious progression in magical books is the Necronomicon itself, famed grimoire of Lovecraftian lore, allegedly written by Abdul Alhazred, "The Mad Arab," whom is of course the namesake of the Wild Arms 1 villain, Alhazad.

It appears consistently as a book bound in black leather with some form of golden trim or clasps. Hard time getting a clear shot of the front cover in 3 or F. They have been variously localized as Necromicon, Necronomic, and actual Necronomicon as less of a translation issue and more a character limit problem.

Perhaps the more surprising addition to this family is the Targum (initially mislocalized as "Talgium") which is a Hebrew term used to refer to the original Aramaic translation of the Tanakh.

For one, it's a really obscure kind of thing to pull for a bunch of Japanese creators, but I kind of love how it isn't some faux-qabal derived grimoire the sort that was popular with Christian occultists of the middle ages, from which a lot of Christianity's fake lore comes from, and from which demonology owes its roots. Instead it's just the idea that this original translation somehow holds power in and of itself. It doesn't seem to hold innately biblical implications, instead suggesting a kind of rosetta stone sort of role. It's the closest thing a modern Filgaian reader has to some ancient lost text that they couldn't possibly understand; it's the shadow on the wall of Plato's cave, the distinct shape of an otherwise blindingly unknowable truth, and that in and of itself gives it this immegnce power.

Moreover, the model in all(?) appearances seems to be based on old Japanese side-stitch. (it's why the models rather distinctly don't have a spine and you can see the leaf edge along the back just like on the sides) It's an older style that doesn't require adhesive, and has at this point become less practical and more of a novelty. In any case, its immediate effect is to give the Targum the distinct feeling of being archaic and foreign; so old that they're entirely outside the style of printing and binding standards of Filgaia's loosely western european setting.

And finally* the rather goofy one time entry in Wild Arms 3, the Manga enemy --localized as Comic Book. It seems to feature the official character art of Dario and Romero ont he cover, with a feature highlight of Martina?

*I nearly missed Apocrypha being another WA3 original book enemy. It's pretty mundane recolor of the Bluebook, with a slightly different cover, but it's notably a neat sort of companion piece to Targum as another "biblical" text. Apocrypha are books of otherwise bible related or adjacent texts that aren't considered biblical canon, thus apocryphal texts. It's neat that the only two references to biblical texts that appear in the game with power are the original translations of the Tanakh and noncanon texts. Actual Christian new testament be damned.

And another really cool detail is that in the original Wild Arms, each book had its own unique interior texture as well, which could often barely be spotted during attacks

[paperanddice]

Death worms may not have the sheer terror behind them that purple worms carry, but they are somewhat more common due to their smaller size. They don't need the same amount of food and hunting space as the much larger worms, and so multiple can live in a territory that would be stripped bare by a purple, making encountering one a more common possibility. And while they may be less dangerous, that doesn't mean people want to encounter them still. Wielding acid, lightning, and poison as weapons, they are hard to prepare for or counter. Bolts of lightning and a heavy spray of acid kill those who try to stay out of the worm's reach, and those who it catches succumb to its poison if they're not simply ripped apart by its vicious bites. Even its blood is dangerous, corroding metal that comes in contact with it, dulling blades and pitting hammers.

The decapus looks like a ten-armed octopus, except it has a full face with a fanged mouth on its side, rather than a beak at the center of the tentacles the way an octopus or squid does. They can be found mostly deep underground, but have been encountered in tangled forests on the surface. They are clumsy on the ground, but quite agile to climb and swing from elevated surfaces, and use this underground and from trees to spring vicious ambushes. They are actually quite intelligent, though rarely have interest in negotiating with other creatures. In fact, they seem to prefer devouring humanoids over other prey, gnomes in particular. They use their ability to replicate any sound they've heard before and clever illusions to lure prey in before dropping from above in attack, occasionally coordinating with other decapuses or natural hazards to better distract potential meals. Some decapuses will gain a sort of god complex though, and take violent control of whatever creatures they can force to obey them, using their followers to gather food, and eating them if they don't supply enough.

(I still misread the decapus every time I see it. It's supposed to be pronounced like "octopus" except with deca instead of octo, but I always read it like "decapitate")

Inspired by the Pathfinder 1e Bestiary 2. This post came out a week ago on my Patreon. If you want to get access to all my monster conversions early, as well as access to my premade adventures and other material I’m working on, consider backing me there!

Death Worm  Large 5th level troop [beast]  Initiative: +9 Bite +10 vs. AC - 28 damage. Natural Even Hit: The target also takes 10 ongoing poison damage. Miss: 14 damage. R: Lightning Jolt +10 vs. PD (one nearby enemy) - 20 lightning damage. Natural Even Hit: The death worm makes a second lightning jolt attack against a different enemy as a free action. C: Acid Spray +10 vs. PD (1d4+1 nearby enemies in a group) - 18 acid damage. Limited Use: 1/battle. [Special Trigger] Corrosive Blood +10 vs. PD - the target takes a cumulative -1 penalty to damage with the weapon it used to make the attack until the end of the battle. If this penalty reaches -5, the weapon is destroyed. Limited Use: 1/round, as an interrupt action when an enemy makes a melee weapon attack against the death worm and rolls a natural odd hit. Burrow. Resist Acid and Lightning 16+. AC 20 PD 19 MD 14 HP 166

Decapus  3rd level spoiler [aberration]  Initiative: +6 Swarming Tentacles +8 vs. AC - 6 damage. Natural Even Hit: The decapus can grab the target. Bite +8 vs. AC - 6 damage. Quick Use: 1/turn, as a quick action against an enemy the decapus has grabbed. R: Confusion Illusion +8 vs. MD (all nearby enemies) - The target is distracted (save ends). A distracted enemy takes a -1 penalty to AC and all defenses, and if it rolls a natural 1-5 on an attack roll or saving throw it becomes dazed until the end of its next turn. Wall Climber. AC 18 PD 16 MD 15 HP 44

[cyberkevvideo]

The Boggard As a Playable PF 1e Race

Just a bit of housekeeping before we get on with the entry. Looking at my last post entry, I haven't posted since the beginning of March. Since that time, my health has taken a significant nose dive and I've been seeing numerous doctors, hospital and clinic visits, and medical tests performed. I still have many more to do yet, and a couple can't even be performed here so I'll be needing to get a ride to a whole other city. Basically, if I wasn't bedridden, I was being looked at by doctors or specialists and being scanned by machines. It's been quite the ordeal. I posted some of the journey on my Twitter/X. Good news is we've finally ruled out cancer. Just wanted to put that out there in case anyone was wondering where I've been for the past four months.

Now, as some people may or may not be aware, this week (July 1st to July 7th) is Kraken Week. It's what will hopefully be an annual TTRPG event that was created and hosted by Point Hat and Ginny Di, and YouTubers come together and do videos on the kraken and other sea and water-based creatures. It's going to be their version of Shark Week, but not just about sharks. It's been encouraged for others to join in as well. Unfortunately, I'm not a YouTuber, so I'm going to be doing this via this Tumblr blog.

I don't know who's responsible for this logo yet, but when I do, I'll be sure to edit this post and give credit to that person. (I've reached out, but haven't gotten a response yet.)

EDIT: The artist is for the logo is Antonio Demico, aka Pointy Hat himself.

The boggard is more swamp than ocean, but I really wanted to talk about them after I learned that they're considered a playable race option on Archives of Nethys, but don't have any actual playable stats, I decided to do a breakdown of making it possible to play as one without needing to do it yourself or pull your GM's teeth to let a HD version be accepted. And the best part is that with this, you'll be able to use the Leaper alternate racial trait and the other Favored Class options. Unfortunately, there isn't something that I've been able to find that lets you use your Acrobatics jump bonus on the Pathfinder Race Guide. The closest was Jumper, which says you're always considered having taken a running start when you jump.

Image courtesy of the Pathfinder Kingmaker Wiki.

Using the boggard from the Pathfinder 1e Bestiary (and Archives of Nethys), we know that the boggard, or toadfolk, is a humanoid shaped race that looks like an anthropomorphic frog or toad, with webbed hands and feet, large bulbous eyes, and overly wide mouths. They almost never stand upright, and hunched average 5 feet in height and weight close to 200 lbs. They also live around 50 years, but because of the harsh livestyle of where boggards typically reside, it's extremely rare for them to see that age.

Regarding the age chart, it's a bit of a mix bag. I'm mostly going to use the 3.5 varag from MM4 as a guideline. Adulthood for boggards is typically 3 years after they fully developed all of they're limbs, and the typical training before sent out into the world is only two years. If they kill a sentient humanoid during their first excursion, they're considered a true adult. With that in mind, Starting Ages should be Intuitive +1d3; Self-Taught +1d4; and Trained +1d6 years. As for the Aging Effects at Middle-Aged, Old, and Venerable, I'm going with 14, 28, 42, and +2d8 for Maximum Life. This gives the average max life of 51, which fits pretty well.

For the breakdown of the race itself, it'll probably come off looking a bit expensive. I wanted the boggard to be a truly monstrous race, similar to that of the fetchling (17 RP), svirfneblin (24 RP), wyvaran (17 RP), wyrwood (20 RP), and kasatha (20 RP). It always bothered me that monstrous races like the lizardfolk and duergar were reduced to less than a base human. Let them be monstrous. It's not like this is D&D 3rd edition and we have access to Savage Species for PCs to gain monster HD and more monster features.

If this is too many RP for your group (I know it was for my old one), you can easily reduce it to 13 RP and have it more in line with the tiefling. Beyond that, you might have to look over things and negotiate with your GM on what you can reduce or move around.

Boggard -Racial Traits- Ability Score Modifiers (Greater Paragon): +4 Str, -2 Dex, –2 Int (2 RP) Type: Humanoid (boggard) (0 RP) Size: Medium (0 RP) Languages: Xenophobic (0 RP) Land Speed: Slow (20 ft.) (-1 RP) Swim Speed: 30 ft swim; +8 on Swim checks (2 RP) Defense: Natural Armor +1 (2 RP) Offense: Sticky Tongue (2 RP) Offense: Terrifying Croak (2 RP) Movement: Swamp Stride (1 RP) Senses: Darkvision (60 ft.), low-light vision (3 RP) Skill Bonus: Camouflage (swamps) (1 RP) Skill Bonus: Perception +2 bonus (2 RP) Other: Hold Breath (1 RP)

Total 17 RP

As brought up above, if you're not allowed the 17 RP, I'd remove the Perception +2 bonus and natural armor. That'll drop it to 13.

I haven't decided if I'll do another entry for Kraken Week and make something more sea/ocean based. It'll honestly depend on my health. That said, if someone comments regarding on what they'd like to see, I'll do my best to get it out there before the 7th.

As always, if you like what I do, whether it’s monster conversions, adventure path add-ons, or race builds, I have a Ko-Fi page (linked) for those who would like to support me monetarily, especially now that I'm racking up medical bills. There is no pressure or obligation to do so. A like and/or a share would also be appreciated just as much. It lets people know I exist out there.

I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy.

[monstersdownthepath]

Monster Spotlight: Whirlmaw

CR 8

Neutral Medium Aberration

Inner Sea Bestiary, pg. 60

Despite their appearance these bizarre predators aren't scourges of the seas, but the skies, specifically the skies over open deserts where pockets of hot air allow them to glide for hours at a time without expending much energy. Whirlmaws gently coast through the heated air as their multitudes of crystalline eyes survey the land below, their Keen Sight potent to the point it's nearly supernatural, tracking even the smallest of potential morsels roaming the open sands from upwards to a mile away without penalty... though they rarely ever attack anything like common desert rodents. No, Whirlmaws hunt much larger prey, divebombing everything from halflings to desert giants in an attempt to sate their appetites.

The corkscrew-like flight pattern of a Whirlmaw allows it a degree of aerial maneuverability (manifested by having both Hover and Wingover) that lets them easily prey on other flying creatures when the mood strikes, but they're at their most dangerous (and infuriating) when attacking ground-bound victims. They have a fly speed of 90ft and perfect maneuverability despite their odd anatomy, and possess the rarely-seen Flying Charge ability, granting them a +4 bonus to attack rolls when charging a target from the air, bringing them all the way up to an almost-certain hit in the form of a +20 to their attack roll (it's +16 normally!).

As one may surmise, a Whirlmaw's primary (and only) means of damaging someone is their hell-demon lamprey-leech mouth. A single bite from this horrible orifice (horrifice?) inflicts a deceptively tame 2d6+9 damage... but then it latches on. And it begins to spin. This Burrowing Bite pulverizes flesh, blood, and muscle at a pace that can be accurately described as "nightmarish," inflicting an additional 4d6+12 damage every round the Whirlmaw remains attached to its victim, and note I say additional; that means anyone bitten and Grabbed by the Whirlmaw takes 6d6+21 damage every round until they either die or break the grapple somehow. In case you thought Paizo was going to have mercy, don't expect any, because this damage happens as a free action every time it succeeds a grapple check before it makes its actual bite attack for the round.

Whirlmaws natively have a +15 to grapple checks, but Burrowing Bite grants them an additional +4 to the first grapple check they make after biting a creature, making it difficult to dodge the initial attempt and difficult to dislodge once it's on. Confounding matters even further is the Whirlmaws Dust Cloud, an ability that lets it kick up a concealing cloud of sand whenever it hovers near enough to the ground... like when it's got someone in its grapple and wrenches them into the air. The image of one of these horrors dive-bombing your party and burrowing into their torsos is bad enough, but they are technically allowed to then pull victims into the sky with them, something they can take advantage of via a combination of Flyby Attack and their Burrowing Bite's free grapple. Even if the victim DOES break free, they're taking some additional fall damage AND opening themselves up to being Flying Charge'd next round.

Though their maneuverability in the sky is almost unrivaled, Whirlmaw are much less impressive if grounded in some way, such as if they get grappled or entangled. They can scooch across the ground at only 10ft a round, but they're more likely to escape such an unfavorable situation by simply burrowing into the sand. Their corkscrew body doesn't lend itself to elegance underground, but they can still burrow 10ft a round, more than enough to get them out of any fight they don't want to be a part of... or set up for an ambush, since they have 30ft of tremorsense. Or, y'know, if they just want to sleep for the night.

Whirlmaws aren't especially complex monsters, existing largely as living jumpscares or sudden encounters a DM can drop upon a party at any time they're out in the open and looking particularly delicious and full of organs. They rely on their startling damage, ability to launch a terrifying surprise attack, and grappling gimmick, and go down easily once the party recovers from the initial shock, as their only real defense is their high saves (+8/+10/+8!). The TRUE danger lays in higher-level adventures, where groups of as many as 7 may descend at once, or when the party is specifically sent out to hunt them down for their valuable eyes.

The one immunity that Whirlmaw possess is a complete immunity to Fire, and it's a well-known fact about them and the reason they're highly desired by those who wish to travel through the harsh deserts. The key to their immunity lays in their crystalline eyes, which serve as the key ingredients in or the perfect focus for magical items which convey resistance or immunity to heat and Fire. The ocular gemstones are worth a whopping 300 gold each, and since Whirlmaw have four clusters of three eyes, that means each one felled churns out a tidy profit of 3,600 gold!

Sounds good, right? Well, you'll have to ask yourself this: will it still sound good when one of them slams into your camel from above at 30mph and devours its intestines in a terrible, bloody display? Sure, you may have killed the thing... but now you have to walk back to civilization on your own, and there are still much, much worse things waiting out there in and below the sands...

You can read more about them here.

[miistical]

week nine - latin america p. 2

And here's part two! I greatly enjoyed these stories more than last week's. The themes that are prevalent in this week's list are more to my interest and each of the writers do them great justice. Also, I've said this before and I'll say it again: Julio Cortázar, I am going to kiss you for writing "Bestiary".

Week nine's readings are: Jorge Luis Borges' "The Aleph" Julio Cortázar's "Bestiary" Luisa Valenzuela's "I'm Your Horse in the Night"

This week we're dealing with perception. Each story is focused on how they see the world or, in some cases, what they believe the world is showing them. Is what happening real? Or is it all in the narrator's head? And, if it is all just in their mind, does it make what they're seeing, what they believe, any less real?

"The Aleph" by Jorge Luis Borges is a part of a larger collection of short stories that deal with themes of dreams, labyrinths, chance, infinity, archives, and mirrors—and boy does this story deliver on that. Firstly, our narrator is a truly insufferable man who was so obsessed with a woman in life that after her death he continually bugs her cousin Carlos as if to somehow prove he was important enough to her to stay in touch with her family (even though he actively dislikes said cousin). While this alone is decent ground to treat in the theme of perception - how the narrator believes his relationship with both the woman and her surviving family, his own relationship with his artistic skills versus others, etc. - that's not all. "The Aleph" is named such due to a real (or perhaps imaginary?) aleph in Carlos' house. He swears by it, that all the universe opens up to him, and when the narrator swings by to see it for himself, he sees the same. Yet, he does not let himself truly bask in the experience; instead, his jealousy and disdain for Carlos colors his reaction and he pretends that he saw nothing at all. How he perceived himself and Carlos ruined any spiritual connection that he could have made and, at the end, he is left still a petty man while Carlos' experiences with the aleph impacted his artistic skill enough to win a national prize.

My favorite of this bunch, as I said at the top, is Julio Cortázar's "Bestiary". Considered as one of the founders of the Latin American Boom, it's no wonder why this story is as good as it is. The narrator, Isabel, is a young girl sent off to live with family friends (her playmate Nino, his father, mother, and uncle along with their housekeeper and a roaming tiger) for the summer. She creates little bestiaries and plays with the insects in the gardens of the home, but this is mirrored in how she writes unsent letters back home of the behaviors of everyone in the house. Everything is a beast, here. As she slowly watches and documents the habits of all the bugs she's collected, she notices how everyone in the house inhibits some of the same characteristics; the reader and Isabel both don't like what they start to see. The sad, damp atmosphere Isabel notices clings tighter as the days pass by. The perception here is how Isabel slots things together, equating ants and praying mantises to how Nino's mother Rema flinches away from her husband's brother. She overhears Nino's father call his brother a bastard, brings the uncle a drink instead of letting Rema do it—watches as her bugs eat each other to survive. By the end, Isabel is trusted to let everyone know where in the house the roaming tiger is, and the uncle does not question her when she tells him it's in his office. She's lying, of course; she knows he'll head to the library to get work done instead and run directly into the tiger there. Isabel knows that bigger insects pray on smaller ones, but should there be enough ants even a praying mantis can die. Rema gives Isabel a hug and Isabel releases her bestiary back into the garden—her experiments are complete.

It's really hard to follow "Bestiary" in my mind, I'm afraid. Thankfully, Luisa Valenzuela's "I'm Your Horse in the Night" is a very different beast. Written by a post-Latin American Boom author, this short story (as many of her stories were) is in direct opposition to the 1970s Argentinean dictatorship. The theme of perception is strange here as nothing is actually what it seems. The story is about the lovers Chiquita and Beto, the letter of which the government is looking for. After spending the night together, Beto is gone in the morning and, after a quick phone call with a friend, Chiquita finds the police at her doorstep looking for Beto. Yet, there is a very good possibility that none of this happened. For one, Chiquita and Beto aren't even their real names, just nicknames they gave to each other. Secondly, Chiquita herself isn't so sure if Beto was ever actually there or if it was all a dream; everything had seemed so vivid, yet if Beto was actually on the run from the government, why would he be in the country let alone at the house of his known lover? And Chiquita is known as the phone call was faked - it was never a close friend, but rather someone pretending to be to get Chiquita to accidentally give up where Beto was. Truly, the only thing real is the very end, where Chiquita is trapped in prison—yet, even if it would save her, she never tells anyone about her night, whether real or fake. It's the last thing she had of the man she loved, of how he felt and sounded, and relinquishing that part of him was just too much.

The perception of other people and of life itself can be tricky. It colors your experience with everything and everyone you interact with—jealousy can make you petty and blind to the beauty of the world, patterns in behaviors can open your eyes to see what's hiding in plain sight, and even dreams can become real enough if you hide them away in yourself. Each story this week was a pleasure to read as all the narrators had something they clung to so tightly that nothing was going to take it from them.

[dragontamer22]

Here's another Pokemon IRL tabletop bestiary entry :) they're fun to write

Ditto (#132) Archikoproelefsia prototypos

General Information: Ditto are famous for their ability to transform themselves into any living or non-living thing that they can visualize. Individual Dittos often have strengths and weaknesses when it comes to their transformation abilities, with some having difficulty retaining their shape when they’re laughing, some struggling with faces, and many getting details wrong if their memory of the thing is off. When they sleep, Ditto turn into rocks to avoid harm. For some reason, Dittos tend not to like other members of its species, which readily explains why baby Dittos are rare. This is believed to be because Ditto are a social species who try to fit in with others by transforming, and since they cannot transform into each other, it leaves them feeling socially awkward around other Dittos. They average 1 foot (0.3 meters) in height, and 8.8 pounds (4.0 kg).

Habitat: Human settlements, laboratories, and other urban environments. Dittos are extremely rare in the wild. This makes sense, since they are not a naturally occurring species. It is interesting though, as Ditto could be highly effective at living anywhere if it transformed into the right Pokémon or object, but alas they seem to have a strong preference for urban ecosystems and abandoned laboratories.

Life Cycle: Good question! Dittos can reproduce with any Pokémon that is capable of reproduction which has the miraculous quality of exclusively laying eggs of the non-Ditto species, but they only make more Dittos when they reproduce with each other. And they don’t really like each other that much! Additionally, on-going research into Ditto longevity seems to indicate that they have incredibly long lifespans, as specimens from the original Mew-cloning experiments from the 1960s are still alive and thriving.

Behavior: Ditto are a very sociable but ultimately very awkward species, the horrid combination of being largely extroverts with terrible social anxiety and little self-confidence in their ability to be liked by others just as they are. They typically socialize with other Pokémon by transforming into them, which can make for exciting playtime. Which, as stated above, leads to them not really getting along with other Dittos, though if two Dittos were given enough encouragement and therapy, would probably actually get along great and be awkward together.

Diet: Whatever their transformed form eats, otherwise they eat berries and generic Pokémon food quite readily.

Conservation: Least Concern

Relationship with Humans: Ditto have an intricate history with humans, as dittos straight-up did not exist prior to the 1960s when humanity began its first legitimate attempts at cloning Mew. For reasons that only the creators of Mewtwo could even hope to begin explaining, the Mew cloning process turns out to be extremely finicky and anything less than the acceptable tight margin of error results in a Ditto. However, Dr. Fuji, the pioneer researcher behind the original Mew cloning project, was a genius who (after producing 327 dittos of his own) succeeded in creating something other than a Ditto during his experiments, and created another new species, Mewtwo. After the explosion at Fuji Laboratories in 1969, the research data and notes that successfully created the Mewtwos were lost, and all subsequent experiments since then in cloning Mew have resulted in Dittos. Its to the point, where some scientists are no longer even trying to make Mew, and are just looking to make more Dittos. Several tens of thousands of Dittos are on record of having been created since 1961, with most being adopted out to respectable breeders, trainers, rangers, and scientists. This has not stopped some Dittos from getting into wrong hands. Lastly, the research behind why Dittos are created is not widely known, but its status as Top Secret Information ceased in 1991 because a reporter used their country’s Freedom of Information Act to demand that information on bioethical grounds.

Exactly 327 Dittos and several Mewtwos (it’s believed to be 4, but the records were destroyed) were created before Fuji Laboratories was ultimately destroyed in a great explosion that killed every scientist in the facility and destroyed everything within a mile of the explosion. To this day, Fuji Island (a made-up remote island in the Pacific otherwise uninhabited by humans because of its remoteness and dangerous fauna) is the only place one can consistently find wild Dittos. But good luck figuring out which of the highly dangerous Pokémon is actually a successfully disguised Ditto! Fuji Island is only accessible by a 4-day boat ride from the mainland and the only humans who live there are the nice (but weird) ranger throuple who man the lighthouse, and the only people approved to travel there are researchers. Otherwise, Fuji Island is designated as a nature preserve by its host country and the international community.

Ditto serve many roles in human society, but research and the arts are the most common professions. And as companions to Pokémon Breeders, as their ability to reproduce with any reproductively-viable individual is extremely useful—especially in captive-breeding programs of endangered species.

It is estimated that there are between 300,000-400,000 individual dittos in existence, with around 250,000 living individuals being confirmed by government records.

Classification: Pokémon taxonomy is complicated, but at the end of all the debates Ditto are considered to be a unique species from Mew despite them being weird failed clones. Dittos are in an interesting position of being the only member of the genus Archikoproelefsia that is available to the public to own, which is cool to many people because it’s well-known in popular science for being the genus that is the Last Common Ancestor Of Pokémon.

[wearesorcerer]

[PF] Golems, Ranked

Ordinarily, I would leave this sort of thing to @weareartificers or @we-are-siege-engineer or [insert other Collective artificer here] -- whomever specifically covers robots and golems and such. However, I'm going through various books right now and am reminded at how much I like and dislike some of these. So here you are: thoughts on animated minions you can make for fun (and perhaps profit).

Adamantine (Bestiary 2): Ye olde epic golem. One of the few things approaching the Tarrasque in difficulty to destroy. Needs better artwork, though, and otherwise isn't terribly interesting. B

Alchemical (Bestiary 2): This one has such horror potential, it's amazing. The brain-in-a-jar part is a nice but unnecessary touch. A

Behemoth (Lost Kingdoms): This seems like a very round-about way of sticking castle on the back of a Colossal-sized creature. C

Blood (Bestiary 4): This is mostly gross (because it forces you to think about coagulation). It is not without precedent, but even then, it's gross. C-

Bone (Bestiary 3): The Bone Prison ability is really what makes this its own creature, rather than a variant skeleton or a negative energy golem. Needs better artwork. N.B.: Not the same as the 2nd ed. monster of the same name. B

Bone, Equine (Tombs of Golarion): I mean, it's a different take on a golem, for sure. I'm not sure if it appeals any differently to me than a horse skeleton would, but it's no worse than a normal bone golem. B

Brass (Legacy of Fire #6, Bestiary 3): Talk about looks being deceiving! Its artwork is lame enough that you pass over the entry, yet it has 1.) an oversized sword which you can't disarm it of, 2.) a breath weapon AoE DoT that can last longer than the recharge die (better than most breath weapons), and 3.) an explosive self-destruct. Kudos to whomever designed this! Contrast with the one in Monster Manual 2 3.0, which is just a minotaur-themed golem. A+

Cannon (Bestiary 3): (Swoons.) I love this. Yes, it's yet another Gunslinger thingy, but it's doing it as a robot (it could not be a golem and be fine, as far as fluff goes) with a feakin' cannon. It's scary enough as-is; imagine it with a pepperbox (revolving) barrel. A+

Carrion (Crimson Throne #1, B2): Y'know how flesh golems are already just zombies but made by science? Well, these are more so: they're lower CR and HD (so cheap to produce), they spread disease, they use especially poorly preserved corpses, necromancers are the ones who tend to make them, and they require animate dead to create. Superfluous. D-

Caryatid Column (an aside): Both of Pathfinder's entries on the Caryatid Column (in the Bonus Bestiary and Bestiary 3) specify that it isn't a true golem and that it cannot be made into shield guardian; which of these is the cause of the other isn't specified. Instead, Caryatid Columns are low HD monsters, so they're cheap enough to mass produce. The Pathfinder version is less meaningfully distinct from other golems than in earlier incarnations; its only abilities are both things many other constructs should have by default: Shatter Weapon (which is in theory representing what happens when you take a sword to a block of stone) and Statue (which is the same thing as the Gargoyle's Freeze [in Place] ability and is again something any non-living block of stone should be able to do). I bring all of this up because...

Caryatid (The Witchwar Legacy): The Caryatid Golem also exists; it's a 14 HD "variant Stone Golem" (the only things the two share besides type and material of construction are number of hit dice) with all of the Caryatid Column's abilities. It doesn't make sense in context: it debuted in a scenario where regular Caryatid Columns might not be CR appropriate one-on-one, but there are twenty four of them to use. Like...why bother wasting page space on these? C- (I like Caryatids and gave them this grade.)

Clay: aka Rabbi Loew's Golem, aka what was originally meant by "golem." Except when we mean "Terracotta Warrior," which is a construct type but not a golem. The Pathfinder version is identical to the 3.5 version, which apart from mentioning that the clay is soft is lifted almost word-for-word from the 2nd ed. description (which is paired with an image of a Terracotta Warrior). Aside from the lack of word-play for activation and deactivation, I don't know how much this conforms to the original story. C for Clay.

Clockwork (Bestiary 2): This is fairly disappointing. Since Pathfinder made it so that you can sneak attack (or crit) almost anything (Rogues: "Wah! Baby want to attack vital organs in things which don't have them!" Paizo: "Okay! You're a warrior class now anyway! You're no longer the squishy pseudo-adventurer who survives by wits alone!" -- No seriously, that's what happened.), there's not a need to specify that creatures of certain types have complex inner workings. Ergo, this may as well be an iron golem with lots of swords, as all it gets is extra slashing damage options. C

Coral (Isles of the Shackles, Bestiary 4): I had come up with this as an idea for a setting of mine before I saw the version in PF. Though I like the idea (and the fast healing), the execution is a bit bland -- just another golem. C+

Crystal (Bestiary 5): The original 3.x Crystal Golem is listed as the Psion Killer on the SRD and, as its name implies, is intended to be for psychics what a normal golem is for arcanists. This one is the reverse: instead of casting dispel psionics, its presence amplifies psychic magic and the construct itself can use psychic spells. I'ma give it points for trying to make itself distinct, instead of being needlessly redundant like much of the (still glorious) 3.x psionics system. B-

Dragonhide (Construct Handbook): Like the Dragonflesh Golem (3.0 Monster Manual II), this is a draconic equivalent of the flesh golem. Unlike that one, it's not the corpse of multiple dragons stitched together, but the corpse of a giant with draconic grafts stitched onto it. Mechanically, this version is highly customizable, but not as cool as 1.) draconic grafts (the item type) or 2.) a dragon (alternate monster entry). B

Fiend-Infused Template (Cheliax, the Infernal Empire): This is kinda cool, but the Berserk Liberation ability alone is a headache in the making for any DM crazy enough to run one. C

Flesh Golem: As I said before about the Carrion Golem, the flesh golem is simply a zombie created through engineering instead of other methods and with a very specific literary/film pedigree. Mechanically, it's an excuse to make undead without them actually being undead, like the plant zombies created by the Yellow Musk Creeper or like if you cast animate objects on a corpse. It also misses the entire point of the novel, which is that the monster is both entirely alive and fully sapient, if pissed off. D

Fossil (Bestiary 3): I thought this was kinda nifty, if a great showcase in how animate objects becomes necessary to explain how something stands. (There are several very good reasons why museums tend to mount replicas of fossils rather than actual fossils, weight and instability being some of them.) However, it's its petrifying attacks that really stand out. B+

Glass (Bestiary 2): The mere fact that it gets spell turning as an extraordinary ability with a recharge is pretty freakin' great; it makes up for the fact that its other main ability is worthless because Pathfinder did not correct the Dazzled status effect (and keeps insisting on Fort saves against it; you can shield your eyes [Reflex], but your immune system isn't going to protect your vision from bright light, TYVM). The inclusion of the Stained Glass Golem as a variant is a nice space-freeing choice -- and this entry is better than the one in Monster Manual 2 3.0. B

Gold (Bestiary 6): Despite its name, its main feature is casting prismatic spray when it hits a target. That's...a little extreme for a golem, but not in a way that gives it many points. C

Ice (Bestiary): Sadly, this is not a snowman, but something more like a Glass Golem -- even though its attacks don't deal slashing damage (and they should), the icy destruction ability makes it clear that it's not snow. I'd say make lesser (snowman) and greater (ice sculpture) forms to address this; the snowman has the same slams but no icy destruction ability, the greater gains the explosion and deals slashing damage on attacks. C

Inubrix (Construct Handbook): This is kinda like an iron golem, but more powerful, since it phases through iron (and thus steel). Seems like overkill. B

Ioun (Ruins of Azlant #6): The naming poor. In general, a golem is named for the material it's made out of. The ioun golem isn't made out of ioun stones, but brass, platinum, and silver; rather, it can socket six of them (like gems in WoW), attracts nearby ones via an aura, and can temporarily drain them to cast magic missile. As a monster, it's only okay if you have ioun stones running rampant in your game; Meow might have one. C+

Iron: I have never understood why the OG D&D robot has a poisonous breath weapon; maybe it's to connect it to the improperly-named Gorgons. C

Junk (Bestiary 4): This is a novelty. You don't see very many swarms, let alone swarms of non-animals. There are other construct swarms, to be sure, but this one is more like a construct vampire or worm-that-walks, which is cooler. And it has fast healing. This is some primo shit. B+

Lead (Bestiary 5): Eh. I mean, it at least does what lead should do (I think; the acid thing doesn't sound like anything I know about lead, but I'm not a chemist). Its biggest novelty is that, if it were a Pokémon, it'd be a Poison/Steel (or vice-versa)-type, which is a heretofore unseen type combo. C

Magnetite (Giantslayer #5): A lodestone golem? A permanent magnet made to make the lives of most adventurers (especially peeps like Knight) that much more difficult? You have my attention! B+

Marrowstone (Inner Sea Bestiary): Yet another faux-undead golem, except this one operates like most undead in that it creates spawn. Pass. D

Mask (Masks of the Living God): This one can also turn into a swarm, but it's a swarm of magical masks. It has two kinds of attack masks: ones that silence and suffocate (scary) and ones that dominate. "What, a domination ability on a construct?" Yeah, but it has Int 7, so it can make use of that. Kinda. For this to be a good construct, it would need a positive Int modifier to best screw with parties, but it's still bizarrely cool. B

Mithral (Bestiary 2): It's almost a T-1000, which just means you need to make it one by adding a high Int score and more shapechanging. B

Noqual (Inner Sea Bestiary): Outdoing the Psion-Killer by a mile, the noqual golem is very much a competent anti-magic construct. It would pair well with a magnetite golem if the latter's abilities weren't magical. B

Obsidian (Bestiary 6): As you should expect, this one is all about slashing damage. It could have worked well as a variant glass golem (given that obsidian is glass). C

Panthereon (Mummy's Mask #4): Laser. Eye. Beams. Need I say more? B+

Quantium (Inner Sea Bestiary): These are a pair of otherwise unique golems that protect the city; as such, they have no crafting notes. They're kinda cool, but the fact that their information is made so fluff-specific limits their use in non-Golarion games. C+

Quintessence (Bestiary 6): Yet another take on a soul-sucking monster, but one in which the monster eats the soul without destroying it, which is somewhat better than normal. I'm not sure I'd ever want to use it, but perhaps someone someday might. C

Robot (Numeria, Land of Fallen Stars): Contextually, this is a robot that's been damaged beyond repair and used to make something akin to an Iron Golem. Mechanically, t differs from the Iron Golem in that it's electricity-oriented. So-so. C+

Sand (Construct Handbook): Why is this a golem and not an elemental? C

Shadow (Hell's Rebels #6): I don't know if I think this is a good or bad idea; it's just sort of strange. C

Stone: It's just sort of basic, y'know? I always look at stone golems and wonder whether or not they should just be earth elementals, since they're often conflated anyway. C

Viridium (Bestiary 6): Mainly a disease golem, its natural attacks are needlessly anomalous -- just give it a freakin' sword and shield. D

Wax (Carrion Crown #5, Bestiary 4): Remember that episode of Gravity Falls where all the wax figures come to life? (Or any other show where the same happens.) That's these. It's another take on the doppelganger, but it's one which is susceptible to fire damage and doesn't require there to be an entire species of creatures that want to replace people (be they tied to mirrors or not), so that's kinda cool. B-/C+

Wood (Bestiary): I'm just not feeling this one, y'know? There are plenty of golems that have AoE splinter attacks (plus the Twigjack). C-