#battlezoo dragon

[starberries-art]

His name is Shōbu, formerly Hanashōbu, he is a dragon magus.

My intent when making a character for Season of Ghosts was "I want to play a disgraced knight character and also I've been watching Frieren and really like it."

And somehow instead I ended up making a pretty dragon man who no less than three people in our group agree is giving "Kurama from Yu Yu Hakusho"

And like, I agree, and I'm not complaining.

[not-a-bad-dragon]

Finally getting to play pathfinder and upon discovering battlezoo you know I had to do it to em

[eruvadhril]

I’m a Stranger in a Strange Place…

Sure, you could play a dungeon, a dragon, a slime, or even an intelligent weapon... but how about playing YOURSELF? What if you were sucked into a fantasy TTRPG world and had to survive? What would you do, and how could you use your knowledge of the game and whatever cheat powers you were granted to your advantage? Well, now it's time to find out!

With Battlezoo Otherworlders, you can play as yourself or another resident of our universe who, for some reason or another, has been drawn into a fantasy world, with the option of gaining cheat-tier powers that place you above the norm even for residents of your new home.

Download Battlezoo Otherworlders for Pathfinder 2nd Edition or 5th Edition for FREE today! 

[jykinturah-art]

Trilli Kerkar is my Tengu Draconic Sorcerer currently suffering through Abomination Vaults. She looks like that cause she has some extra dragony blood, the Draconic Scion versatile heritage from Battlezoo Ancestries: Dragons!

[hobgoblinart]

Consider: Chimera Falin uses the new Mixed Heritage rules to combine Centaur from Howl of the Wild with the Battlezoo Dragon ancestry.

The idea is good, but I think it's overcomplicating the problem. I think chimera Falin works better as a monster, since she is... Well, a monster.

But normal Falin is something that I intend to build later and it will be quite challenging.

[midiquartz]

Question!! Outside of Marimo, I'm confused a little by the races present in Feyfinder. I presume they're at least all somewhat homebrewed, and I wanted to ask how precisely that was handled?

Oh well, feyfinder is actually our only actually run campaign... we have tried to come up with vague guidelines for which animals would fall under which canonically races if theyre a mortal character like equines/deer are elves or something buuut its not really an issue for us, we would probably just chose whatever race fit an animal the best and then reflavor it.

For example phii's phoenix ancestry is based off of a hafling ifrit, but then I just ended up swapping out a bunch of attributes and feats for homebrew.

As for Cel, I just used Battlezoo Ancestries: Dragons and tweaked it for it fitting a injured dragon stuck in mortal form rather than a weakened dragon.

Most of my homebrew is just ripping stuff out and putting other stuff in from vanilla and then reflavoring it ahaha....

[ritunn]

Pathfinder's Forgotten Gods: Walks With Golden Stars, the Starlit Wanderer

Well with that mouthful of a name out of the way, this week we're covering the draconal empyreal lord, Walks With Golden Stars! Compared to Lady Taramyth and Uskyeria, Walks was an interesting case. We know one thing about them: they're a draconal. That's it. However, we did have a name and sometimes that's all you need. So, why don't we go over what I did to make Walks a full fledged empyreal lord?

Draconal from Pathfinder 2e by Paizo

Looking at the name, the first thing that came to mind is space travel, starlight, astronauts... Starfinder? Yes, Starfinder. Starfinder already has its own deity of space travel in the form of Weydan and Pathfinder has uh... the Black Butterfly? Brigh and Cassandalee? Not exactly their thing, but Golarion is just a generic fantasy setting without funny things like sci-fi... is what I would say if Numeria, the Saoc Brethren, and so much more didn't exist. Spaceships exist in Pathfinder. Space travel exists in Pathfinder. Is it easy? No. So, that means it's the perfect place for a deity to show up to help inspire the few folks interested in it.

Walks With Golden Stars thus took inspiration from outer dragons, solar dragons specifically and became the empyreal lord of space travel and starlight. On sunlit wings, they travel the stars, observing the beauty of space with their own eyes, while reminding others of it with the light of stars faint and far away. There's a tragic bent to this however, Walks is lonely. One legend said they used to be joined by a solar dragon, but when they discovered the origin of the Starstone meteorite in the vast darkness within the Dark Tapestry, that their essences fused together to make a new being. So, now they wait and silently beckon others to join them, hoping one day they'll have a companion once again.

If you happen to meet Walks With Golden Stars, you may see them as a draconal with fiery wings of sunlight wearing a tapestry of stars, scales golden like their namesake. A being as beautiful as the stars they wander and as ephemeral as them too.

Walks With Golden Stars makes a great deity choice for Inventors, Starlit Span Magi, Cosmos Oracles, Dragon Barbarians, Sorcerers, and Summoners with a connection to outer dragons, and anyone interested in crafting starships. Their Clerics and Champions are often astronomers or engineers, focused on crafting vehicles that can reach the stars themselves. Said followers often adorn themselves with golden threaded cloaks or purple vestments with gold specks placed around the clothes in the form of constellations in honor of Walks With Golden Stars. Worshipers typically pick archetypes that better facilitate a connection to the stars or help them to build and manage marvelous vehicles to ascend past the firmament such as the Inventor multiclass, Oatia Skysage, or Vehicle Mechanic. Though some Dragon Disciples seek to become outer dragons so they can travel the stars, this proves difficult however with the extreme rarity of such bloodlines. But, it may be more common when they actually get added to Pathfinder 2e beyond the Battlezoo Bestiary Dragon Ancestry.

Next week, come join me as I cover Sixlife, the Violet Fury. A silvanshee empyreal lord! This cat is going to have some bite however.

[jessebizarreart]

Big ol Dragon

I was doing some conversion of characters from DnD to Pathfinder 2e for fun to see what would happen... I saw that they didn't have Dragonborn, but RollForCombat had Battlezoo content for Dragons and I couldn't resist~ 👀

[thegaminggang]

Battlezoo: Eldamon for 5E Reviewed - https://thegaminggang.com/our_reviews/battlezoo-eldamon-for-5e-dnd-reviewed/...

[cyberkevvideo]

There was a 5e Monster to PC Experimental Challenge?

I don't exactly know when this started, or even where, but I know that this is a concept that has been around since at least 2003 when Wizards of the Coast released the first printing of the Savage Species supplement for D&D 3rd, which is the idea of playing monstrous races alongside PCs. I know that in AD&D there were modules where you played as monsters to try and defend against adventurers, and it was one of the first editions that allowed you to play as tieflings and cambions, and Dragon Magazine allowed the lupin from Mystara, but I don't know about whether or not if that also included included minotaur, medusa, and stone giants like Savage Species did.

Since then, it was more that third party creatives took the idea of monster PC and making their HD into class levels. For Pathfinder, Dreamscarred Press and Necromancers of the Northwest were the main two companies I saw doing this, do so successfully. Rite Publishing did a similar concept, but took it in a different direction.

What seems to have prompted the original challenge to get brought up again is Roll For Combat's new BattleZoo Ancestries: Titans Kickstarter that will be releasing 13 new monster species, including the troll, dullahan, recap, cyclops, kraken, and titans. The dullahan is the one I'm most interested by as it's not going to be the undead version we see in 5e, but the fey version we see in Tome of Beasts from Kobold Press, or mentioned with the alternate name, Gan Ceanns by Paizo. Essentially they're a fey that work for the Unseelie Court and their head is back in the Feywild.

The Pathfinder 2E versions of these will just be Lineages, which we've seen for kobolds, aasimar, tiefling, etc.

At the time of this post, the Kickstarter has 20 days left.

Not gonna lie, kind of wish I'd been part of a project like this. While I don't know Pathfinder 2e, I love the idea of taking monsters and making it possible to play them as PCs. Savage Species is probably my favourite 3rd edition book, and Necromancers of the Northwest was my favourite iteration of the concept for Pathfinder 1e (although I tweaked it a bit in my home games because they felt it was unnecessary to make base race versions of the monsters like Savage Species, did before taking the monster levels).

I didn't go that far down the rabbit hole, but did find the experimental challenge more or less briefly explained on Reddit in 2018 and expanded upon slightly more in 2022 on EN World. Essentially, the challenge was to take a standard monster (no named monsters like Tiamat, Bahamut, Pazuzu, or Belial) that had an Intelligence of a minimum of 8 (so no beasts or tarrasque), it couldn't be any larger than Large size or smaller than Small, and it could only be reasonably powerful enough that it would stand next to a standard race but not immediately overshadow it. Any powers that wouldn't make it into the race itself had to be put into racial feats or class levels. No creating a lich spellcaster as just a race with feats and then take 20 cleric or fighter levels on top of all that. However, that didn't mean you couldn't emulate feats like Feytouched or Magic Initiate. If the creature had multiple forms (such as a dragon), you couldn't immediately use the final form (or age category) for powers, and even with racial feats you couldn't have the creature grow size categories so that after four feats it was suddenly gargantuan. Again, it has to stand next to PCs and travel with them. Having a literal titan walk around at level 10 means you're making things more difficult for the rest of your party. A gargantuan creature would have difficulty going dungeon delving or fitting in the party's bastion. Even a huge creature would have issues without a permanent reduce spell. This meant that going with a Small, Medium, or Large monster was probably in the person's best interest.

In addition to everything else, it seems that ASI placement, age, alignment, and size were either eliminated or reduced to be more in line with Monsters of the Multiverse more minimal approach. Makes sense given that not all monsters are given much lore regarding those sections, and many have a multitude of massive ability scores.

The person on EN World that I learned about this original challenge from, decided to go with a mind flayer. There were a number of feats, and the consensus was that a fighter illithid would be beyond broken by level 12 with how the feats were laid out, and the sheer number that fighters can take. Using Action Surge after using a successful mind blast would be absolutely brutal. Putting that on an NPC mind flayer alone could be a possible TPK, so I definitely get it.

Before I even knew about this challenge, I had been experimenting with different monstrous races for 5e such as the fey dullahan and gnoll. I was partly inspired by Dungeon Dad's Monster of the Week. He converts D&D monsters from older editions, as well as Pathfinder 1e monsters, to the 5e (and now the 2024 5e) system.

Doing this made for interesting issues such as the 3.0 oread being immune to cold damage while the 5e oread being immune to fire and poison damage. Also, they know vastly different spells.

Since I've already got a few done already on a separate document, I might share them here and join in on the experimental challenge just for fun. About the only thing I don't have prepared already are the feats that boost their traits/abilities and allow them to get their full power over the course of the game.

[crinosg]

If I may offer there are two third party products that might be right up your alley.

The first is Hellania's guide to monster hunting, which features a monster tamer class that basically lets you play a pokemon trainer, complete with capturing monsters in tiny vessels and training them up to be stronger.

The second is Stibbles codex of companions, a low level monster bestiary designed for monsters specifically intended to be familiars, companions or pets, which pairs well with the above mentioned monster tamer class. It has stats for Half life head crabs, the flying spaghetti monster, bulbasaur, Cortana, Aku Aku from Banjo Kazooie, those little cat people from monster hunter, Clap Trap, the clockwork owl from clash of the titans, Navi, Shedinja, and many more.

Roll for combat also has Battlezoo Eldamon coming out.... eventually, which will feature a brand new subbreed of cute evolving elemental monsters to bond with or channel the power with.

Point is, third party has options for monster taming classes in 5e (Heck, I plan on eventually starting to stat some of the Dragon Quest Monster monsters for 5e once I get the latest game).

A couple months ago, one of the kids at the daycare brought in a D&D starter set and asked me to DM a game for him and some of the other kids in my class. Now, I had considered doing this in the past, but written it off for a variety of reasons, mainly asusming it'd be a couple days of chaos before the kids get sick of all the math involved and lose interest. But if a kid broaches an idea and others seem on board, I feel it's kind of my duty to at least try it.

So far my assumptions have been... mostly correct? Like, 70% of my predictions have come true, it is chaos, ten-years olds are the most murder-happy murder hobo PCs you could possibly imagine, and they've really been pushing my improv skills to their absolute limits with the choices they've made (and the constrictions I have on me as a daycare teacher). But they haven't gotten bored with the math, and they absolutely love playing the game still, which is nice. I like it when my students are passionate about something.

Anyway, I bring this up because seeing how children play with D&D canon has made me realize one critical fact:

D&D needs a Mons Game spinoff.

Kids love monsters. This is not my bias, it is something that has been categorically proven to me in my four years of working at a daycare. Every kid loves the idea of weird, impossible creatures, and they love the idea of befriending a whole horde of those creatures even more so. One of my kids in the daycare D&D campaign is making it his goal to find and tame every monster he can find in the kid-friendly monster manuals I bought for the class. He wants a Tarasque and a Bullete and an Owlbear and on and on and on, and keeps proposing tactics for capturing them based on his time playing Ark: Survival Evolved, a game where you can tame dinosaurs and mythic beasts while trying to survive a wild world full of danger and obstacles.

And it turns out that, while the mechanics of D&D don't support this, the philosophy of how its settings are structured according to those mechanics does. D&D is filled with hundreds of wild and imaginative monsters, all with distinct appearances, habits, adaptations, and environmental needs. The need to make the "dungeons" part of D&D interesting has required it to build really interesting monster ecosystems, and, much like mons games, the need to keep players buying new content has resulted in them building a vast library of creatures, because selling $50 books containing a slew of new monsters is a pretty guaranteed way to get money. D&D may not be a mons game, but it's accidentally made its setting perfectly suited to be one.

And what a money-maker that would be! Skew it more towards a child audience in tone, use simpler mechanics so kids can hop into it without spending, say, three solid weeks of afterschool daycare time crafting character sheets more or less one on one, and you'd have a game that would easily hook a younger audience while planting seeds of interest into the bigger game.

Of course, there are already indie TTRPG mons games, and I imagine some of them are actually good, but unfortunately they're not exactly easily obtainable on a daycare teacher's budget. And, you know, they wouldn't let you make a team of a bulette, an otyugh, a gray render, and an owlbear.

But then again, Wizards of the Coast continues to be absolute bastards, so maybe this idea is too good for them. Which makes it a good thing they're never going to read this blog post.

[smiteworks]

New Release Battlezoo Ancestries: Dragons Skyscraper Studios, Inc.

With  Battlezoo Ancestries: Dragons , the power of dragons is in your hands. With the dragon ancestry, play as a dragon who used a special ritual to gain power quickly by adventuring, rather than by waiting millennia to grow into it. Over 45 heritages allow you to play any true dragon!

[nyrafernvale]

Helping to populate the homebrew world we’re playing in, and naturally the librarian had to be a green dragon.

Her name is Requiem. All of the books in the library are part of her personal collection (or horde as she playfully refers to it as) and she’s eager to share them—given her books are returned on time, of course. You don’t want a green dragon following the scent of an overdue book back to your house.

[drakaina-posts]

Anyways, Battlezoo Ancestries: Dragons is a neat book. The PF2e version’s out, and the D&D 5e one will be soon.

[lockersnap]

I finished my homebrew Ponyfolk ancestry for pf2e.  24 total ancestry feats and 5 heritages.

I think I could try to make demon ancestries like how Battlezoo did player character dragon ancestries but oh my lord this is more work than I thought.

[japhgura]

Zelesedes, my Pathfinder Cleric/Monk Cloud Dragon built with battlezoo's ancestries dragons:3 She starts the campaign waking up after an event she can't remember, suddenly reduced to not even 10% of her power and magic. During the story she tries to find out what happened, especially to her spine and trying to regain her power and full form. (3rd slide is her before the incident:)) #pathfinder2e #clouddragon #cleric #monk #apsu https://www.instagram.com/p/Ch9fyZzsYQA/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=