#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]

The Battlezoo: Eldamon Hardcover is Landing in Stores for 5E and Pathfinder - https://thegaminggang.com/game-news/the-battlezoo-eldamon-hardcover-is-landing-in-stores-for-5e-and-pathfinder/...

[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=

[the-river-delta]

Hear hear!

A couple extra points:

- When it comes to character builder apps, instead of Pathbuilder, you have have Wanderer’s Guide (only on the desktop, but still), which is free upfront (you only need to pay if you want to use your own homebrew, but you have all the official content to work with and all the other people’s homebrew - some of which actually comes from 3rd party books, such as Battlezoo’s PLAYABLE DRAGONS)

- If you’re a virtual tabletop (VTT) user, your first instinct might check out PF2 on Roll20, but uhm...YMMV of course, but the common consensus is that it’s not great, especially since you need to buy all the books on Roll20 to use them.

Instead, you might want to check out FoundryVTT, which has a VASTLY superior Pathfinder 2e implementation that has ALL the rules content already integrated for free, and as of now, Paizo has officially partnered up, and the newest adventures (as well as the Beginner Box) will be receiving official module conversions (with hi-res maps, automation scripts, and fancy ambiance) - if you already own them in PDF, you get a HUGE discount, and if you buy the module itself, you get the PDF on top for free! It’s such a bargain!

Now, Foundry itself is paid, and costs like $50 upfront, but it’s a one-time payment, only the host/GM needs to do it, and then you keep it forever and can host it on your own PC, or a third-party hosting service like Forge.

- Alternatively, if you want an experience more akin to D&D Beyond, with a compendium browser and character management but no built-in maps, Pathfinder Nexus is currently in early access. I haven’t used it, so I can’t say much, though.

- Don’t even have a full group to play with consistently, locally or online? Fret not, because where D&D has the Adventurer’s League organized play program, Pathfinder has the Pathfinder Society - there’s a steady stream of new scenarios and interesting storylines, which even bleed back into the overall game’s canon lore every once in a while! You don’t even need to buy any books to try it out - though you’ll be limited to what’s in the Core Rulebook and the World Guide, as well as to the official pregenerated characters. 

- Even if you’re deeply entrenched in 5e, you still have one option to look forward to later this year - Paizo’s most popular PF2 Adventure Path (their big multi-part campaigns, released on a monthly basis in softcover), Abomination Vaults, will be receiving a hardcover 5e conversion in November. It’s a classic, self-contained megadungeon crawl for levels 1-10, but still has that signature Paizo storytelling and worldbuilding touch.

D&D sucks, play PF2e instead

wizards of the coast are a bunch of bastards and if you have to get your fix of tolkienized fiction, at least play pathfinder 2e instead! it's like D&D, but:

Paizo, the creators, are making an active effort to be better stewards of the design space they are in, and to handle their real world cultural inspirations with tact. Do they get it perfect? No. But at least they'll listen to you if you yell at them on the subreddit enough.

The combat is actually fun and tactical! The 3-action economy, where you get three actions every turn, combined with the Feat system, which allows for a wide range of character customization, makes every class way more fun, from Fighter to Wizard to Cleric. No more spamming multiattacks or Eldritch Blasts or doing the same thing every. Single. Turn.

The whole thing is free online!! You heard me right! Minus the content in the Adventure Paths, all of the rules content, character options, creatures, and GM tools are on The Archives of Nethys! You can literally learn all the rules of the game on this site if you want to!!!

The Pathbuilder 2e app costs, like, 5 dollars or something to gain full access???? but after that, it lets you build your characters in-app using all of the available ancestries and options. I think it may only be for Android though, sorry.

The setting is actually REALLY COOL. It's set on a planet called Golarion, which is a "kitchen sink setting," and is full of fun fantasy concepts, Tolkien-y or not. You can play a steampunk-y, brass-and-firearms heist campaign or a gritty adventure set in a land ruled by an evil undead or a game with futuristic technology without leaving the same planet. Also the Forgotten Realms are BORING.

Skills! Matter! In Combat! You can actually play an Athletics build, or an Intimidation build, or hell, a Diplomacy build with the right class!

PF2e has been out for a very short time compared to D&D 5e, and yet it has so many ancestry options, spells, not to mention new classes that have all come out after launch! It started with 12 classes, and is now up to 20!!! 20 core classes! Those unfamiliar to Pathfinder will find new fantasy flavor in classes like the Investigator, Swashbuckler, Oracle, Witch, Gunslinger (Which isn't just a lame fighter subclass, thanks matt mercer), Inventor, Magus (which is a built-in gish!), and Summoner.

You can play as a SKELETON! or a TREE MONSTERS with an COSMOS-ENTITY INSIDE OF IT! or a fucking ANDROID, which is different from the AUTOMATON ancestry!

all in the CORE RULESET! none of that is homebrew or 3rd party!

And did I mention it's not being made by WoTC???

If you want to play D&D, go play Pathfinder 2e. Have fun. Treat yourself.

... Or go play a Powered by the Apocalypse game, there's like a hundred of those and they're all pretty okay.