#pf2e evocation

[dndspellgifs]

Cataclysm

10th level evocation

Arcane, Primal

(pathfinder 2nd edition)

[dndspellgifs]

Moonlight Ray

3rd level evocation

Divine, Primal

(pathfinder 2e)

we are all going to be ookay some day i promise

stingray blast

[honourablejester]

For reasons, I’m doodling a PF2e dwarven pirate druid from the Shackles on pathbuilder.

(These reasons are almost entirely related to the existence of the NPC Pirate Lord the Master of Gales, who won the Free Captain’s Regatta, the annual race-for-lordship among the pirates of the Shackles, for five years running owing to being a druid captain in a ship race, and only stopped winning because they made him the judge instead. I just love this. Being a druid in a ship race has to be basically cheating? Or, rather, natural advantage. But we’re pirates over here, so that fully tracks. I just love that this guy exists. Pirate druids. What an excellent concept. I’m stealing it immediately).

And, I don’t know how many of these are from the recent remaster and how many were original, but if you’re trying to play a piratical storm druid (could have gone wave, but given location and profession, I’m feeling storm more) from the pirate archipelago where they go racing annually in the outer reaches of the perpetual hurricane that is the Eye of Abendago, the primal spell list has some boss stuff on it. If you want a general stormy, nautical sort of theme.

Like, as I’m going through pathbuilder and levelling this dwarf up, picking my spells as I go, there are some fantastic things on there. I’ve no idea how good and/or practical they are in play, but the vibes are incredible.

Starting from cantrips, we’ve got things like Deep Breath (hold your breath for the duration, starting from 10mins at base), Rousing Splash (give someone temporary hit points by dumping a splash of cold water on their head to ‘invigorate’ them) and Slashing Gust (what it sounds like, you cut one to two people with blades of air).

And then as we climb spell levels, we get things like Horizon Thunder Sphere (throw ball lightning at someone), Brine Dragon’s Bile (a vicious little reaction spell where if someone takes slashing/piercing damage within range, you spit a gob of caustic salt water at them to scour their fresh wounds with salt, dealing persistent acid damage), Obscuring Mist (fog cloud, but on a nautical character fog cloud is always welcome), Voice on the Breeze (whisper a message and send it to a specific location you know within 10miles, where it’ll whisper in a 10ft burst regardless of who’s actually there), Scrying Ripples (watch people through bodies of flowing water within 500ft – does this work with the sea?), Coral Eruption (AOE that sends up razor sharp coral growths), Grasp of the Deep (grip someone with the ‘phantasmal pressure of the deep sea’, crushing them for bludgeoning damage), Misty Memory (summon memories in the mist of what a body of water witnessed within the last 24hrs), Mariner’s Curse (you afflict the target with the ‘curse of the roiling, unforgiving sea’, aka you make them seasick, is this a good use of a 5th level spell, IDK, but I’d do it, in a heartbeat), Hungry Depths (you open a miles-deep maelstrom of ‘dark corrupted water’, teeth and eyes that chews people up), and, for a 10th level capper, Summon Kaiju (very much what it says on the tin, I think I’d go either Agyra, the Forever Storm, or possibly Vorgozen, the Shapeless Feeder, for them, but most Agyra, because Eye of Abendego).

Like. If you want to be a vicious, vindictive pirate druid who shrouds themselves in mist to attack people, crushes their enemies with the phantom sensations of the deeps, whispers words in their allies’ (or enemies’) ears across miles of water, curses people with sea sickness when pissed off, wields all the myriad elemental wraths of the storm, and also on occasion likes to literally throw burning salt in their enemy’s wounds …

This is a thing you can do, basically. If you want a thematic spell list for a vicious salty sea dog, the primal list definitely has you covered.

I love Pathfinder spells. They’re so gnarly and descriptive and evocative. Also vicious. Literal salt in the wound. Good gods. Or neutral gods, I suppose, hi Besmara! And/or Gozreh. Heh.

[aerial-ace97]

Mulch Honorable Mentions

As promised, I will be ranking the 40 bottom feeders throughout the modern D&D multiverse best to use for your next Big Monster Evil Guy over the course of March.  You can see the original post under the BMEG tag and this month will also fall under the tag of Mulch, which is what the month for the triad of oozes, plants, and vermin will now be referred to as.

This was still very difficult to nail down between 73 entities and while I could’ve just made it a list of 30, I didn’t want to hold out on that last 10 which I feel would still be adequate BMEGs.  Today though, we still will be going through those honorable mentions that still don’t quite hit that mark and find themselves in the 50 through 41 range.

Once again to clarify briefly, while I can’t guarantee that my bias won’t factor in on occasion, this list is what I believe to be the best of these creatures to be the final villain of a questline.  It is NOT my favorite monsters and certainly not the BEST monsters.  Please bear that in mind and don’t be too upset if your faves didn’t make the list.  I won’t be going as deeply into these ones as when we get into the real list.  There were further rules given in my previous post but without further ado, my places for 60 through 51 are as follows:

#50 - Terotricus - PF2E

I really wanted to rank this one in the list.  It’s pretty much the only PF2E monster that could’ve had a chance at qualifying.  One other gets cannibalized as the same creature under a different name but I find it quite unfortunate that no new creatures of PF2E could make the list.  PF2E even tried hard by giving this creature more than 1 paragraph, but a part from a vague connection to the Abyss, it really just didn’t do all that much.  Even still, this plant is pretty neat and I’ll always love Plane connections, but it just wasn’t enough.

#49 - Night Twist - D&D 3.5

Trees are... a difficult thing to manifest as a Big Bad.  Which makes it surprising that a good number actually do make this list with pretty decent intelligence all around.  As well as many that didn’t.  Night Twist falls in that middle category.  It has some cool mechanics for luring people in with its strange song and manifesting new tress out of the corpses it makes, but the lore just... is kinda nonexistent.  Which is shame for such a powerful and interesting creature.

#48 - Bolida - Starfinder

Here we find the first of our 3 vermin that qualified, and what do you know even the lowest made the honorable mentions.  This one was probably a break in the rules so that they could make a player race out of it, and that fact is the big reason it gets some recognition, because as soon as you say it can be a player race, that opens the door to lots of great possibilities.  Still the bolida are primarily concerned with mining, with little to no aspiration or lore beyond this and so this consideration is as far as I could consider.

#47 - Octopus Tree - D&D 3.5

These things just kind of hit the mark of evocative.  They are evil and make trouble at sea, which is not something you often see from plants and aquatic stuff really catches me.  Beyond that though, there isn’t a whole lot to go on though in terms of personality or motives, even if the theme is pretty cool.

#46 - Mountain Blight - Pathfinder

We are going to talk a lot more about the blights and why they’ve been separated into individual listings as we go on in this list and while I love them, some of them had to take the bullet.  Tundra blight took it hard enough to not make even honorables.  And mountain blight is the one that has the bare minimum lore to make it to honorables.  They kinda just chill in mountain paths and not much else compared to the more active blights we’ll come to speak on.

#45 - Myceloid - Pathfinder, PF2E

I don’t know.  These guys kinda just seem like a poor man’s myconid.  And like... for what reason.  Did Wizards not give Paizo the rights to myconids of all things?  I guess these guys are evil, but did we really need more initially evil races?  That takes away the flexibility of myconids.  These guys are fine, but they seem a tad unnecessary.   I do love this artwork though.  I would say these guys could be easily interchanged with myconids.

#44 - Etheroot - Pathfinder

These things are neat and can change their motives and needs based on whatever emotion they need to balance out with a little bit of magical manipulation.  But they don’t have goals beyond that and more importantly are extremely affixed not only to one tiny niche of content but also one tiny niche of area.

#43 - Mandragora - Pathfinder, PF2E

The mandragora arise from placing mandrake roots onto the bodies of dead demons, creating a blood seeking monstrosity.  This has interesting implications but doesn’t go much deeper than that.  There’s also implications about alchemical purpose here but I rarely go in for that for the purpose of the roleplay of the monster itself, even if that stuff should be talked about with monsters more.

#42 - Conflagration Ooze - D&D 3.5

I’m gonna be honest, there might be two kinda cheap reasons this ranks higher than other honorable mentions and part of that is it being from my fav ever monster book for any edition and so nostalgia and the other being it looks adorable.  Other than that it has cool implications to Hell, which usually hooks me more than the abyss simply because the connections are usually stronger there but it gives little beyond that to go on.

#41 - Bodysnatcher Slime - Starfinder

There are a couple of mind stealers we’ll be looking at throughout this list and I can’t even really quantify what about the bodysnatcher missed catching me, but I think I may have just been tired of mind bending oozes and plants, especially coming off of aberrations.  

[dndspellgifs]

Rippling Spin

class feat

Monk

(pathfinder 2e)

[honourablejester]

PF2e Ancestries That Intrigue Me

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

Ancestries:

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

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

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

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

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

Versatile Heritages:

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

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

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

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

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

Specific Heritages from Ancestries

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

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

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

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

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

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

Summary:

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

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

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

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

[honourablejester]

PF2e Character Concept: Watchful Thorn

I was looking for something to pick for my Witch Gnoll, because I just really want a dark-furred cackling hyena person. I don’t know why that particular heritage is so evocative for me, but it definitely just calls to me. I was browsing things like rogues and witches, but then I stumbled across the thaumaturge. And ... Yes. A collector of mystical odds-and-ends, pulling power and knowledge from the scraps of greater magics. I like that for a witchy hyena.

So. Watchful Thorn, an odd, shaggy, grinning figure, lurking on the edges of the world, pulling power from their collection of bones and scraps.

Character Concept: Watchful Thorn, the Rag-and-Bone Witch

Ancestry, Heritage

Gnoll, Witch Gnoll

“You're a shaggy, dark-furred gnoll capable of making some truly uncanny sounds. You can cast the ghost sound cantrip as an occult innate spell at will. A cantrip is heightened to a spell level equal to half your level rounded up. In addition, you gain a +1 circumstance bonus to checks to Impersonate and Create a Diversion when using only your voice.”

Look. I like the spooky gnoll? I’m enjoying the picture of the dark grinning figure, throwing cackles through the darkness to unsettle people. I also like that gnolls average between six and seven feet, so it’s a tall grinning figure. Witch gnolls are darker and shaggier, so I’m picturing thick dark grey fur, with a more salt-and-pepper belly and throat, shrouded in a deliberately ragged cloak festooned with little pouches and pockets and fragments of bone. Watchful Thorn is far from home, and decidedly playing into her spookiness.

I also like the pragmatism of gnolls around death and superstition and combat. If it works, go with it. I feel like that fits thematically with a thaumaturge, whose whole deal is taking the bits that work from various magics and building a tool-set around them. Gnoll’s whole deal with cannibalism and ancestor worship and carrying the bones of their kin to consult them is awesome.

I do think I want Watchful Thorn to be far from home, though. A wanderer, an exile, making their way far from their own people. But happy enough about it, because she’s curious. She enjoys gathering and collecting the bits and pieces of the world. Putting them together haphazardly, making strange pictures and hypotheses from the ragged jigsaws of life. She’s a shadow around the edges of the world, watching it curiously, grinning in the darkness.

(Note: I’m going for a Cha/Dex thaumaturge, so I’m using the Alternate Ancestry Boosts to pick two free boosts)

Languages: Common, Gnoll

Ancestry Feats:

Low-Light Vision: You can see in dim light as though it were bright light, and you ignore the concealed condition due to dim light.

Bite: Your sharp teeth and powerful jaws are fearsome weapons. You have a jaws unarmed attack that deals 1d6 piercing damage. Your jaws are in the brawling group.

Gnoll Lore: You paid attention to your senior hunters to learn their tricks. You gain the trained proficiency rank in Stealth and Survival. If you would automatically become trained in one of those skills (from your background or class, for example), you instead become trained in a skill of your choice. You also become trained in Gnoll Lore.

(I did strongly consider Sensitive Nose instead, for imprecise scent, but stealth, survival and lore all thematically fit Watchful Thorn, so Gnoll Lore it is)

Planned Future Ancestry Feats:

Right-Hand Blood: It’s said that the flesh of the right side of a hyena can heal diseases, but that of the left side is poisonous. You can take 1 damage to feed someone blood from your right side and Administer First Aid or take 2d8 damage to Treat Disease or Treat Wounds; in either case, you don’t need healer’s tools, and gain a +1 item bonus. Blood from your left side causes the check to critically fail automatically.

(I adore the folklore and theme of this. I have no idea if it’ll be useful or not, but thematically, on a witchy thaumaturge from a species that draws wisdom and knowledge from body parts, it’s just fantastic. I went with it over Distant Cackle because it just gels so well with the theme)

Laughing Gnoll: Prerequisite: Master in Intimidation. A gnoll’s sinister giggle is a sound of warning and threat. You gain the Battle Cry skill feat. You don’t take a penalty when you attempt to Demoralize a creature that doesn’t understand your language.

(I am planning to build Intimidation as one of Watchful Thorn’s key skills, because she’s sinister and rather enjoys being so. Laughing Gnoll also brings us back to the witchy cackle despite foregoing Distant Cackle earlier)

Battle Cry: Prerequisites master in Intimidation. When you roll initiative, you can yell a mighty battle cry and Demoralize an observed foe as a free action. If you’re legendary in Intimidation, you can use a reaction to Demoralize your foe when you critically succeed at an attack roll.

Grandmother’s Wisdom: You carry the bones of your ancestors with you, and you can ask them for counsel. You can cast augury twice per day as a 2nd-level occult innate spell.

(Again, spooky occult gnoll. I love that gnolls are default a little bit occult and spooky just from a standing start. Also, yes, this is another 9th level feat, but gnoll feats trail off a bit towards higher levels)

Ancestor’s Rage: You transform into an enormous otherworldly hyena. You can cast animal form (canine form only) once per day as a 5th-level occult innate spell.

(That being said, there’s nothing wrong with a 13th level feat that lets you get the full werewolf (or, in this case, werehyena) vibes. I would definitely ask if I can get a vaguely ghostly look on the hyena transformation)

Planned Future General Feats:

Nothing too concrete here, but I definitely think I want Fleet and Toughness, as the thaumaturge is rather melee-orientated. Well, Watchful Thorn is, because I’m not picking up the Wand Implement and I don’t really feel like juggling both implements and a ranged weapon. So. Melee it is.

I might also go back at 3rd level and use Ancestral Paragon to pick up Sensitive Nose.

Background:

Night Watch: When everyone else slumbers, you're on guard. You might have been a watch member in a teeming metropolis, the guard in an unquiet cemetery, or a lonely shepherd. Many a night you've shouted out warnings into the dark, unsure of what lurked just beyond the range of your lantern's light. More than once you've seen things shambling in the dark that never should have been up and about. Choose two ability boosts. One must be to Strength or Charisma, and one is a free ability boost. You're trained in the Intimidation skill and either Legal Lore or the Lore skill for your home settlement. You gain the Quick Coercion skill feat.

I did flirt with the idea of a Detective briefly, because Watchful Thorn is definitely the sort of curious creature who would enjoy poking her claws into things on a professional basis, and also a thaumaturge feels like they’d make a really cool occult detective. But the boosts weren’t ideal, and honestly I didn’t want her tied down that much.

Then I found Night Watch, and in particular the idea of a cemetery guard. And, see, the thing is, gnolls eat their own dead, and freely use the bones as materials, because their belief structure around death is slightly different. And then she meandered out into the world and came across the cemeteries and funerary arts of other species, and she thinks they’re ridiculous, and inclined to create haunts, because how are the ancestors supposed to talk to people when they’re mouldering in the dirt? No wonder they have to get up and bother people. So she wound up drifting into the role of night watch in various cemeteries, because other people wouldn’t do the job, because she looks like she could scare the haunts, never mind them scaring her, because she acts like she’d be right at home in a graveyard anyway, and for her part because the least she can do if the ancestors of these people want to get up for a chat is grant them an audience.

And, well. There’s also the bit about ‘you've shouted out warnings into the dark, unsure of what lurked just beyond the range of your lantern's light’. Um. I really want the lantern implement from the thaumaturge. I refer you back to my homebrew god Orem, and the fact that I really like the imagery around lanterns and guardians and twilight and shelter. So, yeah. A night watchwoman at a cemetery, her lantern held aloft, her grinning teeth behind it. I’m liking it.

Background Feats:

Quick Coercion: Prerequisite: Trained in Intimidation. You can bully others with just a few choice implications. You can Coerce a creature after 1 round of conversation instead of 1 minute. You still can’t Coerce a creature in the midst of combat, or without engaging in a conversation.

Class, Subclass

Thaumaturge, Amulet & Lantern Implements

“The world is full of the unexplainable: ancient magic, dead gods, and even stranger things. In response, you've scavenged the best parts of every magical tradition and built up a collection of esoterica—a broken holy relic here, a sprig of mistletoe there—that you can use to best any creature by exploiting their weaknesses and vulnerabilities. The mystic implement you carry is both badge and weapon, its symbolic weight helping you bargain with and subdue the supernatural. Every path to power has its restrictions and costs, but you turn them all to your advantage. You're a thaumaturge, and you work wonders.”

The fluff for this class is enchanting. I have spoken before, on the subject of D&D trinkets, how much I adore objects and the story-telling inherent in them, and the thaumaturge is a class where the whole idea is that you wander the world picking up broken relics and bones and scraps of lore written on fragments of ancient paper, and you build both power and knowledge from that. You have your Implements, yes, your main tools, your thematic objects, but you also have your Esoterica, your collection of mystical bits-and-bobs, and the idea is you fish them out where they’re appropriate and awaken the lingering vestiges of power and memory in them to affect foes.

… I adore this. So much. You’re not a spellcaster, you don’t have spells or raw magic, you’re a fully martial character, but you’re … There’s a lot of vampire hunting in this idea? Ritual objects that provide supernatural benefits. You’re a rag-and-bone magician, a spiritualist, pulling power from whatever broken trinkets and scraps of knowledge you’ve collected.

And that is very much the idea I’m going with for Watchful Thorn. The rag-and-bone exorcist, the huge shambling figure in her ragged cloak full of bones and talismans, that hyena smile on her face as she pulls scattered fragments of mysticism together in the face of her foes. She has her ancestors’ bones, and she has the bones from the cemeteries she’s guarded, and she has the relics and scraps and rags of lost saints that she’s pilfered here or there, and that’s more than enough to cobble together defenses against the world.

Statistics: I would up with starting stats of 18 Cha, 16 Dex, 12 Con/Str and 10 Wis/Int. I don’t know how survivable those stats are, but eh. We’ll find out.

Skills: She has a surprising number of them, despite having +0 to Intelligence. Stealth, Survival and Gnoll Lore from Gnoll Lore. Intimidation and Legal Lore from Night Watch. Arcana, Nature, Occultism, Religion and Esoteric Lore free with Thaumaturge. Then I threw Thievery, Deception and Acrobatics on top for good measure, for her free skills. She’s light-fingered (has to pick up her esoterica somehow), less-than-honest, and far more agile than she looks.

I think I’m going to focus on raising Intimidation, Stealth and Acrobatics from her own skills, and Occultism for Thaumaturgic Expertise/Mastery.

Free Skill Feat (from Thaumaturge):

Dubious Knowledge: Prerequisites trained in a skill with the Recall Knowledge action. You're a treasure trove of information, but not all of it comes from reputable sources. When you fail (but don't critically fail) a Recall Knowledge check using any skill, you learn a bit of true knowledge and a bit of erroneous knowledge, but you don't have any way to differentiate which is which.

Implements:

… I want Lantern. I want it so much. I did wonder, though, if Amulet might want to be her first implement, to sort of help her survivability while she’s a baby adventurer? Lantern fits with Night Watch from her backstory, so it would make thematic sense as her first implement, and I’ve gone thematic first almost everywhere else, but I am a little conflicted here. I suspect, if I were actually playing her, I’d decide which one came first depending on the starting level and probable length of the campaign. Lantern is what I want, but I suspect Amulet is the one I’d go to Paragon on.

Which is not to say that Amulet isn’t thematic. She’s a gnoll, and among other things amulets can be preserved body parts. The intent there is things like lucky rabbit’s feet, but she’s already going to be having her ancestors bones, especially since she’ll be taking Grandmother’s Wisdom later. So. Grandmother is going to be doing a bit more than offering advice, put it that way. And, actually, that does make sense for making Amulet her first implement. The Lantern can come later, an echo of all she’s seen and done drawing power to the symbol of her old career, but the Amulet is likely just an instinctive reaction for a gnoll.

If she makes it up to 15th level to get a third Implement … Possibly Regalia? It’s a bit late for Wand, Tome or Chalice at that stage, I think. I do sort of like the theme of Bell, but I think by that stage of her career, Watchful Thorn might have developed a bit of extra dignity and aura of competence? Possibly. Depending. Heh. So. Probably Regalia. A bone crown for a witchy gnoll matriarch.

Planned Class Feats:

There seem to be two feat chains for Thaumaturge, one starting from Scroll Thaumaturgy and one starting from Talisman Esoterica, that seem to decide what sort of direction your powers-from-your-esoterica goes. Scroll draws more on the fragments of knowledge you’ve gathered, while Talisman draws more on the objects you’ve gathered. And while I’m sure you can probably do both, at least to some extent, I’m going to admit that I’m much more drawn to talismans, for the reasons mentioned above regarding objects, and especially for Watchful Thorn and her gnollish pragmatism. I just enjoy her pulling horrifying bits-and-bobs out of her cloak and twisting them into little objects of power to ward and guard and create wonders. Gnolls feel much more direct and rooted to a practical, physical, if also rather mystical, reality. So. I think I’ll follow talismans, at least to Elaborate Talisman Esoterica, possibly Grand Talisman Esoterica.

I also definitely want to pick up Thaumaturgic Ritualist and Implement’s Flight along the way. Ritualist because we are leaning into the sort of vampire hunter, rituals-and-objects sort of angle, and Flight because I wanna hold my lantern aloft and fly by its light. I’m a simple girl, and the picture of this seven-foot shaggy witch-gnoll cackling and zooming off into the sky like some demented African (Mwangi Expanse) Baba Yaga, held up by a witch lantern that lets her see invisible things, just fills me with joy.

Talisman Esoterica (Feat 2): You know how to assemble the supernatural objects in your esoterica into a number of temporary talismans. Each day during your daily preparations, you can make two talismans with an item level no higher than half your level. You must know each talisman's formula. A talisman created this way is a temporary item and loses its magic the next time you make your daily preparations. You know the formulas for all common talismans in the Core Rulebook of your level or lower. You remember your talisman formulas through oral tradition or mnemonics, so you don't need a formula book for them.

Thaumaturgic Ritualist (Feat 4): Your studies into the supernatural have resulted in an especially strong knowledge of rituals. You gain a +2 circumstance bonus to all primary checks to perform a ritual. You learn two uncommon rituals with a level no higher than half your level; you must meet all prerequisites for casting the ritual to choose it. You can cast these as the primary caster, but you can't teach them to anyone else or allow someone else to serve as primary caster unless they know the ritual as well. At 8th level and every 4 levels thereafter, you learn another uncommon ritual with a level no higher than half your level and for which you meet the prerequisites.

Implement’s Flight (Feat 16): By weakening your relation to the ground and strengthening your relation to the sky, you've learned to soar through the air, your implement carrying you as surely as any broomstick or pestle. As long as you're holding a thaumaturge implement, you gain a fly Speed equal to your land Speed.

And there we go. Watchful Thorn, my witchy gnoll rag-and-bone thaumaturge.

As a final sidenote, I really do feel like Thaumaturge, in PF2e, fills a hole I was constantly noodling around the edges of with warlocks (and rangers) in D&D 5e, in that I wanted something that felt like an occult class. Medieval magicians and Victorian spiritualists. Vampire hunters and folklore and travelling witches. I like it, I like the fluff and the theme.

[dndspellgifs]

Radiant Beam

4th level evocation

Divine, Primal

(pathfinder 2nd edition)

[aerial-ace97]

11. Hyakume - Pathfinder, PF2E

This is another one of the few creatures on the list that has appeared within the context of my longest running campaign, though only briefly as the prisoner of an archmage and the players didn’t really interact with it.  Which is too bad, because there’s so much to get invested in with the hyakume.  

For one, we once again have an instance here to tap into the roots of a mythology that the core of Dungeons & Dragons generally ignores.  Coming from the yokai cosmology of Japanese folklore, the hyakume has a presence in Pathfinder that is largely distinct from this origin, but this still opens us up to a whole new type of story that can await us.

A hyakume’s goal is to collect, but not materials or artistry like the morkoth or the blood painter.  Similarly to the chelarac, a hyakume collects memories, specifically of intelligent beings.  A hyakume has the desire to know all things and to hold that knowledge above others.  It will destroy sources of knowledge after holding it deep in their own mindscapes so as to never allow others to reach its level of understanding.  At such a high level, a hyakume might be capable of holding incredible heights of information, such as raiding the akashic records, hoarding true names of powerful beings, and making deals for heists into the great planar libraries of the upper planes.  And... that’s what we have.  That’s a summary of 3 paragraphs of lore between 2 different editions.  Can’t really blame Paizo.  The monster only came out in Bestiary 4, a bit too late for them to realize the massive potential of it and while its appeared in PF2E, we know how that goes.  But with the amount of power this creature contends with, the evocative vibes it gives off, and the compelling nature of its origins, I couldn’t simply ignore it.

And this is where we delve into the other realm of things.  This is one of few monsters where we can gain in some ways more off of their mechanics and aesthetic than we can from the written lore, as their abilities suggest a lot of interesting facets.  For starters, all of a hyakume’s physical contributions center around abilities that would enhance a martial artist style of fighting, AKA the monk.  We rarely get creatures that deal in the concept of the mystic methods of the monk and this creature seems to have both the aesthetic and skill focuses to match.  The hyakume also has massive amounts of knowledge dealing with almost every brand of knowledge that Pathfinder covers, which gives it information alone that could upend any party when used properly.  A hyakume also drains memories and leaves the encounter with blank spots, so that this is another creature that the party might never know that it’s fighting.  A hyakume is never surprised either, as it constantly has eyes that leave its body to fly around and monitor the areas it inhabits, where it is going, and even monitoring the area its left for followers.  A hyakume has spell casting, physical attributes that are deceptively powerful, as well as spell resistance.  This creature is a late game enemy, that is in the perfect spot to be given a few advancements and be able to be the end game enemy.

A hyakume, however, is most prevalent again for its totally distinct brand of story telling and here is where I would lean into it.  We don’t get yokai often that aren’t fey or outsiders and this gives us a bit more of a bizarre twist on a story that focuses on them.

https://aerial-ace97.tumblr.com/post/671597484730138624/intro-to-bmeg