Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder Bestiary - Discussion

[Aeson]

That's confusing. Why did they do that?

 

[does not compute]

Because the Core Books are intended to be world-neutral, I think.

 

[Drkfathr1]

Works for me!

I think I'm going to change Azata to Asura though (even if Asura was a singular creatures in earlier editions).

And I think I'm going to call Agathions (never liked that name) Wardenals, and combine the concept of Gardinals and Warden Beasts.

 

[frankthedm]

so how is the shoggoth?

 

[Jason Bulmahn]

Hungry!

 

[James Jacobs]

Works for me!

I think I'm going to change Azata to Asura though (even if Asura was a singular creatures in earlier editions).

And I think I'm going to call Agathions (never liked that name) Wardenals, and combine the concept of Gardinals and Warden Beasts.

Note that Asura's a name we've already claimed for a race of outsiders—a race of lawful evil outsiders based heavily on Indian myth. We've only statted up one Asura so far (in Pathfinder #9), but another one's on the way at some point in Council of Thieves.

Both "Agathion" and "Azata" are based on real world mythos, though. Agathion is a Greek animal spirit, so it seemed logical to make the NG animal-headed outsider race agathions (and having the 1st edition agathion itself be a NG creature from the outer planes is a nice bonus there). The azata is a bit more obscure; the original spelling is in fact "Yazata" and they're from a Zoroastrian concept (check out the Yazata entry in wikipedia for more info).

So while both "guardinal" and "eladrin" are merely made-up words, the names for our equivalents in the PRPG are based on real-world myth and sources. This is a case, I think, where not being able to use the names that WotC claimed as their IP ended up spurring us to come up with even better names, personally!

EDIT: And yes, the Bestiary itself is world neutral. That said, it DOES work perfectly in Golarion, and while the angels in the Bestairy are listed as being ANY good alignment, that still allows Golarion to have mostly NG angels. Although I suspect that as time goes on, you'll eventually see some angels branching into LG or CG in Golarion. They're certainly one of the more wishy-washy when it comes to alignment among the outsider races.

 

[Voadam]

As a note, there are "eladrin" in the SRD (along with "guardinal") - both terms were accidentally left in some of the summon monster lists.

That said, I understand why Paizo left those alone anyway; WotC's intent was clearly to leave those terms closed, and respecting that was the noble thing to do.

Similarly there are slaad in the 3.0 srd summon monster lists.

 

[Voadam]

I saw that... I wonder if it would be enough of an opening to use either name in a OGL product?

Of course. By placing them in the srd as OGC WotC irrevocably made them OGC and useable under the OGL. Even though they obviously accidentally made an error in not removing every reference to them in the move from draft srd to srd, under the OGL they did make them OGC.

 

[Drkfathr1]

Note that Asura's a name we've already claimed for a race of outsiders—a race of lawful evil outsiders based heavily on Indian myth. We've only statted up one Asura so far (in Pathfinder #9), but another one's on the way at some point in Council of Thieves.

Both "Agathion" and "Azata" are based on real world mythos, though. Agathion is a Greek animal spirit, so it seemed logical to make the NG animal-headed outsider race agathions (and having the 1st edition agathion itself be a NG creature from the outer planes is a nice bonus there). The azata is a bit more obscure; the original spelling is in fact "Yazata" and they're from a Zoroastrian concept (check out the Yazata entry in wikipedia for more info).

So while both "guardinal" and "eladrin" are merely made-up words, the names for our equivalents in the PRPG are based on real-world myth and sources. This is a case, I think, where not being able to use the names that WotC claimed as their IP ended up spurring us to come up with even better names, personally!

EDIT: And yes, the Bestiary itself is world neutral. That said, it DOES work perfectly in Golarion, and while the angels in the Bestairy are listed as being ANY good alignment, that still allows Golarion to have mostly NG angels. Although I suspect that as time goes on, you'll eventually see some angels branching into LG or CG in Golarion. They're certainly one of the more wishy-washy when it comes to alignment among the outsider races.

Interesting! I always prefer real world names and ties to mythology over the made up ones, so that sounds pretty good. Perhaps I shall use the Paizo names after all...

 

[Hunter In Darkness]

Of course. By placing them in the srd as OGC WotC irrevocably made them OGC and useable under the OGL. Even though they obviously accidentally made an error in not removing every reference to them in the move from draft srd to srd, under the OGL they did make them OGC.

Except 2 things
1. the stats themselves are not
2. They can hold you up in court to you run out of money to fight