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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Great Green God" data-source="post: 3904915" data-attributes="member: 46744">Sorry Seeds of Sehan wasn't your cup of hot tea Freyar, but as the guy who ran herd on much of the yak activity in the arc I'm glad you like the Inscrutable Ones. I actually hadn't seen the Yak Folk until 3.0 myself and then I looked at thier laundry list of powers (use any magic staff, snatch bodies and gain all that person or giant's skills, and command evil genies - just jann now days) and went "Whoa, how would someone ever use all that in one adventure?" It seemed like from then on, everytime I picked up MMII, I flipped to them and thought about how I could squeeze this jumble of stuff into something so when we started brainstorming the arc I suggested them as an underused/unique monster that we could use (I like spriggans too, but Tom beat me to the punch on suggesting them <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> ). Anyhow it had been my not-so-secret plan to build them up into the next drow or githyanki, you know that in bad guy race that makes everyone want to play outcast dual-scimitar-wielding antiheroes. I agree about the name, and it was apparently a fight to get it past the hardcore anti-yak sentiment that some among the Paizo editorial staff harbored. Still it is all about the Eastern flavor I think, and that's mainly where I pulled my inspiration from. Yaks are considered symbols of benevolance, wisdom, patetience, and stalwartness to some people. The blurb in MMII makes it apparent that the yak folk are as a species an arrogant lot, and wouldn't you be arrogant too if you had a personal genie slave. Even the low caste yak folk guards of the Dread Pagoda use jann as living weapons, a side-arm, another bit of stardard equipment to throw at would-be invaders. As mountain spirits of myth, I envisioned them a bit more like devious rakshasa than thuggish minotaurs. These guys are cultured, sneaky, and thoughful, not to mention paranoia-inducing. Their body swapping powers and somewhat alien mindsets as well as the overall Mythos flavor of the story put me in mind of Lovecraft's Great Race from whom they picked up a affinity with aberrations (though they don't like the neogi at all, viewing the slavers as greedy, honorless thieves, while the neogi in turn see the yaks as sanctimonious hypocrites).Anyhow, I was pretty happy with the way they turned out at the end and glad other folks like them as well, name or no,Matt</blockquote>

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