Discover Top Posts Tagged with #ghoran

Everyday I am blessed with endless tags & love for my mushroom lady and just want y'all to know ty ily and she loves you all too.

someday I will play her and there will be so much fucking art

srsly tho ty for all the nice tags ;_; if u think nobody sees them I promise I do and every time it makes my day better.

I present a shining achievement I'm still very proud of.

#pathart #seriously thank yall for the nice tags it makes my day everytime.#keeps me going #pathfinder 2e #pf2e character #pf2e oc #pf2e #Ghoran

I had the honor of being commissioned to draw @onismick ‘s ghoran OC, Forest and their leshy familiar!

#commission #finished commission #dnd #dnd character #dnd oc #clueverse #cluesona #ghoran #leshy familiar #leshy

Rathna

May as well post this to get the blog going. It's ya girl, Daisy Daffodillian Calicolo. Going for a sorta floral ghoran Pathfinder thing.

#daisy #me #sports #ghoran #pathfinder

Werecreature (Pathfinder Second Edition Archetype)

(art by FlamSinger on DeviantArt)

While I appreciate how simple 2e makes building your own monsters, I do miss applying proper class levels to monsters, and more relevant to today’s entry: templates.

Perhaps one of the most well-known templates of First Edition, lycanthropy draws upon a lovely pedigree of gothic and early film horror and implements it through defensive and offensive buffs.

Which is part of the problem, unfortunately, since as soon as you introduce a curse that has a major statistical benefit, there are going to be powergamers that ignore all the lovely horror angst that is supposed to go with it, and lycanthropy, along with lichdom, vampirism and more, were very often on the short list of templates to try and deliberately acquire these templates to become stronger outside of normal levelling.

Now, the actual curse element of these templates is supposed to keep that in check, but you can bet that if you give a character a will save to resist going out of control and turning on your allies, the powergamers will spec their characters to make said saves trivial if you let them.

So Pathfinder First and Second Editions alike offered a compromise solution to those who really wanted to play a werewolf, but were willing to be more balanced about it, namely the beastkin ancestry, the mooncursed barbarian and weretouched shifter, the lycanthropy corruption, and today’s entry, the werecreature archetype.

This archetype makes sense for characters that seek to embrace and come to terms with their bestial side rather than reject and struggle with it. As such, classic werewolf stories where the character doesn’t want to be a therianthrope and is actively seeking a cure can probably use the rebuild rules, with the GM creating an NPC version of the character to use when they go out of control.

However, if you want to play a character that was born a lycanthrope or was cursed but wishes to understand and control the curse rather than struggle against it, you might offer this archetype as an option on next level up of the character. That being said, there is some merit to using this for involuntary werebeasts as well.

The base dedication for the archetype grants the ability to shapeshift into hybrid or animal form, as well as a weakness to silver and compulsion to transform with the full moon. Beyond that, one must also choose the form of the curse, which can vary between aerial werebats, classic, werewolves, fearsome weresharks, and so on, each with their own alterations to movement speeds, special abilities, and of course unarmed strikes with their own damage and traits associated with them. (and serve as a nice guideline for making your own forms of therianthropes as well)

Drawing upon the agility of the beasts they emulate, plenty of werecreatures learn how to move faster in their hybrid form.

Werecreatures that are also beastkin can tap into their blended heritage to mitigate their weakness to silver.

Many find their senses sharpening as well, particularly night vision and scent.

Weremoose become powerful and unstoppable when they charge their foes with their antlers.

Meanwhile, werebears can emulate the fearsome clawed hugging grapples of their counterparts.

Werecrocodiles gain a deadly death roll to rip grappled foes to shreds.

Less violent is the werebat gift of echolocation.

Meanwhile, weretigers prove especially fearsome, their presence terrifying foes.

The jaws of a wereshark leave bleeding wounds, and the smell of blood drives them into a deadly frenzy.

Naturally, werewolves specialize in hunting in packs, their attacks becoming deadlier when allies are nearby to create openings in their target’s defense.

Some wererats carry a secondary cursed affliction in their bite, inhibiting healing in their victims.

Finally among the strain-specific feats, wereboars become reflexively aggressive to those that attack from a distance, rushing towards them to close the distance and punish them.

Cornering and flanking a werebeast can be more trouble than it’s worth, and many lash out at multiple foes at once that try to tactically overwhelm them.

Natural lycanthropes have a subtle control over their flesh that others cannot match, allowing them to slowly mend their wounds over time.

Those that were afflicted, however, tend to violently transform, shedding the flesh of their natural form in a gory display that unnerves onlookers. (Inspired no doubt by the gristly transformations of werewolves in the 2000’s Van Helsing movie).

The enhanced senses of some therianthropes becomes keyed to noticing discrepancies between outward appearance and the true nature of a creature, letting them more easily notice other werebeasts, shapeshifters, and those in magical disguise.

Those with larger animal forms can learn to not just transform into their associated animal, but take on a larger, primeval version.

Those with lethal jaws can learn to lunge and bite in the same fluid motion, no matter their movement method.

Meanwhile, those with claws can climb shockingly fast and strike in a similar manner.

Conversely, those with antlers or tusks can use their powerful necks to send foes flying.

Regardless of whether they truly infect their foes with lycanthropy, some learn to briefly partially transform their foes as they strike them, leaving them awkward and ungainly.

Many become so good at shapechanging they can do so while on the move, shifting between forms as they do so and potentially throwing off a foe they approach.

Whether it be some supernatural shifting of the water or a partial transformation, swimming werebeasts can learn to share their mobility in the water for a few seconds at a time.

Legend holds that not only are some lycanthropes weak to silver, they cannot be killed by anything else. Some werecreatures lend some credence to that legend by only seeming able to be put down permanently by a silver weapon.

Winged lycanthropes can learn to sustain their flight longer, flying long distances when necessary.

Some of these beasts learn to instinctively transform as combat begins, getting ready for battle.

Further lending credence to the silver weakness, some become resistant to all physical damage from non-silver weapons, shrugging them off.

Some even rapidly heal constantly, with only silver shutting down this healing.

There’s a lot here, but luckily your choice of form will render some feats of this archetype inaccessible, which is fine. Unlike the templates of old, the transformations of this archetype only grant abilities, not stat buffs, so you’re not likely to break the game in any way. With that being said, you can either dip lightly into this to play with your form and special abilities, or you can go deep into it and become a paragon creature of the moon, with higher level feats greatly improving your durability if your foe didn’t think to pack silver.

As written, the archetype makes no distinction between natural and affliction lycanthropes aside from certain feats, so it’s up to the player and GM to decide if there is an element of loss of control for those afflicted, and what is ok in thar regard. This is definitely the sort of thing that requires clear communication between player and GM.

The Ghost Castle of Orghinon is an infamous den of evil that phases in and out of reality in conjunction with planetary alignments. While ruled by a dark lord and various deadly monsters, it also boasts a library replete with occult knowledge, including according to rumor a cure for lycanthropy. Those seeking that cure or other knowledge had best prepare, for the fate of those that fail to survive it’s depths is to become part of the keep’s defenses.

Not believing it was possible to carry the curse, Vultas Dreadwillow was a ghoran warrior before she was bitten by a weremoose, doomed to become a thing of branches and megafauna might. Every full moon, her mind slips a bit more during each transformation, and those seeking to end her threat had best prepare themselves.

They say that something rodent-like is dwelling in the sewers of Brittleport, accompanied by a thing of slime and rot. This entirely ungenerous descriptor refers to the wererat information broker Hilda and her ooze scamp companion. While her career is often seen as unsavory, she actually lives a fairly clean life in her hidden cistern abode, and can even be a friendly ally to those that are respectful.

#pathfinder second edition #archetype #werecreature #ghoran #weremoose #werewolf #wererat #ooze mephit #ooze scamp #Howl of the Wild