Pathfinder / Tropes A to F

Tropes A-F | Tropes G-P | Tropes Q-Z

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A-C

• Ability Depletion Penalty: The Monk and Ninja classes have a daily pool of ki points to enhance their powers. Some of their passive Magic Enhancements don't cost ki points but don't work when their ki pool is empty, such as the Monk's Damage Reduction-piercing blows. The later Gunslinger, Swashbuckler, Magus, and Arcanist classes have similar mechanics: for example, a Gunslinger is unable to use the "Quick Clear" deed unless they have at least one grit point remaining in their grit pool.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: Vorpal Swords, elaborated on in Classic Treasures Revisited.
• Abusive Precursors: The Valashamains, who lived in the Valashmai Jungle in Tian Xia. They were apparently not native to Golarion and came from another plane or planet (the details are vague), resembled giant lizard people, and had thousands of slave races. They ruled an empire in the Valashmai Jungle until the Earthfall, at which point they left for somewhere else and have never been seen since.
• Academy of Adventure: Many magical schools exist throughout Golarion, but especially the Magaambya, highlighted in the adventure Path Strength of Thousands. Players spend the first two books as students, being pulled into teacher-led adventures of magic and intrigue. They spend the last four books as teachers, leading their students on adventures of magic and intrigue.
• Achievements in Ignorance: Cayden Cailean (in)famously ascended to godhood by taking the Test of the Starstone while completely blackout drunk: even he has no idea how he pulled it off.
• Acid-Trip Dimension:
  • The Maelstrom is a chaotic and ever-shifting realm of constant inconstancy manifesting as a dimension-sized vortex of constantly forming, eroding and mutating debris and chunks of landscape.
  • The First World, the home of the Fey, is a collection of the many original blueprints for the material plane, whose laws of physics, such as they are, were haphazardly stitched together out of every possibility the gods considered and discarded while making the world.
• Action Girl: While always an option in any role-playing game, it's notable that the "iconic" characters featured in Pathfinder's artwork have either been an even balance of the sexes or slightly favoring women (as opposed to many games in which the fluff is male-dominant while the rules don't discriminate). This extends to teams of pre-generated characters for adventures, frequently featuring three women with a lone man or the full four-woman party of the Carrion Crown campaign. (This may be a Mythology Gag since Carrion Crown was an adventure series devoted to horror tropes.
• Actually a Doombot: The 2E Pathfinder Society scenario #1-24 "Lightning Strikes, Stars Fall" has an example of this involving a literal robot and not a Simulacrum spell. At one point, the party appears to fight the gnome alchemist Khismar Crookchar. Khismar Crookchar is The Mole for Kevoth-Kul, both of whom are big enough characters in 2E's metaplot to warrant their own section in the book detailing major characters in the Lost Omens setting. As a consequence, while this scenario serves to introduce Khismar Crookchar, the writers had no plans to kill him off, and so the one the players fight is revealed to be a robot when reduced below a certain HP threshold.
• Adorable Evil Minions: Quasits, goblins, cacodaemons, kobolds, a lot of such critters live on Golarion.
• Afterlife of Service: Wealthy people who are worried about their fate in the afterlife sometimes create Shabti, Golem-like simulacra with copies of their memories, to suffer divine judgement in their place. Psychopomps try to get Shabti Rescued from the Underworld so they're not punished for their creators' misdeeds and can live out their own lives.
• The Ageless: Leshies' magical plant-based bodies do not age, and while they can still die due to violence or mishap, they are functionally immortal otherwise. However, since they're mercurial nature spirits, leshies typically don't actually WANT to live forever, and most voluntarily give up their mortal form after a few centuries at most.
• Age of Reptiles: In its ancient days, before its modern warm-blooded races arose, Golarion was ruled chiefly by reptilian beings. The most prominent of these were the serpentfolk, who ruled a vast empire in the upper Darklands and in Garund and whose legacy led this period to being named the Age of Serpents. Besides them, this era also saw the golden age of lizardfolk culture and expansion, while the snakelike nagas ruled an empire in ancient Vudra and the reptilian troglodytes built their own in the deepest parts of the Darklands. Dragons also came to Golarion during this period, often allying with the world's reptilian civilizations and establishing their own direct rule over ancient Tian Xia. Over time, however, mammalian species such as humans and elves established themselves and either outbred their competitors or actively displaced them, as when Azlant destroyed the serpentfolk empire, leading to the modern age of warm-blooded rule.
• Alchemy Is Magic: The alchemist is a base class introduced in the Advanced Player's Guide. It focuses on infusing chemical reagents with magical energy, creating potions, poisons, mutagens, and incendiaries. Its ultimate (20th-level) ability is the "grand discovery", which can take numerous forms, including immortality or the creation of a philosopher's stone. The Ultimate Magic splatbook adds more Discoveries, many with a Body Horror and Mad Scientist vibe. Also lots of Herbert West shout-outs. Mostly averted (mechanically, at least) by Second Edition, where alchemy uses a completely different system from magic.
• All-Accessible Magic: Most magic can only be accessed through being a magical Character Class or using an enchanted item. Rare "Occult Rituals" can be learned by anyone but take hours to perform, require multiple difficult skill checks to succeed, have nasty side effects from a Magic Misfire, and often exact a heavy cost on the ritualist.
• Alternate Company Equivalent: Much of the Golarion setting is clearly heavily influenced by Forgotten Realms, with several major deities being modified versions of FR gods (e.g. Torm -> Iomedae, Sune -> Shelyn) and the general layout of the world being virtually identical (Faerun -> Avistan, Maztica -> Arcadia, Al-Qadim -> Casmaron, Kara-tur -> Tian Xia), though the latter is not too surprising given the continent layout was a modified version of Earth to begin with.
• Alternate History: The Rasputin Must Die! module in the Reign of Winter Adventure Path is basically a take on what events during World War I could have been like if magic and other supernatural elements were involved.
• Alternate Personality Punishment: Wealthy people who are worried about their fate in the afterlife sometimes create Shabti, Golem-like simulacra with copies of their memories, to suffer divine judgement in their place. Psychopomps try to get Shabti Rescued from the Underworld so they're not punished for their creators' misdeeds and can have lives of their own.
• Alternative Calendar: The Absalom Reckoning calendar is exactly like our Real Life calendar but with the names of the months and days of the week changed (the months are named after twelve of the major gods of the pantheon). The Age of Lost Omens began in 4606 AR; the current "present day" in any given book is 4700 + the last two digits of the book's publication year (e.g. Rise of the Runelords volume 1 came out in 2007, therefore the In-Universe year is 4707 AR).
• Always Chaotic Evil:
  • While there are always exceptions at the GM's discretion, First Edition supplementary materials would kindly remind you that aside from those singular individuals, the savage humanoids of Golarion are gleefully evil, if not insanely so.
  • Part of the motivation behind the "Second Darkness" adventure path was to rewind back to the days when the Drow were unrepentantly, unforgivably evil, before the creation of a certain heroic dark elf ranger.
  • Justified with hags — their immature form, changelings, never "mature" into hags if they aren't Evil since only the power-hungry and misanthropic ones can stomach the ritual to unlock their full hag powers. They aren't evil because they're hags, they're hags because they're evil (and the ritual cements that). Hence why hags generally leave changelings in communities with All of the Other Reindeer and Bullying a Dragon as a general policy.
  • One exception to the above is the gnolls (later renamed to kholo), who seem to be becoming gradually less generally evil each time they're mentioned. At first the only ones you'd ever encounter were slaver parties, and although they certainly still are, eventually they become less "attack on sight"; one adventure path even includes civilized (though evil) gnolls as non-hostile questgivers you should play along with. Finally, the 2E bestiary notes that while some tribes are evil marauders, many others are more militantly isolationist.
  • Second Edition has been moving away from this trope as part of its efforts to be more socially conscious. Goblins became a core ancestry and are no longer this trope, but they're not the only example. On Golarion, the further away you are from Avistan and northern Garund, the more likely it is that seemingly monstrous humanoids are not evil. In the Mwangi Expanse there are non-evil gnolls and orcs, and orcs are also free of that baggage in Arcadia. Officially, only fiends and undead are inherently evil, and even then it's possible (albeit difficult and unlikely) for them to be good. If humanoids (and indeed, most other living creatures) are evil, it's for cultural reasons. In fact, as part of the metaplot, the territories of Belkzen (the heartland of orcs) and Oprak (a nation founded by a hobgoblin warlord as a haven for monsters) are becoming more peaceful, although they're still a long way from redemption.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: Gnomes come in a wide variety of colors. Some fall within the normal range of human skin color, while others are green, blue, or orange.
• Ambiguously Evil: Mengkare, a Gold Dragon who founded his own nation and tried to create a utopia...through eugenics and dictatorship. It even seems to be working. Paizo admits in Champions of Corruption that the reason they have never stated his Character Alignment invoked is that they themselves can't agree on what it is. Subverted in the first Adventure Path for Second Edition, Age of Ashes, where it's revealed that he gradually fell from Lawful Good to Lawful Neutral and eventually to Lawful Evil. His eugenics program was created so he could harvest pure souls to end an avatar of Dahak, the evil god of dragonkind. That said it IS possible to persuade him to do a Heel–Face Turn and atone for his actions if you play your cards right.
• Ancestor Veneration: Taiga giants revere their ancestors, whom they seek to honor in their daily lives and can mystically commune with. Living taiga giants can even call upon their forebears' spirit for aid in battle, and few things can spur a taiga giant clan to war quite as easily as insulting their ancestors.
• And I Must Scream:
  • The drow love doing this to their captives via fleshwarping magic, turning them into tortured, barely sentient abominations for their amusement. Captured elves have it particularly bad — their fleshwarped forms, the irnakurses, are tortured, horrific tree-like masses of twisted flesh and broken bones, wracked with pain and barely able to move. Drow usually stick them in jars of nutrient fluids and put them around their palaces as permanent decorations.
  • The fate of demon lords who are Killed Off for Real is to be permanently stuck in the walls of the Rifts of Repose, fossilized but still conscious and unable to do anything. Unless Nocticula killed them; then they instead become an island in her domain.
• Animals Hate Him: The goblins, as a race, particularly by dogs and horses. The feeling is mutual.
• Anomalous Art:
  • Trompe L'oeil paintings are magically-enhanced copies of an original creature that can step off the canvas, assume solid three-dimensional forms, and even inhabit other paintings. These entities can only be permanently killed by destroying the painting that generates them.
  • Invoked with the Seeded Doom Occult Ritual, which corrupts a book, artwork, or piece of music. Anyone exposed to the work or one of its copies is infected with madness or a Curse chosen by the ritualists.
• Answer to Prayers: In addition to clerics and other divine casters needing to pray to refresh their spell list for the day, the First Edition feats Deific, Fiendish, and Monitor Obedience grant specific divine boons to a faithful follower of a given deity by performing a specific daily ritual, ranging from planting acorns in a specific pattern for a follower of the Fertility God Erastil, to having sex with someone while calling out to the Love Goddess Calistria and encouraging one's partner to join in.
• Anthropomorphic Food:
  • Ghorans are humanoid Plant People descended from magically engineered food crops. They even have a racial disadvantage called delicious!
  • Also the Vegepygmies, engineered by the Drow so that even their vegetables could suffer. They're humanoids who were killed, infested, and turned into Mushroom Men by a virulent fungus, and the infection is contagious.
• Anthropomorphic Transformation: The "Anthropomorphic Animal" spell temporarily or permanently transforms an animal into a humanoid version of itself, complete with prehensile limbs, the intelligence of a (very dim) human, and the power of speech.
• Anti-Frustration Features: More or less the purpose behind 2nd Edition. The transition between editions simplified, fixed, or streamlined a lot of some of the first edition's more confusing or confounding points;
  • The game really wants the player to devote their proficiencies and attributes to interesting character quirks in addition to their class' primary tools. Not only have several classes become less dependent on multiple high attributes, the player is incentivized to branch out what attributes their character is good at by being given four boosts they can spend at creation and every five levels thereafter. Typically, each class only has two or three statistics that need to be raised for the character to keep up with the gameplay, so at least one attribute boost is devoted entirely towards an attribute the player wants to raise to exemplify their character. Additionally, just to make sure the player starts strong in the class they chose, the classes themselves boost the attribute most central to their function at creation - such as with Sorcerer and charisma. Going a step further, classes with a variable major statistic - such as Monk, which prefers strength or dexterity dependent on the stances it runs - allow the player to choose which attribute is raised at creation.
    • To further allow players to customize their character to fit their class and the player's concept, baked into the rules is the clause that a player can decide to take the attribute array offered by a given ancestry and modify it to instead give the player two attribute boosts of their choice. This can be very nice for off-the-wall character concepts, like Dwarf Sorcerers, who would normally suffer from the Dwarf's malus to charisma. The only thing lost is that any ancestry that raises three attributes but lowers one will only raise two attributes.
  • Feats have been overhauled significantly to simplify the process of picking them out. Not only have feat chains been downplayed and modified to follow a logical progression, but feats have now been tied to class, ancestry, general utility, and skills, narrowing the pool the player draws from for increased focus and simplicity. Each of the categories are separate from each other, and players progress in each of the four as they gain levels.
  • For groups that don't want to deal with the hassle of tying progression to rune, weapon, and armor acquisition, there's an option to instead tie all static numerical progression to level progression.
• Anti-Magic: The spell anti-magic field creates a small area where no magic of any kind can function.
• Armor and Magic Don't Mix:
  • As in 3.X, wizards and sorcerers have no armor proficiency and incur spell failure chance if they buy it with a feat or by multiclassing. Bards and magi are less restricted, with bards being able to wear light armor without penalty and magi earning the ability to wear heavier armor as they level up (but they have reduced spellcasting ability), and the Hellknight Signifier Prestige Class reduces spell failure chances to the point where a wizard can cast without penalty in a suit of mithral full plate (the spell failure reductions stack).
  • Clerics' armor proficiency is reduced to medium from heavy in 3.X, though there's no penalty for buying heavy armor proficiency with a feat or by multiclassing. Some archetypes alter this further: the Crusader gives up one of their two domains and a spell slot per level in exchange for heavy armor proficiency and bonus combat feats, whereas the Ecclesitheurge has ramped-up spellcasting in exchange for losing the ability to cast spells entirely if they even equip armor or a shield.
  • And a thing of the past in second edition. The only classes that have issues are monks and animal-instinct barbarians, and only with some of their special abilities. It is entirely possible through feat selections, especially multiclass ones, to have a wizard wearing full plate armour proficiently.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: As in 3.X, touch attacks bypass AC from armor and natural armor, specified spells bypass spell resistance, and specified attack types bypass damage resistance. Some standout examples:
  • The 3rd level spell iron stake (Ultimate Wilderness) generates a spike of cold iron that you throw at your enemy as a ranged touch attack. It bypasses spell resistance, and sickens creatures that are vulnerable to cold iron and forces them to roll an extra concentration check every time they try to cast a spell or spell-like ability.
  • Ultimate Combat contains rules for breaking Fantasy Gun Control in various ways. Firearms are treated as ranged touch attacks when fired within their first range increment (fortunately, early firearms' range increments are quite short compared to bows and crossbows). This quickly runs into Firearms Are Revolutionary with regards to game balance: firearms are normally considered exotic weapons (requiring basically anybody who isn't a gunslinger or gun-specialized archetype to take a feat to use them), but if you increase the Technology Levels of your world according to the included variant rules, guns can become martial or even simple weapons. This forces melee combatants to invest heavily in dodge AC to keep up.
• Artifact of Death: Several Cursed Items try to kill their owners. The necklace of strangulation constricts around their neck, the periapt of foul rotting inflicts a Mystical Plague, and the ever-popular scarab of death tries to eat their heart.
• Artificial Insolence: Mediums gain Powers via Possession by spirits. Some actions give their channeled spirit additional influence over them; if they reach 5 influence points, the spirit takes over their body for the rest of the day.
• Artistic License – History: In addition to inheriting D&D's "studded leather" error, the game's concept of "weapon groups", which ties into mainly Fighter and Cavalier class features, has separate groups for "spears" (stabbing weapons on sticks, chiefly spears, lances, and tridents) and "polearms" (other staff weapons such as halberds and pole-hammers). This is a historically nonexistent distinction: spears are properly a subset of polearms, as nearly all medieval and post-medieval oddly-shaped spear variants from the halberd to the glaive could still be used to stab an enemy held at haft's length, and conversely the heads on fighting spears were often edged and could cut in addition to piercing.
• Artistic License – Physics: As to be expected for a fantasy setting, and suitably handwaved because A Wizard Did It, but now and again there are still things that are... odd.
• Ascended Demon: Nocticula was the demon lord of succubi and assassination, but she grew tired of this existence, and ascended to godhood at the end of 1st edition. She's Chaotic Neutral rather than Good, being the goddess of outcasts and artists, but still rejects worship from evil creatures.
• Ascended Extra: While Paizo has created creatures and races of their own, and have used plenty of favorites from Wotc's library, much of their world is rounded out with more obscure D&D races. Most notably, Aboleths largely take the place of Illithids.
• Asmodeus: Asmodeus is the ruler of the Nine Hells, and the only devil to be a true deity. Instead of being associated with lust, he is associated with Lawful Evil, slavery, tyranny, and contracts.
• Asshole Victim:
  • Hunclay from The Dragon's Demand. An Evil Sorcerer who wanted to destroy the so called "Witch Tower" nearby because it blocked his view of the stars, he worked with the titular dragon and his band of kobolds to this end. Unfortunately for him, the dragon double crossed him and collapsed the tower on top of him, which the players are sent to investigate. Later in the module, they have to explore his mansion and find some disturbing experiments he did on extraplanar creatures, as well as a terrified servant who has locked himself in a closet and wont come out until he's sure his master is really dead.
  • Alaznist is probably supposed to be this in the Rise of the Runelords campaign, and in all fairness, she has done some very horrible things over the years. (Creating the Sinspawn, for one.) Of course, when one really looks at her backstory, it's not like she was given the option of being good...
• Atlantis: Azlant, complete with Sub-Mariner-looking "gillmen". Was propped to power, and disposed of after becoming a bit too big for their britches, by the aboleths.
• Attack Failure Chance:
  • Attacks are represented by rolling a twenty-sided dice and adding the character's attack bonus to the result, hitting if the total exceeds the target's Armor Class. However, if the dice lands on "1" before attack bonus is added the attack is a Critical Failure, conversely a "natural 20" is an automatic hit and a Critical Hit if it would have hit anyways in some editions.
  • 1st edition arcane spellcasters who wear armor and attempt to cast spells requiring gestures to cast have a percentage chance of failing, represented by rolling a hundred-sided dice or two d10s. In D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder bards could ignore the spell failure chance for light armor and the rule was dropped entirely in later editions of both games.
• Axis Mundi: Pharasma's Spire is an impossible tall stone tower in the Outer Planes, at whose peak sits the Boneyard when Pharasma holds her court and judges the souls of the dead. It plays an integral part in the settings cosmology — all mortal souls pass through it on their way to the other Outer Planes and, as they do so, the spire grows infinitesimally taller each day. One day, unguessable far in the future, some prophecies say that it will grow tall enough to reach the far side of the hollow sphere that makes up the outer layer of the cosmos and pierce it, causing the universe to collapse like a bubble pierced by a needle.
• Badass Adorable: Abrogail Thrune II is a rare evil example. While she is usually depicted as pretty cute (and was originally meant to be a teenager), she is also the ruler of Cheliax.
• Badass Normal:
  • Before he rose to godhood, this was Cayden Cailean in a nutshell. Extremely powerful, wandering, womanizing mercenary. Oh, and usually drunk. Became a god on a dare. While blackout drunk. Even as a god he doesn't remember how he managed to reach the Starstone, or what exactly was going on at the time. He basically woke up the next day with a terrifying hangover and godhood. Well, he still can't remember because he became the god of, among other things, alcohol. By definition, he still hasn't sobered up.
  • Of course, any non-magic-user character that survives long enough can be considered this.
• Bag of Holding: A staple magic Item and elaborated on in Classic Treasures Revisited.
• Bakeneko and Nekomata: Nekomatas are malevolent, panther-sized two-tailed cats with magical powers: chiefly, they can flawlessly mimic the appearance of a human they successfully damage with their bite attack and can animate and control undead creatures.
• Baku: Baku resemble floating, shaggy and tusked tapirs, and can when feeding choose to eat all of a person's dreams (causing them to wake up later exhausted and unrefreshed) or only their nightmares (which grants immunity to nightmare-inducing magic or dream haunting by malicious beings). They are mortal enemies of the dream-haunting night hags, and go to great lengths to hunt them down, fight them and prevent them from preying on sleeping minds.
• Balkanize Me:
  • Many a Vestigial Empire had this happen to it as it fell apart (Ancient Osirion, Taldor, Cheliax...), but Imperial Lung Wa is the most striking example in the setting's recent history; unlike the others mentioned, which still exist in a diminished form, Lung Wa's breakup was so complete that none of its dozen successor states even claim its name, and unlike the last two times that happened to the imperial state of the Tian-Shu people there's no re-unification in sight despite more than a century passing since Lung Wa collapsed.
  • Taldor, which serves a similar backstory role to the Roman Empire (to the point where the Taldan language is the Common Tongue of Avistan and northern Garund), had its entire western half declare independence during a war with Qadira to the south and become Cheliax. Cheliax in turn fragmented as a result of the death of Aroden: having dismantled its entire government in preparation for Aroden's prophesied return as God-Emperor, it fell into dynastic Civil War, which the House of Thrune eventually won with the backing of the Church of Asmodeus. The civil war and subsequent internal power struggles allowed Isger, Molthune, Galt, Andoran, and Nirmathas to attain independence (with very mixed results). After Ravounel breaks off as a result of the Hell's Rebels AP, Hell's Vengeance deals with an Evil party helping Queen Abrogail II stave off complete collapse.
• Balking Summoned Spirit: Being Neutral Evilinvoked Omnicidal Maniacs, daemons despise being summoned and will take every opportunity to Eat the Summoner.
• Ban on Magic: Within the borders of Rahadoum, anyone caught casting divine magic faces immediate exile due to the nation's strict laws against worshipping gods. While it's technically possible for divine magic to have a nondivine source (as with Alhazra, First Edition's Iconic Oracle), good luck convincing the authorities that distinction is worth taking into consideration. A lesser ban is in effect in the necrocracy of Geb, which bans spells that channel vitality since Revive Kills Zombie.
• Become Your Weapon: A high-level summoner has the ability to merge forms with their eidolon, combining their stats and effectively acting and fighting as one being. The Synthesist archetype allows them to do it from level 1, at the cost of not being able to summon the eidolon as a separate being. Heavily nerfed in Second Edition, however.
• Beelzebub: Baalzebul, the Lord of the Seventh layer of Hell, is a Fallen Angel who joined Asmodeus in his rebellion against Heaven. When he demanded extra power, Asmodeus transformed him into a Hive Minded swarm of flies. He continues to serve Hell's interests, manifesting as a huge angelic figure of flies, a gigantic fly, or a single small fly that whispers corruption to mortals.
• Beneath the Earth: The world beneath is known as the Darklands and draws inspiration from pulp fiction of the early 1900s, such as Edgar Rice Burroughs's Pellucidar. It's divided into three "layers"—the uppermost is home to fairly normal humanoids like goblins and dwarves, the middle layer is home to more reclusive races like the serpentfolk, and the deepest pits are artificial Vaults, vast terrariums which may be Lost Worlds or the homes of unspeakable horrors.
• Benevolent Conspiracy: The Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye is equal parts Secret Circle of Secrets and Mystery Cult, hoarding occult lore and keeping their operations hidden behind several layers of ritual and initiation. They also oppose both the Whispering Way and the Night Heralds, and succeeded in saving Golarion from being consumed by Aucturn in 4718 AR.
• Berserk Button: If you meet a jyoti, do NOT talk about the sceaduinar.
• Big Damn Heroes: How the iconic summoner's eidolon came into being. See the Awesome Moments page.
• Black Blood: Some people and creatures can possess black blood, which possess necromantic powers and resistance to cold. Oracles and Bloodragers for having archetypes based around this ability.
• Blade Enthusiast: "Never the sharpest knife in the drawer, as the saying goes, Merisiel [the iconic rogue] has learned to make up for this by carrying at least a dozen of them on her person."
• Bland-Name Product: Strangely, the Ultimate Equipment book has "Wismuth Salix", a chalky pink liquid medicine. "Wismuth" is a play on bismuth, and "salix" can be translated from Latin as "peppy" — it's fantasy Pepto-Bismol.
• Blessed with Suck:
  • All of the oracles must take a curse in exchange for their powers. These can vary from merely annoying to outright horrifying.
  • The Taninivers, having all those disease and necromancy based powers probably isn't worth being sick and in agony all the time..
• Blind Seer: The Oracle character class can select this as their Curse, severely limiting their normal eyesight but gaining the Darkvision special ability to compensate.
• Blob Monster: Of course, since "ooze" is kept as a creature type.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Magdh, an Eldest of the fae, is all three.
• Blood Bath: The Everdawn Pool, a powerful magical artifact found by the Runelord Sorshen. The pool has many powers, but chief among them is the ability to transform the body of one who bathes in it after filling the pool with the blood of several thousand sacrificed sentient beings. The Big Bad of Curse of the Crimson Throne, Queen Ileosa, intends to become an immortal being this way, slaughtering much of the population of Korvosa, including her own followers, in the process.
• Blood Knight: Golarion orc society tends to emphasize fighting, pain, and glory. How this is received by others varies highly on context and politics — the orcs of Belkzen are generally seen as barbarous for their standoffish nature and border raids, but the Matanji orcs are considered heroic by their neighbors due to them focusing their aggression on fighting demons and teaching others how to do the same.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Many neutral outsiders, particularly the Aeons (enigmatic True Neutral entities that are guardians of various aspects of reality), as well as beings from the First World such as many Fey (gnomes, being refugees from the place, have shades of this as well). Special mention to Lawful/Chaotic Neutral, outsiders who basically tend to have Blue and Orange Morality, but Black and White Ethics. For instance, a LN outsider would punish slavers in areas where slavery is illegal, but in places where it is legal their targets become escaped slaves.
• Body Horror:
  • Some of the Alchemist's Discoveries are pure self-inflicted body horror, ranging from standard Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde-style transformations to carrying a helpless conjoined twin (allowing for extra limbs) or a sentient tumor in your body. There's plenty to be found elsewhere, and most of it isn't voluntary.
  • A fair amount of this turns up in Wake of the Watcher, part four of the Carrion Crown Adventure Path. It's also the one with the most Lovecraftian influence and the Body Horror is not limited just to the descriptions — at least two pieces of artwork showed it quite clearly.
  • And then there are the tortures the Drow indulge in whenever one of their surface cousins falls in their clutches.
  • Fleshwarping does this (very painfully) to anyone unfortunate enough to be the result of such an experiment. The aftermath is generally a horrific creature that barely resembles its original form.
  • The city of Kaer Maga has two further voluntary yet not necessarily villainous examples: the surprisingly civilized troll Augurs, who for a nominal fee will divine the future... by reading their own entrails, and the largest known concentration of bloatmages, who take the "blood" aspect of magic power to its logical conclusion (i.e. the more blood in your body, the more power you have) and become bloated, blood and lymph-filled caricatures who have to follow a strict regimen of body control exercises and leech-assisted draining of excess fluids lest they suffer a Superpower Meltdown.
• Body of Bodies: This game features an undead creature called the Charnel Colossus, which is basically a huge undead monstrosity that was meant to be used as an unliving library, and is composed of an entire graveyard worth of "like-minded individuals."
• Boisterous Bruiser: Cayden Cailean, god of freedom, bravery, and alcoholic beverages, is what happens when a Boisterous Bruiser achieves godhood... by accident.
  • Also, Valeros, the iconic fighter. No points for guessing which god he follows.
  • The Firebrands are a whole faction of these at first glance. Really, they're a group of revolutionaries fighting against tyranny, but the general public's first impression of them was a group of badass daredevil showmen. They decided to shrug their shoulders and play along with this, since it gave their agents a surprising amount of plausible deniability.
• Bondage Is Bad:
  • Zon-Kuthon, who is basically a Cenobite homage as an evil god. Also the Velstracs (formerly Kytons), expanded from a single type of evil outsider into a full-fledged Hellraiser-themed infernal hierarchy.
  • Partially averted by the goddess Calistria, the goddess of lust and "The Savored Sting," who isn't particularly good or evil.
• Botanical Abomination: Cyth-V'sug, the demon lord of fungus, parasites and disease, takes the physical form of a house-sized, animated mass of fungi, vines, tubers and rot. Depictions of him vary between showing him as a hulking, beast-like quadruped composed of rotting vegetable matter or as a flying mass of wooden claws, fangs and horns dotted with bulbous fungal "eyes" and gnarled branches, but always shrouded in miasma and swarming vermin. He used to be a qlippoth, an ancient race of Eldritch Abominations that ruled the Abyss before demons arose, before he became a demon, and thus lacks any resemblance to mortal forms or sanity in his appearance. His realm, Jeharlu, is a planet-sized mass of living fungus that feeds parasitically on any world or plane it is able to contact, corrupting them and absorbing them into itself.
• Brain in a Jar: Wake of the Watcher, fourth volume of the Carrion Crown Adventure Path, features a "brain archive" that contains several of these. Valley of the Brain Collectors, fourth volume of the Iron Gods Adventure Path, features a motley assortment of Mi-Go and agents of the Dark Tapestry.
• Brain Theft: The neh-thalggus, or brain collectors as most others know them, are one of the numerous races of monstrous aliens that make up the star-faring empire knows as the Dominion of the Black. Their name comes from their ability to remove brains from living humanoids and store them in special blisters on their bodies, which they wire into their own nervous systems in order to increase their intellect and brainpower. The captured brains are still alive and aware through this process; the neh-thalggus don't care. Old and powerful neh-thalggus can absorb their stored brains to transform into larger, stronger yah-thelgaads; these can only store six brains at a time, but can collect the brains of non-humanoid organisms as well.
• Break the Cutie:
  • Ameiko Kaijitsu's story arc in Pathfinder #1: Burnt Offerings has shades of this trope. Her beloved but estranged younger half-brother, Tsuto, comes back to her hometown after a five-year absence, intending to burn it to the ground and kill everyone in it. When she refuses to join him in this endeavor, he has his goblin minions beat her within an inch of her life (literally, she has a negative hit point total if the PCs manage to rescue her), and leaves her tied up, gagged, and blindfolded on a cold stone floor for a few hours. He also murders her father, and puts his body on display in the workshop of the family's glass-making business, covering it in sheets of cooled molten glass. And then there's the possible revelation, depending on how things play out, that her father murdered her mother five years earlier, as a long-delayed revenge for the adultery that produced Tsuto. Also, if the PCs don't rescue her very quickly after her capture, she'll end up being burned to death by Tsuto's psychotic girlfriend as a sacrifice to the demon goddess Lamashtu.
    
    Whether it gets better or worse in Jade Regent depends on your point of view. Ameiko has the opportunity to become the Empress of Minkai—if she can make an exceedingly perilous journey there with the aid of the PCs and deal with the scheming powerful Oni who drove her noble family into exile and slaughtered her grandfather. Not to mention, her backstory is expanded upon, revealing that she quit her teenage adventuring career after seeing her lover get dragged to his death by cannibals.
  • Zon-Kuthon was a god of love and beauty like his sister Shelyn before going on a journey outside reality, meeting something, and coming back as the broken and twisted god of pain, darkness, and loss.
  • Zon-Kuthon's father was a boisterous, life-loving wolf spirit/god who was more than happy to see his errant son come home. Now it is the Prince in Chains, a skinless, eternally tormented "hateful creature of broken flesh, pain and chains", and Zon-Kuthon's herald. Even its flesh isn't its own — in his tortures, his son stripped it all away, using it to create his own monsters, and replaced it with chains, leather, and necrotic flesh from other victims. As a deity who holds torture to be the highest form of art, Zon-Kuthon is believed to consider the Prince-in-Chains his masterpiece.
  • To a greater or lesser extent, every single one of the Iconics.
    • Seytiel, the iconic Magus, is a bastard child who was repeatedly beaten by his "father" and who when he finally met his real father, a bandit leader, was left to die after he was captured in the hopes that he would be mistaken for said father.
    • Lini, the iconic Druid, was left to die by the friends she had repeatedly protected from wild animals when a snow leopard jumped on her.
    • Amiri, the iconic Barbarian was a typical tomboy, before her people, embarrassed by her skills at killing things despite being a woman, tried to get her killed. She murdered the group sent to cause her death in a blood rage and now she's forever exiled from her homeland.
    • Sajan, the iconic Monk, was separated from his beloved twin sister by politics and in searching for her has basically banished himself from his country and all his friends.
    • Lem, the iconic Bard, was a slave who overheard his masters planning to sacrifice the other slaves of the house to devils, so he arranged for the slaves to all be away while he burned down the house full of his masters. The Slaves all rushed into the fire to save them and died.
    • Seelah, the iconic Paladin, stole a paladin's helm, which led to the paladin's death when a killing blow was struck upon her unarmored head. Seelah didn't take that well, planning to burn herself to death on the paladin's own funeral pyre to atone.
    • Harsk, the iconic Ranger, lost his brother to giants and vowed to kill them all.
    • Merisiel, the iconic Rogue, grew up as an orphan among humans, losing at least three generations of peers to aging and disease along the way.
    • Ezren, the iconic Wizard, spent decades of his life trying to clear his father of false charges of heresy against the church of Abadar, only to find irrefutable proof his father's guilt.
    • Kyra, the iconic Cleric, lost her beloved peasant village when it was burned around her.
    • Alahazra, the 1e iconic Oracle, was thrown out of her house into the desert to die of starvation and exposure by her own father because she could cast divine magic.
    • Feiya, the iconic Witch, was raised by Hags. Wolves would have been kinder.
• Burn Scars, Burning Powers:
  • 1e Oracles with the Blackened curse have shriveled and blackened forearms, as if they had plunged their arms into a bonfire. The curse inflicts a penalty on weapon attack rolls but adds several fire spells to the character's spell list.
  • Emberkin aasimars, descended from fire-connected outsiders called peri, can take the "Burnished Skin" race trait during character creation, which states they were severely scarred in a fire and grants a bonus on saves against illusions.
• Calling Your Attacks: Items cursed to be "raucous" make this mandatory for the user, thus ruining stealth.
• Captain Ersatz: The boggards, a race of frog-people, are really just D&D's bullywugs renamed due to copyright issues.
  • The serpentfolk are similar to D&D's yuan-ti in function (ancient evil snake folk living in ruins) but different in appearance, powers, and culture. In a way, they're more of a return to form—yuan-ti were ersatzes of Robert E. Howard's serpentfolk. Pathfinder's serpentfolk are for all practical purposes identical to the archenemies of King Kull.
  • Intellect devourers, though a preexisting D&D monster, have become the default stand-in for mind flayers in the "psionic brain-themed underground aberration" department. Another preexisting monster tied to mind flayers, neothelids, also picked up a part of their role, in this case the "immensely powerful psionic horrors worshipping worse beings and plotting to destroy/enslave everything else" part.
  • Rovagug, the god of destruction, is the replacement for Obox-ob, the demon lord who was the Big Bad of lead designer James Jacobs's campaign which eventually became Golarion. Jacobs "sold" Obox-ob to Wizards of the Coast when he included the demon in their Fiendish Codex book (fair enough as he took the name from the 1E Monster Manual II).^note Rovagug did exist in Jacobs's original campaign but was a more generic god of the underworld.
  • A weird case: In D&D 3E, there were two "underground fish-people" races: kuo-toa (the more popular and better-known) and skum. The skum were open-source under the Open Gaming License; the kuo-toa were not. So Paizo took the skum and made them thematically more like the kuo-toa (and H. P. Lovecraft's Deep Ones). They have forgotten their heritage as part of an ancient Aboleth empire, and everyone (including themselves) calls them Skum, but the actual name for their race is Ulat-Kini.
  • The graveknight is inspired by D&D's death knight, with some subtle differences—the death knight's soul inhabits its dead body like most undead, while the graveknight's soul possesses its armor, much like a lich's phylactery.
  • Likewise, the ravener is strongly based on D&D's dracolich.
  • The urdefhans are meant to evoke the image of D&D's githyanki — evil, otherworldly humanoids with a skeletal appearance who wield distinctive swords — but have a completely different campaign role.
  • Bestiary 4 has Kaiju as a monster type. Of the Kaiju, Agyra is basically a combination of Rodan and Mothra. Bezravnis is a fiery underground Ebirah, and Mogaru is Godzilla without the radioactive aspects. Bestiary 6 introduces King Varklops, who is King Ghidorah as a snake rather than a dragon.
• Cast Full of Gay: Lost Omens: Grand Bazaar describes various shops in Absalom's main marketplace, and each shopkeeper is given a two-page writeup about their history and how they run their shop. Of the shopkeepers described, just a little over half of them are LGBT in some capacity. Considering that Grand Bazaar had many contributing writers and Paizo has a well-known LGBT Fanbase, this is likely an amusing coincidence rather than anything intentional.
• Chain Pain: The spiked chain is a weapon option.
  • Also, the Prince in Chains, herald of the god of pain. And velstracs (previously called chain devils), whose skins are essentially living spiked chains.
• Characterization Marches On: Tying into the Early-Installment Weirdness nature of the setting, many of ''Pathfinder'''s more recurring characters, especially the gods, have gone through this over the years. For example: Erastil and Asmodeus used to have sexist aspects to their characterizations, but overtime this was removed (Asmodeus) or changed (Erastil) to reflect Paizo's move away from their original ideas for the setting. Even gods without controversial and outdated views had elements changed to make them more less rigid; Pharasma going from universally hating undead, to more so being against the act of creating them as an example.
• Character Alignment: invoked Through 2023, both editions used the "good-neutral-evil" and "law-neutral-chaos" system, much like its predecessor. The "Champions of..." Player Companion line gave have a bit of a more "in-depth" look at the typical alignments.
  • invoked In Champions of Purity, the typical Lawful Good roles are governmental Builders, evil hunting Crusaders, and Guardians. The typical Neutral Good roles are Healers, Mediators, and Redeemers. The typical Chaotic Good roles are Activists, Freedom Fighters, and Vigilantes.
  • invoked In Champions of Balance, the typical Lawful Neutral roles are Executors, Judges, and Mechanists. The typical True Neutral roles are Agents of Balance, Fatalists, and Naturalists. The typical Chaotic Neutral roles are Impulsives, Rebels, and Saboteurs.
  • invoked In Champions of Corruption, the typical Lawful Evil roles are manipulative Despots, evil-serving Minions, and Swindlers. The typical Neutral Evil roles are Annihilists, egotistical Narcissists, and Psychopaths. The typical Chaotic Evil roles are Devotees, Furies, and Hedonists.
  • In 2023, as part of the migration of Second Edition off of the Open Game License onto the new Open RPG Creative License (sparked by an abortive attempt by Wizards of the Coast to end use of the original OGL), Paizo announced that the traditional alignment system would no longer be in use going forward, in favor of expanded use of edicts and anathema with divine effects labeled "holy" and "unholy".
• Charm Person: A basic (1st Level) spell, with more powerful variants such as charm monster.
• Chase-Scene Obstacle Course: The Pathfinder Gamemastery Guide has mechanics for impromptu chase scenes: The GM lays down a row of cards representing obstacles (each obstacle has a choice of skill checks to overcome them) and controls a fleeing NPC. The Player Characters and NPC then attempt skill checks to progress through the obstacle course until the pursuers catch up, or the pursued reaches a point that marks a safe escape.
• The Chew Toy: The first issues of no fewer than five Adventure Paths have featured members of the Vancaskerkin family as supporting characters — first Orik, then his brother Verik, their father Saul, their half-sister Natalya, and their cousin Lullaby. There is one of them that can catch a break in canon, but the fans love 'em for keeping on.
• Child by Rape: Pathfinder, being Darker and Edgier than Dungeons & Dragons played up this aspect of Half-Orcs, something that the game's designers have defended as emphasizing both the darker nature of their setting and the innate heroism of half-orc player characters. That said, there are at least two named half-orc NPCs in two separate adventure paths who were born of consensual encounters; a male half-orc pirate in Skull & Shackles who was born to a human man and the female orc he befriended and helped escape, and Irabeth Tirablade, a female half-orc paladin born to a male orc that abandoned his people's evil ways to marry a human woman.
  • Ironically, as of right now, not a single Half-Orc iconic/major NPC in Pathfinder has this origin. Oloch? Consensual, but his father stole him away and raised him as a slave. Imrijka is a Doorstop Baby, so how she came about is unknown.
  • The Player's Guide to the Carrion Crown adventure path doesn't quite spell it out, but mentions that "the residual bloodlines caused by generations of orc attacks on human settlements still pop up in even the most prestigious of families." Since those attacks happened a thousand years ago, one can imagine the scale required for them to still have a genetic impact now...
  • Ogrekin are also assumed to be universally born from this, as Pathfinder ogres are monstrously sadistic 10-foot-tall+ inbred hillbillies who no sane human-sized person would ever want to mate with.
• City of the Damned: Dis, the Infernal City, is the second layer of Hell. It's a metropolis of staggering size, filled with towers of iron, brass and obsidian and monolithic buildings the size of entire mortal settlements, and home to a teeming population of devils, other lawful fiends such as velstracs and asuras, and hordes of damned souls, all under the watchful eye of Dispater, the archedevil of cities, prisons and rulership. It even has twinned canal systems for ease of transportation, although one runs with liquid fire and the other with the memory-draining waters of the River Styx. It's given a detailed look in Distant Realms, a sourcebook dedicated to extraplanar metropolises, which describes it as one of the greatest trade hubs in the universe.
• Clingy MacGuffin: Most "cursed" magic items have this property. They can only be gotten rid of through a remove curse spell.
• Clue of Few Words: The spell "Contact Other Plane" petitions gods or other eldritch forces for information. However, they only give one-word answers like "Yes", "Maybe", or "Irrelevant", or at most a short phrase.
• Collector of Forms: Downplayed with the spell Beast Shape, which requires a piece of the creature whose form is being assumed as a material component. In practice, a spellcaster's component pouch is usually Hand Waved to have all the non-costly material components they need, barring unusual circumstances.
• Colony Drop: Caused ten thousand years ago by the aboleths to punish their uppity human pawns. Resulted in a thousand years of darkness and a Class Two dieback of surface civilization.
  • The Starstone also turned out to be very powerful (whether in its own right or through the sacrifice of two gods who tried to stop its fall), including the ability to elevate mortals to GODHOOD, four times actually. Though the Aboleth were not aware of its real nature, so this was not intentional...at least from the point of view of the Deep Masters.
• Combat by Champion: Combat on a boarded ship is for practical reasons resolved as a one-to-one fight between the captains.
• Combo Platter Powers: The Tane all fall into this. The Jabberwock's abilities are the same as what's hinted at in the poem (eyes of flame, burbling, and whiffling), and the other two were created to mimic the Jabberwock. It's a major contributor to how odd they are.
• Common Tongue: In the Inner Sea region "Common" is a nickname for Taldane, the official language of the Taldor Empire which acts as a trade language outside their current borders. Other regions of Golarion have their own language that fulfill the same purpose, such as Tien in Tian Xia.
• Compilation Re-release: Due to the good performance of the original softcover release, the Abomination Vaults and Fists of the Ruby Phoenix Adventure Paths were later re-released in hardcover form. Each hardcover compiles the contents of all three softcover volumes (both adventures and supporting articles) and contains some new art but otherwise keeps most of the content the same.
• Composite Character:
  • The herald of Cayden Cailean is named Thais. She is named after two different real life and seems to be a combination of the two (being a freedom loving angel like creature)
  • The Tatterman from Strange Aeons is like a combination of Slenderman and Freddy Kreuger.
• Cool, but Stupid: Solid gold weapons! They cost 10 times as much as normal, weigh half again as much, take a penalty on damage rolls, fall apart on an attack roll of 1... but hey, they sure do look pretty! They have NO real bonuses to counteract these penalties. Except a possible circumstance bonus to Diplomacy. The flavor text says that they are only used as ceremonial weapons.
  • Well, no use until some clever wizard or rogue works out that the weight of the gold in a solid gold weapon sometimes comes out to 20 times the cost or more, and whips out the linguistics(forgery) skill or the fabricate spell...
• Complete Immortality: After the release of Mythic Adventures, Tier 10 mythic characters can gain something very close to this. Take the Mythic Longevity path ability that renders them immune to aging, and their natural mythic ability Immortal means that unless they receive a Coup-de-Grace or critical hit with an artifact that kills them, they will immediately "respawn" 24 hours later.
  • Some CR 26-30 creatures also have this. The statted versions of the Great Old Ones are immortal and can only be delayed, not killed. Bokrug is reduced to dormancy if "killed" and returns to the Dimension of Dreams to slumber for hundreds of years, Cthulhu must be "killed" twice and returns to R'lyeh until awakened again once this is done, and Hastur is returned to life if somebody dons his robes after "killing" him while otherwise he simply can't manifest a physical body again until the conditions are right.
  • Baba Yaga possesses complete immortality. With the base mythic ability, she then removed her Death from herself. She returns after 24 hours no matter what kills her unless her Death is released back into her body first. She keeps her Death in a hidden demiplane within her Dancing Hut. A demiplane that can normally only be accessed from within the Hut and with her permission.
  • A simpler example is that wizards (including PCs) can research a "discovery" every five levels, and a 20th-level example is immortality. Notably, Razmir, a despotic ruler who claims to be an immortal god, is a level 19th wizard.
• Control Freak: Barzillai Thrune. His Evil Plan, itself centered around taking control of Cheliax, relies on him being the mayor of Kintargo for a long time, but his greatest enemy in this endeavour is his own ego. He is so obsessed with getting Kintargo to submit to his rule on his terms that he frequently overlooks things that make him legitimately popular and well-liked, culminating in him turning an event that would have made him the toast of Kintargo into a violent revolution against Cheliax because he had to do it his way.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Pretty much the entire leadership of the Lumber Consortum
• Crapsack World: Welcome to Golarion, where you're most likely screwed, doing the screwing, or both!
  • For starters, Rovagug is only barely held in place by the joint efforts of Asmodeus and Sarenrae. Asmodeus, the Lawful Evil would-be omniversal tyrant, also gets to hold the threat of universal destruction over everyone else's shoulders, because he's the only one with the key to Rovagug's prison.
    • Rovagug's "children" include Tarrasque, the infamous and nigh-indestructible creature that likes to end civilizations when it awakens. But even that pales in comparison to Rovagug himself...
  • It's implied that there might be certain creatures that came before even the gods. Guess what they are.
    • There are also beings like Baba Yaga, who have all the powers of Gods but none of the drawbacks because they do not need prayer badly, but have other power sources instead. You can guess how good news a being that can go toe-to-toe with a god and is beholden to no-one is.
  • Demon Lords like Asmodeus and Nocticula are openly worshipped. As in, they have huge temples built to them, and their priests proselytize openly in the streets. The Church of Asmodeus is even the state religion of not-insignificant parts of the world.
  • Even among the "good" gods, there is plenty to criticize. Iomedae can be quite the Manipulative Bitch when she deems it necessary. Sarenrae isn't above a little Pay Evil unto Evil. Cayden Cailean is a drunkard who can't keep it in his pants who lucked into godhood while drunk, and has not been sober since. Shelyn forbids her paladins from killing even the most heinous of evil-doers because they might create something beautiful at some point in the future. Calistria has a so severe case of Chronic Backstabbing Disorder Asmodeus leaves the room when she arrives. Erastil is a reactionary who has raised Stay in the Kitchen to an art form.
  • One of the more powerful nations in the setting, Cheliax, are diabolistic human supremacists that intend to subjugate the world in the name of Asmodeus. The queen has a pit fiend as her chief advisor; not to corrupt her, mind, just to ensure she doesn't slip into Stupid Evil.
  • Numeria is ruled by a cabal of Mad Scientists who are strip-mining a crashed spaceship.
  • Queen Ileosa of Korvosa is a full-fledged monster running a eugenics program that makes the Nazi T4-program look like flourinating drinking water, and intends to rise to godhood on the back of a high six-digit number of human sacrifices.
  • Galt had a revolution half a century ago, but never really understood that at some point you have to stop purging dissidents and start building a society. The nation has been stuck in a cycle of revolution and counter-revolution ever since.
  • The kingdom of Geb is a kingdom ruled by undead. Best to stay clear of this place or you'll end up as a slave or food, if not both.
  • Central Avistan is home to the Worldwound, the site of a gigantic portal to the Abyss which swallowed and destroyed the nation of Sarkoris, and where hundreds of demonic creatures pour into Golarion every day, and has been the site of near-constant warfare for the better part of a century.
  • On the more mundane end, slavery and human sacrifice are also perfectly legal in large swathes of the world.
  • On top of this, you have all the usual things expected of an Adventure-Friendly World; rampaging monsters, magical plagues, roaming undead, wizards doing dodgy stuff, weird cults... the list goes on.
• Creation Myth: The earliest days of Golarion are shrouded in mystery, as archeological and historical records pre-Earthfall are understandably scarce. Even directly asking the gods, many of whom were probably directly involved with the universe's creation, only produces vague, often-contradictory answers about it. Thus, many cultures and ancestries attempt to fill in this gap at the beginning of history with their own mythologies, most of which place said cultures in a suspiciously-central part of the narrative.
• Creative Sterility: The titans were jealous of gods' ability to create mortals, so they tried to create a race of their own to worship them. What they got were the demodands, a race of twisted, fiendish mockeries.
• Critical Failure:
  • Firearms misfire on a low attack roll. A misfire results in the weapon gaining the broken condition, which means that the weapon will more easily misfire again, and the weapon will explode on a second misfire.
  • Fragile weapons also become broken on a natural 1 and are destroyed on a second natural 1.
  • Any attack roll resulting in a natural 1 near a temerdaemon will hit the attacker or an ally of the attacker if a second attack roll succeeds.
• Culture Chop Suey: Less prevalent than you might think, and seems to be more based on Rule of Cool than ignorance. For example, county Sinaria in Ustalav is essentially a gothic horror Louisiana with Opera Populaire thrown in, as a border province in Überwald.
• Cursed with Awesome:
  • The sorcerer class has Bloodlines which can stem from anything from dragons to demons to undead to Lovecraftian horrors lurking between the stars. They all give the Sorcerer awesome powers, new spells, and access to more feats. In a more literal sense, the 1e Oracle base class is given something called an "Oracle's Curse".
    • Oh no! You are babbling in a demonic tongue while in battle! But when you reach level 15, you can understand and speak any language!
    • Oh no! You can't see beyond 30 feet in front of you, but you can see in the infrared spectrum and at level 15 who cares about having difficulty seeing, you can see in a fashion that's better than regular sight.
    • Oh no! I'm a bit lame, but at level 15 I literally cannot get tired.
    • Oh no! I'm haunted, objects that I drop or attempt to retrieve are suddenly not there or several feet away, but as I level I gain the ability to tell gravity to GTFO.
    • Oh no! I'm a bit ugly and unpleasant, but I'm completely immune to disease and nausea.
  • A more generalized type would be magical items that are cursed or have drawbacks. Sure, some of them enforce some variety of change or behavior on the user, but if the user has no problem with it, the "curse" is a boon. One example are magical items that change the wearer's sex — a Transgender character may choose to seek one out for the "drawback" effect moreso than the main effect.
  • Oracle returns for Second Edition with the same core concept of "divinely cursed with awesome", though the effect progression explicitly forces you to amplify your curse to get the full benefits of it—the curse your Mystery bears normally only has a benefit and small, passive flavor downside, but each time you use a Revelation focus spell, your curse progresses until the end of combat. Each downside and benefit is cumulative.
    • The minor effects give you a small, flavorful downside you have to play around, without any real upside. Once you cast your Revelation, you're stuck with the minor effects until you rest and make daily preparations again. These include things like lower initiative from being unable to process the torrent of knowledge your curse provides, losing 2 AC unless you've made a Strike since the start of your turn, or halving the non-magical healing you receive.
    • The moderate effects give you a bigger downside, but also give you a small benefit. Refocusing at moderate or higher reduces your curse's effects to their minor form. These include things like being enfeebled 2 and much more vulnerable to getting pushed around but also being able to leap around more easily and resisting tripping, being cloaked in swirling ash that dazzles you, but also conceals you and creatures within 10 feet, or being unable to magically heal (but improving your ability to magically heal your allies).
    • Major effects are only accessible at Level 11, often having a serious downside but also a moderate benefit. These include things like being constantly surrounded by flames unless you spend an action to suppress them, being surrounded by an incredibly powerful rainstorm that causes difficult terrain while making you vulnerable to lightning, and being able to understand all languages but incapable of communicating by any means.
    • The extreme stage, only accessible at Level 17 (and requiring multiple encounters to reach under most circumstances), is identical for all Mysteries. You're constantly Doomed 2 (meaning that if you go down, you're much more likely to die), but you can reroll any attack roll, skill or Perception check, or saving throw you fail once every 10 minutes.
• Custom-Built Host: The archdevil Mammon lost his original body and now haunts all the treasure in the vaults of Hell. For special occasions or to fight, he possesses the Argent Prince, a unique, custom-designed statue of his ideal form.
• Cute Critters Act Childlike: Goblins are an evil version: pyromaniac big-heads who behave like psychopathic little kids. It's part of what makes them so amusing.
• Cute Monster Girl:
  • Female Lashunta. While all Lashunta are reasonably human-looking apart from the antennae, the men tend to be short, hairy, and unprepossessing, while the women are beautiful Green Skinned Space Babes.
  • Female driders have the torsos of beautiful drow women, and their arachnid lower halves have a certain black widowish sleekness and grace. Male driders have obvious spider mandibles and less streamlined lower bodies.
  • Changelings◊, the immature daughters of hags. Hags are monstrous old crones; changelings are pretty girls with mismatched eyes and, sometimes, unusual hair colours.
  • Many of the fiendish races (with the prominent exception of the utterly inhuman qlippoths) have a "pretty humanoid" variant: Erinyes for the devils, Succubi for demons, Erodaemons for daemons, and Pairakas for divs. Ostiarus kytons are Cute Monster Boys.
  • Harpies seesaw on this trope; on the one hand, they are physically attractive, but on the other hand, they're very unhygienic and so tend to be filthy, foul-smelling, and with crooked teeth.
  • Lamias look like either tauric Snake People or cat-taurs, but the female half is always quite beautiful.
  • Sirens (who look like giant birds with the heads of very attractive human women) are a bit on the monstrous side, but count. They're one of the few species that require humanoid men to breed who treat them decently — their entry in the Bestiary 2 actually mentions sirens dying of heartbreak, or committing suicide, if they are spurned by men they wish to mate with.
  • Thriae are a race of bee-girls who follow this trope quite well.
  • Let's save time and state that many "nymph" type fey (rusalkas, nereids, dryads, nymphs) fit this archetype.
• Cutting Off the Branches: With the update to 2nd Edition in 2019, all adventure paths (except Kingmaker) got canonical endings in order to update the setting.
  • Serpent's Skull: The serpentfolk's plot to return their god Ydersius to full power was thwarted.
  • Skull & Shackles: The PCs declined the role of Hurricane Queen, giving it to Tessa Fairwind.
  • Reign of Winter: Baba Yaga was freed, Queen Elvanna was defeated, and Anastasia Romanova was resurrected and made the new Queen of Irrisen.
  • Wrath of the Righteous: The Worldwound was successfully closed, and Queen Galfrey ascended to become Iomedae's new Herald. Nocticula ascended to become a goddess of redemption, freedom, and the arts. Irabeth and Anevia Tirabade retired to Irabeth's family farm.
  • Iron Gods: The Technic League was defeated, Casandalee became a new divine being, Kevoth-Kul the Black Sovereign was freed from his addictions.
  • Mummy's Mask: Pharaoh Hakotep I was defeated quickly after his return, causing the current Pharaoh Khemet III to close Osirion's ancient tombs to foreign explorers.
  • Hell's Rebels: Ravounel became independent but is still very much under Cheliax's shadow, which regards it as a breakaway province.
  • Hell's Vengeance: The Glorious Reclamation was defeated and its leaders executed, with Abrogail II able to stabilize Cheliax, though Rahadoum seized the opportunity to annex Khari.
  • Ironfang Invasion: The PCs defeated General Azaersi, but then brokered peace between her new nation of Oprak and Nirmathas rather than destroying it.
  • Ruins of Azlant: Andoran's colony in shattered Azlant was saved.
  • War for the Crown: Eutropia becomes Grand Princess of Taldor, with her deceased brother Carrius resurrected and freed; he is now her heir.
  • Return of the Runelords: Working for Runelord Sorshen, the PCs defeated Runelord Alaznist and freed Belimarius and the city of Xin-Edasseril from stasis and restored them to Varisia as the nation of New Thassilon.
  • Tyrant's Grasp: Tar-Baphon was freed from imprisonment, but his assault on Absalom failed.
  • We Be Goblins!: The goblin PCs all survived and wound up on the Astral Plane.
• Cutting the Knot: Part five of War for the Crown requires the PCs to win a local election on the plane of Axis. You can go through the motions by using the campaign's Persona system to cajole the electorate into voting for you... or you can just persuade your opponent to drop out (or, you know, kill her), in which case your candidate will be running unopposed.

D-F

• Dangerously Garish Environment: The First World, a plane of existence that serves as Golarion's version of the Land of Faerie, is said to have been the gods' "first draft" at creating the world. It is a garishly and wildly colorful world that is as unpredictable as it is beautiful, and it is easy for mortals who enter it to become lost forever even if they don't fall victim to ill-advised pranks by the native fey.
• Dark Is Evil: Present everywhere, but nowhere is it more prominent than with the Nightshades. The most powerful race of undead, nightshades are never smaller than Huge size, and their most powerful member (the nightwave) is a Colossal shadow shark. That can FLY.
• Dark Is Not Evil: On the other hand, the plane right next door to the nightshades, the Plane of Shadow, is home to beings like the fetchlings and wayangs, that mostly want to be left to themselves. The Movanic Deva angel is VERY evil-looking. Svirfneblin, at first glance, seem to be gnome versions of duergar or drow, but they're usually neutral. Pseudodragons are tiny dragons that look somewhat freaky, but are Neutral Good and have catlike personalities. And, obviously, we have tieflings, the mortal descendants of fiends that can choose to embrace their heritage or completely denounce it.
• Darker and Edgier: Sometimes just in the sense of having a more "mature" feel, sometimes considerably less subtle (one module has hillbilly rapist ogres). Said module is the censored version. The original will likely never be published. 2e tends to avert the worst cases of this, though.
  • The "Carnival of Tears" module gives the heroes an early opportunity to stop a violent rape, and that's before any evil fey get involved. From there it becomes a parade of gore, misery, and horror that puts the Saw movies to shame. If the adventure ends with a body count of less than one hundred villagers, it's considered a smashing success for the heroes.
  • Hotter and Sexier, as well. Note the female iconics. And some of the males...
• Dark World: The Plane of Shadow, just like in 3.5, is still Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
• Deadly Gas: The Cloud Kill and Acid Fog spells
  • The module Rasputin Must Die! has mustard gas and a monster that's a sentient cloud of it. That got that way by absorbing the souls of the people it killed. It makes zombies.
• Deal with the Devil: Lots of devils in PF make deals, but Mephistopheles, of course, is the best at it.
• Death World: Of all the places with sentient life, perhaps the most dangerous to human life would be Golarion's sun.
• Decomposite Character: The Warlock class from D&D is notably absent in both editions. Instead, we have the Witch, who has inherited the Warlock's general aesthetic of dark magic and pacts, but uses Vancian Magic for its mechanics, and the Kineticist, who has inherited the "blast shape with a handful of support abilities" style of play, but is themed around Elemental Powers rather than The Dark Arts in terms of fluff.
• Deity of Human Origin: Anyone who passes the Test of the Starstone becomes a god. Hundreds of hopefuls enter the Starstone Cathedral every year; in four thousand years, only four have succeeded—one of whom was drunk off his ass at the time.
  • At least two or three other deities were purportedly humans whose ascensions predate the Starstone being usable for it, but as they did it so long ago it's more a matter of myth, conjecture and religious dogma as to how they did it.
• Deliberately Non-Lethal Attack:
  • In 1E, all attacks made with weapons that aren't specifically labeled as non-lethal deal lethal damage by default, but by announcing a non-lethal attack before rolling to hit and taking a -4 penalty on said roll, a player can convert their weapon's regular damage into non-lethal one. If the cumulative amount of non-lethal damage exceeds the target's remaining Hit Points, they are rendered safely unconscious (whereas if they were just reduced to 0 HP, they'd be unconscious and risk bleeding to death without immediate first aid).
  • In 2E, all attacks made with weapons that lack the nonlethal trait deal lethal damage by default, but can take a -2 circumstance penalty to deal nonlethal damage instead. Weapons with the nonlethal trait invert the trope, needing a -2 circumstance penalty to deal lethal damage instead.
• Deliberately Painful Clothing: The worshipers of Zon-Kuthon, god of pain, often wear extreme versions of this kind of clothing, which is sometimes embedded in their flesh so extensively that it can't be removed without killing them. Giving and receiving pain are both considered religious experiences among them.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Andoran's democratic government and opposition to slavery were seen as naive and absurd even by other good factions. Opposition to slavery has rapidly become more popular over the last 10-15 years, however, to the point that even the tyrannical nation of Cheliax de jure abolished slavery in 4722 AR—even if it's questionable whether they truly abolished it or merely switched to debt slavery.
• Delicate and Sickly: In Seven Days To The Grave there is a girl named Brienna Soldado who is suffering from Blood Veil and will die within a few days if not cured.
• Democracy Is Flawed: Downplayed. Andoran, Golarion's first and so far only large representative democracy, is officially aligned Neutral Goodinvoked; however, much of the adventure material around it deal with concerted efforts to corrupt its government, either by former nobility who want their old power back, or by groups such as the Lumber Consortium who are trying to distort its friendliness to trade in order to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else, or both.
• Demon Lords and Archdevils: Most "races" of fiends have a class of powerful rulers, who are classified as demigods and capable of channeling spells to cultists.
  • Most of the standard 1st-through-3rd edition archdevils made the transfer to Golarion, albeit altered. The ones who came along in D&D 2E or 3E (Bel, Fierna, Levistus, Malagard, and Glasya) were dropped in favor of their 1E public domain predecessors (Geryon and Moloch), with a new one, Barbatos, rounding out the line-up. Asmodeus is still their ruler, but he is now a full deity.
  • However, most of the demon lords had to be left behind and replaced by a new batch due to copyright reasons. On the other hand, most of the really important ones were Public Domain Characters (Orcus, Demogorgon^note though his depiction as a two-headed monkey/serpent remains copyrighted by Wizards, so he receives only off-hand mentions, Pazuzu, Dagon, Kostchtchie, Baphomet...). The biggest losses lore-wise were Graz'zt, Fraz-Urb'luu^note who is open source thanks to creeping into the 3.5 3rd-party Tome of Horrors, but Paizo deliberately doesn't use him because he's so closely tied to Greyhawk, Pale Night, Yeenoghu, Obox-Ob and Zuggtmoy. Many replacements will be familiar to those with knowledge of real-world demonology.
    • As of 2e Remastered, Orcus and Demogorgon have also been axed due to their connections to the OGL.
  • The daemons (who have reclaimed their proper name after being known as yugoloths for two and a half editions) now have the Four Horsemen leading them instead of the solitary Oinodaemon (whom they ganged up on and imprisoned).
  • The asuras (original to Pathfinder and based on Indian myth) have a caste of godlike "ranas".
  • The qlippoth^note Expys of D&D's Obyriths are the original inhabitants of the Abyss, and were driven to the lower depths when the demons appeared. They have horrific, primeval shapes in contrast to the humanoid structure of demons, and wish to destroy the demons by destroying all mortal life (from which demons are formed). They have lords of their own, but most of them are unknown to mortals.
  • The velstracs (originally a single subtype of devil in D&D, now a whole distinct race of fiends) are ruled by the demagogues, who, like Zon-Kuthon, are basically Cenobites.
  • The oni and rakshasas (evil spirits incarnate in mortal bodies) are ruled by demigods called daimyo and immortals respectively with the greatest of the Rakshasa immortals being Ravana.
  • The divs (corrupted genies from Persian myth) have one demigod ruler, Ahriman.
  • The only race of fiends without godlike rulers are the demodands, who are instead ruled over by the thanatotic titans... who are nearly a race of demigods unto themselves.
• Depending on the Artist: Catfolk have three primary sources for their visual representation and none of them look remotely similar. When they first showed up in one of the Bestiaries, there was only a picture of a female catfolk who looked like a Cat Girl. Then came the Advanced Race Guide, which had images of both a male and female catfolk that were very similar to khajiit. And finally, one adventure path showed catfolk that looked like something out of ThunderCats.
• De-Power Zone: With the spell "Create Greater Demiplane", a spellcaster can modify a Pocket Dimension to block all magic and supernatural powers within. However, it needs to be cast from inside the demiplane, so if there isn't already an exit portal, they're in trouble.
• Designated Bullet:
  • Gunslingers with the right Item Crafting feats can inscribe a specific enemy's name on a bullet. It deals bonus damage against that enemy but is less accurate against anything else.
  • The spell "Named Bullet" enchants a piece of ammunition to deal an Armor-Piercing Attack, an automatic Critical Hit, and extra damage against the named creature.
• Destroyable Items:
  • Some items are "fragile" and will break when either critically hit (in the case of armor) or when you critically fail an attack (in the case of weapons). Some spells like shatter allow items to give applicable saving throws to avoid being destroyed. And of course, if you want to take a smack at someone's sword, shield, or armour, you can.
  • As of "Ultimate Combat" Items can now be made out of fragile materials like Bone which can break on a critical failure. Even before these rules Goblin-Made weapons like dogslicers were liable to break on their first critical failure.
• Devil, but No God: Asmodeus had a brother and opposite number, Ihys, once. He killed him. Of course, there are plenty of good-aligned deities, but none specifically modeled on the Abrahamic God.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: As of Bestiary 4, you can! And Hastur and Bokrug, too! True, they're just knocked unconscious and sent back into their cans, and Hastur and Cthulhu have nasty tricks that allow them to revive instantly if you're not cautious (the former tries to trick you into putting on his robes so he can use you as a last-minute gateway back, and the latter reforms, though badly dazed and you can only prevent him from coming at you again if you get him again while he's dazed), but "knocking out" when you don't actually lose anything to them inherently is definitely this trope.
• Diesel Punk: Rasputin Must Die!, which drops the players off in Siberia during World War I to fight Cyborg tanks, evil fey, zombies, daemons, and swarms of Russian soldiers armed with machine guns, experimental Magitek weaponry, and mustard gas.
• Digital Tabletop Game Adaptation: The series is a Dungeons & Dragons spin-off that adapts its rules, with Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous adapting and expanding existing print adventure paths for the game's 1st edition.
• Disability Superpower: The Oracle's Curse class feature in First Edition. Second Edition downplays this for its version of the Oracle—none of the Mysteries' flavor effects imply that you have a disability when your curse is in its dormant state, but several Mysteries weaken your senses or physical capabilities in some way as drawbacks of progressing your curse.
• Disciplines of Magic:
  • There are eight schools of magic: abjuration, conjuration, divination, enchantment, evocation, illusion, necromancy, and transmutation. Every spell falls under one of these schools, but it usually only matters to Wizards, who need to specialize in one school.
  • There are also four primary magical "traditions" and a number of minor traditions that relate to the source of the magic. Some spells are found in multiple traditions, for instance "Heal" can be divine or primal. Additionally, in 2nd edition traditions act as spell lists shared by multiple classes, instead of each class having a unique spell list that has to be updated with each new supplement.
    • Arcane magic is the type used by wizards and maguses, and is typically derived from the use of material components or written incantations. It tends to focus on powerful rearrangements of physical nature, such as explosions, transmutations and the animation of non-living matter.
    • Divine magic is the kind used by oracles and clerics. Its power is granted by the divine entity its user worships, whether this is a deity, nature or a more abstract force. It tends to be less dramatic than arcane magic, and often focuses on healing and protection.
    • Primal magic is the type utilized by druids and rangers, as well as by elementals and the fey. It is particularly linked with instinct and the elements of nature.
    • In 1st edition Psychic magic is derived purely from one's own mental or spiritual faculties and could be used without physical foci, components and gestures. 2nd edition instead has the Occult tradition, based around attempts to understand the unexplainable and categorize the bizarre, and makes bards the most prominent practitioners, though psychics also use Occult magic. In either case the spells focus around Psychic Powers and communing with the dead.
  • However, it's implied that the distinction between the four great magic traditions may be less fundamental than it appears, and that it may be more an artifact of how Golarion's people practice and study magic than anything else. High-end mythic spellcasters can learn to effectively ignore their divisions, and the legendary wizard Old-Mage Jatembe is known to have been of the opinion that the four schools were not strictly divided in nature; many of his writings focus on the similarities between arcane and divine magic, and the Wizarding School he founded still teaches arcane, divine and primal spells side-by-side to this day.
• Doing In the Wizard: An odd thing to do for a Fantasy world, but the various "Dire" animals are now their prehistoric megafauna ancestors, at least nominally (many of them still have the armoured skin of their more fanciful D&D counterparts).
  • As the book Monsters of Myth is dedicated to detailing monsters that are Shrouded in Myth and how they can be used in an adventure, this trope was bound to come up. Most of the monsters in the book are either truly supernatural, have a Multiple-Choice Past, or both, but there is one exception. The Melfesh Monster is actually a series of spawn of a subterranean fungal colony that exist to bring it food. There is nothing that is particularly maleficient about this colony—it just needs to eat.
• Doppelgänger: In Second Edition, the Reflection Versatile Heritage from Dark Archive can be used to show a character is this. Reflections can Impersonate their progenitor without Deception checks (unless they do something out of character or interact with someone who knows them personally), while their ancestry feats all play with doppelganger and shapeshifting tropes in different ways—such as leveraging their uncertain distinction from their progenitor to deceive foes or even letting the Reflection make a temporary copy of an enemy.
  • Mirror Self/Mirror Monster: A Mirror-Risen Reflection is a Reflection who originated from magic involving mirrors. Notably, while Mirror-Risen created by a Darkside Mirror trap are always evil, others often have either the exact same or opposite alignment as their creators. They get a once per day ability called Mirror's Trickery, letting them tap into their residual connection to mirror magic and create a short-lived illusory duplicate to potentially avoid or mitigate a hit. Later feats let them can hide objects in a hand mirror or temporarily hide themselves in a mirror.
  • Body Backup Drive/Custom-Built Host: A Clone-Risen Reflection is a Reflection created through a clone ritual or alchemy to serve as an vessel for another, one that somehow developed an independent will. They get a once per day ability called Empty Vessel, letting them temporarily suppress their sentience to resist a mental effect or mental damage. A later feat lets them transform their malleable body in a similar way to Illusory Disguise for an hour once per day.
  • Shapeshifter Mode Lock: A Morph-Risen Reflection didn't start that way (usually)—instead, they were a shapeshifter or polymorphing mage who got "stuck" as a copy of another being. They passively resist transmutation magic, and get a critical success on saves against morph and polymorph effects they'd otherwise only succeed normally at. A later feat lets them temporarily warp the form of people they hit up close into something like their own.
• Double-Edged Buff: A core feature of the 1E Alchemist class is a mutagen that temporarily boosts and penalizes one of their physical and mental attributes, respectively. They can learn stronger versions (with even more penalties) and cognatogens, which hone their mind and harm their body.
• Dracolich: A particularly nasty variant called a Ravener. To become one, a dragon must be at least an ancient, and upon becoming one gets a slew of terrifying new abilities and attributes. Since their existence is sustained by a field of energy that also powers their abilities, they must regularly replenish it. What does a ravener use to replenish its power? Souls. This forces raveners to go on rampages much more frequently than dracoliches in other settings.
• Dragon Rider: The Dragon Legion of the planet Triaxus, which consists primarily of natives who form bonds with the (relatively) small, weapon-using Dragonkin.
• Dream Land: The Ethereal Plane, a vast sea of swirling mist that extends over the inner planes, is very reactive to psychic and emotional forces. When mortals dream, their minds go out into the Ethereal, shaping its mists into dreamscapes that degreade back into nothingess when they wake. Figures spawned in dreams sometimes survive this to escape into the Ethereal as free-roaming animate dreams, which must then share their home with a variety of psychic predators such as nightmare dragons and night hags. Dreamscapes cluster together in the plane's depths, and surround the Dimension of Dreams, also known as the Dreamlands, a permanent dimension formed from countless accreted dreamscapes, the dreams of powerful beings, and subconscious desires and archetypes resonating into the Ethereal Plane. It is home to entire nations and species of bizarre creatures, which sometimes pass physically into the material world. Further still beyond the Dreamlands is the Plateau of Leng, a dimension of living nightmares shaped by the dreams of ancient and alien gods.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Frequently as much averted as played straight, but there are some fairly notable times where you might be wondering what the devs were thinking. Such as being able to build up an entire nation in the Kingmaker Adventure Path and still having random NPCs give you, their liege, fetch quests.
• Dungeon Punk: Though not a major theme as in some settings, Golarion does have a some of the Magitek-powered devices one might find in such a setting, befitting its "little bit of everything" approach.
• Dumb Muscle: A few NPCs fit this mold. Auchs from Kingmaker is a villainous Psychopathic Manchild, while Owlbear Hartshorn in Skull and Shackles is a potential ally and a bit of a Woobie. The player can also be one of these.
• Dying to Wake Up: Harmless astral mindscapes can't affect the outside world, so anyone who dies in one wakes up in their body, no worse for wear. However, there are also harmful mindscapes that can be indistinguishable from the harmless kind to anyone other than their creator, so it's a much riskier option than looking for the Dream Emergency Exit.
• Eagleland: Andoran is a mixed-flavor example, and is seen as such in-universe.
  • Slightly slanted towards type one though, given that the national alignment is Neutral Good.
  • Also played with, in that its primary focus at present is based on a conflict that is frequently forgotten, even by Americans: they attempt to disrupt the piracy and slave trade of North Garund (IE, North Africa) in a counterpart to the Barbary Wars.
  • There's also quite a bit of "as it should have been" involved, like ending slavery and instituting universal suffrage right at the birth of the nation.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • The first few adventure paths have a Darker and Edgier tone to them that borders on mean-spirited at times (like the hillbilly rapist ogres in Rise of the Runelords), a relic from an attempt to establish Golarian as a more "adult" setting than most D&D. In addition, a lot of early mechanics seemed to try and support the darker tone, with some gameplay features like traits and archetypes explicitly including drugs, violence, and sex into using them. Later entries went for more of a "mature and nuanced" tone that tries to deal with weightier matters but not in a gratuitous shock-value way, and many of the stranger or edgy elements were removed to make the setting less grim.
  • Many of the early details about the Pathfinder setting contained references to beings from Dungeons & Dragons, with Tiamat and Orcus being two note worthy examples. As Pathfinder began to move away from being merely a third party setting to an independent one, Paizo would phase out most of these connections entirely, eventually making new beings or characters to fill those roles.
  • The first part of the Legacy of Fire Adventure Path opens with a minor character blaming a recent disaster on a type of gremlin, pugwampis. Most of the other NPCs think he's trying to deflect blame from himself, the adventure explictly states that the player characters haven't heard of such creatures, and the reveal that the pugwampis are real is treated by the characters as a surprise, all of which sets up gremlins as being creatures that are considered on Golarion to be cryptids on par with our world's Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. Pathfinder's Bestiary 2, published less than two years later, instead says they are well-known nuisances, with some societies having established protocols for dealing with them, and subsequent adventures treat them as no more mysterious or legendary than any other fey. This makes the disbelief from the Legacy of Fire NPCs go beyond Arbitrary Skepticism and into the realm of outright delusion.
• Easing into the Adventure: While many Adventure Paths start with a flashy setpiece to get players engaged right away, Strength of Thousands take this approach. PCs take the role of students of the Magaambya, and the first chapter is focused on settling them into the dorms, meeting their classmates, and performing helpful deeds for the townsfolk around them without any major combat.
• Eat the Summoner: Daemons stand out among Evil-aligned Outsiders as Omnicidal Maniacs that will immediately try to devour their summoners, body and soul, and usually continue to try even if they get roped into a Magically-Binding Contract. While Devils will try to ruin their summoners with bargains and Demons encourage For the Evulz-style debasement, Daemons just want all life to end.
• Ectoplasm: Ectoplasm is a slimy pseudo-matter associated with the Ethereal Plane where ghosts dwell, allowing it to interact with incorporeal creatures as if they were physical. Some spells create, manipulate, or even weaponize it, and one sorcerer bloodline develops innate powers like ectoplasmic Combat Tentacles and Voluntary Shapeshifting into a cloud of the stuff.
• Eldritch Abomination: Lots and lots, given the devs' obvious infatuation with the Cthulhu Mythos and other Cosmic Horror Story background elements. Two of the setting's main gods have this vibe (Rovagug is basically a Sealed Evil in a Can Great Old One, and Zon-Kuthon is a transparent Hellraiser Shout-Out), and there's a lot more running around, from straight H. P. Lovecraft transplants and old D&D standbys (except for mind flayers and beholders, as they're not OGL material) to new, setting-specific creations.
• Elemental Variation: First Edition has various templates, such as Acid and Cold, that can be applied to monster statblocks to turn them into elementally charged versions of the normal creature.
• Elixir of Life: The sun orchid elixir will restore its drinker's physical age to that of its species' young adults, allowing potentially unending life if drunk once every few decades. Because of this, and because the secret of its making is a closely kept secret and sun orchids are vanishingly rare, it's far and away the most expensive and desired product in Golarion.
• Elves vs. Dwarves: Consciously averted. Elves actually are really good neighbors with Dwarfs in this setting due to both being fairly isolationist. According to one sourcebook this is because "good fences make good neighbors". Lead designer James Jacobs explained that it's because Elves vs. Dwarves is a prominent trope in Forgotten Realms, and Paizo wanted to avoid comparisons between the two settings. Apparently played straight as of the Advanced Race Guide, which includes character options for both elves and dwarves which divide up their favored enemy bonuses between the standard orcs... and each other, thanks to the usual ancient grudge.
• The Empire: Cheliax, in all its dark devil-worshipping glory. Fortunately still recovering from its stint as a Vestigial Empire, though.
• Empty Levels:
  • Pathfinder has taken steps to avert this trope with a vengeance. Unlike 3.5, where most of the martial classes would end up having most their levels granting nothing but an attack bonus, practically every non-spellcaster class gets a class feature every level—something the official guide for converting splats from 3.5 specifically points out. Spellcasters, of course, get spells instead. This has the side effect of nerfing Prestige Classes by comparison: you miss out on a lot more features of the base class than before.
  • Even spellcasters get their own unique stuff. Clerics' domains give increasing bonuses and abilities as levels go up (as opposed to D&D, where, aside from spells, the domains gave their full payout at level 1), sorcerers have their Bloodlines that keep getting better, wizards get either increasing bonuses from being specialists, or from being a balanced generalist, and Summoners gain "Evolution Points" that they can use to tweak their Bond Creature.
  • An additional counter to the empty level issue: every level in a favored class grants one extra skill point, one extra health point, or one incremental bonus dependent on race and class (including, in some cases, extra spells or bonuses to combat maneuvers).
  • Second Edition also averts the trope, with even levels giving skill feats and class feats and odd levels giving general or ancestry feats and skill increases.
• Endless Winter:
  • Irrisen (Fantasy Counterpart Culture of fairy-tale Russia) has had this problem since Baba Yaga took over. The Reign of Winter Adventure Path involves the threat of this happening over the entire planet, which even Baba Yaga has no desire to do.
  • The planet Triaxus goes through just about a hundred years of winter at a time, alternating with an equally long summer.
• Entropy and Chaos Magic: Primal Magic. This exists in areas where The First World invades upon the material plane or in places like the mana wastes between the war-torn arcane countries of Geb and Nex.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Despite being evil, demons are noted to be more likely to develop genuine relationships with people, unlike devils or daemons. This is because their chaotic nature means they are more likely to develop attachments to people that the more lawful and rigid devils wouldn't normally due to the more transactional nature of their interactions, or the more nihilistic daemons would. While they may kill or backstab each other, or encourage mortals to do bad things, there are instances of demons forming friendships or romance with not just their own kind, but also mortals as well.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Demons and devils regularly team up with each other and angels against the suicidally nihilistic daemons. Though some of this is attributable to Pragmatic Villainy: it's hard to get mortals to agree to a Deal with the Devil if there aren't any mortals left.
  • Asmodeus aided the good and neutral gods against Rovagug, even providing the lock to seal him away.
  • Ogres are Darker and Edgier than ever before, being basically cannibalistic inbred rapist hillbillies with no morality whatsoever. And yet they tend to have very close-knit families because Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas. Possibly a bit too much.
  • Most of Cheliax's Hellknights are firmly evil, but they are generally Lawful Evil for a reason. Some orders follow the law fairly faithfully (even if the law is evil), disapprove of people abusing it without good cause, and if they feel the law is being violated or abused, some orders are willing to take action even if it means going against high ranking figures in society. Some Hellknight Orders have even turned against House Thrune for failing to follow the law.
• Even the Loving Hero Has Hated Ones:
  • Followers of Sarenrae, the Neutral Good goddess of the sun, healing, and redemption, are expected to forgive villains and criminals willing to atone, but some villains are viewed as too far gone and are to be struck down without mercy. In particular, Sarenrae's contribution to the imprisonment of Rovagug, the Chaotic Evil god of destruction, was to install a piece of the Sun in his prison to burn him for all eternity.
  • Also included is "anyone the Kelesh Empire doesn't like", such as the benevolent followers of Osirian gods — they are never called out on this.
• Evil Is Deathly Cold: The kingdom of Irrisen was conquered by the immortal Wicked Witch Baba Yaga, who placed it under a spell of eternal winter. The "Reign of Winter" Adventure Path involves her daughter trying to spread it over the whole planet.
• Evil Is Petty: The gremlins personify this trope. They are all small and not very powerful but like to put curses on people and destroy property just to be assholes.
• Evil Living Flames: Mythic fire elementals are described as living fragments of the first flames of the Elemental Plane of Fire, and greatly enjoy scattering flammable mortal foes to set them alight one by one.
• Evil Versus Evil: Asuras are about the only kind of evil outsider who is willing to cooperate with daemons; their omnicidal mania makes it hard for them to get along with any of the others, with even demons having an investment in the continued existence of reality as a whole (because without people to hurt they wouldn't be able to have any more fun). Qlippoth and demons loathe each other. This also happens occasionally in some Adventure Paths; for example, "Valley of the Brain Collectors" has malevolent pseudo-Lovecraftian aliens, neh-thalggu, battling against malevolent actually Lovecraftian aliens, mi-go. Bonus points for both of them having humanoid brain-collecting as an MO.
• Evil Versus Oblivion:
  • Asmodeus was more than willing to pull an Enemy Mine with Sarenrae and other nonevil gods to ensure Rovagug's imprisonment.
  • Hellknights are an evil organization that take inspiration from devils in creating an orderly society, but they are against beings like demons for this reason. They want to bring order, not chaos or destruction.
• The Evils of Free Will: Asmodeus's motivation for trying to grind all creation under his Lawful Evil heel.
• Expert in Underwater Basket Weaving: Characters in First Edition can invest in Craft and Profession skills, many of which are so specific and so orthogonal to the adventuring trade that they're only of use to NPCs or in particular acts of Item Crafting. The Unchained expansion lets characters gain even more specialized expertise in those skills. Second Edition downplays this—some skill feats can have oddball, very specialized effects, but almost all skills as a whole have a defined niche. Played straight by Lore skills, however, which function as "very specialized knowledge" skills.
• Expy:
  • Zon-Kuthon and the velstracs are expies of the Cenobites.
  • King Mogaru, a kaiju detailed in Bestiary 4, is Godzilla.
  • The Blind Angels of Oppara, a wing of gargoyles with angelic appearances that cannot move while being watched, are the Weeping Angels
  • The nation of Brevoy is basically a high-fantasy version of Westeros.
  • Grandmother Spider is a Distaff Counterpart of Anansi.
• Extradimensional Emergency Exit: The spell "Ether Step" can be cast outside the spellcaster's turn in combat to dodge an incoming attack by jumping into the Ethereal Plane for a few seconds.
• Extremophile Lifeforms: Targothas are fishlike alien organisms that evolved on a planet largely covered by hydrocarbon seas. A small population was carried to Golarion by a crashed starship, and despite the overall hostility of Golarion's dry, water-rich alien climate managed to settle a large system tar pits.
• Eye of Newt: Ultimate Wilderness devotes a section to describing how monster body parts can be used to replace spell and crafting components — a devil's tongue, for instance, contains the essence of law and can be used to replace any lawful spells when creating magic items; a demon's heart can similarly be used to stand in for evil spells; matter harvested from elementals can used to craft items pertaining to elemental powers or energy damage; troll livers, still holding their owners' Healing Factor, can be used to craft healing items; the organs that produce a dragon's Breath Weapon can be used to infuse items with the breath weapon's energy type.
• Familiar:
  • Wizards, witches, and default sorcerers have the automatic option of gaining one of these. Wizards can choose to establish an "arcane bond" with either a living familiar or an inanimate object, such as a magic amulet, weapon, or wand. Only one type of sorcerer gets this bonding ability. Witches, however, MUST have a familiar, which acts as a link to the mysterious patrons that grant witches their magical power. Several other spellcasting classes has familiars (only familiars, those with something like the item bonding tend to do it for specific, restricted types of item) as a possible class feature, and a feat chain can allow anyone with strong enough will to get a familiar.
  • Second Edition also allows bonding with a living familiar as a first-level feat for Magi, Sorcerers, Thaumaturges, and Wizards. Druids of the Leaf Order can bond with a leshy familiar, while Alchemists in general can create an alchemical familiar. Witches once again have a mandatory familiar, and use their familiar to prepare spells. There's also a Familiar Master archetype that lets you get a familiar (or enhance your existing familiar), then improve it in various ways.
• The Fair Folk: The Fey with their home being the First World a sort of draft of the Material Plane.
• Fanservice: Paizo puts a lot of effort into artwork. And makes a point of featuring a lot of female NPCs and characters. The fanservice isn't just of the sexual variety. A foreword to one of the Jade Regent adventures notes several great things about a story that combines ninjas with vikings, such as having a good excuse to paint a cover featuring ninjas fighting on a burning longboat.
• Fan Disservice: Urgathoa◊, Goddess of Gluttony, Disease, and Undeath.
• Fantastic Drug: Pesh, which has effects similar to PCP (hallucinations, euphoria, and aggression) and is made from a cactus native to Katapesh. A feat in the supplement Black Markets allows a spellcaster to consume it to add certain spells to their spell list.
• Fantastic Fallout:
  • The Mana Wastes are a narrow strip of barren land between the two sorcerer kingdoms Nex and Geb that resulted from a devastating war between the two. Apart from it being turned into a desert, it is also impossible to reliably cast any kind of magic there: in some places, it simply doesn't work, in others, it automatically becomes Wild Magic. The city of Alkenstar was erected in the middle of the Wastes by those who chose to eschew magic completely.
  • The area around the Worldwound, a giant planar breach to the Abyss that opened in the year of Aroden's death, is a cold, blasted desert that sickens all living things that enter it unless protected by a powerful consecrate effect.
• Fantastic Fragility: Artifacts can be destroyed only in very specific ways — for example, the Axe of Dwarvish Lords can only be destroyed if a goblin uses it to behead a dwarven king. The more powerful and legendary the artifact, the more complex, difficult and contrived the one specific method needed to destroy it becomes.
• Fantastic Race Weapon Affinity:
  • Non-human races get free proficiencies with weapons associated with their race, such as elves automatically knowing how to use longbows and long swords (technically martial weapons that need specialized warrior training). Additionally, there are exotic weapons with racial monikers in their names, such as the "elven curved blade" or the "orc double axe": specified races are automatically proficient with them if their class gives martial weapon proficiency, while all others have to take Exotic Weapon Proficiency feats to learn how to use them.
  • In a close variant, clerics and inquisitors receive free proficiency with their patron deity's preferred weapons — often a significantly better choice than they would normally get from their class.
• Fantasy Aliens: Golarion is for the most part a High Fantasy setting with pulp influences, but also features cosmic and extraterrestrial elements fairly often as a result of Genre Blending. These are usually inspired by either Planetary Romance stories such as John Carter of Mars or by Cosmic Horror, but also feature such things as a hyper-advanced starship that crashed into one of the world's countries, populating it with robots and aliens who escaped from its shattered hulk. Of particular note is that the entire elf species originated on a different planet in Golarion's solar system, which they temporarily fled back to in advance of Earthfall.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture:
  • Of the states:
    • Absalom is Jerusalem mixed with Rhodes/Cyprus.
    • Almhult is Iceland.
    • Amanandar is Hong Kong writ large by way of the Eastern Roman Empire^note It was established by Taldor when Lung Wa collapsed.
    • Andoran is the early United States with some cues from the French Second and Third Republics.
    • The Arcadians are Native Americans, and so are the Shoanti^note though the Shoanti are also influenced by Robert E. Howard's Picts.
    • Bachuan is, of all places in a fantasy setting, a fusion of communist China and North Korea.
    • Brevoy is the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
    • Cheliax can be seen as some weird form of Satan-worshipping Nazi Germany/Fascist Italy hybrid if you look at it the right (wrong) way.
    • Druma is Switzerland.
    • Dtang Ma is Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia.
    • The Erutaki are Inuit.
    • The Forest of Spirits is ancient Japan, by way of Princess Mononoke.
    • Galt is revolutionary France.
    • Goka is Macau fused with Singapore.
    • Hongal and Shaguang are Mongolia.
    • Hwanggot is Korea.
    • Iblydos is ancient Greece.
    • Iobaria and Irrisen are Russia, with Iobaria being 'proper' Russia and Irrisen being the fairy tale version (complete with Baba Yaga!) ^note Although this is more direct port than just counterpart considering that Earth exists in Pathfinder and Baba Yaga really came from Russia before invading Irrisen.
    • Jalmeray is a fantastic Indian version of Socotra island.
    • Jistka was a less successful Rome mixed with Carthage.
    • Kaladay is the medieval European conception of China.
    • Katapesh is Arabia.
    • Kelesh is Persia.
    • The Lands of the Linnorm Kings are Scandinavia.
    • Lung Wa and its many Successor States are China.
    • Minata is Indonesia and the Philippines.
    • Minkai is Japan and so is Shokuro, with the difference being that Minkai is a bit more fantastic and Shokuro a bit more feudal.
    • Molthune is Prussia.
    • The Mwangi Expanse is Darkest Africa — in 1st edition. 2nd edition makes a deliberate effort to humanize the setting and present it from an insider's perspective rather than that of colonialists and looters. A 400-page book about the setting was released in 2021.
    • Ninshabur was Babylon/Assyria.
    • Nirmathas is part medieval Switzerland, part rural United States.
    • Osirion is Egypt.
    • Qadira is also Arabia (with some Persian influences).
    • Sarusan is Australia.
    • The Shackles are the Caribbean.
    • Taldor is the Later/Eastern Roman Empire. Historically it was the direct equivalent to Rome until Cheliax yoinked the entire western half.
    • Ustalav is fantasy Transylvania.
    • Valenhall is Vinland.
    • The Varisians are the Romani (Gypsies).
    • The Varki are Sámi (Lapland natives).
    • Vudra is India.
    • The Wall of Heaven is Nepal.
    • Xa Hoi is Vietnam.
    • Zi Ha is Tibet.
  • It even extends to the solar system:
    • Aballon the Horse is Mercury.
    • Castrovel the Green is Venus.
    • Akiton the Red is Mars.
    • The Diaspora is the Asteroid Belt.
    • Liavara is Jupiter and Saturn.
    • Bretheda is Uranus and Neptune.
    • Aucturn is Pluto (and by Pluto we mean Yuggoth).
• Fantasy Counterpart Religion:
  • The faith of Iomedae comes closest to Christianity.
  • Asmodeus is a take on Satan as depicted in Paradise Lost and The Divine Comedy^note note that Asmodeus is a real-world devil, but very different from the Pathfinder version.
  • Sarenrae's faith has Islamic and Zoroastrian influences.
  • Shizuru and Susumu are Amaterasu and Susanoo, and Daikitsu is Inari.
  • Sangpotshi is Buddhism.
  • The Vudran faith is Hinduism.
  • Namzaruum is strongly Islam-inspired.
  • The Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye is several late 19th and early 20th century occultist belief systems blended together, with Aldus Canter being a clear analogue to Aleister Crowley.
• Fantasy Conflict Counterpart:
  • The Taldan war with Qadira and the Chelaxian independence revolt mirrors the breakup of the Roman Empire and the expansion of Islam into Europe, albeit with the order of events reversed (the Taldan-Qadiran war provided Cheliax the opportunity to break off and take half of Taldor with it).
  • The entire nation of Galt is copied directly from the Reign of Terror period during the French Revolution: demagoguery turned the Red Revolution on itself after the noble class was bloodily overthrown, and Galt has become a failed state, with the only consistent power center being the Grey Gardeners, the secretive order of executioners that mans the magical guillotines.
  • Andoran's independence war, on the other hand, mashes up the French 1848 revolution with the American Revolution: having learned the lessons of Galt, the Andoren revolutionaries overthrew their noble class with the minimum possible bloodshed and then wore out the willingness of Cheliax to hold onto its eastern province, thus successfully establishing the first large representative democracy in the Inner Sea region.
  • The Mendevian Crusades are, well, meant to be analogues to the Crusades, with the difference being that they're against demons boiling out of an interplanar breach called the Worldwound. The First Crusade was a notable success story, but the three subsequent Crusades were at best barely able to hold onto its gains due to infighting. The Wrath of the Righteous adventure path (and its CRPG adaptation) deals with the Fifth Crusade.
• Fantasy Gun Control:
  • Averted in Alkenstar, a city-state located in a region where magic doesn't function, which has encouraged the inhabitants to develop non-magical weapons and technology, including firearms. Averted harder in Numeria, where a crashed spaceship can provide access to laser guns, rocket launchers, and even more esoteric weapons, provided you can get them past the Technic League which guards their tech with murderous jealousy. Played straight most everywhere else, as most people don't see the use for loud, unreliable and hard to maintain weapons when magic can do the job.
  • As of the Ultimate Combat supplement, there is a Gunslinger base class that specializes in them. There are also paladin, cavalier (musketeer), inquisitor, and wizard variants that use guns, as well as pair of rogue talents that lets you nab the ability to use one.
  • Rasputin Must Die, the fifth part of the Reign of Winter adventure path, adds stats for real World War I Russian guns, even mustard gas. It also includes the Trench Fighter archetype for the Fighter class.
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Even moreso than might be expected from a D&D-type setting, Golarion was built to encompass all sorts of campaigns. As well as everything D&D had already (or at least reasonable facsimiles), there are the Cthulhu Mythos, Edgar Rice Burroughs-style Planetary Romance and Beneath the Earth locales, things like the Jabberwock and Bandersnatch and Jubjub birds, monsters based on old Sinbad movies, extra-terrestrials including the classic Greys, and even modern folkloric monsters like mothmen and chupacabras.
• Fast-Killing Radiation: Zig-zagged. Radiation causes an instantaneous Constitution drain and Maximum HP Reduction, which can be a One-Hit Kill from a strong enough exposure. Afterwards, it only deals damage per day, much more slowly than conventional poisons.
• Fatal Fireworks: The spell Snapdragon Fireworks, most likely inspired by the Lord of the Rings example, allows you to shoot off a tiny dragon-shaped firework each round that damages and dazzles opponents.
• Fate Worse than Death:
  • Do NOT get captured alive by drow in this setting.
  • If, on the other hand, Zon-Kuthon worshippers kindly invite you to a party in your honor, you should probably politely decline even though there is certainly going to be really good food and drink.
• Fertility God:
  • Erastil is the patron god of rural communities, family, agriculture, and hunting. He is also husband to Jaidi, an ancient Azlanti agriculture goddess; together they are parents to Halcamora, a demigoddess who specializes in parks, gardening, and wineries.
  • On a darker note, Lamashtu is revered in some cults as the "Mother of Monsters": an Evilutionary Biologist who likes nothing better than to bring new and vile monsters into existence to set them loose on Golarion. She's seen as a patron goddess by many goblinoids.
• Fiendish Fish:
  • Numerous giant versions of mundane fishes exist, including giant gars and amphibious swamp barracudas capable of pursuing their prey on land.
  • Warm, shallow seas are home to armored dunkleostei, which can rapidly open their mouths to suck prey into their shearing jaws.
  • Tizheruks are long-bodied freshwater fish up to fifteen feet long. Their flesh is almost entirely transparent, making them excellent ambush predators — odds are you won't see one until its jaws are already closing on you.
• Firearms Are Revolutionary: A mechanical example. The optional rules for firearms introduced in Ultimate Combat have dramatic effects on game balance. Guns roll against the target's touch AC rather than their normal AC when fired within their first range increment, making them quite deadly given their above-average damage dice and critical multipliers. This can get really crazy if the setting's tech level is advanced up to "Commonplace Guns" or higher, which reclassifies firearms as martial or even simple weapons instead of exotic weapons, making many classes proficient with them without needing to spend a feat.
• Flaming Sword:
  • A common Enchantment. The paladin and magus have the ability to give their weapons this ability as well. A Religious Trait, "Flame of the Dawn", grants this on a critical hit with scimitars.
  • In Second Edition, you can apply the Flaming or Greater Flaming runes to replicate the effect. The magus can still do this with the Runic Impression feat by temporarily giving their weapon one of those runes, depending on their level.
• Fox Folk: The race called kitsune, although despite the name they lack relation to traditional kitsune in Japanese mythology. (They can, however, be found in the more Japanese Fantasy Counterpart Culture parts of Tian Xia.) In Dungeons & Dragons 3.0, the Oriental Adventures sourcebook had a hengeyokai race with the Shapechanger type, who could switch between humanoid, animal and hybrid forms; 3.5 removed the Shapechanger type, so the official update made them Humanoids (resulting in some Gameplay and Story Segregation, as they were still described like Magical Beasts). Pathfinder kitsune were based on the 3.5 version of fox hengeyokai, but Nerfed by removing the animal form (which instead became a "disguise" that higher-level kitsune could learn by spending a feat) and making the hybrid form their true form.
• Fungi Are Plants:
  • In 1st edition, all fungus-based creatures — such as vegepigmies, moldwretches, violet fungi and the like — are considered part of the Plant creature type. This is averted in 2nd Edition, which introduces a distinct Fungus type into which these creatures are reclassified.
  • Leshies are a type small plant people created from spirits inhabiting bodies grown from special plants. Most are based on species of true plants such as broad-leaved trees, Venus flytraps, pumpkins, lotuses, cacti and so on. The exceptions are fungus and lichen leshies, which are grown from fungal bases.
• Funny Background Event: Sometimes the Adventure Path manuals have illustrations that can piece together a story. For instance, in Iron Gods, the battle against Meyanda features Lirianne wresting her Inferno Pistol from her, which she then uses together with her old pistol in subsequent illustrations. Meanwhile, in the second module's cover Amiri is shown losing her signature bastard sword to a rust monster. In the next module, she's depicted wielding Kulgara's magical chainsaw.
• Fun with Acronyms: The license used by remastered version of 2nd Edition, which replaces the older OGL, is called Open RPG Creative License (ORC for short).

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