A Butterfly Dreaming » Mythic Japan

Mythic Japan: the Tengu

Scott — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:00:15 +0000

The tengu of Japanese legend is an odd creature. It seems to have started out as a type of evil spirit, specifically one opposed to Buddhism. Over the years, the priest-abducting, temple-burning bird-monster became both more humanlike and more benevolent. Tengu became mischievous, powerful creatures not unlike kitsune fox-spirits, and eventually became protectors of Buddhism, [...]

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Mythic Japan: the Tengu

Fox Magic: Allies and Adversaries

Scott — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:30:11 +0000

I was going to move on from this series, but I realized I hadn’t provided any examples yet. Therefore, my final preview for now will be the following two statblocks: First, the Kitsune Celestial Shrine Maiden, a young priestess ready to defend her shrine and those who worship there. (Yes, I’m aware that miko aren’t [...]

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Fox Magic: Allies and Adversaries

Fox Magic: Arcane Feats

Scott — Sat, 30 May 2009 14:05:51 +0000

Continuing the series, some feats for kitsune who take up arcane professions. Arcane Power differed from Martial Power in that race-specific feats only showed up at the heroic tier. For the moment, I’m following that design. Heroic Baffling Curse Prerequisite: Kitsune, warlock, Warlock’s Curse class feature Benefit: When you hit an enemy cursed by you, [...]

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Fox Magic: Arcane Feats

Fox Magic: Martial Feats

Scott — Wed, 27 May 2009 14:15:18 +0000

Beginning with Martial Power, feats that offered a benefit to a particular race/class combination made their appearance. These feats often serve to shore up what might otherwise be subpar choices, and to offer a little extra flavor — a tiefling warlock can vengefully spread his Warlock’s Curse around to whoever hits him, while a deva [...]

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Fox Magic: Martial Feats

Fox Magic: Feats

Scott — Mon, 25 May 2009 14:10:46 +0000

Most of the fourth-edition races boast race-specific feats. Even the half-elf has one or two, in addition to being able to choose from among the elf- or human-specific feats. The only races presented as potential player-character options that don’t have feats associated with them are the ones from the back of the Monster Manuals — [...]

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Fox Magic: Feats

Fox Magic: Inari

Scott — Sat, 23 May 2009 14:04:52 +0000

Today’s short article is a writeup of Inari, patron deity of the kitsune. A small note first: the previous post has been revised. I reduced the power of the previously-existing racial abilities, and diversified a bit by adding additional minor abilities — the celestial got a bonus to save against charm and fear and a [...]

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Fox Magic: Inari

Fox Magic: Kitsune

Scott — Wed, 20 May 2009 13:33:53 +0000

A year or two ago, I wrote a couple of articles for Dragon magazine, back when Paizo was still publishing it as an actual print-on-dead-trees magazine. You won’t find those articles by looking through back issues, because they were never published. Something about Paizo losing the print-on-dead-trees license and Wizards releasing articles as PDFs to [...]

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Fox Magic: Kitsune