by Cain.rpgorg in Jun 01,2012

   Today I'm taking a look at the preview of an upcoming new setting for the Pathfinder roleplaying game, Monsters of Endara. This new setting is called Masters of Endara, and the designer, Chris A. Field, decided that a glimpse on the strange creatures of the land would give us some insight about his world.

   I have to admit that I never heard about Skortched Urf' Studios before, which is suprising if we take into account their many earlier releases. But for now, Masters of Endara instantly made me interested in their work because it's take inspiration from one of my child-time favorite series, Masters of the Universe or He-Man, after the lead hero.

   This means that we receive a very mixed setting, which is partly classic fantasy with some prehistoric element, but on the other hand it consist cybernetic implants and laser blasters. Definitely a strange world, which should be taken lightly instead of too seriously, but also a hard game setting to design because it's duality. I hope that Chris A. Field will be successful with this project.

The monsters

You may download the Monsters of Endara preview material here.

   I think the designer made a good work to chose monsters which could represent the different faces of the world of Endara. There are strange mutants, meka-monsters, prehistoric animals and living-rock meteorite creatures. The ideas behind the designs are good and interesting, but I think some of them should be modified to make them more balanced or to make more sense.

   Most of the "basic" creatures as the robot soldiers (Enforcer Droid and Elite) or the prehistoric fyling dinosaurs (Cloud Wings) are fine as it's presented, but I had some bad feelings for other desings. Thankfully, these are not the final versions.

   For example the meteorite creatures appear from the sky, well as a meteorite. That would be fine in this setting, but since the have a good flying speed and manoeuvrability, that means that this is their primary travelling method. I guess huge stone elephants flying through the sky with speed and grace is too much for me. I also find it surprising that they are immune the bludgeoning, while a DR x/bludgeon would be much more logical. I guess there is a reason why we smash rock with great hammers instead of spears or swords.

   The  main powerhouse of the set is the Steelvore Relic (CR 23), but I really hope that this will be edited out from the final version of the game. On one part, I see no reason that why would a giant combat robot would loot the countryside. On the other hand it's offensive capabilities are extremely overpowered, vastly surpassing even the CR 25 Tarrasque. As a side note, I also think that even the Tarrasque should not exist in any gaming world.

Final words

   Currently I feel that Masters of Endara is a promising project, and I will keep an eye on any further news regarding it. I think it's great that it's try to be something different than another standard fantasy setting.

Zoltán "Cain" Mészáros

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