I received a comp PDF of this product to review.

When I’m designing adventures, I find the statistics take the most time: NPC stats and any new magic I want to throw at my players. I can come up with a scenario and I have plenty of maps. But the mechanical stuff takes a lot of time.

So when I had the chance to check out Troglodytes I jumped at the chance. Here is a nice handy PDF filled with statted monsters, new magic items, and a few other new mechanical bits, all connected with decent story bits. Tying the fantasy amphibians and reptiles together is Lovecraft horror, a delightful squamous mix. In fact, Troglodytes came across like a focused issue of Dragon from the old print days which to me is a great thing.

Of the twenty pages, four and a half are title pages, intro info, and OGL. There are two half pages of decent art. The rest is rules and roleplaying bits along with a table of contents. Included in those two and a half pages are some useful tables of the new mechanics as well as a descriptive paragraph and a poem. Anything well written that includes the word gibbous always grabs my attention: “Emerging on fog‐shrouded nights when a sullen, gibbous moon hangs low in the sky the troglodytes raise their croaking voices to the ebon heavens in terrible, half‐forgotten rites of veneration to unknown, elder beings.” Yeah, that’s cool.

The troglodytes get two pages of ecology including religion and tribal body art. They also get a new demonic god complete with a holy text called the Amoninomicon. These troglodytes are bloodthirsty violent savages.

Next up is a page of battle feats unique to the tribe which help with moving through difficult terrain in caverns, getting some spell-like dark powers, and killing people even more violently with claws. All the feats fit the theme of the savage tribe. Two alternative class features help turn the fighter into a tunnel fighter and the barbarian into an unarmored savage. My PDF had a typo that had me scratching my head for a moment: the feat reads when armored instead of when unarmored but I figured it out.

Following feats is a page of spells. Weight of ages is a nice use of aging rules that otherwise might not see much use. I liked these spells and could see the troglodytes using them to wither their foes.

Two potent intelligent magic items follow, both of use really only to the tribe. Destroying these foul weapons could be an adventure in itself. Both weapons are named and have personalities and backgrounds of their own.

A random encounter chart lists four different possible encounters with the Ebon Lake tribe. ELs start at 4 and end at 10.

The description of each encounter includes a way to modify the EL up or down one. This info gives twelve possible encounters. A description explains what the creatures are up to, which is a great guide for the GM.

Eleven fully statted creatures follow, including warriors, chieftain, shamans, and the unnatural leader of the trogs. A template is included as well. The stat blocks are well organized and easy to follow.

In addition to stat blocks, many of the creatures have backgrounds and tactics listed as well to aid in roleplaying the villains in and out of combat. As would be expected, the warriors are not subtle combatants and are crazed killers fighting to the death in most cases. They eat fallen human foes.

The template creates a degenerate creature. The example is a degenerate troglodyte possessed of savage brutality. It inflicts increased damage with natural weapons used in melee.

A handy stat block for regular trogs ends the PDF. Included are notes on adding to base stats when adding class levels. A handy reminder.

This PDF delivers exactly what a time-pressed GM needs. Eleven plus bloodthirsty Ebon Lake tribe-troglodytes and their slimy leader armed with dark magic and possessed of terrible bloodlust and violence. If you want to save several hours of statting up a tribe of trogs, get this PDF. The information provided could be reused easily, so a campaign featuring many trogs could get a lot of mileage out of this PDF. The descriptions are also inspiring and add quite a bit to how I pictured the Ebon Lake Tribe in my mind’s eye.

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Troglodytes of the Tentacled One is the next supplement in the TRIBES series of supplements set in The Lonely Coast setting. This particular supplement is dedicated to a single tribe following an elder being illustrated in the style of H.P. Lovecraft and filled with new options for creating its troglodyte followers. The content delves into an immense amount of detail from ecology and religion to tactics and encounters details.

Raging Swan Press never ceases to amaze me with their publication quality and easy-to-read presentation of the content along with great looking illustrations and a lot of new stats. Each supplement brings about an in-depth look at a typical creature from Pathfinder making them 3-dimensional and filled with new options.

I’m a definite fan of the TRIBES series of supplements for Pathfinder. These supplements do a superb job of taking a normally mundane creature and turn them into a society with depth and purpose. Instead of encountering the same old bestiary from adventure to adventure, GMs can create a more role-playing styled encounter with all sorts of questing options and further details for campaign development. Troglodytes of the Tentacled One doesn’t sway from the regular series of TRIBES supplements and actually creates a more in-depth look at the troglodytes tribe as it only introduces a single tribe (as opposed to two or more). With the inclusion of only a single tribe, many more details can be introduced with a lot more stat blocks and creature character builds.

I highly recommend Troglodytes of the Tentacled One for any GM that wants to enhance their player’s experience by bringing in colorful bestiary rather than the simple mundane creatures that often found throughout. It’s a great addition to the TRIBES series of supplements and The Lonely Coast setting, but more importantly it contains a great set of new mechanics for encountering troglodytes anywhere.

The first thing, after Raging Swan's usual boiler-plate, is a very comprehensive - and hyperlinked - Contents page. Wish everyone was as meticulous in setting up their PDFs. As a bonus, a bit of leftover space is filled with a poem about this bunch of troglodytes, naturally this has been committed to my bardic memory forthwith!

Troglodytes are primitive folk by definition, but this tribe are more so than most. They are held in thrall by an aboleth who has convinced them that he is the very embodiment of the evil deity - a tentacled demon - that these ignorant and superstitious troglodytes worship. They live deep under a remote rocky island off the shore of the Lonely Coast (or, of course, any suitable shore in the campaign world of your choice), venturing out on rare nights to practise strange rituals. The rest of the time they dwell in a vast underground city built in ancient times by, well, they certainly don't know. They fight ferociously if you intrude there, although as to do so you have to get through narrow, dank and tricky passages and tunnels it's difficult to imagine just why you would!

After the troglodyte society, customs and home have been described in evocative detail, on to a collection of feats, mostly combat-related, and some cleric spells used by this tribe. Mind you, the Cavern Stride feat would be of use to anyone who likes going spelunking in the course of their adventuring, troglodyte or not. The spells include some which allow the caster to age his target prematurely for the spell's duration, an unusual combat tactic! Making magic items is far beyond these sorry creatures, but they have found a few interesting ones which are detailed next, being used as badges of office by the tribe's leaders.

Next come some encounter ideas. You might be unlucky enough to meet them on one of the rare occasions that they come above ground to look for food or sacrifices, or while you are exploring underground. Or you might be really unlucky and encounter their aboleth master. He's CR 9, so you'd better be good or you will soon be dead. There is plenty of detail on both him and his troglodyte minions, far more than mere stat blocks alone, to aid you in running any encounters. The work ends with a new template, the degenerate creature, which allows you to portray the decaying remains of any race.

While these creatures and their home are well-detailed and presented clearly so that they would be easy to run, there is no real reason for anyone to want to go and visit them... and they do not venture far even when looking for surface dwellers to sacrifice or eat. But if your characters do encounter them, a memorable meeting it will be!