By Thilo Graf

This pdf from Dreamscarred Press is 12 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1/2 page editorial, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 9.5 pages, so let’s check this out!

The Phrenic Scourge was originally intended as a replacement for the closed-IP horrors that are Illithids, but has since developed, grown, mutated into the form that you cans see here: Expanding upon the idea of the phrenic Scourge, this pdf provides different forms of phrenic beings, exposing the scourges for just one facet of the planet and planes-spanning dread empire of the phrenic abominations that enslave not only your spirit.

Chiondaru are the first new type of phrenic creature included, and at CR9 they can usurp your summoning and create deadly constructs – a metacreativity specialist that does not stand alone: Each of the disciplines comes with its own specialist, resulting in a total of 6 variants that ALL have their own unique signature abilities that set them apart. VERY cool!

Now the Phrenic Dreadnoughts are the deadly shocktroops of the empire and believe me, these CR 10 brutes deserve their moniker as Phrenic Dreadnoughts – deadly as all hell, with melee enhanced by psychokinetic knockbacks, this brute is gloriously deadly.

On the more subtle side, CR 6 phrenic infiltrators are masters of metamorphosis and can drain you with their deadly tongues, sucking out your mental attributes with their deadly tongues – great nod towards the illithid-larvae-infected infiltrators while bringing something new to the table as well.

Phrenic’s deadly larvae now also come as a CR 4-swarm for a disgusting, deadly swarm.

Finally, the massive, disturbing CR 16 matriarchs may actually disgorge multiple of these swarms, are surrounded by an insanity aura and makes for a very disturbing, cool boss-critter for the dread phrenic hegemony.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn’t notice any glitches. Layout adheres to DSP’s 2-column, no-frills-standard and the pdf even comes with bookmarks -commendable at this length! What is more commendable even, would be the artworks: Very disturbing and original, these b/w-artworks are all original and can stand with the best, with especially the one-page covering illustration of the matriarch being AWESOME.

For 3 bucks, we thus actually get the best installment of the Psionic Bestiary-series so far: Oozing iconicity, the phrenic hegemony is primed to become mayor, deadly antagonists of any species and challenge with both their dread powers and machinations players of all levels. Add to that the multitude of signature abilities and cool artworks and we have a result of 5 stars + seal of approval – so far the best installment of the series by quite a stretch!

Endzeitgeist out.

Psionic Bestiary: Phrenic Hegemony is available from:

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