[ Guardinals ] [ Custodian | Luminary | Scout | Yeoman ]
Bohlinidal Guardinal
Also known as: The Far Seers
Who patrol the future, watching for threats to the present
NG; CR 12 ‡
Towering above their kin at heights of 20 feet, bohlinidals are giraffe-like guardinals whose elongated necks and dappled golden-brown hides shimmer with constellations etched into their fur—each pattern unique as a mortal fingerprint. Their ossicones, crown-like protrusions of bone and celestial energy, hum with latent magic, while their large, star-flecked eyes peer beyond the present into the labyrinth of possible futures. Unlike mortal giraffes, their necks contain vertebrae fused with quintessence, the raw matter of the planes, allowing them to twist and bend in ways that defy mortal physics. Their hoofprints leave faint afterimages in their wake as they dance between what is and what might be.
Mystics of the Temporal Loom
Bohlinidals practice a form of divination ritual they call The Unspooling, communing with the River Oceanus—the planar waterway that flows through Elysium—and through this they spy echoes of the past, present, and future. By submerging their ossicones and drinking its pure waters, a bohlinidial may glimpse fragmented visions from any plane the river touches: a demonic incursion in Arborea, a mortal’s pivotal choice in Lunia, or a pact fraying in Arcadia. These visions are never certain, for bohlinidals understand time as a tapestry of infinite threads. To interpret them, they gather in starlit groves, humming harmonic chants that resonate with the music of the Spheres, a cosmic melody said to bind the planes. Their rituals involve weaving enchanted silk from the cocoons of Elysian moths, crafting ephemeral maps of potential timelines that dissolve at dawn.
The Philosophy of Gentle Causality
Where leonals champion decisive action and mustevals rely on their cunning, bohlinidals espouse a philosophy of gentle causality: the belief that small, deliberate acts in the present can unravel future evils before they even take seed. They see themselves not as grand architects of destiny but as gardeners pruning possibility. “A stone cast today may prevent an avalanche tomorrow,” they murmur, their voices resonant yet distant, as if speaking from multiple moments at once. This philosophy occasionally brings them into tension with more militant guardinals, who crave direct solutions. Yet even skeptics heed their warnings, for bohlinidals once foresaw the fall of a celestial bastion centuries before its siege—and prevented the crisis by relocating a single, overlooked portal in Bedlam. Or so they claim—a cutter can never be sure about the future. Despite their uncanny ability to gaze far into the future however, bohlinidals refuse to weaponize such power.
Bohlinidial abilities are more defensive and supportive than damaging—a lone bohlinidal is vulnerable, they work best when supporting allied guardinals. The magic of the bohlinidials manifests as echoes—transient duplicates of themselves pulled from alternate futures. In battle, these echoes appear as ghostly afterimages that confound enemies or deliver whispered warnings to allies which enable them to prepare themselves to defend against attacks. They are also able to restitch timelines to momentarily fracture reality, creating a localised time loop which allows allies a chance to reattempt a failed action. They are even able to pull on threads of fate and completely rewrite previous moments, to prevent a calamity befalling an ally.
These gifts carries a price: Overuse unravels a bohlinidal’s connection to the present, leaving them adrift in a haze of unrealised futures. Those lost to this fate become Driftseers, confused and disconnected from reality, murmuring nonsense prophecies no one heeds.
To fix time is to strangle hope
—Bohlinidial saying
Statistics for the bohlinidal here… [PF2e] PDF version
Source: Jon Winter-Holt. Canonwatch: ‡ This is a homebrew creature. Please let me know what you think, I’m new to creating PF2 monsters.