What is a Blink Dog in Pathfinder 2e?
What is a Blink Dog in Pathfinder 2e? At first glance, blink dogs seem to be little more than long-eared, bearded canines with tawny coats. Yet their intelligent eyes and the blue nimbus of energy that dances across their fur hint at not only the blink dog’s inherent intelligence but also their connection to the occult energies and mysteries that hide beyond the sight of the untrained eye.
These honorable creatures are as intelligent as most humanoids. They live and hunt in large packs, roaming forests, plains, and the hidden places of the world in hunt for evil creatures—particularly those that dwell in the depths of the Ethereal Plane.
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Table of Contents
Where do Blink Dogs get their name?
The Blink Dog has a constant 4th level Blink in effect. What is Blink? It blinks quickly between the Material Plane and the Ethereal Plane. It gains resistance 5 to all damage, except force. It can vanish and reappear 10 feet away in any direction; the movement doesn’t trigger reactions. At the end of its turn, it vanishes and reappears as above.
Dimension Door
The Blink Dog can use dimension door at 4th level. This means that it can open a door that bypasses normal space, and instantly transports itself to any clear space within range, 120 feet, that it can see. Unless acting in concert with specific allies who have proven that their goals are shared, blink dogs tend to avoid other creatures if at all possible.
Blink Dog Packs
Their packs are constantly on the move and hidden from those that would seek them out. But in times of need, they have been known to come to the rescue of villages and lost travelers. While they have no innate ability to travel to the Ethereal Plane for extended periods of time, all blink dogs constantly shimmer and ripple between the Material Plane and the Ethereal.
They do their best to use their ability to blink to snatch glimpses into the Ethereal Plane and keep track of potential threats that might be building there, but in practice, this tactic yields more of a constant stream of hunches and estimations of Ethereal-based threats. Of course, to a blink dog, this constant state of flux is as natural as breathing.
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Pack leadership
Pack leadership always falls to a pair—an elder blink dog (called an alpha) who relies upon the valued guidance of a trusted pack mate (the sage). Honor and tradition are keystones of blink dog society. They are fiercely loyal, defending the pack or creatures they befriend to the death and maintaining oaths handed down from litter to litter.
Though different packs hold different traditions and oaths, their connection through the tales and stories told among their kind and the shared experience of the movement of stars above weave all blink dogs into an extended family – a great pack. Through their myths and folklore, blink dogs have names for celestial phenomena, note births under auspicious stars, and read omens from unusual stellar conjunctions.
These celestial signs are woven into blink dogs’ lifeways; their names contain a reference to the specific constellation under which they were born, and a pack’s sage watches the heavens for signs to help them decide when a pup is old enough for their first hunt.
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Blink Dog Sages
In every blink dog pack, the wisest and most intelligent member of the pack is chosen by the alpha to act as the pack’s sage. The sage is charged with maintaining the long-running oral histories and tales of the pack, to bind all packs together in one story that spans centuries.
The sage often has a closer bond to the mysteries and hidden paths of magic than the average blink dog, a result of their advanced years. They counsel the alpha on all matters pertaining to the stars, omens, tactics, and even diplomacy.
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Blink dog adventures
Haunted village
The players are investigating a small village that has been plagued by strange and mysterious occurrences. They soon discover that the village is haunted by a powerful ghost that has been drawn to a magical amulet that is being kept in the village’s shrine.
The amulet is guarded by a pack of blink dogs, who have been trained by the local priests to protect it from evil. The players must navigate the dangers of the haunted village and convince the blink dogs that they are there to help before they can retrieve the amulet and put the ghost to rest.
Bandits in the pass
The players are hired by a wealthy merchant to escort a caravan through a dangerous mountain pass. As they travel through the pass, they are attacked by a group of bandits led by a powerful warlord. The players manage to fend off the bandits, but they are badly outnumbered. Just as they are about to be overwhelmed, a pack of blink dogs appears out of nowhere and drives off the bandits. The alpha of the pack explains that the warlord has been terrorizing their territory and they want to ally with the players to take him down.
The temple ruins
The players are investigating a ruined temple that has been taken over by a cult of demon worshippers. As they explore the temple, they come across a lone blink dog that has been imprisoned by the cult. The blink dog explains that it was captured while attempting to stop the cult from performing a dangerous ritual that would summon a powerful demon. The blink dog offers to help the players stop the ritual and defeat the cult, in exchange for its freedom.
The entrance to this ruined temple is at the bottom of the map with steps near rooms 68, 93, and 41. I have provided a large ruin that can be populated with any number of creatures that have moved into these ruins over the century it has been abandoned. Some of these creatures could be working with the cultists or at least have decided to steer clear of them.
The blink dog (or small pack if you wish) can be contained in any of the circular rooms. If you want the players to find a blink dog quickly I would put one of them in room 97 or 20. If they choose to go the other direction think about having it chained up in room 37. Whatever room you place the blink dog in be sure to note that the room is under a permanent antimagic field. Without that the blink dog would just leave the area.
I would place the cultists in rooms 1 – 7 with various other magical creatures bound in other rooms nearby. They were forced to use the room where the blink dog was found because the antimagic spell was placed in that room centuries before for an unknown reason.
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About the Author:
Dwight Scull has been playing tabletop role-playing games (starting with Dungeons and Dragons 3.5) back in 2001. He started being a dungeon master around 2005.
He loves to play many different types of TTRPGs, including Pathfinder, GURPS, Shadowrun, Vampire: The Masquerade, Mage: The Ascension (and other White Wolf Games), Nights Black Agents, and others.
Fan of mysteries, light horror, co-op board games, true crime, sci-fi, and fantasy.
