Night of the Pale is mentioned on page 249 of Pathfinder Campaign Setting: The Inner Sea World Guide. We are advised it is a night of morbid revelry, as people wait indoors for the ghosts of last year’s dead to pass by their homes.
Creative Director James Jacobs wrote the description below of the Night of the Pale and beneath that you’ll find a special Pathfinder Society Chronicle sheet you can download and apply to a Pathfinder Society character.
Illustration by John Gravato
Not all of Golarion’s holidays and festivals are times of rejoicing and delight. Holidays worshiped by dark and sinister cults and religions tend to be hidden affairs, their rituals and ceremonies involving cruelties and vile practices that send shivers of fear through gentler society. Scholars suspect that the Night of the Pale—a holiday that traditionally takes place on the last day of the year, the 31st of Kuthona—has links to several sinister religions, but today no one church has specific association with the event. Nonetheless, the Night of the Pale is an event that many look forward to all year, whether in fear or excitement.
On the Night of the Pale, it is said that the ghosts of those who died during the previous year manifest upon the world and come to visit the homes they lived in during life. Although some might think that the chance of seeing even the shade of a dearly departed one might be a blessing, the Night of the Pale is not a time for tearful reunions, for these ghosts, tradition says, do not return out of love for those they left behind but out of darker compulsions. Lingering jealousy, unfinished arguments, or the simmering need for revenge are said to be what compels the dead to return to torment the living on the Night of the Pale.
The evening of this night in many communities is celebrated by a morbid feast, the food prepared with themes revolving around graveyards, the dead, and other spooky traditions. This feast, on one level, helps the celebrants to make light of their fears while sharing good company with similarly nervous neighbors, but at another level is believed to placate vengeful spirits as toasts are raised to the memories of the recently departed. These feasts include retellings of favorite memories of the departed, in hopes of reminding the approaching ghosts of brighter and kinder memories than those that compel them to return. The feast always ends at least an hour before midnight in order to give participants time to return home, decorate doors and windows with salt and other trinkets taken from the feasting table (salted bread baked into crook-like shapes are a favorite, as these can be hung from doorknobs and eaves) to ward off evil spirits, and hide in their bedrooms until dawn. Brave youths and adventurers often deliberately stay out after midnight, either to dare the ghosts to challenge them or simply for the thrill of bucking tradition. Every Night of the Pale, it seems, there are disappearances among those who stay out after midnight, although whether these vanishings are the result of dissatisfied locals taking the opportunity to run away from home, murderers or wild animals or other mundane dangers, or the vengeful spirits carrying off their victims depends upon the circumstances.
The morning after a Night of the Pale is also the first day of the new year—a time that many celebrate more as a relief for surviving the night before than in anticipation of what the new year might bring, although regional preferences for how this day is celebrated vary enough that no single tradition holds over the other. Save, of course, the lingering fears of what dread spirits might come knocking upon warded doors one year away...
As always, I am interested in reading your thoughts on future holiday write-ups and boons. This is especially true in regard to the various equinoxes and solstices.
Download the Night of the Pale Boon! - (111 KB zip/PDF)This Boon is no longer available as of 1/9/12.
Mike Brock Pathfinder Society Campaign Coordinator
The Jestercap blog and boon seemed well received last month so I decided to try out another holiday this month.
Seven Veils is mentioned on page 249 of Pathfinder Campaign Setting: The Inner Sea World Guide. We are advised it is a celebration of brotherhood between all civilized races, marked by interracial masquerade balls. I thought this seemed like a neat holiday and decided it should be expanded upon.
Once again, creative Director James Jacobs wrote the description the holiday, and you will find a special Pathfinder Society Chronicle sheet you can download and apply to a Pathfinder Society character.
Illustration by Eric Belisle
Diversity is a fact of life in the Inner Sea region—not only do numerous human ethnicities mix and live among each other throughout the area, but races entirely separate from humanity dwell there as well. It’s not uncommon to see elves brushing shoulders with humans in marketplaces, gnomes working as merchants in dwarven settlements, or tengus serving aboard ships mostly helmed by humans. Indeed, two of the more widespread races in the Inner Sea region—the half-orc and the half-elf—are the specific results of diverse unions.
The holiday known as Seven Veils, which takes place on the 23rd of Neth in most realms found in the Inner Sea region, is a celebration of this diversity—a time when social boundaries break down even further in a day-long event filled with dancing, feasting, and courting. The evening traditionally closes out with the Seven Veil masquerade, a ball wherein the participants wear disguises that either hide their actual race and/or gender (often using minor magical trinkets and spells) or specifically disguise these features as entirely new characteristics. At the end of the ball, the participants remove their disguises to their partners, often with unpredictable and sometimes delightfully awkward results. Traditionalists and conservative minds often find the Seven Veils masquerades to be scandalous or off-putting, yet they remain particularly popular in most of the larger cities of the land.
Historians note that the original "Dance of the Seven Veils" has a much different genesis than one promoting diversity—the mysterious cult of Sivanah, goddess of illusions, mystery, and reflections, is generally cited as the source of this festival, and indeed, worshipers of the goddess (herself known as the Seventh Veil) count the 23rd of Neth as one of their most sacred of days. What rituals the church of Sivanah performs on this date, however, are unknown to outsiders, for the cult enjoys its secrets. This secrecy has, unsurprisingly, given rise to all manner of sinister rumor, yet when Seven Veils rolls around each year, its eager participants are quick to set aside rumor in preference for the night’s fun and games.
I am interested in reading your thoughts, not only on Jestercap and Seven Veils, but also on future holiday write-ups and boons. This is especially true in regard to the various equinoxes and solstices.
Download the Seven Veils Boon! - (111 KB zip/PDF)This Boon is no longer available as of 12/12/11.
P.S. Don't forget to check out the Pathfinder Tales author chats on tonight, November 21, hosted by Master of Ceremonies Dave Gross!
Mike Brock Pathfinder Society Campaign Coordinator
Since I have been involved with Pathfinder Society, one thing I have heard mentioned by players on numerous occasions is that they wish they could learn more about Golarion and incorporate that knowledge into their Pathfinder Society character. After thinking on different ways to make this happen, it occurred to me that Golarion has quite a few holidays mentioned in Faiths of Balance, Faiths of Corruption, Faiths of Purity, and The Inner Sea World Guide. As in the real world, where holidays are important to all of us, holidays in Golarion are important to our characters and the NPCs spread out across the world.
Every so often, I will write a blog that details a holiday in Golarion to help Pathfinder Society characters share in the spirit of the holiday. Creative Director James Jacobs wrote the description below for the first holiday in this series: Jestercap, mentioned on page 249 of The Inner Sea World Guide. At the end of the description, you will find a special Pathfinder Society Chronicle sheet you can download and apply to a Pathfinder Society character.
Jestercap occurs at the end of the month of Lamashan, traditionally on the 27th (although a few regions have taken to moving the exact day around slightly so it always falls on the last Starday of the month, allowing people who wish to celebrate in excess to have the following day of rest to recover). While Jestercap has been embraced with excited open arms by the gnome communities of the Inner Sea region, its original genesis is said to have been in one of Taldor’s coastal cities not long after King Aspex the Even-Tongued broke from the nation, significantly weakening Taldor’s power and beginning that nation’s long decline. The holiday was originally intended to distract the distraught Taldan populace with a night of revelry and comedic entertainment, but the antics of jesters simply weren’t enough. Over the course of the first few years, Jestercap evolved from a holiday of observation to a holiday of participation. Today, the holiday is a time where anyone can pull pranks or jokes or japes on companions, on neighbors, and (most typically) on rivals, with the understanding that provided no lasting harm is done, any humiliations inflicted before midnight are to be taken in stride. Of course, come morning the day after, there are inevitably jokes that went too far, and grudges and feuds borne from Jestercap antics have a way of lingering for months to follow.
Download the Jestercap Boon! - (115 KB zip/PDF)This Boon is no longer available as of 11/14/11.
Mike Brock Pathfinder Society Campaign Coordinator
So sometimes, we're so eager to get new player options into print we kind of get ahead of ourselves and stumble over our own feet in our haste. This happened, alas, with the just-released Pathfinder Companion: Humans of Golarion, in which we present something called "totem domains" for the Shoanti but then forgot to quantify exactly how anyone can get access to these domains! Oops!
There are seven totem domains in all—one each for the seven Shoanti quahs (clans). Each quah's totem actually consists of several different related animals or objects. For example, the Lyrune-Quah (the Moon Clan) venerates the following totems: bats, cave bears, field mice, the moon, mountain lions, owls, rainstorms, stars, and wolves. Although clerics and druids who become Shoanti shamans venerate their totem, they do not abandon their actual religion. Instead, these totems are simply assimilated into the traditions of whatever deity (for clerics) or perhaps philosophy (for druids) the character follows. A full list of Shoanti totems, including the domains these totems grant, appears on page 16 of Humans of Golarion.
Shoanti Shaman (Cleric and Druid Archetype)
The Shoanti shaman is a very simple archetype that either clerics or druids can take (with GM permission, you can certainly adjust the archetype a bit so that other classes with access to domains can be a Shoanti shaman, but keep in mind that the Shoanti have a very specific flavor, and something like a Shoanti inquisitor is kind of weird...)—doing so allows the character to gain access to his clan's totem domain. A Shoanti shaman has the following class feature.
Totem Domain: At 1st level (for clerics) or upon gaining a domain as part of Nature Bond at 1st level (for druids—a druid who instead opts to take an animal companion cannot use the Shoanti shaman archetype), pick one of your Shoanti quah's totems. You can use an image of this totem you carry or wield as your divine focus in addition to using the normal divine focus you might utilize (such as a holy symbol). In addition, you add that totem's domain choices to the list of domains you may choose from when picking a domain. If you are a cleric, you must still choose one of your domains from those normally granted by your deity. If you are a druid, your totem domain options replace the standard domain options granted by nature bond.
So, after a lengthy and unscheduled delay, it looks like we're getting quite close to finally getting Pathfinder #14 into our warehouse and ready to ship. It's been a bit since we talked about this one, but here's a quick preview of something a lot of our readers are looking forward to—what lies beyond the planet of Golarion!
In Pathfinder #14, we'll be discussing that very topic—what other worlds revolve around Golarion's sun, what sorts of creatures dwell on those worlds, and how they and Golarion's denizens travel back and forth between the planets through the inhospitable gulf of space. Naturally, the map of the solar system attached doesn't show the planets and the distances between them to scale (we'd have to have a giant foldout section to do that, I suspect), but it does show off how many different worlds there are out there. It's a little overwhelming to me, to tell the truth; we've barely scratched the surface of one small part of Golarion, and we're already talking about the other planets! Hopefully Pathfinder #14 satisfies the urge for info about these other planets for a while, though—at least long enough for us to catch our breath and figure out what to do with all these worlds!
Here is a sneak peek of Golarion, the exciting world of the Pathfinder Adventure Paths and GameMastery Modules. From the frontiers of Varisia to the devil-tainted cities of Cheliax to the frigid Hold of the Mammoth Lords, it will surely draw you in!
Note: This map is not final, and is a work in progress.
For some time now, people have been asking us how big Golarion is, and many have had the misconception that Varisia, being our most detailed region so far, comprises the majority of our setting. Nothing could be further from the truth, and to give you an idea of scale, Jason Bulmahn has pulled out the coastal outlines of the two continents that comprise the first Golarion world map (which will appear in the Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer) and dropped in our maps of Varisia and Osirion (from J1: Entombed with the Pharaohs). Don't let the rough sketch fool you, though—the map itself is very close to being finished, and you can expect a load of new world-related tidbits on the blog in the weeks to come. Stay tuned!
As our messageboards have recently been packed with folks wanting to know more about the day-to-day business of Golarion, the following is a brief introduction to the dating and timing conventions of our world. Rest assured that you'll be able to find out much more—such as timelines, country overviews, histories, and the rest—in the forthcoming Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer.
Time travels on Golarion much as it does here on our own Earth. Sixty seconds form a minute, sixty minutes create an hour, and twenty-four hours make a day. The people of Golarion measure time much like we do as well, with seven days to a week and twelve 30-day months to a year. Years are marked since the founding of the last great empire, that of Aroden, the Last Man. Although the empire has collapsed, its calendar remains in use to this day. At the start of the campaign, the date is 4707 AR (Absalom Reckoning).
Days of the Week
The days of the week are as follows. Each day has a general purpose that most people in the Inner Sea region follow.
Day
General Purpose
Moonday
Work, religion [night]
Toilday
Work
Wealday
Work
Oathday
Work, pacts signed, oaths sworn
Fireday
Work
Starday
Work
Sunday
Rest, religion
Months
The months in Golarion correspond to our own, with each new year starting shortly after the solstice. You'll notice that the name of each month is etymologically tied to a specific god—residents of Golarion see the gods reflected in the changing of the seasons, and their names for the months reflect this. (Gozreh's month, for instance, is a time of budding and new life, while Zon-Kuthon's is seen as the death of the old year.) Holidays in a given month are generally tied to their patron deity. In order, the months are:
One question we've run into repeatedly as we introduce the new world in which both Pathfinder and the GameMastery Modules will be set is, "What makes your campaign setting different?" In order to answer that, we've asked each member of the editorial design team—collectively known as "The Pit"—what they think sets our world apart.
Erik Mona (Publisher)
"The GameMastery world will contain a wider mixture of influences that most available on the market, making it easier to find a home for the type of adventures you and your friends are interested in playing. The world doesn't come burdened with a single overarching plot or expectation of play style, but rather allows for a wide variety of campaigns. Do you feel like exploring a savage frontier? The Lands of the Linnorm Kings or the Hold of the Mammoth Lords provide perfect backdrops. Players who enjoy urban roleplaying and intrigue will be drawn to the political world of Absalom or the treacherous courts of devil-tainted Cheliax. Players interested in science fantasy will find plenty to like in the barbarian nation of Numeria, greatest of the River Kingdoms, where a powerful sovereign and his council of witches rule from the ancient ruins of a mighty vessel fallen from space. They might even get a chance to explore the green and red worlds in the heavens above. The code-phrase we've been using for development of the world beyond Varisia (and including it) is "Planet of Adventure," because it is a place meant to accommodate great campaigns. We're hoping one of them will be yours."
James Jacobs (Editor-in-Chief, Pathfinder)
"I think that the big thing for our campaign setting is the fact that, unlike most other settings, we aren't kicking things off with a line of setting books that detail regions, religions, cities, and histories of the world. We don't want to drown our readers in canon. Rather, we'll be developing our world primarily through adventures written by the best writers we can find. Each adventure in Pathfinder or the GameMastery line can serve double-duty, because once you've run the adventure, there'll remain parts in there that you can use to expand your own campaign world, be it details of a city, a new monster, a haunted forest, a new religion, or whatever. Sooner or later we'll certainly have enough material to cull from the adventures that we'll be able to produce a setting book or something like that, but it won't have been designed in a vacuum. Everything in our campaign world will evolve out of things that are already adventures, rather than evolve from ideas that then have to be turned into adventures.
"Oh, and demon lords and archdevils and celestial paragons and archangels can grant spells to their cultists. That's pretty cool too."
Jason Bulmahn (GameMastery Brand Manager)
"One of our primary goals is to give a campaign setting that uses all of the advantages of the modern rules set while still maintaining a sort of "classic" middle-fantasy feel. We want our world to be one that has a place for almost any sort of play style without flooding GMs and players with a bunch of assumed baselines that make some play-styles impossible or difficult to run. If you want to use our setting to run an Egyptian-styled adventure, you can certainly do that, but it doesn't preclude a swashbuckling game, a feudal knights adventure, a lich hunt, or an urban political game. The trick is balancing these themes and flavors that everyone is familiar with, while still giving it a fresh take that fires up the imagination and allows for GMs to give it their own personal flair. After all, we want this to be your campaign too.
"And, of course, we got ninjas."
James Sutter (Assistant Editor, Pathfinder)
"My biggest problem with most campaign settings is the canon. While as a writer I understand well the joy of having your ideas set in stone, of watching people take what you've written and hold it up as The Way It Is, with gaming I find that it's ultimately a decadent and self-indulgent pleasure, and a little goes a long, long way.
"When I first started working at Dungeon, canon and I went head-to-head on a daily basis. It seemed like every time I had an idea I thought was interesting, someone smiled sympathetically and said, "Yeah, but you can't do that because..." As a GM, who wants to be told "no" all the time?
"That's what makes our new setting so exciting to me. Sure, any new setting will have less baggage than one that's been around for years, but throughout the design process of this world, we've tried to always keep that "less is more" mentality in mind. This is our world, but it's also the players' world, and every time you tell a GM or player, "You can't do that," you've just killed a fun session. It's too easy for a setting to reach a point where, through years of development and source material, it's been detailed down to the last commoner, with no room left to invent, explore, and innovate. Either that, or the broad, sweeping changes you've made to distinguish your setting ("All elves in our setting are XXX!") end up alienating portions of your audience. The rallying cry at our development meetings has been, "Never say never." We've all put in a lot of work to make this setting as interesting as possible, and there will undoubtedly be official supplements someday to support the adventures which are the setting's driving force, but know that as we go along, we realize that this isn't just our sandbox—it's the sandbox of everyone who does us the honor of playing in it. And with that honor comes a certain responsibility."
Jeremy Walker (Assistant Editor, GameMastery)
"Often, a campaign setting is defined not so much by what elements it includes, but instead by what it precludes. Specific themes, elements, and quirks help players and GMs connect with the setting, but oftentimes the very things that first attract gamers become the things that drive them away, as, frustrated by the setting's inability to adapt, they move on to the next unique setting, only to repeat the process down the road when that setting's fresh ideas become stale.
"One might think, then, that the solution is to provide a setting as generic as possible, so that any story can be dropped in just about anywhere. And yet people are looking for more in a campaign setting than a blank sheet of canvas. They want a world in which to tell their own stories in their own way, but they also want a living world that seems real. In this way, a campaign setting is like a matte painting on a movie set. A richly detailed backdrop that, while it exists independently of the characters in the movie, gives their actions context and meaning beyond their individual stories. To create a purely generic world is like shooting a movie in front of a black and white painting—it is immediately, and obviously, unreal.
"So how to provide a rich and detailed world without running the risk of our conventions and ideas becoming stale? Our solution is to provide a campaign setting that includes many distinct areas, each containing their own themes, characters, stories, and ideas. Each area of our world is almost a mini-setting all to itself. Vibrant and lifelike, ready for any story you might wish to tell. And when you tire of a particular style of gaming, why there is always something new waiting over that mountain, up that river, or across that sea."
Mike McArtor (Associate Editor, GameMastery)
"1. Interaction: One of the things that sets Paizo apart is our willingness to listen to those who invest in our creation. Spend some time on the messageboards and I think you'll discover pretty quickly that we interact with our readers, and those interactions are never one-way. We're not going to create the setting through democracy, but when the masses speak, we tend to listen.
"2. Inclusiveness: The newest edition of The World's Most Popular Fantasy Roleplaying Game (TWMPFRPG for short) is all about showing you what you can do, not telling you what you can't. In that spirit, our setting is going to allow for whatever you want to include in your campaign. Everything does—or at least can—exist in our setting.
"3. Variety: It's the spice of life. It's also what happens when you put the seven of us in a room, add caffeine, and shake. Then open the floodgates to guys like Baur and Logue and man oh man, have you got something! If you like dinosaurs and Cthulhu, talk to Jacobs over there. If you like your games a little more whimsical, hey man, I've got your back. From the deepest pits of depravity to the most ludicrous non-sequiturs, you'll find it somewhere in this place.
"4. History: We have the advantage of looking back on three decades of what has come before to see what worked. (And of even greater importance: what didn't.) We're building off the initial groundwork of titans—Gygax, Kuntz, Greenwood, and Grubb, for starters. The seven of us are keenly aware of those who came before, and we want to ensure they (and more importantly, YOU) approve of our creation."
Wesley Schneider (Associate Editor, Pathfinder)
"We're only letting the coolest players and GMs use our world. Rabid, endlessly yodeling goblin warchanters will infest the homes of those found unworthy."
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