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AHHH.. GO TAKE 31 STEPS OFF A SHORT PIER MATEY!!!
The First Step;
While a lesser man might have railed against the gods, calling the challenge unfair, or given in to despair, Razmir sat down and meditated upon the challenge before him. He came to the conclusion that if the challenge could not be beaten or fought or argued against, that it must be *accepted* as a lesson of some sort. And so he meditated upon the lesson. Was it a test of patience? It seemed not, for he felt his still-mortal body experiencing hunger and thirst and fatigue, lending the experience a sense of urgency. Was it a test of cleverness? Again, it seemed not, for none of his arcane arts or skills or feats of training availed him in this place. He came to accept it as a test of faith, and stood to genuflect to the various gods who had come before, those of ancient and uncertain origin, and those few who had passed the Test of the Starstone before him.
And he stepped forward, and the world was no longer white around him, for that was the First Step, to accept and respect the power and authority of the gods who had come before and to realize that no worldly power or accomplishment or station in life could earn him this opportunity to stand among them.
The Third Step;
The Eighth Step
After a time, he opened his eyes and drew forth flint and steel, striking a spark and setting the god's message aflame, watching dispassionately as the paper curled and blackened, and the white ink turned bright against the now-darkened page. Very delicately, he peered at the writings of the gods, careful not to touch the scorched papyrus, which would have fallen to ash at the slightest disturbance, destroying for all time the secret message of the gods.
The message was this, "We are watching. Be our Herald, and remind the world that we are watching."
It had been many years since the Test of the Starstone had been passed, and the path to the gods was obscured by many heresies, such as the Left-Hand Path of Diabolism, or the Green Faith of the animists, so that the Living God was tasked to remain on Golarion, to remind the many races of man that the true gods still watched over the world, as shepherds to a flock that was increasingly straying away from the true path.
Almost forgot about this.....
JPEG of my Campaign Cartographer version of Tamran.
I went with some of the description from the Campaign Setting hardcover:
"The ramshackle wooden city of Tamran sits perched at the mouth of the River Marideth, with much of the city built on piers and pilings over the broad marshlands of the estuary, connected by causeways, bridges, and a flotilla of coracles and skiffs."
It was also stated that the walls were torn down, although I left the towers that would have been aprt of them.
Umm...AZ? Forget that I offered to help...your map-fu is already far beyond mine. Your map looks really good.
I've downloaded the JPEG...would you be willing to send me a copy of the FCW file? I'd love to use this as part of my ongoing campaign!
Sorry Paris, I hadn't actually seen your previous post - just noticed this new page of the thread up today and was reminded to post a copy.
Anyway, thanks for the compliment, and consider the actual CC3 file on its way.
I just got the file, AZ!
Thanks! And you're welcome for the compliment. I love CC3 (I've been a Profantasy fan for over a decade), but I have a mental block when it comes to mapmaking. Without trying to sound boastful, I am very good at taking an image and turning it into a map in CC3, but I'm no good at creating original maps.
The closes thing I can do do original maps I'm happy with is to base fantasy locations on real-world geography: like this
I've also been a fan of Profantasy for a long time. Started out when I bought the Core Rules 2.0 Cd-rom, which had a copy of CC2. Before that I was drawing maps by hand that I used in some games. I found the program similar to some CAD programs I'd used, and very user friendly.
Then, a little less than a year ago, my brother gave me CC3 for my birthday. I hadn't done too much with it: bought the dungeon add-on and toyed with crafting a dungeon crawl of my own. When I received my hardcopy of Masks of the Living God, and found no map of Tamran, I knew I'd have to do one myself or find one someone else may have done. Well, no one else had done one that I could find, so I purchased the city add-on and went to town.
For my next trick, after my players finish City of Golden Death, I'm going to take them into Ustalav using a made up bit - returning a wayward daughter of some minor noble to her home village. I'll need to do a map for that I think.
ledger hand image out for DMS.
my players keep out!
I'm using this in my Council of Thieves campaign, so there are some local changes. The cultists are Mammonites (not Razmirians), which explains the usury charges. I've made up high class house of ill-repute ("The Exquisite Torture") that the cultists have purchased a monthly VIP ticket to for Scasi Bolvini, the duxotar of the condotarri. the boat and water fee is the formal pay off to the condottari, the local tithe is the pay off to the Council of Thieves, and the remote tithe is a quarterly cash-out to the Egorian branch of the Church of Mammon.
Thanks paizo chat denizens for helping cook this up.
I'm pretty sure this all could be considered spoilers to some extent so I'm sorry for making you click the button. This is primarily directed at other GMs.
Priests: 14
Acolytes: 56 (priests x4)
Heralds: 6
The book is straightforward on the number of Heralds (3+Egrathis), but seems to be pretty open as the number of acolytes and priests.
Seems to me that 7 priests are on guard during the day, so x2 for replacements/priests being used for other things (like going out into town)
The acolytes were a x4 of the priests
And the number of heralds i used was as direct result of me counting herald rooms instead of reading well.
So yeah, that was the obscene amount of people I put in there, seems pretty off for 16 bunks, (48 max if they are being rotated every 8hrs). I'm running it again (with a different group) and I'm just wondering how many dudes other GM's have put in there.
If you care on the outcome:
1 guy didn't show up that night and they basically blew through it with pretty easily with 3 guys at level 3. (I've had many cases of the CR seeming to be very off for well made characters and experienced players). They did it smart, and burned the Armory beforehand and holed up in the hallway on the 1st floor, a LOT of dice rolling later, they won.
More digital projector DnD pr0n
Have Clerics been a problem in anybodies game? My group will most probably contain a priest of Abadar, so if anybody has any advice if this is a feasible combination, please let me know.
EDIT: I could imagine that the faithful of Abadar won´t have much love for the Razmiran cultists, as they cut into business. Perhaps if I play into that sentiment, an Abadarian might even be very interested in getting rid of those cultists.
Stefan
My take on that particular problem is this: I can't see any of Golarion's dieties being extremely cheesed about the concept of some completely mortal schlep walking around calling himself a God, and as such detracting from their potential following. I'd think that basically any bonafide diety would approve of the persecution of such a "church".
The Patron of cities and commerce should have no trouble working up enmity toward the temple of Razmir for the reasons you mentioned above, as well.