Cleric of Iomedae

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Organized Play Member. 85 posts (87 including aliases). No reviews. No lists. 2 wishlists. 1 Organized Play character.



Silver Crusade

I am a historian. I love history.

I am also a DM for my group (No, I don't care if Wizards has Dungeon Master trademarked. I'm a DM, and I claim the damn title.)

But the fact of the matter is, I need help getting excited about Golarion again. I had a few bad games, some players who overanalyzed things, picked apart what I did, the setting, and dictated to me how things should and should not happen. It wasn't a pleasant experience. I'm all for player interaction and direction, but rule 0 has gotta be observed.

In the end,one of my complaints with Golarion as a setting; I can never seem to make it "dark" or even all that "dark-agey" it's too high adventure, too renaissance; women are treated equitably, racism is at low usually, even though looking deeper it should be a VERY dark setting, but I can't seem to make it feel like such.

The setting itself is in a dark age; enlightenment; gone, hope, failing. it's called the Age of Lost Omens,the major Christ figure, Aroden, broke his promises and failed to appear when he said he would; His empire on earth collapsed into a literal hell-hole of opression and hatred, countries were swallowed by hurricanes, and others had gaping holes to the abyss ripped into them.

At least one of my players tells me it feels at the level of depth and darkness I want to give it, I enjoy dark because it makes the light stand out all the more.

But the fact of the matter is, I feel am misrepresenting the setting. It feels to nice, too pleasant; not that it needs to become a hell hole, but right now it lacks depth; it feels like I'm glossing over plenty of the stuff that's interesting.

To the synisthetic among you, right now my game feels grey, and pastel-ish; I want what I see in the art style of the books; high contrast, "Savage Sword of Conan" sorts of things.

Perhaps part of it has to do with how I think of it, because in the end, my last group of players helped make me feel this way; They divorced me of the setting so much that I can't help but think of it as being wrapped in cotton batting. I want Golarion to feel *real*. A fantastic world with all the variety and moral depth that can be attained.

I'm rather at the end of my rope. I suppose the majority of it is all based in how I feel about the setting, but I don't really know how to get that back.

Silver Crusade

Been running Entombed with the Pharaohs for a new group, and it's been a blast; thus far though, I flubbed up and showed my hand too early with Neferet Anu, and while the party doesn't know who she is, they don't trust her, so I came up with a solution where Lonicera has murdered the Mithral Scarab and replaced her, using her clothes and personal effects and such, enhancing effects with make-up and so-on, and using disguise self to alter a few minor facial features (because otherwise it seems they have the same build and general look, judging by the pictures, and anything else about her appearance could be modified by her to match the MS) as well as her skin color, so I am left wondering; what entails "interaction" when it's something superficial and neither tactile or audible, like a color change?

Silver Crusade

As anyone who cares enough to look through my post history can see, I'm running Carrion Crown for a group that is half "People who went through HoH" and half "People with no clue" prompting me to re-write the Haunting of Harrowstone as something different and new; I'm using The 1969 version of The Haunting as a basis, and am planning on doing a straight up haunted house with greater focus on haunts and atmosphere than on combat.

Currently, to help my writing processes, I am thinking up the "themes" of Carrion Crown; the idea came to me when I decided to look through my old 2nd Ed Vampire Storyteller's guide for ideas.

The excerpt probably explains it best;

"Have you ever really sat down and wondered what the
difference is between theme and concept? At times, they're
used interchangeably, but that's not really true or helpful at
all. They both embody story ideas, but they work in two very
different ways. When you seek to make effective, impacting
decisions on what the whole framework of what your
chronicle is going to say, think of theme as the central ideal
that you're trying to communicate. By comparison, concept is
the sensory representation - the taste, feel, look, smell and
sound, if you will - of these ideals. Neither theme nor concept
has to be singular. Your chronicle can incorporate a variety of
different themes into one big story line and can use a variety
of sensory pictures to communicate those themes. Using
theme and concept isn't exactly easy, but if you keep these
differences in mind, it becomes a much less arduous task,
because just understanding this gives you strong inferences
on why they work and why they're important. Simply stated,
theme is your message and concept is your look." - Page 69 of the Vampire: The Masquerade Storytellers Handbook, 2nd Edition, Revised.

As things stand, the themes I have are;

The Conquest of the Mind over the Supernatural (The fact that all of my PCs are intellectuals; an Archaeologist with ambitions, a Doctor with flexible morals and an end-justifies-the-means attitude, a School-Teacher turned horiffic monster, struggling with his darker nature, and a Dhampir nobleman, dealing with social politics and inherent darkness in his blood)
The Inevitability of Fate (Pharasma, the Harrow Deck, the fact that most of my PCs are doomed to tragic ends in some form or fashion)
The Warping of Good Intentions Toward Evil (Most, if not all of my PCs in some form or fashion, as well as Caromarc,)
The Inherent Evils of the Supernatural (Vorstag and Grine and the Whispering Way, the Dhampir PC)

So, throw me a few? I'd like to have one major theme for each section of Carrion Crown, if I could.

Silver Crusade

As the title says; I have need of a monster and I have only a few requirements.

It needs to have some kind of obsession with names, the power of names, true names, etc.

Preferably planar creatures and outsiders are preferred; even Cthulu beings could work as well.

Basically I'm re-writing Carrion Crown's first adventure in the path since I'm running it for a mixed group of "have been through before" and "Never even heard of its" and I'm borrowing the Splatterman as a villain for all this and want an explanation for his "obsession" since I want to throw them for a loop and not have him be the major villain, but instead a pawn.

Silver Crusade

Planning on joining in a game of this that a friend will be running, and I am wondering how one could incorporate a gillman character; how would Chelish society accept them? Would they? What is Gillman society like? Do they pretend to be Azlanti and trade on the name like some Cheliaxans do? Can I get some more definite info on Gillman society on Golarion than what I found in the Pathfinder Wiki?

Silver Crusade

Ok, let me start off by saying; I am actually rather good at this; I've played all sorts of alignments as DM, when I do characters, I like being Lawful Good, I've done Neutral Good, Chaotic Good, I can even go to the other camp sometimes and be Lawful Evil, though I usually stick with good, since, well, wanting to help people and alleivate suffering is my natural inclination.

I know at least a few of the ways Lawful Neutral can be played; the soldier who always follows orders; the magistrate who cares not for mercy, merely that the law be done, even the arrogant; "I am the master, you are my servant, and thus beneath me, and not worth my consideration, sub-human" noble, who sees people as tools.

But, well, I'm stuck playing against type in an off-the cuff campaign that I'm in.

Perhaps this needs explanation; this weekend, some of my friends and I were sitting around our table, bored; we wouldn't be able to play the game I usually run; two of our players were missing. So after a rousing game of magic, one made a comment about a campaign he wanted to see at some point; everyone starts off as a level 0 commoner, sold into slavery at a young age, and must get out, the other party members determining your class.

Just for spits and giggles, I decided I would do my character for this completely randomly, alignment and all; I got a guy who was the son of a famous wood-carver, a refugee, born on a boat leaving the homeland, strongly religious, who had been trained in languages to become perhaps an interpreter, had a couple of run-ins with the arcane in his youth, as well as the divine, and then attempted to murder a noble who had cut his father's hands off as punishment for a perceived slight.

He's arrested, sold into slavery, and then gets stuck in with the other two party members, an albino kobold and a reedy half-orc girl. We eventually do manage to get out, and I get my class selected as Oracle of the goddess of magic, madness, prophecies, lore, illusions and secrets. (perhaps I'll go for Mystic Theurge at some point.)

Thus far, I've played this guy not so much as respectful of the law per-se, or at least, not respectful of the local ones, but more of the sort who believes the universe has an order to it, and that "what goes around, comes around." paying back equal vengeance for slights against him.

So I suppose what I am asking is; is this still lawful neutral?

Silver Crusade

I'm currently helping a friend out with a character he's trying to define the backstory of, but, this friend being himself, which is to say, a bit strange, chose to make himself a Kitsune Monk named Asheron who was either; raised among humans, knowing full well what he is, and looking like a fox-man the whole time, or is some mischievous spirit who ran away from home, tricked some humans into adopting him, and discovered he's actually really very fond of humans. We're currently in the Golarion setting, sitting quite pretty in Varisia in fact; and we're left wondering; what is the societal position of Kitsune in Tien?

I looked in the Dragon Empires Gazetteer; minimal info.

I looked in the Advanced Races Guide; minimal info.

I used the Wiki, both of them; minimal info.

I checked the PFSRD; minimal info.

From what I can gather, Kitsune are, I THINK, descendants of the original inhabitants that were there before the Tien peoples arrived. And if I am reading this right, they're something like spirits, similar to actual Japanese tradition, so, sort of native outsiders along the lines of Aasimar or Oni Ogre Magi? Spirits who clad themselves in flesh?

Do they hide their true shapes in all societies? Meaning that anyone you meet on the street could be a Kitsune? Or are they accepted in some places as just being "there"?

Basically what we are trying to determine is; is this character merely another of the many wild and wacky species of Golarion, who could be merely picked up by a farmer and adopted? Or are the Kitsune still trickster-Kami, who just happen to reside in the Prime Material plane and futz about with mortals for their human-esque lifespans?

Silver Crusade

Ended up doing some plotting for my own game, and decided to share it with the community!

I needed a "hunter" type of undead, that wouldn't be too powerful for a 2nd level character, and would be a bit more loyal to its master than say, a ghoul would.

Let me know how I've done, folks, it should be about CR 4, making it a very hard fight for 2nd level;

Guevadon
This black-furred canid appears to be an impossible size, far too large to be natural, a pair of decaying bat wings sprouting from its back. Despite its clearly decaying body, its hide matted with blood and rot, its eye-sockets gleam with a wicked cunning, matching the bleached bones of its ribcage, protruding into visibility.
GUEVADON CR 4
XP 3
LE Large undead
Init +3; Senses darkvision 60 ft., scent; Perception +8
DEFENSE
AC 13, touch 13, flat-footed 10 (+3 Dex)
hp 48 (4d8+22)
Fort +3, Ref +4, Will +3
DR 2/armor; Immune undead traits
OFFENSE
Spd 60 ft.; fly 30 ft. (clumsy)
Melee bite +7 (4d6+3 plus trip), slam +7 (1d6+3), 2 claws +7 (1d8+4)
Special Attacks quick strikes
Space 10 ft.; Reach 5 ft.
STATISTICS
Str 17, Dex 17, Con —, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 16
Base Atk +4; CMB +9; CMD 22 (27 vs. trip)
Feats ToughnessB; Skill Focus (Perception)
Skills Perception +8, Stealth +6, Survival +1 (+5 scent tracking); Racial Modifiers +4 Survival when tracking by scent
Special Qualities quick strikes, fast healing 4
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Quick Strikes (Ex)
Whenever a Guevadon takes a full-attack action, it can make one additional slam attack at its highest base attack bonus.

Collect Target (Ex)
Whenever a Guevadon takes a full-attack action against a foe it has grappled, it can attempt to rip its heart out and collect it. The Guevadon must make two successful bite or slam attacks action (its claws being busy with the issue of opening its own chest to receive the collected heart) against the same target with its full attack, and the victim must make a successful DC 12 Fortitude or Reflex save, or it is killed instantly, its heart torn from its chest.
Corpse Call (Su)
Guevadon cannot speak, but their strange calls and howls captivate the minds of their targets. Once per day, a guevadon may call out, and if their designated target is within a 100-foot spread he must succeed at a DC 16 Will save or move toward the guevadon using the most direct means possible. If this path leads them into a dangerous area such as through fire or off a cliff, the creatures receive a second saving throw to end the effect before moving into peril. Captivated creatures can take no actions other than to defend themselves. A victim within 5 feet of the guevadon simply stands and offers no resistance to the guevadon’s attacks, presenting his neck to it. This effect continues for as long as the guevadon continues its call as a standard action each round. This is a sonic mind-affecting charm effect, and has no effect on deaf creatures. The save DC is Charisma-based.
Deathless (Su)
A guevadon is destroyed when reduced to 0 hit points, but it returns to unlife 1 hour later at 1 hit point, allowing its fast healing thereafter to resume healing it. A guevadon can be permanently destroyed if it is destroyed by positive energy, if it is reduced to 0 hit points in the area of a bless or hallow spell, or if its remains are sprinkled with a vial of holy water.
Resurrection Vulnerability (Su)
A raise dead or similar spell cast on a guevadon destroys it (Will negates). Using the spell in this way does not require a material component.
Positive Energy Vulnerability (Ex)
A guevadon has a vulnerability to the energies of the positive plane causing it to take double damage from positive energy unless a successful save allows it to take half damage. On a successful save it takes half damage, and on a failed save it takes double damage.
ECOLOGY
Environment any
Organization solitary, pair, or hunting party (3–4)
Treasure none
Designed as personal bounty hunters by a particularly vindictive necromancer, who had clearly been the type to pull the wings off of flies as a child, the Guevadon is a relentless killing machine. Guevadon do not rise naturally, when one is encountered, it has a clear purpose from the moment of its creation, a single target it must hunt down and kill, bringing either its head or heart to its master.
Once a guevadon has found its target and extracted its grisly trophy, it pulls open its own spiked ribcage and places it within for safe transit back to its creator, and takes flight with its horrifically grafted wings.
Despite its decaying and zombified appearance, do not mistake the guevadon for a simple mindless undead! While lacking in higher intelligence, the guevadon retains all the animal cunning its body possessed in life, as well as its ability to track via scent, its senses now sharpened by the perverse magics of the grave.
Indefatigable, and tracking on a twisted mixture of magical essence, and physical scent, no quarry can escape a guevadon for long, its ability for flight allowing it to track its quarry over any terrain, a guevadon will not rest until its target lies dead and safe within its belly, at which point it returns to its creator, and collapses into a pile of rotting flesh.
Guevadon Construction
The intact body of a prodigiously large wolf, and the wings of a dire bat are required, the wings must be grafted into the back muscles of the wolf; beyond this point, the condition of the carcass is unimportant. Following that, special unguents and bindings worth 500 gp are also required, as is a focus component of some type, such as a lock of hair, or a personal possession of the intended target; a minimum of one day must be spent chanting necromantic spells over the body as they are applied. Incorporated into the chant must be a specific target’s name, and a set of instructions that the guevadon will follow to either destruction, or success.
CL 6th; Price 700 gp
CONSTRUCTION REQUIREMENTS
Animate dead, regeneration, geas/quest, creator must be caster level 6th; creator must be evil (any); Skill Craft (leather) or Heal DC 13; Cost 100 gp

Oh and if someone can think of a better name than "Guevadon" I'd appreciate it, to coin it I ended up bastardizing the name of a French town haunted by a famous man-eating wolf.

(Note: To head the questions off at the pass, we use the "armor as damage resistance" 3.5 manuverability rules, and a simplified XP system. So both of those are intentional.)

Silver Crusade

I've got a character that is... in an interesting position, to say the least.

I asked one of my players to expand on the backstory of his character.

And boy did he.

The basic gist is that he ended up having an encounter where he befriended the Tien god Sun Wukong, Monkey god of Tricksters. His character had no idea who his new friend was, of course.

For those of you not in the know, Sun Wukong had been a minor spirit whom had snuck into Pharasma's Boneyard and erased his name from her records.

Here for some reason,Sun found himself in the Inner Sea Region, and is unable to return home for reasons he doesn't understand. He believes it's Pharasma's retribution for giving himself immortality (by erasing his name)

Sun leaves, visits the Boneyard again, and tears out the section with the player character's name on it, leaving a note taunting the goddess.

"I am borrowing this mortal.
I will return him when I get home.
Until then, you can just wait."

- A Being Smarter Than You

The player's idea is that his PC is effectively immortal, meaning that when reduced to his negative constitution score, he remains partly alive, and can recover if healing magic is applied to him. This being why the wizard the party had found him in the dungeons of, had kept him, believing him to be a key to immortality. I feel like that's a bit much, but I'm still trying to figure out what the effect of having your name ripped out of the book, but not erased would be.

The players I have are fairly responsible, but I'm not looking to overblow the whole thing here too much.

I'm wondering about detriments. Yeah there is the whole "You have no fate" thing, but as for the rest, this seems like something ripe for some curse-like side effects, especially for the people who had their names half-ripped out when his was pulled from the book. Something like this shouldn't be entirely just randomly beneficial.

Thoughts?

Silver Crusade

Ok, I've done a good bit of study on the enigmatic figure of the Chelish Druid Osprey, member of the Pathfinder society.

And, with him being the venture-captain my pathfinders report to, I am left wondering how my characterization of him is, from the little information provided.

Currently, as he stands, Osprey in my campaign is a good hearted, but manipulative man, who occasionally manipulates the players, feeding them limited, or sometimes even outright false information, in an attempt to avoid endangering them, or showing his hand to corrupt aspects in the society he is attempting to weed out.

He rubs up against Ambrus Valasin, who, being Valasin is loyal to the Decemvirate to a fault, even to the point of glossing over corruption and internecine rivalries in the name of "good competition".

Osprey prefers to manipulate, and work outside the system, even recruiting my party as a group of unassociated agents, leading them to believe they are pathfinders, in an effort to keep them off the rolls, so that the corrupt elements are not apprised of their existence.

A few choice quotes from my interpretation of Osprey;

“Ambrus is loyal to a fault. That’s a very good trait in retainers and dogs. Not so good in Venture-Captains. He might not trust anyone but the Decemvirate as far as he can shotput them, but he lets the corruption thrive, festering like a wound. He thinks it makes him more like the ten, allowing infighting to thrive in the name of spirited competition.”
-Venture-Captain Osprey, on the subject of Ambrus Valasin

“He’d sooner bury any evidence than bother the Decemvirate with trivialities. He hears more than a hundred rumors daily about people plotting to rob the society, slaughter us all, bring the society crumbling around us, every man woman and child in Absalom brought to their knees, blah blah blah. Usually it’s all a spectacular load of tosh. It’s just the name of the rumormonger that changes each time.” – Venture Captain Osprey, when asked why Ambrus Valasin is unwilling to take action against the corrupt elements of the society.
-Venture-Captain Osprey, on the subject of Ambrus Valasin

“They don’t do anything about it precisely because they can’t. Responding to the rumors would make the society look weak and unsure of ourselves, like we’re wide open to attack from our enemies. Starting an inquisition would be political suicide, the Society would tear itself apart in sheer outrage alone, not forgetting that we, quite simply do not have the resources to do so, resources we have to dedicate to defending ourselves from other enemies, enemies without.” – Venture Captain Osprey of the Pathfinder Society, Grand Lodge Faction

“In all honesty, that’s part of why I wanted to keep you unofficial. There was danger in letting you trade on the Pathfinder name without true registry, but it would have been simple to disavow knowledge of you, had you failed.” – Venture Captain Osprey of the Pathfinder Society, Grand Lodge Faction

"Osprey! What in the name of the ten have you been up to!? I’ve heard you’ve been harboring fugitives, we’ve got Hellknights beating a path to our door and right now you’re at the top of my list of “People most likely to be the cause of this brouhaha”!

I-well well well well. What have we here? Osprey, do you mind explaining yourself? Out of earshot?

(Osprey nods and steps out with Valsin, the PCs hear muffled shouting from both that grows fainter over time. Osprey and Valsin step back in about 20 minutes later.)

Osprey has made an interesting case for himself. He claims that you’re a group of rookies he sent to his homeland as a part of a “test” he assigned.

I believe he’s lying to my face. The masters of the Sword, Scroll and Lore don’t report having certified anyone of your descriptions to me. And I hear every certification they give in the Grand Lodge, though he claims you all to have been capable enough to attempt to earn yourselves a set of field commissions and that he wanted to give you a head start on impressing the Decemvirate. Pfah!

But, he is right on one count. You managed to tweak the Cheliaxan’s collective noses and lived to talk about it. Politically dangerous you might be, useful, you might be also. It takes a great deal of skill to do that.

In that spirit, I formally invite you to join the Pathfinder Society.”
-Venture-Captain Ambrus Valasin of the Pathfinder Society, Grand Lodge Faction

A penny for your thoughts?

Silver Crusade

Alrighty then, well, I am currently running a game where one of the players has discovered (I made sure to get his permisson first, of course) that he is a "clone" of the wizard they are currently in the process of robbing, who had been his former master before they went turncoat.

The player is currently playing a summoner.

The whole situation is this; 16 level wizard establishes a tower over a lost, Jistka Imperium outpost in Southern Cheliax. He and a friend end up exploring the ruins when they are both young adventurers, and the friend is killed in the process, destroyed so utterly by something that even his soul is shattered, though the wizard clears out the ruins and builds his tower above.

Years later he discovers a scroll that he recovered from the ruins and promptly forgot about for a number of years, one written in Thassilonian, and covered in annotations written in Jistka.

This scroll describes for him a ritual, one quite similar to the creation of a Haemonculus, equal parts water and blood, along with spell components are mixed with clay and shaped into a form the creator desires, creating a blank body their soul can inhabit.

Something went wrong with the ritual, a cast off fragment of the soul of the dead friend inhabited the body, rather than the wizard being able to do so himself. The wizard, being fascinated by this turn of events, figured the problem lay in the ritual itself and chose to observe this clone to see what similarities it bore to him. Other than that the soul is something else entirely.

Due to the blood and everything else sunk into the construct, it does bear both sympathy and similarities to the wizard (who fashioned it to look like himself at about age 20.)

And, then the idea occurred to me that his Eidolon, being what it is, with the connection that it shares to him is, in a fashion his "soul" personified in an outsider form.

I've determined certain things about this whole template I am planning on applying to the player. Current things I have decided;

His Eidolon's subtype is changed to native outsider. It is able to stay on the prime material plane as long as it wishes, and is only unsummoned when the player wishes it, vanishing into the Ethereal plane, "orbiting" the character, for lack of a better description, basically becoming like a ghost, incapable of interacting with the prime material plane, but left unable to be touched by it in return. When unsummoned it enters a sort of "suspended animation" where it stays until resummoned. It does not heal while in the Ethereal plane.

Accordingly, if either the summoner OR the eidolon are killed, the other drops dead. The summon dies? So does he. The summoner dies? The Eidolon drops dead as well. Resurrecting one ressurects the other.

He's sterile, and cannot sire children,

He's Sympathetic to his master, intense feelings are shared between them, and while within 100 feet of one another, buff effects cast on one affect the other as well. The caster may also give orders to him if within physical hearing distance, with a succuessful will save negating this.

He's immune to level drain and effects that involve trapping the soul and things like that (unless his eidolon is targeted, rather than him, in which event he's effected as normal.)

He's ageless, meaning he does not lose strength, dexterity and constitution as he ages, and his appearance cannot age or change.

And he has low light vision.

Yes, this whole thing WAS rather heavily inspired by Alias from Curse of the Azure Bonds. That and Safiya from Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer

I'm currently wondering however, what should I do with the template? We both want to stress his... constructness, his Promethean qualities, the fact that he appears human, but very much lacks certain things about humanity, things that before the character took for granted, but will now wonder about when he learns of all this.

So, what does the community think? How would you work a template for this? For now, lacking a better name, I'm calling this template a "Pygmalion"

Silver Crusade

I'm currently working on a Cheliaxan character, and am left pondering, what would a Chelish Accent sound like?

Vaguely Irish? Due to their association with both Taldan and Ulfen peoples?

English? Or would that be Taldan? A kind of snooty uppercrust thing?

Suggestions? Thoughts?

Silver Crusade

D&D oldtimer here, and while working on a character from Cheliax, I come across the rather interesting mention of Succubi being the sort to "invite" children from the Prime Material to their birthday masquerades, I was fascinated with the idea, and chose to work it into my Cheliaxan paladin.

However, weirdly enough, the source for this information, being a copy of Kobold Quartery (issue number 22, I think.) gives the indication that the succubi it discusses come from the Nine Hells, not the Abyss.

So I suppose my question is; Do both sides now make use of Succubi? I looked at the Erinyes, and they don't seem particularly "tempting" anymore, having gone back to their roots as the mythical furies, and knowing Devils in general, they would absolutely have someone to tempt on their side, it's in their MO, after all.

And furthermore, is the Bloodwar still on in Golarion's outer planes? To be honest, preferring the D&D cosmology to all others, I just used the classic and stuck it onto the new without really considering the new cosmology, since what I did see seemed to similar, and figured it simpler to merely graft the familiar to it. (That and, well, Golarion deserves a place alongside Krynn, Aber-Toril, Athas, Mystara, Oerth and the rest of the Crystal Spheres far more than this "Points of Light" 4th Edition b&!#!%%$ does.)

Silver Crusade

I'm currently running the Carrion Crown Adventure Path for my group, and In addition to the Carrion Crown Campaign itself, I'd like to explore some of the more interesting Gothic Horror elements of the country of Ustalav, and one that seized my interest was the Saffron House, detailed in both The Rule of Fear, as well as the inside cover of The Haunting of Harrowstone.

Well, The Rule of Fear got me a map and some details, the boss is known as the Laughing Man, a kyton, with it's "interpreters" whatever that means, the place is filled with gremlins, hounds of Tindalos, juju zombies, Shining Children, Totenmaskes and animate dreams, features endless rooms and halls, malingering psychic traumas and slowed time, as well as a "stained Planchette" as its most notable haunts, has been described as a blot on both nature and time, a location that "leaks wrongness" with the house feeling claustrophobic and tight, evil things skittering and crawling through the walls, with unnecessary, maze-like twists and turns, that a "Clied Thord" owned the house and that a "thousand suicides" never freed him of it's influence, every surface is covered in a sickly, pale yellow, suggested reading consists of C.P Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper", Robert E. Howard's "Pigeons From Hell" and Stephen King's "Jerusalem's Lot."

So, what I am asking is, how would you design this adventure? What horrible things would crawl from your mind and roost themselves upon your paper, lying in wait for hapless PCs? How would you interpret it's rather vague phrasings on some things?

Silver Crusade

Ok, well, I might as well just dive in.

Skills are great! Skills are a well designed idea! That... just happens to be horrendously overused. Simply put, there are a number of skills which, do not grant sufficient return in their use to justify being skills.

When a player puts points into skills,they, by all rights, should expect to use them often.

I've seen Escape Artist used maybe once or twice in an entire campaign. That ain't enough of a justification.

Plenty of skills work fine, but I did some trimming.

Oh, but what alternative do I have to fill in the missing gap? To answer the hole in our lives, left by some of these skills?

Well, I brought back proficiencies for one.

Now, note that this isn't so much a "houserule" as it is a "system of houserules." which, are meant to work and interlock with one-another by design.

This rules system is primarily my own, though the idea was inspired by -C of Hack & Slash as well as LS of Papers and Pencils, and the weapon proficiencies were lifted from Unearthed Arcana, a 3.5 supplement.

Silver Crusade

Ok, as things stand, I'm running a little adventure for my group in Cheliax.

Currently they need to break into a wizard's tower. In this case, they're doing so through an illicit mithril mine north of Senara, in and amongst the mountains straddling Cheliax's norther border.

I've decided a long time ago that after they finish clearing out the mine, freeing the slaves and slaughtering the guards running the operation (then stealing the mithril for themselves.) they would need to go through an old, buried ruin, which would lead them into the wizard's tower.

A slight issue however.

I have no idea what kind of ruin it is.

At first I tried Thassilonian, but it's far too far south for that.

Then I considered the Jistka Imperium, but according to the Lost Kingdoms book, it's too far north for that, since the Imperium only ever got as far north as the Hellmouth, and as far east as the plains around Westcrown.

What do I do? Who would have been living in northern Cheliax a long enough time ago to leave a buried city? Did the Jistka Imperium ever come that far north? Did Thassilon ever range that far south?

Should I merely tell my players; "Mia culpa, I didn't understand the map enough, we're really on this penninsula here?"

I suppose, if push comes to shove, I could relocate the actual location to being in the foothills to the south of Egorian, but that's still too far east for the Jistka Imperium anyway.

Suggestions?

Silver Crusade

I've poured over my copy of Dragons revisited, several times in fact, and while I can tell Reds derive pleasure from their rampages, Blacks are merely misathropic and hateful, whites attack from pure frustration and rage, and that blues loooooove to micromanage their chaotic natures out of existence, it still failed to explain one important thing for me.

What motivates a blue? A desire to acquire more wealth? To control others as they control themselves? Are there no generic motivations for blues, their motivations as different as those of men, merely their methods are similar? Social status among other blues?

Does anyone out there know?

Silver Crusade

Ok, long time DM here, but relatively new to Golarion.

I am currently running a campaign for a number of friends, which I originally began by ad-libbing, but now that I'm a bit more familiar with the setting, I've begun tightening up the story some, and established better villains, and by extension, better villainous plots.

But, there are a few difficulties I set for myself fairly early on, and some ways I have of getting around them.

In short, what I suppose I need to know is a number of things;

How to roleplay a conversation with Nethys. (Not a follower of Nethys, the god himself.) I know a bit about him, the equally nihilistic and bleeding heart dichotomy he has, but I'm not sure how to use it. I need to know since at some point, depending on what they do, my players may have to speak to the god himself about a little creation he cooked up way back when he was a mortal Osirian god-king.

What IS known about the Decemvirate? I know their numbers, and I know about the Decemvirate helmets, but does anyone know anything about their identities? About how they are elected? If they're even elected? Their ultimate motivations? I have a villain who plans on infiltrating the Decemvirate, becoming a member, and then usurping power for himself, hiding the deaths of the others as part of a secret coup.

What's in the Sarkorian prophecies? Have any specifics been given?

Are there any specifics known about the Temple of the Starstone? The Shrine of the Failed?

Please and thank you in advance.