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Male Human Scholar 8/Gunslinger 8
Numeria has a long history of mystery and wonder buried under its rugged landscape, for on that one fateful night thousands of years ago, the Rain of Stars scarred the land. The fragmented remnants of a ship from beyond the stars fell from the sky, scattering strange technological ruins and deadly perils across the land. Today, these sites are feared by the barbaric tribes and coveted by the sinister spellcasters of the Technic League. Yet something worse than brutish berserker or super-science wizard has risen to power in these hidden technological halls.
H'okay, Azlant. As far as the defunct civilizations of Golarion go, we've probably been given the most information, but it's scattered around various sources, and in nowhere are we given a clear picture what life was like or a clear extent of the empire.
The Azlanti People
Azlanti Culture/Relations
Azlanti Architecture
The Azlanti Language
Azlanti Magic/Studies/Technology
Known Azlanti Sites/Ruins
Azlanti Religion
Sources
Of the lovably hardassed face-punching enforcers of law that are the hellknights, the minor order known as the Order of the Coil, like that of the Orders of the Crux*, Pike, and Star, gets one brief paragraph of lore, be it on the preview blog, or on page 65 of AP #27:What Lies in Dust. And that's it, really. In short, they're based in or around Eleder, and hunt down those who try to find, recover, and return Mwangi/Sargavan relics to civilization (especially the Pathfinders). Sadly, there's been zero discussion about them on the forums, and absolutely no mention of them in an AP that gives us the freaking gazetteer on Eleder. To that note, I ask if and how any one used/had them show up in their Serpent's Skull games, and propose a thread (remarkably shaped like this one) for ideas thereof. *Technically the undead leader of the now-mostly-destroyed Order of the Crux got his own writeup in Undead Revisited, but my point stands. My Own Two Coppers, with spoilers: •The Order of the Coil quietly sponsored the revolt in Racing to Ruin in a 'for the greater law' outcome, to stop the PCs' expedition in its infancy. Actually oppressing the heathen Mwangi peoples is the Order of the Pyre's job.
•The Order of the Coil works with the Order of the Pyre in Sargava, the former concentrating around Eleder, while sending info to the Pyre, who hunts for folks out in the field. Both sometimes band together to stop Pathfinder expeditions. •Post-game, once the magical wards on Saventh-Yhi are down (or earlier if one of the Factions tip them off), the Coil and/or Pyre move in to the city in a desperate attempt to suppress the city's discovery and recovery. •The Serpentfolk see the name 'Order of the Coil' as a sign to their Dark God™, and have either infiltrated them before the campaign or after, with a few extremely-law-leaning reincarneted Coils of Ydersius joining the organization as 'humans', while steering them to darker ends.
Though the maps in the AP don't quite get it across, Westcrown is a staggeringly huge metropolis, the largest in Cheliax, and still one of the largest cities in the world. And with that, there are several other groups and secret societies beyond the titular Council of Thieves active or based in Westcrown, which don't so much as show up in the AP. Hence a thread for ideas to that extent. The three can come to mind off the top of my head: •The Westcrown Shadow Hunters (Bastards of Erebus, Cheliax: Empire of Devils), led by masked woman Bluehood, are attempting to clean the streets of Westcrown of the shadow beasts. They have a dead drop at an unnamed tavern near Vira Leroung, but that's about all we have about them.
Any thoughts and suggestions?
I've come to a bit of a stumbling block and hoped my fellow forumites might have some suggestions. The Setup: A wilderness shrine is home to its Venerable-age-category caretaker and sole resident, an expert-turned-cleric (3 levels of cleric) who was essentially the tour guide who took over as the priest when the other residents of the shrine retired, died, or left. As of now, he's old, really really old, and as per the random aging rules, he'll die sometime later in the year. The conditions/stipulations:
The question: How does he eat? My Thoughts Thus Far:
I'm open for ideas and suggestions for something sensible and flavorful, that lets the above fluff and the crunch work together in harmony. Any thoughts?
I'm trying to clarify a bit of the OGL, specifically what to include as far as the Section 15 Copyright notice goes as for the inclusion of other folks' Open Content. The Appropriate d20pfsrd Page suggests that references should be recursive, such that if you, building Product A, reference Product B, you include all the references on Product B's Section 15. Presumably, for fairly inclusive works, or if a company references their own previous works, this could conceivably be a staggeringly long list. But, not all the products I've seen do this implied degree of recursion. For instance, since the update to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, the various AP's reference the two Bestiary Books in their stat blocks, but neither Bestiary (and its own long list of borrowings) shows up in that AP book's Section 15; generally the only citations are the Core citation, and the ever-handy Advanced Bestiary and Tome of Horrors when used to customize a stat block or bring in additional monsters. With WotC long-divorced from the now-eleven-year-old OGL, is there anyone that can solidly clarify the issue?
Dear Paizo, Page 83 of The Haunting of Harrowstone contain flying medusa heads, with Flyby Attack as a bonus feat, and the ability to temporarily petrify those they bite.
The Separated Negative/Positive Event List
d%_=_Event
Dear Paizo et al, I've been following Golarion since the announcement that the license for Dragon magazine was ended (or else, I'd probably have a Dragon subscription instead of a Pathfinder Adventure Path subscription), and I recently snagged Pathfinder Chronicles: Seekers of Secrets at the FLGS after some of my players wished to know more about the lodge in Magnimar, and the closest Lodge to The Stolen Lands. The book is a wealth of history, fluff, and other enjoyable bits, but the one thing that has consistently bugged me is the dearth of information on the physical Pathfinder Chronicles books themselves, in-world. Yes, we've been given snippets of a few, but the details my players and I have actually brought up, I have no answers for. Namely: 1. How big is a typical volume? They're repeatedly called "chapbooks", which while a vague term of itself, has semi-consistently referred to a small-sized, short (i.e. <50 pages, typically, sometimes just a pamphlet) cheaply-printed book. Yet, "...many volumes come packed with maps, trap diagrams, and detailed explanations..." 1 (emphasis mine). A page length, physical dimensions, etc. would be rather helpful. 2. How frequently are the Chronicles produced? While Volumes 1-5 are touted as being some of the more popular original editions, we're not given a good idea of how frequent they're put out. In Pathfinder AP #1: Burnt Offerings, it lists Volume 56 as being "published in the last decade" 2. Seekers of Secrets quietly changes this volume's number to 36 3. So I did the math. Being generous and assuming that Volume 56/36 was published in 4697 AR (one decade before 4707, when PF#1 is set), and given that the first Chronicles volume was published in 4317 AR 4, that gives us a 380 year time span.
3a. Is this correct? For an organization with so many agents and projects going on at any given time, this number seems bizarrely low.
4. Given the wealth of information the Decemvirate receives, is each volume only one to three tales (as implicated in the selected volume summaries), or would each volume have a few major stories in detail, and then have short appendices or brief "news release"-style mention of notable, but less "epic" finds? 1: Seekers of Secrets p. 42
My demented GMing brain has determined that with the appropriate recasting and use of Engrish, my Kingmaker game would make an amusingly typical Super Robot TV series. BEHOLD! SUPER STEEL SAVIOUR KING MAKA On the peaceful planet RACEWIND in the Space Kingdom of BERUVO, humans and demi-humans live in peace. But this peace is broken when PITAXIAN STEEL SOLDIERS under DARK KING IROVETSU of the EMPIRE OF NUMERION attack RACEWIND. Now, RACEWIND's only hope lies in three young heroes: MASHIRO, dashing captain of the SAPPHIRE GUARDIANS and master of the ARUDORI-KEN sword style, the android hacker N.O.R.A., and the mysterious amnesiac girl TARA. The three heroes stumble across PROJECT KOROBADU, finding that RACEWIND had secretly built their own STEEL SOLDIERS for just such an occasion, the FAUSTUS MARK IV. But to defeat the DARK KING and the PITAXIANS, the FAUSTUS shall have to find true strength and combine to form...SUPER STEEL SAVIOUR KING MAKA!! And of course, the dubbed import was called...Kingmaker! Liner Notes: RACEWIND = Leithawyn, my party's Kingdom
BERUVO = Brevoy PITAXIAN = Pitax DARK KING IROVETSU = Castruccio Irovetti NUMERION = Numeria MASHIRO = Marcian, party leader and Aldori sword scion SAPPHIRE GUARDIANS = The party is known as the Order of the Sapphire Star ARUDORI-KEN = Aldori sword style N.O.R.A. = Party mage, "Nora" Nordlara TARA = Party tank, an amnesiac named Taladael, who's had several years to build a new identity PROJECT KOROBADU = "kobold", since my party's Kingdom allied with them FAUSTUS MARK IV = Marcian's fabricated surname, i.e. "Marcian Faustus IV" SUPER STEEL SAVIOUR KING MAKA = Kingmaker, as seen above
Hail and well met, fellow Kingmakers! Although I'm having a blast running Kingmaker (and so are my players), I've been sort of miffed at the maps. They're beautiful and the Map Folio is handy for the GM, but there's no real way to hand them to your players and say "here". Likewise, whether playing in person or via a number of online means, so far the only real options have been using the Player Guide's blank template or using a "Fog of War" approach. I figure the basic lay of the land shouldn't be a surprise—the PCs should know where Restov is, for example. So, I broke out the Photoshop Fu, combining the populated maps and PDF-extractor'ified maps to make maps that have solely the terrain, extant settlements, and so forth, with "A." to "Z."-style markers filed off. Hopefully, these should be useful to my fellow GM's and players:
Likewise, there's no composite map of the four Stolen Lands region, and I think I know why: the maps don't exactly match; there's some overlap horizontally and they don't quite match vertically. Also, the grid between the Hooktongue Slough and the Greenbelt just doesn't match. Still, it gives you a good idea of the scope of the campaign.
Enjoy and tell me what you think!
I rarely deal with intelligent items, but upon rereading and comparing Pathfinder's to the 3.5 OGL rules, it's rather pleasant to have more modular rules instead of fixed special abilities. But to be frank, I think some of the weaker abilities are easier on the average GM's games. An intelligent sword that can cast endure elements on you or mage armor when its wielder helps it with its dedicated purpose is a bit more flavorful and less likely to "break" a game than the holy sword capable of holy smite thrice a day and auto-true resurrecting its wielder while questing. Thus said, I think it'd be easier to use intelligent magic items with powers more piddly than what are currently on the list. I'm looking for thoughts and suggestions on the following: 1. On powers, there's sections for 0th-level spells at will, 1st spells 3/day, and it jumps up the ranks for 2nd through 4th spells, priced both at 1/day and 3/day. What would the price and ego (presumably +1) of the ability to cast a 1st level spell 1/day or the ability to cast a 0th-level effect 3/day? Dare I ask about 0th level effects 1/day? 2. On dedicated powers, the list starts at 4th-level at-will and moves up from there? What of 1st-3rd level at-will dedicated powers? What of dedicated spellcasting powers not at will, such as 1/day or 3/day? Would one simply use the prices from the non-dedicated list? Would there be a reduction in prices if this method were used, because the powers were situational? Thanks in advance.
Addendum: I would have posted this in the /Pathfinder/Adventure Path section, but you can't post to that root; merely each campaign's sub-forum. So it's here for now. Also, fun facts. Throughout the adventure paths released thus far(#1-31), you will find:
And of course, 5 full campaigns thus far.
A question for those more knowledgeable than I concerning OGL matters:
I understand the purpose of the product identity clause is to prevent both the whole reprinting of those elements and to provide confusion over the original ownership of an idea. More specifically, WotC developed a number of character classes, feats, and spells that are non-OGL. The Pathfinder Compatibility License allows one to references elements from the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and allowed accessories. There's no similar clear statement in the WotC OGL. Could one create an OGL work that, for instance, creates feats for the knight, invocations for the warlock, or references a spell from the Spell Compendium with the proper references, or would such a work be taboo and consigned to community content? KQ has discussed the warlock class, and third parties (Adamant Entertainment springs to mind) have published new class abilities for 4e content, but I've not found anything definitive for the 3.5 OGL. Any help would be very much appreciated. |