Evil Midnight Lurker's page

I vote for sample pony PC races with the race building kit.

Humbly,
Yawar

A bard that seduces women with his tentacles.

I'd like to go back to the days when a game system could be expected to go 10-12+ years before people even start to think about a new edition. This "New edition" craze is tiresome, and irritating. Games do not need to be constantly replaced. Not when the Adventure model is more sustainable and kinder to fans wallets.

I would only want to see a Pathfinder 2e if it were because Paizo contacted Wizards of the Coast and told them "the best thing you can do is just sell the entire Dungeons & Dragons franchise <with all it's content and copyrights, etc.> to us now for a bargain rate" and WotC said yes.

Otherwise, I would hope for a much longer cycle as many others have said between editions.

All righty, then...

1 How did samsarans as a whole come to be? Can humans who aren't samsarans' children be reincarnated as samsarans?

2 Are samsarans born to human parents?

3 How much social pressure is there, on both sides, to give up the children to the other race? Do human parents ever raise samsaran children, or vice versa?

4 What is the history of Zi Ha? How did it come to be the samsaran homeland? A "lack of young children" is described, does this mean that samsaran children born elsewhere are not sent to Zi Ha? Do samsarans just pop into existence as adults, like 4th ed. devas?

...I think that covers all the most vital "missing" elements, and in any case I'm too tired to think of anything else, so good night and thanks for putting up with me. :)

(I numbered your questions for ease of reference...)

1) Samsarans are old; one of the oldest races in the Dragon Empires. They did not exist before Earthfall, but after the Age of Darkness, they had appeared. In spots all over, but mostly in Zi Ha and nearby, where they seemed to be drawn by a mystic pull. Where exactly they came from is actually a mystery, but those who believe that Tian Xia's original humans were the result of the dead of Azlant reincarnating on the opposite side of the world that the samsarans are the reincarnations of the particularly religious of Azlant. This is, of course, only one of many theories...

Human parents can certainly raise samsaran children, or vice-versa, but prejuduce (usually against samsarans) runs deep in many parts of the world, where folks are freaked out by the way samsarans are.

2) Nope. No samsaran is ever "born" in a biological sense. They incarnate out of past lives.

3) In most samsaran societies there's a lot of social pressure, since a human raised in a samsaran society won't come to learn the values of humanity, and thus, the fear is that when that person dies, they won't reincarnate as a samsaran at all. Being able to grow up as a human among humans is important to spiritual growth, believe most samsarans. I suspect some samsarans buck the trend and keep their kids, but they do so secretly or go into self-exile to do so.

4) The history of Zi Ha is actually pretty shrouded in mystery. There's a lot of danger there... but SOMETHING in the region draws those souls with a prediliction for reincarnation as samsarans to the region. The thing that does draw them there is not known to outsiders, and not even known to most samsarans. It's actually one of THOSE secrets that I'm kinda playing close to the chest for now since, some day, it'd make a cool thing to do something with...

The "lack of young children" means that when a new samsaran incarnates from a previous life, they tend to be older (teenagers) and not toddlers, infants, or the like. They DO just pop into existance (I'm not familiar with how 4E devas work) but do so as children... ranging from babies to teenagers, but are usually teenagers. And those who DO incarnate don't always do so in Zi Ha; they have to make their way there, after all, and that's dangerous. Many die along the way, only to reincarnate again and again, getting closer to Zi Ha each time until finally they make it... by which point the majority are no longer "young children" but on the cusp of adulthood.

I for one can't wait until the whining about the Year of Asian-Themed Pathfinder Products comes to an end. Asian-themed has had 1 Companion and 1 Chronicle. These have been hotly anticipated in general and also unavoidably delayed, so they've been talked about for longer than would be normal. There is half an AP in the Orient. There are two alternate classes and some archetypes in Ultimate Combat. This 'onslaught' is really piffling as onslaughts go. More of an offslaught. Not that facts should really get in the way of these discussions, of course.