Mr. Quick's page

maybe Wish or Limited Wish could temporarily remove (or maybe shift and/or trade off) the daylight vulnerability?

alternatively, a vampire necromancer could create simulacrums of him/herself (or someone who looks close enough) and then just magic jar them. pop their actual body somewhere safe, maybe stuffed inside a portable hole or something and just wander around in the daylight without any of their vampire weaknesses or powers.

see, I think I'd like to see a witch coven in action player characters, but I really don't like the idea that they NEED an NPC monster in order for it to work. that seems like a wasted hex, and rather limiting thematically speaking (c'mon! witch covens rock! and it's awesome for players to make a party of witches and go do witchy things).

ok, so lets venture into territory that's different from RAW. perhaps the coven can still be formed however...they don't get ALL the hag coven abilities unless they've got an actual hag into the coven. they 'only' get the hex ability as listed in the description - a caster level boost. that's actually not a bad balance, least when I think about it.

hmm.

with the new AP Skull and Shackles coming out, i've been reading up on the places near where the AP will presumably take place. And one of the most striking features of that area of the world is, of course, the Eye of Abendego.

what I think I know about the Eye - it formed at the same time Aroden died. it's a permanent storm. nobody's been to the center of the storm, or if they have they kept quiet about it. there's rumors of at least one ship found floating out of the Eye intact but missing it's crew, and the ship being relatively pristine despite being almost a century old.

questions:

*why* did the Eye form? was something in that area intimately connected to Aroden? or was Aroden himself in that area when he died? If the Eye formed when Aroden died, maybe it formed around the place where he died as well...if so, could the Eye be protecting Aroden's corpse?

what was in the center of the Eye before that storm kicked off? What was known about the history of that place prior to Aroden's death?

suppositions:

somehow and for some reason, the Eye is connected to Aroden. either he died there or something intimately connected to him is at the center of the storm, with the storm forming a barrier around it once Aroden died. possible temporal anomolies could be at the center of the Eye, perhaps the center of the storm is a portal to a demi-plane. it seems unlikely that there is any active intelligence behind the Eye of Abendego, which rules out any sort of conspiracy or plot...meaning that if someone could penetrate into the center of that storm, they could plunder its' treasures without consequences (or less consequnces than would be the norm anyways).

thoughts? comments? suggestions?

I've skimmed my PDF copy of this book and I *like* it!

I particularly look forward to giving my players expanded options on Tiefling characters. one note though - the Quillipoth horrors might not even understand/recognize (or care!) that humanity has two genders. Given that those things violate reality as much as they violate their victims...its possible that they might 'infect' male OR female victims as hosts for their tiefling spawn.

just a little something to give your players a bit more squick factor when considering potential storylines/backgrounds for your newly minted squid horror child.

I don't think i've ever seen a bad product from these guys. I'll look into this book next payday. i'm sure I"ll find a use for it.

The other thing that this AP is going to need is a system for being a merchant, buying in one port several tonnes of X and selling it in another. Perhaps the booty system will accommodate that; I hope so.

I would LOVE to see some sort of economic system in the new AP.

If we assume that the Starstone is power unrestrained by morality or even sanity, we can also further assume it's going to do...strange things...to the environment around it.

Which leads one to speculate just what is up with that cathedral in the center of Absalom. As I recall (and correct me if i'm wrong), Aroden built that cathedral as a place to keep the starstone. But what if he put that rock into that cathedral not to keep it safe, but to imprison it?

lets shift focus for a moment. Aroden raises the starstone from the sea and it makes him a god...but Aroden manages to not go completely bug eyed insane at the sudden influx of power (power without morality or restraint is generally considered 'evil'). Realizing that this hell rock can and will do this to damn near anyone it judges worthy (and Aroden has only a dim understanding of that process at best) he figures that the best he can do is lock it up until he can figure out what to do with it.

Aroden knows the starstone is somehow connected to the aboleth. it's reasonable to suspect that the starstone itself is somehow tied to the Dark Tapestry. it is power eternal, free and awesome and completely amoral. it turns mortals into gods. That cathedral isn't there to test people...it's there to keep reality safe from itself!

But even Aroden isn't able to contain the starstone. that rock is on a mission to turn people into gods and not even Aroden can stop it. maybe it's not actually sentient, but running something akin to a 'magical computer program' of sorts. We can discuss that later. The point is that the starstone corrupts Aroden's attempt to imprison it and turns the cathedral into the mysterious 'test of the starstone'. Maybe it's adjusting it's test so as to produce violent and insane gods. maybe it's refining it's process until it can finally find the ONE mortal it needs in order to complete it's mission and make a new god that directly worships the Great Old Ones.

slightly divergent, but bear with me...

assume for a moment that the starstone was a source of immense (if unfocused) power. the aboleth decide that, for whatever reason, humanity needs a beat down. So here's this immense source of extra-terrestrial power already floating around up there in the dark tapestry...the aboleth, being efficient little slime beasts, decide to kill two birds with one stone (so to speak) - they call down the hell rock to smash their former servants AND leave open the possibility of getting their tentacles on a source of incredible power.

But they bite off more than they can chew. the starstone is power unrestrained - it does what the aboleth want...but it does it to a degree that also hurts the aboleth. which when you think about it is basically the starstone's schtick - it responds to...well, lets call it 'purity of purpose'. Or at least for the time being. Power unrestrained, power needed (or wanting) a focus. power without morality too for that matter. Aroden pulled the hell rock out of the sea and it made him a god. But why? Because he was true to himself and THAT sort of focus - inhuman focus and willpower - is what the starstone best responds too. And the other humans that rock elevated to gods - they were also inhumanly focused on their innermost desires. Sometimes that turned out well and sometimes it turned people into evil gods...but in any case it was power unrestrained until focused by human will sharpened to an almost insane degree. how you get there isn't important, it's the will and focus that matters.

so where's the lovecraftian angle? well think about it - Nylarthotep has always destroyed humans by basically giving them what they want, in most cases pure power. By giving humans access to an artifact of unspeakable power and allowing them to ascend to (literally!) god like power, he somehow advances the goals of the Great Old Ones. So from a certain perspective the starstone could be an insidious long term plot by the crawling chaos to encourage humanity to become gods and/or create massive chaos and unrest among human societies.

I apologize for the convoluted reasoning. it's hot as hell today and I think my brain is sweating.

Now, Asmodeus. If ever a country needed a Tea Party (and that is debatable) it's yours. Somehow I see a good old-fashioned tax revolt somewhere in your future. I'm getting weird images of Grover Norquist being martyred on the rack by your inquisitor.

the demon cultist priestess of Noctila (NPC character) has actually turned out to be the nicest and most approachable character in the kingdom.

it's driving the inquisitor nuts. he's trying to promote the worship of Law and unyielding Order and the NPC priestess is not only making tons more money than his organization but winning people over to her viewpoints left and right.

Granted, the kingdom thinks the priestess is actually a priestess of Callistra and not a demon worshipping cultist but still...

Inquisitor: 'obey the might and power of Asmodeus! obedience is it's own reward!'

demon sex goddess: 'one free drink and 15% off any one sex act to everyone who attends church services this week!'

[town hits the bordello in a giant horde]

Inquisitor: 'I don't get it. I've got whips too, gods dammit!'

I wonder how Treerazor would fair against a good old fashioned artillery barrage? keep casting True Strike on the cannon crew for that +20 to attack rolls, and blow the crap outta him.

hmm. there are logistical difficulties to be overcome with that plan though.

104. no, you may not name your gunmage 'Allister Caine'.
105. there are no rules for warjacks in pathfinder.
106. THERE ARE NO RULES FOR WARJACKS IN PATHFINDER!
107. attempts to invent a pathfinder friendly conversion of the Cankerworm will result in immediate loss of all mountain dew.

Years back, I was running a Greyhawk campaign. The players were moderately high level (14-ish I believe) and during one of their tomb raiding binges, they found a ring that raidiated very strong (if non-specific) magic. the party wizard did the usual and attempted his identify check...but blew the roll with a 1. In a moment of frustration, he (in character) said 'dammit! I wish I knew what this ring did!"

...and that day I learned the true value of a DM screen as the players pelted me with dice, cards, and empty soda cans as I ran for the door....

As I understand it, and please correct me if i'm wrong, but House Thrune (and the other human ruler of cheliax) see the devils as 'hired help', NOT as equal partners. And being true blue bloods to the end, one simply does not date the hired help, or treat them as any sort of equal.

So a Tiefling spawn would be a major social embarrassment.

I was pondering a campaign involving Cheliax, specifically the border between Cheliax and Andoran. I think the potential for conflict there has great potential...but along the way I started to ponder what sort of changes devils might make to human society.

Back to the books I went. I pulled my copy of Fiendish Codex II off the shelves. While plenty of detail was there concerning the politics of Hell, I found the details on infernally influenced realms to be somewhat lacking.

So I started to speculate. As hinted at in the codex, devils would start to shape mortal realms to reflect the philosophy of Hell itself - unbending, inflexible rule of of Law and Evil (in that order).

With that in mind, i'm wondering about the details of just how the infernals might warp an entire society towards their ideal lawful and evil society.

I guess the most obvious place to start would be with schools. I'd imagine that one of the first things that infernals would do is to make education of the young to be a priority. reach mortal children before they can be 'corrupted' by good or chaos. set up a system that teaches and rewards kids when they commit acts of lawful evil intent. something like hogwarts, only warped and very abusive. A system of snitches, encourage upper classmen to abuse younger students. plus you can educate your human workers to be useful in maintaining the nuts and bolts of your new society.

Aside from a system of 'elite' schools, I was thinking that the next obvious choice would be to encourage a strong legal system. you can manipulate society in all sorts of ways by passing laws to force changes in behavior. tax law, criminal code, contract law...even regulations on food prep and 'safety laws' could be used to make people used to restrictive intrusions into their personal lives. Then you encourage people to lobby for loopholes and make them commit minor acts of corruption and evil in order to obtain a dispensation from harsh and expensive laws.

hmm. I suppose there's also the matter of secret police to consider but again, that's fairly obvious. I'd imagine Cheliax to be a place where people have traded freedom for safety. where their basic needs are met, but they are always watched over, spied upon, regulated, taxed, numbered and stamped. A place where they can only get a break from the stifling and oppressive rules by selling a tiny bit of their soul...and just when they're getting used to that breath of fresh air - the door slams shut and the devils clamp the chains back on their feet.

Random thoughts:

fashion - uniform, bland, rigid and unimaginative. functional over flashy.

Food - basic nutritional needs met, spices heavily taxed and regulated.

Basic necessities of life would be subjected to engineered shortages, black market in luxury goods and items would be tightly controlled.

Art - propaganda, religious instruction...art for the sake of art would be an alien concept...and maybe driven underground. artists as rebels?

Anyways, that's just my rantings on the subject. insomnia is a terrible thing! any suggestions or comments?