Going forward, please continue to inform us when you run into this issue Hi and thanks for responding. I just want to ask one small thing for the inevitable post-mortem that will happen after this is resolved: please look into what happened to email that went to customer.service@paizo.com. I know that I've been sending periodic emails to that address since Dec 13 about this issue (including screenshots, partial workarounds, etc.) and if those were not making it to the technical folks, that's a real problem that is perhaps more worrisome than the technical issue itself. I do this sort of thing for a living, so I know that now is not the time to be asking anyone to look into that, and I also know that I'll likely never hear back about it. I just want to make sure that it's something people in the company are aware of.
I'm still perplexed that, after Swine Flu and Avian Flu, the flu that seems to have come from bats isn't called the Bat Flu. Hi Set, I didn't see a response to this, and it's important so let me take a shot. Swine Flu and Avian Flu are informal names given to diseases which were first seen to jump to humans from those animals. As Nature discussed in its November 2020 article, "Coronaviruses closely related to the pandemic virus discovered in Japan and Cambodia," there are known strains of coronavirus in bats that are closely related to SARS-Cov-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19 in humans). However, there has never been any conclusive evidence that bats were the immediate vector for this disease jumping to humans. It was an early hypothesis due to the number of wild bats sold at markets in Wuhan, but was never conclusively confirmed. That being said, this disease is caused by a coronavirus, not the influenza virus, so even if a conclusive link were found, it would be inaccurate to call it "bat flu" because it's not a flu (short for influenza). So on two different counts, "bat flu," would be incorrect. COVID-19 is short for "Coronavirus disease, 2019" and that's pretty descriptive of what this disease is and what we know about it.
I'm working on a way to map out the families of Golarion's languages. So far, what I have is this: If you want to save a copy of the original drawing to edit yourself, here it is.
*Stats from the 3rd Ed Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting Hardcover D&D 3rd ed post-20 levels can't reasonably be compared to Pathfinder post-20 levels. Pathfinder explicitly dropped all of those rules (and I think the OGL actually has some clause related to not including class levels beyond 20, but I was unable to find it in a quick read). At best, it's pretty obvious that Pathfinder 1e post-20 CRs are intended as more or less linear increases in power over 20 (e.g. a level 20 party should feel that a CR 22 creature poses a "hard" challenge while a CR 23 creature is an "epic" encounter. This was the point of introducing Mythic levels: CRs only increase in a relatively linear way (though numerical power is not linear) and that's not how stories of gods and beings from beyond typically scale. It makes a lot more sense to ask: what has a given character been shown to do? What sorts of stories in Golarion feature similar power-levels? And then map them that way. For example, a being capable of creating an army of the dead the size of a nation would be comparable to the Whispering Tyrant while a being that can create an entire nation by lifting land out of the sea and sculpting it into a city-state would be comparable to Aroden. But if you're just a wizard, capable of throwing around really big fireballs and making powerful magical weapons, then you're probably more Razmir-calibre.
The information for 1st edition dragons works fine for those guidelines of what unique abilities might kick in at what age category. This might be a place where the internal sense at Paizo is contaminated by the familiarity with the system(s). For the vast majority of people trying to use the rules, I imagine that the lack of age categories on dragons is an insurmountable hurdle without some fixed rules for how to augment creatures, and that doesn't land for another ... what, year? six months? Is there a release date for the GMG? Even for experienced players, it can be incredibly hard to get balance right, which is exactly why you want experts crafting the specifics. Now, I understand the space limitations and the advantage of saving that space. I'm just suggesting that you shouldn't be surprised that that leaves a lot of players who aren't constantly working in the internals of the system without many options, and that makes them frustrated.
I'm concerned that this is a misstep (though a great AP, I'm sure, given Paizo's usual standards). The Hobbit comes out in two parts starting in December. Having an adventure path come out right around that time that reminds players of Pathfinder's Tolkienesque roots would be wise. A Five Kings Mountains themed adventure would have, perhaps, gathered more new subscribers than a second tour of the wintery parts of Golarion in less than two years (since the middle part of Jade Regent was a trek over the top of the world). Five Kings Mountains has everything that someone exploring tabletop roleplaying for the first time is likely to want: dwarves, proximity to orcs and elves and humans, underground communities and a wealth of lore that is, thus far, not terribly well explored in Paizo's offerings. I'm assuming it's too late to turn the ship 'round, but perhaps you could keep this in mind for the second half of next year?
Looks like Paizo is helping out (or at least lending their name) with a sequel to The Gamers: Dorkness Rising called The Gamers: Hands of Fate. This is great news! I loved Dorkness Rising! It was definitely exactly what a gamer movie should be like. The kickstarter is here (75% funded, 10 days to go): http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zombieorpheus/the-gamers-hands-of-fate To quote: "For years, fans asked us if we would consider using the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game in the next Gamers film. We heard you! Paizo has not only cleared us to use their awesome gaming system, but will be co-sponsoring The Gamers Live at Gen Con Indy, assisting us with distribution, and letting us steal Sean Reynolds for the following tie-in project." ... I'm just pleased as punch, and can't wait for my copy!
Mind Flayers make perfectly decent homebrew Lovecraftian villains. If your campaign has a decent body of water in proximity, you might also want to consider Skum and perhaps my own campaign's half-Skum, half Qlippoth-Spawn Tiefling:
So, for an alternate perspective on this, let me get all real-worldy on you: There's this guy. His name is Ralph. He works for Google and lives in Silicon Valley. He wonders if the tech world is silicon-valley-centric. After all, he uses a cell phone that runs his company's operating system (and competes against another cell phone brand from just down the street); every cool new startup he's heard of is here in the valley; he works on a desktop that was made by HP, which is just down the street. So, clearly the center of the tech universe is Silicon Valley. In South Korea, there's this guy. His name is Jung and he works for LG and lives in Seoul. He wonders if the tech world is Seoul-centric. After all, he uses a cell phone that his company made (and competes against another cell phone brand from just down the street); every cool new startup he's heard of is here in the valley; he works on a desktop that was made by Samsung, which is just down the street. So, clearly the center of the tech universe is Silicon Valley. They're both right, of course. The interesting thing to ask is: what's the equivalent of the Silicon Valley resident who thinks about where his phone's OS was made, but gives no thought to where the phone's hardware was made? I'll note that there are many deities and powerful outsiders in Golarion's pantheon who are called out as being particularly strange and alien. Perhaps they are the core deities on other worlds? Are the central gods of some alien, aquatic world Gozreh (who alternates between all 10 genders) and Dagon (whose mastery over the Abyss is only rarely challenged by obscure land-dwelling demons of strange and alien origin)?
I'm starting a side project that's part of my Golarion-based campaign, "On Golarion's Roads" called "Nano-Gazetteers". These are short documents which chronicle small locations like a specific street or hill, and try to give as in-depth an account as possible of what goes on there. My focus is on maintaining continuity with existing source materials, while fleshing out as much detail as possible. The first such document is still a work in progress, but I thought I'd share it as I get started and see what people think. Would you use a reference like this in your campaign? Work in Progress: Nano-Gazetteer: North Stair to Misery Row, Absalom
Rather than see a PFRPG update to this book, I think a set of 3 new books, one for each layer of the darklands would be nice (though, preferably, not all at once - February is already smiting my wallet). Just covering one segment at a time could also give you room to bring some crunch into play, though I understand you want to avoid the nuclear proliferation of (prestige) classes that was classic 3.5. Perhaps some iconic magic items. I'm still in love with the flesh-implanted ioun stone idea from the first PFAP series, and it would be keen to see some underused items from the core book get a cultural and mechanical update in the darklands. Beyond that, I'd love to hear some of the crazy things from real-world caving get brought in. Recent discoveries in Earths caves include: * The role that "bacterial snots" play in cave formation: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Bacteria-Snots-Form-Caves-42720.shtml
In terms of mapping... that's the hardest part. Caves are inherently more 3D than anything we deal with on a regular basis. How do you accurately portray that? Can you ever have a map like the Inner Sea map that conveys the scope and breadth of the Darklands without feeling myopically 2D?
My campaign is going to take the characters on a trip from Magnimar to Korvosa in a combination of land and water transport. They'll pass through Wartle, Whistledown, Melfesh and Palin's Cove. I'd love to have folks pick apart my descriptions of these towns and tell me if I'm off-base in any of the established lore or if anything that I'm inventing whole-cloth just doesn't fit. Wartle:
Read aloud: As you pass through a clot of swamp trees, akin to mangrove, but darker and with a red fungus that seems pervasive in the swampier regions through which you’ve passed, you see a few, small buildings. Paradoxically, as the land turns to bog and swamp, the buildings grow denser. The town before you is actually built on the swamp, most of the structures are raised up on stilts, and the road rises up out of the muck on a wood-plank boardwalk. Just at the edge of the boardwalk is a stone statue of a turtle. The statue is covered in green moss, but appears to be immune to the otherwise pervasive red fungus. Water streams out of its shell in sheets, a mesmerizing and pleasant effect. OOC: The town of Wartle is relatively safe for a night’s stay. Room rates are cheap and the drink is served communally: a brew known as Bog Grog which is an herbal moonshine somewhere between absinthe and a wheat beer. Disgusting though that may sound, Bog Grog actually works its way into the hearts of many travellers, and some in Magnimar have actually started to import the stuff, though straining out the chunks is usually required for such export efforts. Whistledown:
Read Aloud: The flat-bottomed boat you have taken up-stream rounds its final bend of its journey. Ahead, lies a town of quaint, whitewashed houses, trimmed scrub and gilded leaves on trees with marbled white and black bark. At first, a handful seem to be strangely over-sized, but as you near it becomes clear that it is the bulk of the buildings which are, in fact, quite small. In the air, a faint ringing sounds in a warbling, sometimes whistling, but seemingly random tune. The crimson-and-green-haired, 3 and a half foot-tall boatmaster approaches your group as his first-mate makes for the dock and offers, “if this is your first time, I don’t recommend trying to stay in one of the smaller inns. The Azure Cup is intended for folk of your stature, and it’s a right pleasant place to pause.” OOC: If the PCs stay at the Azure Cup, they will find the prices nominal and the food palatable, but the entertainment is exquisite. They currently host a travelling elven bard who quietly chants out the stories of his travels for most of the night, launching into an epic poem to an upbeat lute tune at the end of the evening. His playing is, as far as any lesser trained ear can tell, perfect. The stories of his travels illuminate much of the nature of the nations to the east including the constant war in Nirmathas, the watchful king of Lastwall, the undead atrocities of Ustalav, and hearty barbarians of Numeria. The poem he sings is about the creation of the Worldwound and the valiant ranks of Mendevian paladins that wage perpetual battles against the unholy wretches that it belches forth. Palin's Cove:
Read Aloud: Having passed south overland from Melfesh, through the small town of Baslwief and then continued to the south, you now find yourself cresting a grass-covered hill in the noon heat of what feels like a summer day. Over the rise, you see a town of slate roofs and red brick buildings. The streets are mostly hard-packed earth, but a cobblestone-paved street or two can be glimpsed in the industrial center of the town. That industrial center is also choked with a thick, dark-grey cloud of what appears to be smoke and ash pouring from the chimneys of large mill-like buildings, through whose few windows you occasionally glimpse an orange glow that could be the inside of a furnace or some glass or metal in a molten state. Near these buildings, giant machines of war: catapults, balistae and siege engines are turned on their sides and laid on barges in narrow canals that file past the mill-like buildings in orderly fashion. As you get closer the smell of sulphur and other pungent odors waft your way from the smoky town. OOC: This is the factory-town of Palin’s Cove which produces most of the war machines for Varisia and even a goodly chunk of those exported to nearby nations. The PCs may choose not to stay here because of the atmospheric conditions which are compounded by a series of hills to the east which trap much of Palin’s Cove’s pollution over itself. However, if they do stay, they’ll find the city boisterous, warm and overflowing with some of the most varied alcoholic imports in Varisia. In fact, Palin’s Cove has a proud tradition of being able to get their hands on anything from Wartle’s Bog Grog to sweet berry liqueurs from the dark depths of Garund! The three prominent inns of the small city vie for this distinction and each spend a sizable portion of their magins on such exotic imports. 
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