When taking the Avenging Runelord dedication feat, a character should be allowed to choose which ability score to use for the spells gained from this destiny. Currently these spells are all innate spells, which means they're all exclusively based on Charisma. This makes this destiny a bad choice for Runelord Wizards (!!!) or any other non-CHA based character. Sorcerers, Oracles, Bards, and Thaumaturges can make much better use of this destiny than INT- or WIS-classes, like Runelord Wizards or Clerics of Lissala, which feels wrong.
This in particular is an excellent homebrew rule, and I fully support its use in games that use the Avenging Runelord.
The process of issuing errata for adventures is kind of non-extant—we generally don't have the time or resources to do things like this. It MAY be in the future, when Adventure Paths are fully contained in hardcovers and are thus less onerous to reprint, that errata to things like this could take place, but again that would STILL depend on our time and resources. And since rule content in adventures is more complex to orcestrate errata for because that process should involve both the adventure developer and the Rules team (unlike, say, errata for a rulebook, which doesn't require adventure developer input), that's one more reason why you don't see "official adventure errata" as often.
Also, I strongly feel that the 2E mythic rules work best when their options DO incorporate thematically and directly into an adventure narrative, since that's one of the underlying design philosophies for the 2E mythic rules (for example, see Revenge of the Runelords' support/advice on how often and when to specifically replenish Mythic Points in a context tied directly to the ebb and flow of the adventure itself). GMs who want to run a Mythic adventure might find it useful to read through Myth-Speaker and Revenge of the Runelords to see these suggestions, and/or engage with other GMs online to share their experiences.
Anyway... glad to hear folks are enjoying these expansions for Revenge of the Runelords, and thanks also for the feedback!
Just never include them as antagonists. Then you don't need stats.
That was for sure an option (treating those one-time level 26–30 foes in the same way we've always treated full-fledged deities), and probably the best one from a rules side, but a gross and undesirable and frustrating one from the narrative side, since we HAD included them as antagonists in 1st edition.
A big part of the decision to finally do mythic did come from the desire to not invalidate those types of stories, because invalidating a type of story between editions is frustrating to those who enjoy those stories.
It's not something an RPG game publisher can always do perfectly between editions, but it's something we strove for, or at least to minimize.
If the concept of mythic HAD never re-emerged into 2e, what was the plan to 'power-scale' the formerly mythic NPCs? Just make levels beyond the normal limit perhaps?
On that note, Revenge looks amazing overall. Got my second book in recently and I cannot wait for a chance to run it.
If the concept of mythic had never emerged, we would have just put those previously mythic NPCs and creatures in the level 21–25 range. Probably skewed toward 24 or 25. Which would have felt weird from an in-world perspective, having Treerazer be "as powerful" as Cyth-V'sug, for example. But compressing what was previously CR 25 to CR 30 down to all be level 25 would have worked in a game where level 20 non-mythic would be the standard. Weird and confusing for a while to those who knew the previous game's rules and lore, but not impossible to do.
The tricky part was instead coming to that decision—whether to do mythic or not. Because as long as we were in a "We don't know when or if we'll do this, or if we never will" mode for the first several years of 2E's release schedule, we simply had to hold stories like "Fight Xanderghul" off in the "do it later and maybe never" category. And even after we decided to do mythic... it was still a few years until we could responsibly take a shot at that story.
Side note: Originally, the plan was to have the mythic rules out quite a bit earlier, with Revenge of the Runelords potentially coming out within a year of Seven Dooms for Sandpoint, but then the OGL thing happened and the remastering had to take place and everything got pushed back a year or two. Yet another lesson to me to never trust the stability of the future when making long-term story plans, I guess! :)
Anyway! We never really started to think about how to re-scale the power for the 1E mythic creatures/NPCs, because work on that topic was irresponsible and a waste of time to start before we'd made a choice to never do mythic rules. Until then, we were MOSTLY assuming it would follow the scaling of 1E, with mythic threats being in the level 26–30 range (to correspond to the CR scale, to which we'd stuck pretty close to when converting monsters from a CR scale to a level scale between 1st and 2nd edition). That's why you saw a few artifacts and mentions of creatures being above level 25 in earlier OGL products... that was our best effort at "future proofing."
Turns out that level 25 is the max in Pathfinder, so those above level 25 mentions get errata now when we go back to them.
I've been thinking about this, and I'm not sure exactly how many of the alghollthu are workable in ORC from either PF1E or 3.5, but I do really like the idea of presenting them in a book as some kind of society block or faction. It's just that they're a faction in a war, political struggle, land dispute, whatever you want to call it that doesn't really factor in most playable ancestries as worthy of consequence.
It's a specific subset of cosmic horror that focuses on alien factions battling each other and not really caring about the everyday people who get ground up in their machines of conflict. I think presenting an aberration-focused book in the style of raving reports about these factions--the Alghollthu, the Dominion of the Black, the Old Cults, whatever wormy faction neothelids are part of--would be an awesome way to introduce lots of themed aberrations to new players, and give them a new coat of paint, or slime, while we're at it.
The only alghollthus we lost to the OGL are the aboleths and the skum. All the rest are ones we invented, and we can make replacements for those two pretty easilly.
Awesome to hear! I'm guessing you wouldn't be able to re-use the name ulat-kini, though? I know that's splitting hairs to ask; I just like the name and like saying it.
I made up the name "ulat-kini" for "Into the Darklands," so that name is absolutely one we could use. We can't use the word "skum" for them though, and in any event we decided to not move forward with them as they were in 1E. We might reuse the name in other contexts at some point, but for now, faceless stalkers are taking the place of the "humanoid" minions.
I've been thinking about this, and I'm not sure exactly how many of the alghollthu are workable in ORC from either PF1E or 3.5, but I do really like the idea of presenting them in a book as some kind of society block or faction. It's just that they're a faction in a war, political struggle, land dispute, whatever you want to call it that doesn't really factor in most playable ancestries as worthy of consequence.
It's a specific subset of cosmic horror that focuses on alien factions battling each other and not really caring about the everyday people who get ground up in their machines of conflict. I think presenting an aberration-focused book in the style of raving reports about these factions--the Alghollthu, the Dominion of the Black, the Old Cults, whatever wormy faction neothelids are part of--would be an awesome way to introduce lots of themed aberrations to new players, and give them a new coat of paint, or slime, while we're at it.
The only alghollthus we lost to the OGL are the aboleths and the skum. All the rest are ones we invented, and we can make replacements for those two pretty easilly.
We're glad you like it, LoreMonger13! As a fan of purple scary things, I love them too!
One of these days you fine folks at Paizo are gonna have to tell us what the heck actually happens to the future if a Time Dragon goes back in time and changes something significant! Like, does everything in that future just undone (aka cease to exist, does it "BECOME" what it is in the new time stream, or does time travel follow multiverse theory in Pathfinder's setting?
TELL US YOUR SECRETS PAIZO! TELL US I SAYYYY! (starts gnawing on Paizo's leg) GGGAAAARRRRR!
Those dragons already did this in the past, so the changes they made are already active and we don't know any different.
If there's a compelling reason for a Zutha return that narratively makes sense, I would be excited to run a full strength Zutha just like I look forward to this AP. The Cenotaph is still around.
For GM Reference, should the statblocks ** spoiler omitted **
Also curious, do the primary writers design the encounters (select/create creatures and hazards, encounter difficulty, design the subsystems, and select the loot) or is that usually done by the developer? A lot of recent work has been phenomenal.
For GM Reference on the spoiler, are there specific stat blocks you're referencing? Becuase the answer will depend on the stat block. NPCs don't have to follow the same rules for PCs for similarly named abilities, after all.
As for the latter, we generally provide a rough outline for an adventure, which sometimes includes specific encounter details for certain areas but leaves others up to the author to propose in their expanded outlines for their assignments. The author is then expected to create the adventure from that finalized outline that the developer and author worked together on. Once the author is done and turns in the final text, the developer then goes through the entire thing and not only gives the work its first edit pass for spelling and grammar and all that, but also adjusts things as needed to carry it over the finish line when it comes to rules design, encounter balance, treasure distribution, lyricism in writing, and fleshing out areas that the author missed. In some cases, this amounts to not much additional work on the developer's part, but in others it amounts to what's essentially a complete rewrite of the adventure. (In the most extreme cases of the latter, a developer will sometimes take an additional writing credit for the adventure.)
Once that's done and the developed text is off for its first official edit pass, the developer gives the author feedback on their writing with a goal of training the freelancer to become a better adventure writer, so that the next turnover from them won't take as much work to develop.
Each author has a different set of strengths and weaknesses, and we use a wide range of authors, so even if ALL the authors we use are relatively strong at writing adventures, the developers still have the task of making sure that the finished product adheres to Paizo's style and supports the overall narrative goals of the product.
Glad to hear that you're impressed with the recent work!
yeah... i want more stories where Nocticula, Arazni, Shoshen, etc. are the main villains that we destroy in the adventure path. not a fan of redemption for demon lords, lich queens and evil runelords.
For those specific stories, you're on your own. Those are specifically stories about redemption and revenge for demon lords, liches, and runelords. If you want stories about destroying those things, we will continue to have you covered in various adventures... but those stories will be about different characters.
It's been discussed. The problem is the cost of artwork for a product that really only appeals to GMs, basically 20% of the customer base. Doing so would also put limits on the maps themselves because there's no practical way to package large ones without breaking them into sub-sections.
Btw, Emerald Spire had maps for every level, which were neat, but all fit into the same dimensions.
And from an adventure design standpoint, being limited to that size dungeon map for every level was creatively limiting.
I thought the developers (perhaps James Jacobs?) decided to remove Xanderghul from the picture entirely because they regarded having Xanderghul survive would seriously hinder Sorshen's plan to redeem Thassilon (since Xanderghul is much more powerful than Sorshen and he is still evil, surely he would have posed a great obstacle to her plan to rebuild Thassilon as she sees fit). Which frustrated me a lot, because I think having more runelords return would make the story more interesting (I personally think having Xanderghul and Krune return as well would be a great idea).
A little late to the discussion, but no.
Spoiler:
Xanderghul is a mythic Runelord, and among the most powerful (perhaps THE most powerful) wizards ever in the setting, and as such, we more or less limited our options there to have him appear in a fight against the PCs at full power, because that requires the PCs to be mythic.
After Wrath of the Righteous, I wasn't really interested in doing another mythic adventure anytime soon. But also, Alaznist, as the most powerful Runelord who WASN'T at a tier that required mythic PCs, was the best choice for Return's villain. Which meant she needed to take out Xanderghul early. And since I wanted there to be lots of runelords to face in this one, Xanderghul escaped death via the way he did here to face the PCs as a depowered (but still powerful) version of himself.
After Return, some folks were pretty vocal in their disappointment that they never got to see Xanderghul at full power, and so that bit of feedback remained in my brain for years. When we moved forward with Godsrain, a way to bring back Xanderghul and give him back his mythic power presented itself in a way that I felt was not only pretty wild and delightful but also in a way that helped to bolster the sheer mayhem in all the ways a god's death can undo reality and remake it into something else.
But I still couldn't go forward with that story until we either decided to do mythic for 2E or not—had we not, I would have gone a different route with the story since in that reality, NO creatures in the game would be mythic and that would have been a pretty big power-level retcon. I'm glad we did eventually do mythic rules, as a result, but it took a while to get there, and we learned from Wrath of the Righteous to not do the mythic Adventure Paths day and date with those rules—we needed time for the developers to be more comfortable with those rules and to incorporate feedback from customers about how they worked in game.
It was never really about "we need to give Sorshen room" at that point.
As the only other runelord that was so mythic and powerful that the PCs can't face her without being mythic themselves, Sorshen had the same problems as Xanderghul—if her role was to be fought, then that adventure required PCs to be mythic.
I didn't want to off-screen "remove" both of those two, so I chose to have Xanderghul get the humiliating defeat (which, narratively, was more satisfying for someone associated with pride and arrogance), and then had Sorshen turn over her new leaf after spending 10,000 years or so coming to terms with her history and mistakes and watching as the other six runelords did NOT and one after the other got put down. Hence her decision to not emerge with plans of world domination but instead with plans of integrating into the new world in a less destructive and more cooperative manner. This wasn't meant to ignore the many cruelties and evils she wreaked upon the world in the past, but was meant to show that people can change, if we give them time and the opportunity. But ALSO to dodge the simple fact that fighting her wasn't an option.
A question to those who read or played this AP's books:
Are Mythic casters enjoyable PCs to play?
** spoiler omitted **
Something I really tried to ensure during development of this Adventure Path:
Spoiler:
Having heard folks' worries and concerns about Mythic Resilience, I avoided having mythic creatures get all three saves bolstered with this, and in most cases only bolstered one save, and used the rest to get damage resistance. And when I did, I usually had that mythic resilience apply to their BEST save, in order to really lean into that creature's or NPC's defensive theme.
The 2E mythic rules are much more reliant on the narrative side of things for deployment than they were in 1E, and I worked to include lots of this sort of support into the adventure as well—in particular calling out points where the party can also regain Mythic Points and reminding GMs to not skimp on these rewards. You want your players to use their PCs' Mythic Points to be mythic after all, and if players get the idea that mythic points are a scarcity they'll be super hesitant to use them at all, which will of course make the play experience more frustrating and, ironically, not mythic.
As a result of the spoilered stuff above, I'm very eager to hear feedback from players and GMs about how the experience of playing Revenge of the Runelords (rather than just reading the adventures) went in the format of playing through the entire campaign, rather than guesswork based on just looking at the rules without actually engaging with them in play in a narrative that supports their use. Hopefully the way the mythic content in Revenge of the Runelords is presented is fun and encourages players to be mythic and encourages GMs to keep their players supplied with the resources (aka Mythic Points) they need to do that in a way that doesn't feel like the PCs are spending mythic points on Every Single Roll! :)
By "six months apart" I was referring to the fact we did 2 Adventure Paths a year, not that there was six months between those two specific Adventure Paths. Sorry about that bit of confusion.
the one where you're the child of a previous runelords adventurer.
The WHAT!?!? Is that an actual adventure, if so, what is it called????
Return of the Runelords, though playing a child of a previous PC is pretty hard unless that child was already born when the previous PC was active.
But that players guide explicitly calls one of your previous characters back into things, and one of the traits gives you a special connection to them. It's a really neat concept.
Depends entirely on your table's play length. While those Adventure Paths came out 6 months apart, not every table's game had 6 months of in-world time passing. Some would have had years. Of course, some would have had weeks. Very variable, but depending on your table's past, potentially doable.
More so in 2E since the game doesn't have minimum ages or adjustments to stats due to age (in either direction). We generally try to avoid doing stories where kids are put in danger, but there's plenty of evidence that young kids going on dangerous fantasy adventures are a viable option for stories if your group is okay with the kids in danger trope.
Ghoul cities date back decades before Gygax. Lovecraft had them in his stories, as did Clark Ashton Smith. Those elements are more where I drew initial ghoul inspiration from in the early days when I was working on Rise of the Runelords and Into the Darklands in my attempt to move away a bit from the D&D tropes (like what we were also doing with goblins and ogres and giants and so on).
Modern inspirations include stories by Caitlín R. Kiernan, but also Hannibal Lecter, particularly from the TV series where he's an evil but talented cook.
All of this talk about stinky ghouls, and no talk about how "fancy" those humans smell in their cloying, perfumed cities above! To a ghoul, the scent of decaying meat is a delight, and if that makes it uncomfortable for living visitors to endure, that's fine. If the ghouls have their way, those living intruders into their glorious chambers below will be adding to the heady aroma of the underworld soon enough, after all.
We've published art books several times. We love them. Folks DO often ask for them. Unfortunately, they tend to not sell well, though, so we haven't really considered doing more of them any time recently.
So I'm prepapring to run Seven Dooms for my group and it's a great and lovely read through.
I do have a question though: In Chapter 8 J6 Vekensvok is mentioned wielding a mithral scythe against the party. But what are the modifiers and damage numbers for the scythe? Are they different from an Intellect Devourers talon strikes?
When occupying the lampad's body, as mentioned in the tactics for them on the third paragraph of the 2nd column, mentions that they use the earthen fist Strike (using the lampad's normal values, as detailed on page 188 of Pathfinder Bestiary 3) rather than use the mithral sickle (not scythe). There's not a lot of reason for them to favor the sickle (which would probably just do 1d4+2 damage) when the earthen fist does 2d10+2 damage. This is further explained on that area's Treasure entry, that they only used it as a harvesting tool for the reasons listed. AKA: That sickle is in there as treasure for the PCs, not as an attack option for the monster.
Yeah, not sure how that weird error crept into the final text... my guess is that there was a weird copy/paste thing happening late in the process when we tried to bring this in sync with the Runelord archetype from Rival Academies. It should work the same as for the runelord archetype in any case, so if you already have this archetype, this particular benefit from the Avenging Runelord overlaps with that.
The paralisis bit for ghouls comes from D&D, and that's the main reason we had to abandon that trope for them in the remastered rules—we wanted to avoid the D&D elements while leaning into the role that ghouls have always had in Pathfinder—a creepier, more sinister-society occult nature that leans more into their roles as manipulators and/or "high society" flesh eaters.
Especially since the mindless brain-eating zombie role is already covered by zombies.
We can't assume any one group's canoncial endings are the canonical endings for the setting. We have to make some choices, and for Zutha... there MIGHT still be a way for him to come back. Kinda not shutting that door yet, officially, is all... but also...
Spoiler:
... there's a little bit more context in Revenge of the Runelords #2 as to what might be blocking Zutha being risen... Just trying not to spoil TOO much in advance.
On top of that, liches are notoriously tenacious about having ways to come back. I'm 99% sure Zutha WON'T be back... but he and his legacy have complicated entanglements with Tar-Baphon, and like Xanderghul, he never really got the chance to fight the PCs at full strength on-screen, so I'm reserving that 1% possibility of maybe him coming back and thus not being available to be a risen runelord in the off chance that folks, after playing Revenge of the Runelords, continue to want more Runelords stories and/or are disappointed that they never got to face full-power Zutha in a fight.
If we DO go with that small-but-not-zero-percent chance of a story involving Zutha coming back, you'll need to decide for your game how to square that circle, I guess... but that's part of the complexity that comes with GMing published adventures and the publisher wanting to do sequels to those adventures.
In any case, Zutha is not more likely to rise than Krune. Risen Krune is one of the earlier risen runelords you face in this campaign, and he's on the cover of the first book, after all. Risen Zutha does NOT appear in this campaign. Consider the exact reasons for that to be a mystery that is partially, but not fully, explained in book 2.
In Chapter 6, there is a Hazard in G3 called The Watching Lords that only affects non-chaotic-evil creatures. How did people handle this in the Remaster where there is no alignment?
In a remastered world, it gets a bit murkier, but unholy creatures and creatures who worship fiends or other sinister cults should not be affected. Everyone else can trigger it. Means the GM needs to be more willing to make judgment calls, of course.
If I were to remaster this encounter, I'd say it was triggered by everyone except for unholy creatures and those who willingly serve or worship unholy creatures, which means all the NPCs and monsters further in can come and go without fear of triggering the trap.
Just curious, I would love to be able to compare the 2e version to the 1e.
Spoiler:
No. But we did her stats in 1E, so one could extrapolate based on other runelord stats we do in Revenge of the Runelords.
If you want to compare, you will be able to do so with Belimarius.
But Sorshen's role is one that doesn't require her NPC stats. Something different happens there but I'm not ready to spoil that until the last book is out so that folks can find out that way.
For me, these (and in the previous editions, alignments) are invaluable roleplaying tools. When I'd create a character, I'd have their personality mostly in mind (often more so than whatever class or ancestry they'd be), so I started from the start looking at options that matched that personality, and then used them in play. The main point of conflict that would sometimes rise is in cases where the other players build characters who are intentionally triggering or complicated... but those players are gonna do that regardless, alas.
They're even more useful for creating an NPC, since they help you guide their role in a game as a GM without having to spend that extra time coming up with their own bespoke personalities. You should of course still do that for key NPCs in your game, but having edicts and anathemas handy to reference is super helpful when your players decide to interrogate the rando on the street you didn't expect them to notice!
I could see it be frustrating for folks approaching from the opposite side of creation—class and mechanics first and personality later, but that's part of why we have SO many deities in the setting to choose from. And of course, you can always chat with your GM to adjust or remove edicts and anathemas if they're that big of a problem.
...exports from my homebrew, and their culture was very much inspired by Native American traditions—but also a mix of other inspirations as well, including stories by Fritz Leiber and Robert E Howard, as well as a bit of local Northern Californian culture as well. When I transported them out of my setting and into Golarion back when we first launched Pathfinder Adventure Path, there was no time and fewer resources to "make it right" (by which I mean consult with cultural experts and adjust text as needed), and it's taken us a bit to get around to start addressing that.
They're not meant to be an exact parallel to existing Native American peoples, nor is Arcadia the only place where those stories and traditions can be explored, but drawing inspiration for a game about dragons and elves and goblins from real world cultures should always be done with care and resepect... especially in a case like this where, (unfortunately traditionally), Native American inspired content doesn't have as good a track record.
As for why we haven't done much with them in 2nd edition? Unlike Varisians or Taldans or Garundis or Keleshites, who are much more widespread across the Inner Sea, Shoanti are pretty focused on Varisia. Sort of like how Ulfens are pretty focused on the Linnorm Kingdoms. And since for the majority of 2nd edition our lore books have focused away from Varisia and the Saga Lands (because we spent a LOT of time exploring them in 1st edition and before 1st edition), there just hasn't been much of an opportunity to talk about Shoanti in any of the lore books. Part of including more Shoanti content in Triumph of the Tusk was deliberate, to give us a chance to start expanding on and exploring their culture with the aid of the right voices and consultants to make sure that we were presenting them respectfully—which is a step we take for all of our content based on real world stuff these days, now that we have the staff and resources and time to include that very important step (something that, again, we wern't fortunate enough to have in the earlier days).
(AND: Fun/shameful side note: the Shoanti were completely missed as an ethnicity in the first hardcover book we did for Golarion before the Pathfinder RPG came along—they just slipped through the cracks as a side effect of compartmentalization between the Adventure Path team where most of the Shoanti work had been done at that point and the Campaign Setting team. We're doing better today by that account, at least!)
TL;DR: The article in Triumph of the Tusk is indeed the most recent and accurate bit of exploration on the Shoanti, and its creation did include consulting and working with Native American creators and consultants.
They're not canon (nothing on the Pathfinder Wiki is, since it's not officially updated and curated by us at Paizo... but just like Wikipedia, it's a GREAT resource to check out for information; just make sure to follow citations to published books if you want to make sure that the information has been cited correctly, and even then, we often retcon or change lore from older books in the same way we errata rules, and those updates and lore fixes don't always get into the wiki...), but my guess is they're pretty accurate if someone took our maps of those regions and did the calculations. I have no idea how they went about arriving at those calculations, though.
Land area for regions doesn't really impact gameplay at all, so even if those figures aren't accurate, as long as you and your group like them and want to use them, then they're good!
Yeah, sounds exactly like what Skeld mentioned above—a signature printing error ("signature" being what a set of bound pages is called). Email/contact customer service and they should be able to get a replacement sent out for you.
Will both items be level appropriate for a 2e Rise conversion?
Well...
Spoiler:
...they're different runewells than in Rise of the Runelords, so you can't really drag and drop them, but they should give you some ideas and inspiration on how to adjust the runewell of greed for your game nonetheless.
Can confirm that for the four original goblin hero gods, I invented them and their names, and did not pull any of that lore from previous publications or mythology.
James, can you talk a bit about the Paizo naming system? Did you choose their names for the sound? What went in to creating the original four goblin hero gods?
Hmm
It's different for every person, and different for everything you want to name. For me, for the Goblin deities, I aimed for names that sounded both fun to say but also sounded guttural and kinda scary. The idea for these goblin hero gods was to create a mini-pantheon of deities that epitomized the various violences and mayhems that were our goblins, but also in theory were not SUPER high level. They could have become the villains in a "four horseman" sort of way, but never really got around to it and now goblins are less in the "villain" spotlight so that's unlikely to be a story we tell.
Can confirm that for the four original goblin hero gods, I invented them and their names, and did not pull any of that lore from previous publications or mythology.
From a storyline perspective and a thematic perspective, Rusthenge to Seven Dooms to Revenge of the Runelords is about perfect, and to a certain level is kind of how I would have set things up if I'd wanted to do this from the start as a 1st to 20th level AP (although I'd add in mythic stuff to Seven Dooms, and have the PCs find their mythic callings as the result of Rusthenge).
Is there any more information regarding The Ashen Man? Did it appeared in previous Runelords AP?
I created him for...
Spoiler:
...my adventure in the Doomsday Dawn playtest adventure (the last adventure in the book), then continued to seed him into stories ranging from a tiny cameo in the Sandpoint book to Curtain Call and Malevolence. The plan was always to keep his mystery going in adventures like this as a sub plot until the time was right to reveal his full-scope machinations in a doomsday-themed Adventure Path. Revenge of the Runelords turned out to be it!
... there's some more info on one of them in book 3, while book 1 has one that's kinda broken and malfunctioning and is presented as a hazard and not as an artifact, if I recall correctly...
The first volume's out soon, but let's just say that...
Spoiler:
...there's always more sources of mythic power out there! No retcons required. New developments based on events that no one (including me) saw coming back during the Return of the Runelords days certainly help enable new stories we didn't have planned that many years ago, though.
Whether or not the justification for bringing him back is REALLY good will depend on the individual. For what it's worth, it's REALLY good to me.
And yes... it does build off of how Return of the Runelords ended. As with all sequel APs though, if you ran those at your table and your game had a different ending than the one we assume is the standard, canonical one, you'll need to adjust as needed.
They can't because that would require using the OGL terms for these dragons, which is the exact thing they're getting away from.
They literally did just that in Rage of the Elements, with the new nomenclature going from OGL to Remaster.
Oh... and they're gonna have to tell Mr. Blake Davis, from Archive of Nethys, what existing dragon stat blocks must now receive a Remaster version.
Rage of Elements was a corner case—the first one we did in an era when things were still being figured out. Now, deep into the remaster cycle, we are doing everything we can to keep the OGL out of published products because it's cleaner that way.
You can, of course, still use a green dragon if you don't wanna use a horned dragon, etc. The rules still work fine.
The use of the word "petitioner" in a remastered product would be an error, because that specific expression is an OGL thing that, like owlbears, otyughs, and magic missiles, is content we've moved away from and/or replaced in the remastered rules. "Petitioner" in this case is basically a typo/error that slipped through and should have been replaced with the word "Shade."
The core idea of a soul that's been judged and is sent on to their afterlife as a shade still carries with it a memory wipe, even though the specific word we use to identify these post-soul entities has changed from "petitioner" to "shade." Those memories might persist in the shade's mind as hazy half-rememmbered fancies (like partially-remembered dreams) for an amount of time.
When you cast call spirit, you're contacting an intellect from beyond. This "spirit" can be a soul awaiting judgment, a shade that's been judged, or even something like a fiend or kami or something else supernatural, depending on the needs of the narrative. In the case of contacting a shade's spirit, the act of invoking that shade's living name before they were judged and providing a connection to it in the form of a possession or garment or a piece of its corpse is enough to trigger those obscured not-quite-forgotten memories, enough that you can interrogate the called spirit as determined by the result of your check to cast the ritual in the first place. In the case of a shade, I'd say it doesn't remember anything it tells you during this ritual and would carry on its afterlife unaffected. (Although if it were a pre-judgement soul, I'd say it would potentially remember*.) This doesn't actually conure or summon a thing with statistics that can do anything other than answer questions.
*Seven Dooms for Sandpoint spoiler
Spoiler:
Contacting Nualia via call spirit is a key plot element in this Adventure Path; in this case, the assumption is that Nualia hasn't yet been judged by Pharasma and the spirit that this spell contacts is her pre-judgment soul.
Sorry if the Nocticula article upset folks; that absolutely wasn't the intent. We've got a really great team here between the writers, developers, and editors when it comes to making sure we represent situations responsibly, having learned lessons the hard way a few times via feedback over the decades. In this specific case, it's not intended to be gaslighting. Nocticula's faith doesn't teach revisionist history or try to hide the fact that she was once an evil demon, but nor do they hyperfocus on it, and instead look to the future.
I do get it that some folks aren't happy with some of the redemption stories we publish (and for the record, I've always seen Arazni's story as less about redemption and more about revenge), but between our writers, developers, and editors, I strongly feel we've got a VERY responsible group of folks looking over everything that we publish. I personally stand by this article and its presentation as the latest development of a complex story involving a demon who becomes a non-demon deity as it parallels the story of Sorshen turning over a new leaf and abandoning the old ways of tyranny and evil.
That said, please do continue to provide feedback! It's almost always welcome. I say "almost" because when passions run hot and posts become antagonistic or hurtful or insulting, they stop being helpful and poison the discussion. Please be patient, kind, and respectful of everyone.
Curious why was there no mention of Lissala, the runelord goddess. She got an entry in divine mysteries and war of immortals suggests IIRC she is getting supporters, including non-evil ones.
Because...
** spoiler omitted **
** spoiler omitted **
There's a LOT of Thassilon-related stuff that doesn't play a role in Revenge of the Runelords, because the story I wanted to tell and directed the authors to write is about a pretty specific plot, and while...
Spoiler:
...Lissala's influence is indeed growing again, it's not tied to Xanderghul or the current significant events in the Saga Lands at this time. It may be something we explore in a different adventure in the future, perhaps, but there wasn't really a place or a need or a desire on my part to add a Lissala element into this one, which is very much a specific different story about runelords who never really had much to do with Lissala in the first place. Sorta like how there wasn't much about Lissala in Rise of the Runelords, I suppose.
Curious why was there no mention of Lissala, the runelord goddess. She got an entry in divine mysteries and war of immortals suggests IIRC she is getting supporters, including non-evil ones.
Because...
Spoiler:
...she and her faith don't really play much of a role at all in this Adventure Path.
Could potentially have been more clear about that, even if there is a TINY bit of retconning going on, but...
Spoiler:
...yes, this is something of a very minor (and likely to not be noticed by anyone in play) retcon. His first plan was to build a runewell and then a demiplane attached to it, the Eye of Arrogance. But then his pride kicked in, and he became all "I can do better because I am better" and put that escape plan on the proverbial back burner while turning his attention to a last-minute search for the Scepter of Ages. He (ironically) ran out of time, and ended up having to retreat back into the Eye of Arrogance.
The bit about him creating this sanctum on its own rather than having it linked to the runewell of pride is something I made an adjustment to, because while the whole "too proud to do the same thing" element is fun it doesn't lean into the cool runelord flavors. And since the PCs will be interacting with the runewell of lust and the Eye of Desire in book 3, I wanted them to have a preliminary encounter with this combination in book 1 to foreshadow that and to contextualize things.
In the end, the only difference is that Xanderghul did NOT create the Eye of Arrogance (his sanctum) by drawing only upon his mythic power, but in the same way other runelords created their own Eyes. And then his pride made him look for the time travel solution, too late, and he ended up in that sanctum anyway.
The "sanctum" we talk about in Return of the Runelords was always intended to be the same thing as the Eye of Arrogance, entered via the heart of Xin-Cyrusian, just as it is in Revenge of the Runelords.
Can confirm. The villains of Stolen Fate that set this all in motion are:
Spoiler:
The three norns, NOT Pharasma. If we were telling a story about a god deciding the fate of all things like that, we would have told it as a novel in a setting that's not meant to be an interactive world where players have agency to determine their own fates and make their own choices.
The fact that there IS no "locked in stone fate" for anyone in Golarion is in fact one of the main points of this Adventure Path. Even when villains like these norns try to break those rules, they can still be opposed by those who want to stop them.
The fact that Pharasma is (among other things) a goddess of fate doesn't mean she's the one pulling the strings in this Adventure Path. That said... it strikes me that this Adventure Path would be a really fun one for a cleric of Pharasma to play in, as it'd give that character a different vibe than the standard "Pharasma cleric wants to fight undead" thing that tends to be the norm. This would be a new norm, perhaps. Dare I say... A NORN NORM?
All that said... please don't lash out and attack each other here. Let's keep the discussion to game stuff and not insults.
EDIT: As for the notion of "stealing a soul from Pharasma," that's not how it works. Remember, Pharasma is also the goddess of birth and fate. She knows if it's a soul's fate to be resurrected (aka reborn) into life once or a thousand...
How much is this still true in the age of lost omens?
It was/is kinda presented that the gods' collective ability to predict the future has become a mess, if it is still semi-functional at all.
(and that status quo is kind of necessary for storytelling as a concept to work. Omniscience is just anti-narrative.)
Playing through Stolen Fate seems to canonize that the future of mortals is rather unknowable in the current age, even to the entities created just for that purpose. The Norns themselves are unable to see fate anymore, nor can they "manipulate the weave" like they used to.
From my campaign notes, they said they are still able to know / learn of a mortal's "destiny" but even our GM struggled to grok what level of future-insight that even means. The Norns clearly did not posses the kind of insight or foreknowledge they used to, or thought was sufficient.
** spoiler omitted **...
It's still true. Pharasma being able to know when and how a creature will be resurrected or not is a different thing entirely from prophecy and telling the future.
(As a fun aside: The element of "prophecy no longer works" in the game is, to a certain extent, a nod toward the fact the Age of Lost Omens is the first point during the world's history that PCs are in the mix. It's the point where the world goes from being a non-interactive historical narrative exercise in world building to an interactive gaming exercise where the unfolding of current events, aka Adventures, is determined by the players of the game. And players are real good at doing things the GM doesn't expect or can't predict! Getting rid of prophecy in particular is our attempt to make it apparent to players that what happens isn't writ in stone, and for their games, their choices matter. Prophecy takes agency away from characters, and taking agency away from players makes for a less fun game. Also, prophecy as a story element is a pretty tired cliche anyway, and removing it is one way we challenge ourselves to do better. :D)
James Jacobs the story to this AP and the explanation of Xanderghul's Return.
I love it.
Cool! It's nice to almost be able to talk more about it. It's been something that I've been noodling over ever since we first started talking about [REDACTED] in-house several years ago.
Creative Director
