Pathfinder Chronicles: The Great Beyond—A Guide to the Multiverse (OGL) PDF

Salient wrote:

How about as an online web tool we can print out our creations? Should be really simple to implement and will allow a broader user base to enjoy. Think of the time wasting one could have creating creatures and then posting to the forums...

Well, I'm not a programmer, I just know how to build stuff in Excel.

Your half way there you just don`t realize it.

Trust me, I can program in BASIC and in HyperTalk and I've tried three times to learn C. I am *not* a programmer. :)

Just dropping by to say congrats on this Todd. :)

I look forward to flipping through it later. :)

It's damn good to see you around, Mike.

Damn good.

Just dropping by to say congrats on this Todd. :)

I look forward to flipping through it later. :)

Thank you very much Mike :)

I hope that you like it!

It's damn good to see you around, Mike.

Damn good.

So... you like Mike huh?

hehe

Sorry.

It's damn good to see you around, Mike.

Damn good.

Sup UnG? :)

Thank you very much Mike :)

I hope that you like it!

A quick perusal through the book tells me that it is damn smecksy and anyone who plays in Golarion should buy a copy. On a personal note, I really like what you did with the white and silver dragons in the Elemental Plane of Air (I mean, I got a preview before and all, but seeing the full writeup in print was really cool) and with Shelyn's domain in Nirvana. :)

Also, the bestiary is totally cool. :D

I've built a monster-builder spreadsheet that does all the math

Any way we can check this thing out?

Edit: Coolio, I now see your response. I'll wait. :)

Salient wrote:

How about as an online web tool we can print out our creations? Should be really simple to implement and will allow a broader user base to enjoy. Think of the time wasting one could have creating creatures and then posting to the forums...

Well, I'm not a programmer, I just know how to build stuff in Excel.

Excel spreadsheet or online tool... either of them would be absolutely great! :)

Waiting pdf

Hopefully covers lots about demons and celestials

Is the hagunemnon protean (from the SRD) canonical in Golarion's cosmology?

Is the hagunemnon protean (from the SRD) canonical in Golarion's cosmology?

Despite having 'protean' as part of their name, they don't have any connection to Golarion's proteans. Their presence in the ELH (I wasn't aware they'd been made part of the SRD either) precluded my use of them at all, I wasn't even aware of them when I was writing to be honest, they weren't one of the ELH critters that ever struck my interest, and even had I had them in mind, I wanted to make a pretty clean break with WotC notions of Limbo/Slaadi/etc when I designed Golarion's proteans and the Maelstrom.

If you want to use it in your campaign though, go right ahead. If I were to use them, I'd have them as exceedingly rare creatures, not as a true race, and located pretty far from any of the borderlands with the other planes of the outer sphere. You might have them as creatures from very much distant branches of the Maelstrom, far from Golarion's planes, or they might be the blighted offspring of a demi-deity and a protean, or they might be the results of a magical ritual gone horribly wrong at the hands of a keketar cabal.

Thanks for the fast and informative reply!

Btw, I just noticed the two reviews, and I wanted to say thank you to folks for taking the time to write those up. I really, really appreciate you sharing your opinion/feedback on the book. :)

Any time Todd, just write more for Paizo please. I want TGB v2.0 done by you, Wolf, Jeff and Monte. With Tony D art. One can always dream...

This does look awesome! Planescape was always my favourite campaign setting :)

Any time Todd, just write more for Paizo please. I want TGB v2.0 done by you, Wolf, Jeff and Monte. With Tony D art. One can always dream...

Be still my black beating heart. While I'm deeply flattered, let's not class me in the same rank as those guys anytime yet. :)

You're on the good path Todd. Just don't blow it by signing an exclusive with WotC and writing about Doomdark and Wonderwild... :P

WANT

I received my copy of The Great Beyond (TGB) yesterday in a large package of other Pathfinder materials and it was the first book I picked up to take a look through. I was very impressed by what I found and am very happy with my purchase.

My initial impressions is that TGB feels like Planescape without the planar cant and unreliable narrative. As I read through the book it is providing me with constant flashes of inspiration. The Great Beyond does an excellent job of providing a sense of wonder about the planes.

I just bought a copy of this book and I must say I've not been disappointed. It is a great read and I only have the Bestiary section left to read.

Well done!

Knightfall

p.s. I'm already thinking about how to incorporate this book into my own cosmology.

Just got my copy yesterday and I finished it before bed. I could not put it down. Great material and a fantastic job.

I recently acquired a copy of this book, and my initial impression is that the page count is very low. A lot of the sites I've looked at so far have been 'here's what you see if you look through a portal at them' descriptions, with no sense of the history, current events, or personalities of the places. So far the only site I've seen which gives an impression that anything is actually happening there, is Aroden's domain, which ran to several paragraphs and an additional sidebar detailing several NPCs with various (conflicting) interests in it.
I'd like to put in a request, please, for a revised version to feature at some point, expanded to at least 96 pages, if not 128. I appreciate Paizo doesn't have TSR's budget and ability to put out 2nd edition AD&D Planescape-style boxed sets, but 64 pages (actually 62 and one inner cover once you take out the copyright/contents page and obligatory page of Paizo adverts) seems hardly enough to cover the basics with so many planes, let alone offer much by way of the little details that can really inspire and bring individual sites to life.

I'd like to put in a request, please, for a revised version to feature at some point, expanded to at least 96 pages, if not 128. I appreciate Paizo doesn't have TSR's budget and ability to put out 2nd edition AD&D Planescape-style boxed sets, but 64 pages (actually 62 once you take out the copyright/contents page and obligatory page of Paizo adverts) seems hardly enough to cover the basics with so many planes, let alone offer much by way of the little details that can really inspire and bring individual sites to life.

I think it's also an issue of trying to stick to a similar price point month to month for subscribers. I imagine there are fewer Chronicles subscribers than AP subscribers, so there's a smaller volume to offset the cost of a higher page count. I think our best chance of getting more information on the planes will be in individual books like Princes of Darkness, Lords of Chaos, or AP support articles when the APs eventually go to the planes.

I think it's also an issue of trying to stick to a similar price point month to month for subscribers. I imagine there are fewer Chronicles subscribers than AP subscribers, so there's a smaller volume to offset the cost of a higher page count. I think our best chance of getting more information on the planes will be in individual books like Princes of Darkness, Lords of Chaos, or AP support articles when the APs eventually go to the planes.

This is actually a big part of the reason. Printing books is expensive, but gamers aren't made of money. A 96 page version of "The Great Beyond" would have probably carried a price tag of $25, which is not a good price tag. Especially since the equally-lengthy AP is 5 bucks less (which it CAN do since the subcriptions are so strong and that lets us safely order a larger print run which lets us lower the price). And yes, there are a a LOT more subscribers to our AP line than any other line we do.

What we CAN do (and ARE doing) is printing additional planar books. For now, that means the Book of the Damned line of books; we covered Hell last year and will be covering the Abyss this summer. Eventaully, we might even get around to detailing all of the planes in books like this, but we can't do them all at once so it's gonna take a while. At the very least, we'll be covering planar stuff in the back half of Pathfinder now and then, which'll further expand the info on these realms.

I understand (and enjoy) the fact that folks want MORE from Paizo... but there are a LOT of reasons we set the page counts for what they are.

Eventaully, we might even get around to detailing all of the planes in books like this, but we can't do them all at once so it's gonna take a while. At the very least, we'll be covering planar stuff in the back half of Pathfinder now and then, which'll further expand the info on these realms.

I understand (and enjoy) the fact that folks want MORE from Pazio...

I happily support giving folks more planar material! :D

Paizo fans support such material being handled by The King of Crosstrade !

Paizo fans support such material being handled by The King of Crosstrade !

Here! Here! This was one of my favourite RPG books ever!

I just read one reviewer's comment about Groetus and the Atheists from this book — I was also bothered by it at first, as I am an atheist. Upon further reflection I decided that in a world where the gods are real, atheists are a) wrong, and b) heretics. Many theories of divine power exist, but all of them would see denial of the (actual) gods as a true threat to the power of deities who thrive on belief alone. It makes complete sense that the architects of such a world, if they favored the gods, would make an example of heretics who deny divine authority.

I'm not sure if that's Mr. Stewart's take on it, but he at least left room to accommodate that view. Personally, I'm the sort who would probably call the gods phonies, even if it meant being devoured by a vacillating moon god.

I just read one reviewer's comment about Groetus and the Atheists from this book — I was also bothered by it at first, as I am an atheist. Upon further reflection I decided that in a world where the gods are real, atheists are a) wrong, and b) heretics. Many theories of divine power exist, but all of them would see denial of the (actual) gods as a true threat to the power of deities who thrive on belief alone. It makes complete sense that the architects of such a world, if they favored the gods, would make an example of heretics who deny divine authority.

I'm not sure if that's Mr. Stewart's take on it, but he at least left room to accommodate that view. Personally, I'm the sort who would probably call the gods phonies, even if it meant being devoured by a vacillating moon god.

I'm an athiest, that's because there is no diety in our world, no magic, no souls.

But in a world where there is concrete evidence of such it'd be blatantly silly to be an athiest, it'd like being a member of flat-earth society, or a gravity denier. Hell, there are actaully good gods, so I can't see a problem allying myself to a god whos goals and interests match my own so I could see myself as a cleric even!

Despite being utterly athiest in real life, it's not the same question whether the gods exist or not, so you can't be an athiest in the same way as we are on Earth.

But in a world where there is concrete evidence of such it'd be blatantly silly to be an athiest, it'd like being a member of flat-earth society, or a gravity denier.

Not exactly. :)

I like to imagine there are people of Golarion who deny that the gods are divine — like the Athar of Planescape did. It is this manner of atheist who I imagine are so ill-treated by Pharasma and Groetus. Their fates must be bleak, for if all the worshippers of the prime laid down their icons and ceased to worship, whence goes the multiverse? No mercy for these heretics, I say.

There are four points that tend to get skipped over when people read this section that I have interpretted differently from many it seems.

1. The sentence that pointed out that atheists that end up buried in the boneyard are not so much as being imprisoned or punished, but a quarantine.
2. The sentence that implied that the atheists who ended up there have denied their own existence and soul and corrupted their soul.
3. The sentence that says that some atheist souls reincarnate or exist as strange disembodied spirits on the Astral.
4. The sentences that explain that non-worshipers of gods are not punished, but instead either go to the plane closest to their alignment or spend time at the Lake of Mortal Reflections or the Realm of the Content before moving on (reincarnation or other paths).

What I understand from this is that by denying the existence of their soul, of an afterlife, they make it true. In a cosmology where beliefs and concepts are what forms reality, this is internally consistent.

I'm an athiest, that's because there is no diety in our world, no magic, no souls.

It really annoys me that some people can make such a blanket statement wihout stating that that is their opinion.

Eh, I'm Catholic and it doesn't bother me. If he's an atheist, its obviously how he views things. It doesn't offend me for him to state it.

I am Lutheran, and it doesn't bother me, either: it is his view.

To get the full picture on atheists in Golarion, you have to consult the module Beyond the Vault of Souls to learn that they have a fundamental, crucial function to fulfill:

I like to imagine there are people of Golarion who deny that the gods are divine — like the Athar of Planescape did. It is this manner of atheist who I imagine are so ill-treated by Pharasma and Groetus. Their fates must be bleak, for if all the worshippers of the prime laid down their icons and ceased to worship, whence goes the multiverse? No mercy for these heretics, I say.

Athiests in the real world aren't the same thing as athiests on Golarion for the purposes of what happens in the afterlife. The Athar would be fine. Someone who chose not to worship the gods for any random reason would be fine. Someone who thinks the gods are unworthy of worship and spends their life fighting against them would be fine. Someone who isn't honestly sure if there is an afterlife or if they have a soul is fine.

The only people who possibly become Groetus chow are those people who explicitely deny that any sort of afterlife exists. In the face of all evidence they deny the existance of their own soul. This is incredibly rare and this belief ultimately has an influence on the very substance of that soul of theirs that they willingly deny. It's only this case that is classified as "Athiest" and gets into trouble with the looming, hungry moon above the Boneyard.

It's unfortunate that this has been a bit of a misunderstood point in the book. :/

Sorry to ressurect this after a year, but I'm rather curious: Will we ever get a planar handbook in the style of WotC's "Manual of the Planes", just for standard Pathfinder and not Golarion? It'd be nice to have a book detailing Utopia, Purgatory and Limbo rather than Axis, The Boneyard and The Maelstrom. :P

Sorry to ressurect this after a year, but I'm rather curious: Will we ever get a planar handbook in the style of WotC's "Manual of the Planes", just for standard Pathfinder and not Golarion? It'd be nice to have a book detailing Utopia, Purgatory and Limbo rather than Axis, The Boneyard and The Maelstrom. :P

That's an interesting question.

See, anyone can do Utopia, Purgatory, and Limbo because those names are in the public domain. Whereas Axis, the Boneyard, and Maelstrom are Paizo's.

And because our core rulebooks aren't world-specific, but our Golarion products all use what's in the core rulebooks, doing a core rulebook about the public domain planes would mean we'd be spending a lot of pages on planes that we wouldn't be using in our world (because our world doesn't use Utopia, Purgatory, and Limbo).

So it puts us in an interesting position where we would like to do more about the planes, but don't want to be creating something that's of zero value to the campaign setting.

So it puts us in an interesting position where we would like to do more about the planes....

Then why not releasing some modules which play in the Golarion planes?

Perhaps it's because there are about 10 countries in the revealed part of the map that haven't had any modules yet, and people adventuring in the world is far more common than adventuring on the planes.

Sorry to ressurect this after a year, but I'm rather curious: Will we ever get a planar handbook in the style of WotC's "Manual of the Planes", just for standard Pathfinder and not Golarion? It'd be nice to have a book detailing Utopia, Purgatory and Limbo rather than Axis, The Boneyard and The Maelstrom. :P

What's the problem with just using Axis, The Boneyard, and the Maelstrom? Just change the name and use the Golarion details in a "standard Pathfinder" game.

Sorry to ressurect this after a year, but I'm rather curious: Will we ever get a planar handbook in the style of WotC's "Manual of the Planes", just for standard Pathfinder and not Golarion? It'd be nice to have a book detailing Utopia, Purgatory and Limbo rather than Axis, The Boneyard and The Maelstrom. :P

If we were to detail Utopia, Purgatory, and Limbo... they'd end up being exactly the same as Axis, the Boneyard, and the Maelstrom anyway, so Todd's solution of just using Axis, the Boneyard, and the Maelstrom information we've published so far and simply changing the names to whatever you want is the correct solution.

Put another way—we are not interested in producing world content for somthing other than our own campaign world.

Utopia, Purgatory, and Limbo are all real-world concepts. Anyone out there can run with those names and build them up as 3rd party products if they wanted. They're not regions we're interested in exploring further, because we have and prefer the Golarion-specific versions of those planes.

Anyone out there can run with those names and build them up as 3rd party products if they wanted.

Yes, quite true...

The Umbral Dragon says nothing more... for now.

James Jacobs wrote:

Anyone out there can run with those names and build them up as 3rd party products if they wanted.

Yes, quite true...

The Umbral Dragon says nothing more... for now.

Heh heh ... nice :)

James Jacobs wrote:

Anyone out there can run with those names and build them up as 3rd party products if they wanted.

Yes, quite true...

The Umbral Dragon says nothing more... for now.

You know, the other day I was thinking it would be kind of cool if there was a developed cosmology based on the material Paizo has released to the PRD that any 3pp who was interested could use. Big enough to accommodate the gods and details of many worlds yet provide enough continuity that gamers could know it was the same cosmology and purchase products knowing that.

It was more a vague idea that popped into my mind while doing the dishes than anything substantial that should be pursued.:) Your post reminded me of the thought.

James Jacobs wrote:

Anyone out there can run with those names and build them up as 3rd party products if they wanted.

Yes, quite true...

The Umbral Dragon says nothing more... for now.

I will be very interested to see what you have in store, by the way. Jon Brazer has a great reputation for quality.

Perhaps it's because there are about 10 countries in the revealed part of the map that haven't had any modules yet, and people adventuring in the world is far more common than adventuring on the planes.

IMO modules fokussing on the Golarion planes would be something innovative and different. Think of a three part adventure series (city of golden death style) one playing in the Heavens, one in Hell and the third in Axis. That would be very cool stuff, at least for me.

Dale McCoy Jr wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

Anyone out there can run with those names and build them up as 3rd party products if they wanted.

Yes, quite true...

The Umbral Dragon says nothing more... for now.

I will be very interested to see what you have in store, by the way. Jon Brazer has a great reputation for quality.

I think it's going to be very cool ...

Allen Taliesin wrote:

Dale McCoy Jr wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

Anyone out there can run with those names and build them up as 3rd party products if they wanted.

Yes, quite true...

The Umbral Dragon says nothing more... for now.

I will be very interested to see what you have in store, by the way. Jon Brazer has a great reputation for quality.

I think it's going to be very cool ...

It sounds like you might have an idea on what it is going to be. ;)