Most of us who had read Into the Darklands and Inner Sea World Guide (for not mention certain player companions), know the origin of certain humanoid races inhabiting Golarion is extra planetary.
My question is concerning homo sapiens, now it is official there is an alternate Earth in the same Prime Material Plane where Golarion is located, do humans where originally from Earth? They where brought to The Cage by the Vault Builders?.
So, is it something you guys have actually worked out but just don't plan on sharing, or is it one of those things you decided to not bother coming up with an answer because you knew you'd never answer it?
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Probably the latter. Some things are to be left unknown, like how Aroden died.
Not like anyone cares, humans are the lowest of the humanoid races an- *Speciest rant interrupted*
Creative Director
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So, is it something you guys have actually worked out but just don't plan on sharing, or is it one of those things you decided to not bother coming up with an answer because you knew you'd never answer it?
The history of humanity and where they started is unlikely to be something we'll reveal as a "This is how it was" format. We DO periodically detail creation myths, and we do them intentionally contradictory, since the whole point of a creation myth is that it requires belief and faith. Otherwise it's not a creation myth. It's just history.
The Vault Builders, though... we've got very specific plans for them.
I would like to share I have the theory Vault Builders created the artificial ecosystems in the deepest regions of the Darklands not for scientific reasons but for a far more sinister ones related to Aucturn (which I think is a massive macro organism Old One in hibernation).
The real purpose of the Vaults and the intentions of the Vault Builders will quite similar to those of a cosmic herald and his quest for supply the alimentary habits of a certain comic book villain.
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Creative Director
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I did just decide on this, by the way:
There's two kinds of them. Vault Builders are the more powerful—they're the ones who created the vaults in the first place. Vault Keepers are the less powerful—still not pushovers, but they can't create vaults, they just tend them and boss around the pechs.
So the Vault Builders are kind of like the Reapers and the Vault Keepers are like the Protheans? (in Mass Effect terms)
So I can go with an Elder Thing created slave race uplifted by Yithians to trap the Polyps in the dormant part of their life cycle for humans?
So I can go with an Elder Thing created slave race uplifted by Yithians to trap the Polyps in the dormant part of their life cycle for humans?You can do anything! The only limit is yourself!
Don't believe in yourself! Believe in the me that believes in you! Yours is the drill that will PIERCE THE HEAVENS!!!
For someone who doesn't have the two publications the OP listed, can someone tell me who/what the Vault Builders/Keepers are?
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Cal - underground in the Inner Sea there are these fracking enormous artificial vaults that house separate biomes designed to foster the growth of life-forms. Whoever built them is gone. What we do know is that the Pech (proto-fey grandfathers of the Derro) came from there before they became horribly twisted. I am guessing tonnes of other subterranean monster species did too.
There are references that one race built the vaults and another maintained them.
http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Orv
Thanks, KG!
What do we know of the origins of Dwarves? Are Dwarves found on other planets or planes?
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What do we know of the origins of Dwarves? Are Dwarves found on other planets or planes?
Heh. I just had this image of the dwarves of Golarion appearing on other worlds as their ancestors tunneled through the various Darklands Vaults and unknowingly stumbled upon Vaultkeeper portals to other planets.
Lets not forget Vault Builders not only used the Pech race for create the Vaults but also created the Delvers.
The Vault Builders and Vault Keepers idea intrigues me a lot, means there are Vault Keepers in Golarion?
Vault Keepers imply a constant attention to the subterranean ecosystems made by the Builders and their minions. In fact, being Golarion a prison for an entropy god, that race decided to emulate the gods but abandoned their project? That would also explain the black blood, perhaps that fluid belong to a deity the Vault Builders wanted to get rid from.
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Dwarves and Orcs come from inside Golarion. Elves come from that other planet. Gnomes come from the First World. The origin of Humans and Halflings is unclear but they seem to go together.
Inspired by a saga from the same comics' publisher alluded to above, I posit that the whole ecosystem of Golarion is designed to make it the ultimate jail for Rovagug. In which case, the Vaults might be where they create their prototypes for new prison systems.
Or maybe it was designed as The Cage for something else but was commandeered by the Gods to imprison Rovagug. Which could explain that no Vault Builders would be extant in Golarion (killed/chased by the Gods).
In any case, the humans, with their ultimate adaptive abilities, must have struck the Gods as the race they needed to ensure that any flaw in the Cage would be found and corrected.
Also, I theorize that Rovagug is merely Time, the power that defeats everything (including Gods). Or rather, it is the safety valve of The Cage : a godly incarnation/aspect of Time itself allowing the imprisoned power to vent its rage and waste its energies. It is Chaotic Evil because the Gods fear it so much AND it manifests as mindless rage and destruction.
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Creative Director
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Lets not forget Vault Builders not only used the Pech race for create the Vaults but also created the Delvers.
The Vault Builders and Vault Keepers idea intrigues me a lot, means there are Vault Keepers in Golarion?
Vault Keepers imply a constant attention to the subterranean ecosystems made by the Builders and their minions. In fact, being Golarion a prison for an entropy god, that race decided to emulate the gods but abandoned their project? That would also explain the black blood, perhaps that fluid belong to a deity the Vault Builders wanted to get rid from.
Actually, while there still might be Vault Builders AND Vault Keepers active somewhere on or under Golarion... they're in much smaller numbers than they used to be, and are no longer actively "caring" for Orv.
They abandoned the project because they came into conflict with the aboleths, and they ended up more or less ceding the world to them after the war threatened to carry on forever into an exhausting stalemate with neither side able to get the upper hand.
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Creative Director
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I'm really excited to hear that you have very specific plans for the Vault Builders, James!
Can you say if they align/involve your plans for the Dominion of the Black? I feel like there is some underlying connection there.
The Vault Builders have no real connection to the Dominion of the Black at all.
They do sometimes work with/against creatures of the Lovecraft mythos... but that's different than the Dominion of the Black.
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This intrigues me, the whole 'war with the aboleths' thing. Sounds very Elder Thing-y. Unless that was a completely unrelated conflict, the aboleth's being all 'this is mah house! Get da fuq out!', and the Elder Things and/or Vault Builders were like 'make me!', and it degenerated from there (though I suspect the conversation would have gone a bit more eloquently).
Perhaps the Aboleth and the Vault People could had been involved in a far more vast conflict. Perhaps the same conflict which in ancient Earth made the Elder Things, the Mi-Go, the Spawn of Cthulhu and the Great Race of Yith wage war one against the another. Perhaps it also involved the Serpentfolk and the Cyclops of Ghol-Gan far before the rise of the Azlanti and could by extension explain the connection some areas of Avistan and Tian-Xia are connected to Leng?
Jacobs said already the Vault People doesn't have a connection with the Dominion of the Black, but what if those mysterious race was the only neutral one in the conflict? That would explain why they are far more active than any other of the ancient races of the galaxy as it is implied in Distant Worlds.
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In my game, I have a skeleton array of facts which includes the 'real origins of races, etc. Beyond that, I layer myths and such for the players to 'discover' as they play. At the 2004 Christmas party, I got tagged by players from 3 separate incarnations of my game on Elf origins. All 3 'knew' that elves came from 'X', but 'X' was different in each of their games. Oddly, 2 wound up in a later series of sessions and found a few more bits of elvish history that "don't jive". They also found that one of the collected stories they had was really attached to another race.
They threatened to both build Bards and pursue the mystery! It could be some awesome RP opportunities.
I think I've got my idea : )
For a long time now I've been a fan of the note in City of Strangers that there is an arch of unknown material that seems to have foreign stars depicted on it -- except for a black spot, which has been growing with the years.
I've also been a fan of the Bestiary (2? 3?) general entry for Nightshades, which suggests the idea that there are greater nightshades that act as cosmic presences that annihilate worlds.
I think my Vault Builders are going to be an extremely industrious, advanced and long-lived race. They never really lived on Golarion; rather, they lived out in distant worlds or the great beyond, dissassembling worlds and creating their own bizarre but intricate constructions with the raw materials. At some point their lesser stellar projects (which, doubtless, even the ruins thereof are incredible) became threatened by the aforementioned entropic force.
And so we have Golarion, a small backwards planet with not much going for it (except having a greater destiny than perhaps anybody realizes). The Vault Builders selected it because it contained life that is tempting to the force of entropy, and because it's right between the force and the vault builders' greater projects. The vault builders made Golarion into a trap.
Perhaps the vault builders found another creature -- an outsider of incredible elemental light. Perhaps a sufficiently advanced civilization such as theirs could even bind the powers of a god of light like Easivra, who has been weakened by millenniae of silence instead of worship.
So they've mined out Golarion, experimented with creating vaults -- cages -- and finally managed to put the weakened being of light into one, waiting through uncounted years for mutual annihilation, raging impotently against the walls of its prison and growing madder all the while.
Oh yes, I could see capping a campaign off with that.
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I would like to suggest a work of fiction for Mr. Jacob which he could use as a source of ideas concerning the Vault People background.
There is a french comic book album called "On the False Earths", belonging to the space opera series "Valérian and Laureline" (by Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mézières)which was published in 1977.
In said comic book, the main protagonist couple are investigating with the help of an expert in ancient history of Earth a mysterious cluster of domed islands each depicting a concrete time period and place of our world. They investigation obeys orders of the high command of the galactic government to discover who has stolen all the archives concerning Earth before the development of FTL travel and why is creating those reconstructions with androids.
The main "antagonist" is an Alien belonging to a very ancient race which didn't had "history" as they basically had high cognitive and innate knowledge of the laws of physics since the very beginning of its race. Unable to travel in time for fear the chrono-agents of the galactic government could arrest him, he decided to reproduce Earth's many societies and time periods just for his entertainment and curiosity.
I must add the Alien is implied as very "Lovecrafnian" looking as when he/she/it meets the expert on Earth's ancient history is wearing a egg like "harness" which conceals its true form to her.
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Golarion is old, very, very, very old.
Who knows what untold horrors and glories birthed the human race on that world?
My own guess is that humans were uplifted by the aboleths in the relatively near-past (the Azlanti were the "true humans" with all others being less perfect experiments scattered across the globe), but who is going to make them talk?
Did the Vault Builders predate or post-date the imprisonment of Rovagug?
Possibly, although I think we have to take any creation myths with a grain of salt, given what has been said about them by the developers.
I am still half convinced that the Black Blood/Blackfrost/Black Goo of Aucturn are all somehow connected to Rovagug, possibly his blood. If the Vault Builders predate his imprisonment, though, that would be less likely.
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Creative Director
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Did the Vault Builders predate or post-date the imprisonment of Rovagug?Maybe I've got the wrong impression, but I thought that the imprisonment of Rovagug was part of the planetary creation process... At that point, the Vault Builders would presumably come afterwards - otherwise they would have no material to work with.
Nope; Rovagug was imprisoned long after Golarion was created.
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Wait... So the Gods just went... "oh look, 'that' planet would be perfect to lock up the most powerful force of destruction we have ever faced."
Of all the planets, planes and stars they could have imprisoned Rovagug, they picked Golarion? =_=!!!
Did the Gods have a choice? Or was it one of those spur of the moment decisions?
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Btw... are the Vault Builders proto-humans?
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So as far as I can tell, Abadar is one of the oldest gods. Strangely is also Master of the First Vault.
Other oddities…he is God of Walls and Ditches, Judge of the Gods and his symbol is a key
From the wiki
http://www.pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Abadar
He was worshiped by the ancient Azlanti before Earthfall, who focused more on his aspects as a god of cities and gold, rather than of law.
If we go with "there are no accidents" there is some strange things here.
"long served as the guardian and protector of the First Vault" like a Vault Keeper...
"a repository said to be crafted by the deity's own hand, containing perfect versions of everything ever created or seen by civilized peoples. like a Vault Builder...
Let's throw the imprisonment of Rovagug in with this.
So they blasted down to the Dead Vault,
What has always bugged me about this legend is that it says "when he {Rovagug} turned his gaze upon a new world he was opposed by an unlikely collection of gods "
A new world does not equal Golarion and that has always had me puzzled. What world? Could it be Golarion? Maybe, Maybe not. But of the gods that fought Rovagug, several are from other worlds or from "out there."
... are the Vault Builders proto-humans?
or Proto-gods?
maybe neither. Maybe they are the "Order" the Proteans didn't catch until it was too late.
Wait... So the Gods just went... "oh look, 'that' planet would be perfect to lock up the most powerful force of destruction we have ever faced."
Of all the planets, planes and stars they could have imprisoned Rovagug, they picked Golarion? =_=!!!
As I understand it, he's only locked up "in Golarion" in a metaphysical sense, with the Pit of Gormuz somehow being key to his prison. I could be wrong, though.
If that's the case, then there could be other locks and/or prison planets that Rovagug also has connections to, such as Aucturn.
As for why the Gods picked Golarion, if the Vault Builders preceded Rovagug's imprisonment, then perhaps the very Vaultlike nature of the planet (planets?) itself made it a suitable choice for locking his power away in some manner?
A lot of cool stuff there, Broken. Only one thing I might add, is a different interpretation of the meaning "new world" in the quote you mention.
Even if Golarion was an old world, predating Rovagug, if he'd never seen it or encountered it before, it would still be "new" to him. So, perhaps the quote could be read that way- a NEW world, and not a NEW WORLD.
You know the "aspect of time" thing may not be far off. And locking him away at the "center" of the material plane prevents him from reaching the other planes and forces mortality on the creatures of the Material plane. Maybe, Aroden died because he was of the material plane and no matter what he did he could not escape the grasp of Rovagug.
The gods locked time on the material plane to prevent the spread of time to all planes.
Food for thought...especially for the other ascended gods...
A lot of cool stuff there, Broken. Only one thing I might add, is a different interpretation of the meaning "new world" in the quote you mention.
Even if Golarion was an old world, predating Rovagug, if he'd never seen it or encountered it before, it would still be "new" to him. So, perhaps the quote could be read that way- a NEW world, and not a NEW WORLD.
Granted...
but don't you find it strange that possibly before Golarion is inhabited by the elves that Calistria came over from Castrovel? Or Desna came from "out there" to protect Golarion? Or is it more likely they all sensed the threat of Rovagug, and banded together to save the Material plane? the New World could be the material plane itself in that sense? Or is there something else about Golarion we don't know yet? Something to bring all those gods running when the world was threatened?
What if...Rovagag was trying to devour the StarStone on a planet in the Golarion System? What does the StarStone do to a god, if it makes mortals gods?
Even Dahak banded together with Aspu to fight Rovagug. Dahak. "I lit the fires of Hell", Dahak. God of Endless Destruction Dahak.
Golarion is one world, possibly countless others exist. Why is it Golarion that drew out the response.
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Creative Director
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Wait... So the Gods just went... "oh look, 'that' planet would be perfect to lock up the most powerful force of destruction we have ever faced."
Of all the planets, planes and stars they could have imprisoned Rovagug, they picked Golarion? =_=!!!
Did the Gods have a choice? Or was it one of those spur of the moment decisions?
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Btw... are the Vault Builders proto-humans?
The reasons why Rovagug ended up where he did are kinda complex. Look at it this way—if he ended up imprisoned inside a different planet, though, we would have set our campaign setting there instead. It was NOT a spur-of-the-moment decision. There's a reason Rovagug was imprisoned in Golarion. That's one of the mysteries of it all.
And no, the Vault Builders/Vault Keepers were not proto-humans at all.
Golarion is one world, possibly countless others exist. Why is it Golarion that drew out the response.
How about this thought:
Distant Worlds spoilers-
It could also mean that the Vault Builders didn't necessarily dig out the interior tunnels and Vaults, but rather built within existing "veins" and "arteries" of the dead god.
Perhaps Golarion is like Earth in the DC Multiverse.
Conquer it, and you have the whole pie.
Destroy it and a catastrophic chain reaction would trigger, eradicating all existence.
But this is going to off-topic.
For me the Vault Builders are like the Caulborn, a very alien race which is obsessed with knowledge, but where the Caulborn are more into "humanities", the Vault Builders are more into "natural philosophy".
I associate this kind of behavior to that of the Great Race of Yith, being civilizations outside of time, they feel some kind of duty to preserve all knowledge which time could wipe out. Perhaps Vault Builders doesn't believe in this kind of philosophy and instead of just "remember" they wanted to see if "resurrecting" an extinct ecosystem or civilization could be possible.
After the article dedicated to Groetus, there are lots of questions if Golarion's universe is in fact just another iteration/variable of a previous universe which ceased to be. Perhaps the Vault Builders just decided to break a rule every eternal race wouldn't never break:
-Never preserve and try to revive something belonging to a previous existence into the new one.
This would mean dwarves and orcs never mean to be in Golarion, as they could belonged to a previous universe, preserved by the capricious Vault Builders.
Another thought that occurred to me while reading through Distant Worlds again- is there some kind of connection between the Vault Builders and the First Ones of Aballon? Could they be the same beings?
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My theory would be that the world of Golarion was the last line drawn by the gods, as they'd already set their hopes on it, and Rovagug had already made a big mess of every other world he'd decided to visit.
Before? That other world (worlds?) he left in ruins? That was what cemented their decision to stand up to him if he ever came here. And, being Rovagug, he did, forcing their hand. He got locked up on Golarion because that's where the gods drew their line in the sand and said, 'No more.' Imprisoning him on Golarion probably wasn't their ideal choice, but they weren't winning by a big enough margin to be able to risk trying to cart him off somewhere else.
Alternately, perhaps the imprisoned essence of a vastly powerful god is important into kickstarting the fecundity and mystical significance of Golarion itself? What could be more elegant and perverse than imprisoning an entity of primal destruction and using it as a source of creative energy?
But if that's the case, it begs the question of whether or not there's something imprisoned at the heart of that other fertile world in the system, Castrovel...