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With the caveat that this is not anything on the schedule, just me collecting information and testing the waters: What sorts of things would people want to see in a campaign setting book about the First World? What elements do you want to know more about?
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Details about the Eldest courts and how you can join or at least work for them!
The origin of the Gnomes.
DINOSAURS RIDING OTHER DINOSAURS! That's right, I want a playable Saurian race.
Ways of entering, making a living, and gaining power from the First World.
Archtypes and Prestige Classs dealing with them. A Man of Bronze archetype for Fighters or Monks.
Feyblood Magics
Dino Shamans!
Ripped Shirts, flint lock in hand, knife in teeth adventures.
Crazy temples filled with prototype animal gods. Temple of the Platypus, etc.
Gippli MANDESS.
And rules for Dino Mounts! Flying ones even.
Enough pulp to make you think a Paper Mill exploded.
Let me go ahead and second the Eldest. My rage prophet "knight errant" thinks that she's been chosen by the Eldest to do...something (they aren't telling her, yet) and that Ng wants her to work for the Pathfinder Society until they need her at... oh, I don't know... 12th level? I'd love to have more canon to base her "service" on.
Some fey stuff, of course, but lots of primal, more-natural-than-nature kind of stuff.
Guenwhyvar eating deer figurines.
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Eldest: Desription of the demesne for each of the Eldest. Along with a detailed (to the level of ISWG treatment of the Big 20) background for each.
History: How the First World and its inhabitants have affected Golarion. Details of the older deitys interactions with the First World (even if it is myth and conjecture) before and after the Material plane came into being.
Creatures: Rumors of origins and original stats for the various races that left the First World. Mites and gnomes in particular, as they are noted for significant evolution. Maybe remnants of the civilizations they left behind.
Current Powers: Besides the Eldest, what other beings, deitys, and creatures rule in the First World. Interesting to see how they deal with the changing primal landscape and eternity.
Through the looking glass: More details on the areas where the veil is the thinnest between the Material and First World planes for likely jump off locations for campaigns. How the First World affects planar topology. Was the Shadow plane around before the Material? Or did it come later, kind of like the leftover power of the First World modified to create the Material or a shadow of the life force shone into the Material?
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Ripped Shirts, flint lock in hand, knife in teeth adventures.
I was okay with the rest of the list except this. NO GUNPOWDER! It screams of technology and goes against the primal feel I believe the First World should have. It would be cool if the First World was kind of a technology dead magic zone akin to the Mana Wastes for magic. The higher the level of tech, the more likely it will not work. Like in Dies the Fire, an excellent novel. Not a new idea, but a good feel for how I like the First World to operate.
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Why not? All the First World is, is a prototype of the current world. Anti-technology cuts you off from all the cool optional Land of the Lost stuff that could up, or the other half of the coin where the First World would play very much like a Pulp dream setting. Guns may be optional but unsupported.
I do NOT get this everything must be bonze-age technology in a fantasy setting mentality.
What, you'd rather the PC's wondering around with bone weapons and loin cloths?
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Why not? All the First World is, is a prototype of the current world. Anti-technology cuts you off from all the cool optional Land of the Lost stuff that could up, or the other half of the coin where the First World would play very much like a Pulp dream setting. Guns may be optional but unsupported.
I do NOT get this everything must be bonze-age technology in a fantasy setting mentality.
What, you'd rather the PC's wondering around with bone weapons and loin cloths?
Land of the Lost = Sarusan...
Who said just bronze age? I never did. I just don't want gunpowder laser rifles, etc.
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Witch Market!
More Eldest info and lots of examples of terrain/area quirks would be good too.
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Really, really, really scarily primal stuff, like the fever dreams of druids.
Sort of a mix of the Dreaming of the Australian Aboriginals and Lewis Carrol, or better yet American McGee's Alice
Really, really, really scarily primal stuff, like the fever dreams of druids.
Sort of a mix of the Dreaming of the Australian Aboriginals and Lewis Carrol, or better yet American McGee's Alice
Exactly. I expect the weird, the scary and the dangerous. Fairies are not supposed to be cute.
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Tane unique to Golarion's First World and the reasons for their creation.
Details about the Eldest courts and how you can join or at least work for them!
The origin of the Gnomes.
DINOSAURS RIDING OTHER DINOSAURS! That's right, I want a playable Saurian race.
Ways of entering, making a living, and gaining power from the First World.
Archtypes and Prestige Classs dealing with them. A Man of Bronze archetype for Fighters or Monks.
Feyblood Magics
Dino Shamans!
Ripped Shirts, flint lock in hand, knife in teeth adventures.
Crazy temples filled with prototype animal gods. Temple of the Platypus, etc.
Gippli MANDESS.
And rules for Dino Mounts! Flying ones even.
Enough pulp to make you think a Paper Mill exploded.
Err...I don't think the First World has much ties to dinos? Are you thinking the Mwangi expanse?
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The interaction and historical moments of contact between the First World and various other planes.
How the First World does or doesn't fit into the conventional cycle of souls.
Half-fey!
Faerie-dragons!
More about the Eldest!
More awesomeness (that's probably a given)!
Fountains of power leaking into the Material Plane as the source of some sort of magic.
Captured Material Plane "experimentation" labs by mad tinker gnomes and some sort of nefarious leader.
Architecture!
Religion and relations with various gods/goddesses
Silent communities of telepathic individuals...or cultists!
Redcap breeding mills
The First Vault maybe?
I'd like to see lots of inspiration from Fairy tales...not just Europe but also the fairy tales of the New World, Australia.
Nature turned up to 11. Swamps that evoke the feel of primordial times...Dark Forests where the sun never shines, Idyllic islands that have never known conflict or tragedy.
Rules that capture the weirdness. Things like time moving at a different rate, weird and random access points to the material. Weird travel rules...a single road through a forest might be completed on one trek in a a day, and on the return trip it takes a month. Teleporting locations.
How do the courts of the Eldest work? what are the politics? How do the Tane fit in? What other creatures besides linnorms and Fey exist. How do gods and outsiders interact with the Eldest
Beyond those, I would also really like to see a "Book of the Damned" volume on The Eldest. With new Eldest, boons, detailed descriptions of the Eldest, and maybe a prestige class like we got with the previous volumes.
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Possibly beyond the scope of a theoretical project, but I would love to see some examination of what it would be like to run a whole campaign set in the First World.
Introduce an area or two of stability (and their associated Material Planar connection point, most likely Golarion related), slap a First World equivalent of a village or town there, with a little bit of detail. Some bizarre, Escherian illustrations of the town would be cool to see as well, to really drive home the point that- even for all its stability- this is still a First World location. Stock it with some NPCs, and some nearby adventure hooks.
Actually, as I'm describing it, I'm envisioning the First World as something akin to the Amber-Chaos cosmology of the Zelazny chronicles. There would be a very select few "fixed points" (such as the aforementioned town), and the landscape around it would be somewhat stable as well, due to the "bleed" from the Material Plane. The further you get from the town, the more "normal" the landscape becomes in First World terms; ie, randomly shifting, never the same place twice.
Of course, the First World denizens detest the how the Material Plane creates these locales, and they also detest the "traitorous" souls who choose to dwell in and around them.
Said town probably features some kind of bazaar run by the Denizens of Leng (who use it as a waystation/trading post), or at least regular visits from them.
As for other features of the First World, some locations would be nice- other than stable ones, these would consist of realms that float around randomly, and whose geography, while amorphous, tends to reflect the nature of its most prominent denizens and/or rulers.
Since distance and direction- outside of those stable points- mean relatively nothing in the First World, maybe some GM suggestions for how to create descriptive travel there; again, I'm depicting something along the lines of Hellrides in Amber, and Zelaznian descriptions:
"I took a right at the Burning Wells and fled smokeghosts across the
Uplands of Artine. I slew the leader of the Kerts of Shern as her flock
harried me from hightowered perches among the canyons of that place. The
others abandoned the sport, and we were through, beneath a green rain out of a slate-colored sky. Onward and down then, to where the plains swirled dust devils that sang of sad eternities in rock that once they were." - Blue Horse, Dancing Mountains, by Roger Zelazny
I could see tables with random descriptions and/or location names that DMs could generate on the fly to keep the narrative flowing.
Directed, purposeful travel for non-denizens would have to be accomplished via the help of guides, or some other magical means. Most denizens see patterns in the shifting landscapes that serve as guideposts, but these would be all but inscrutable to outsiders.
Some other 1 HD races from the First World aside from gnomes would be neat to see as well.
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I would like to see a section of quest seeds.
Bonus points if you call it First World Problems.
hahahaha!
/hat tip.
I like MMCJawa's suggestion about nature; this would be a good element to bring forward in a First World book- not just traditional vegetation (albeit monstrous and malevolent), but all aspects of nature; embodied thunderstorms and encroaching, possibly sentient glaciers. I'm reminded of the story "The Ice-Demon" by Clark Ashton Smith:
"Deeming that this thing was no natural occurrence, but a sorcery that had been exerted by the great glacier, and that the glacier itself was a live, malignant entity with powers of unknown bale, they did not slacken their flight. And the ice had suffered them to depart in peace, as if to give warning of the fate of those who dared to assail it."
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-More information of the Eldest and there domains and maybe stats to them as well.
-Feats, spells, magic items, archtypes, etc. related to the first world.
-A polymorph spell that lets you take the fey form.
-History about how the first world influenced Golarion and maybe other worlds.
-Stats for more fey and other denizens of the first world.
-Some fairy tale stuff would nice and also classic literature like wonderland and never land influence.
-Rules for traveling and navigating the first world.
-First World details like the environmental hazards, magical mishaps, long term effects on mortals, etc.
-Gnomes from the first world and there origin.
-Playable fey blooded race that would be a fey equivalent to an aasimar or tiefling.
-Example first world town.
-Effects of first world food and drink.
-Relationships with gods/goddesses and how they are viewed each other.
-Tane unique to Golarion.
-If the first world has anything to do with fertile world of Castrovel.
-Feyblood magic or faerie magic, it is shame that rune magic has nothing to do with faerie magic like it does in myths.
-Politics and social "norms" for fey.
-How the first world infleunces other planes of existence.
-Some faerie dragon stuff would be nice.
-Effects the first world might have on technology and "progress".
-How does or doesn't effect the cycle of souls.
I want this guy to write it. He is more than qualified to write about Fey and the like.
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I've had my own guesses about why the First World is so preoccupied with the Prime, but a campaign book could offer some of the most important guesstimates to the motivations of the Eldest down to the rank-and-file fey. What do they want? What carrots and sticks do they use to motivate/manipulate Primes to achieve their goals?
Guesstimates/clues to how the Prime and First World influence and shape each other.
More hints about what/who drove the gnomes out.
A writeup of a sample witch fair and/or table of 100 random vendors and 100 random wares.
Heck, 100 random fey curses.
More fey monsters, including snarks and boojums.
A fey version of Pinocchio's Pleasure Island. Maybe an afflicted were-donkey critter/template?
Protean visitors/immigrants! More Todd Stewart! More James Sutter! More Carolina Eade! Maybe, pretty please, some Stephanie Pui-Mun Law?
I would also like to have snarks, boojums, and other fey.
Some fey/fairy tale style curses would be nice, also not all curses should be 100% bad for the target. Maybe some curses were meant to be broken when the person learned to be good, to love, to be loved, or just to loosen up.
I also like a version of Pinocchio's pleasure island but a baleful polymorph curse would be nice.
Protean interaction with the first world.
Specific areas on Golarion that are effect by the first world and how they are effected.
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Things I am interested in seeing:
* BotD / CotR style entries for the Eldest
* More information on the Tane
* Several interesting First World locations; I'm particularly interested in seeing what some of the non-forest places are like. Someplace Wonderland-inspired as mentioned upthread would be cool, as would the 'primordial nature turned to 11' stuff; I'm mostly looking for variety and flavor since the First World is both huge and has a high potential for weirdness.
* More strange First World creatues; I'm a fan of the Grodair and am interested in seeing whatever other otherworldly creatures are out there
* Information on what other powerful things beyond the Eldest dwell there
* Information on First World reincarnation
* A section on the Witchmarket
* Stats on at least one Eldest
* A handful of dungeon-entires handled in the general style of the Irrisen / Worldwound / Ustalav companions
And in the unlikely-but-would-be-really-cool category:
* Information on what the portions of the First World that connect to the other planets in Golarion's system are like
The Witch Market.
Information on the odd laws of the fey, and how they can cause problems for visitors.
Plot seeds and advice for faerie-tale-style storylines.
Plot seeds and advice for dark fey horror storylines, including a rundown of examples of unseelie at various power levels. (water horses, Yallery Brown, etc.)
A nomadic civilization that travels between worlds -- maybe even between solar systems -- in the Material Plane by walking through the First World for thousands of years.
EDIT: What the First World is like in areas coterminous with other planets, and with deep space.
Is there bleedthrough of some sort from major Golarion problems like the Worldwound, the Eye of Abendego, and the Pit of Gormuz?
D-d-d-dooooooooot.
Well it does say that every animal that has ever existed(and them some) can be found in the first world.
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A book with the following would be interesting
*Details on the Eldest
*More info on the Tane(and at least one more of them statted out)
*Details on the various other "Lords" or "Ladies" who have realms in the first world (ex: Baba Yaga)
*Info on first world races (including more Gnomish history)
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- Discussion of its history, its nature, how to get there, how to get back out.
- Unique monsters including a handful of additional Tane.
- Some more write-ups of the Eldest. Maybe mythic-level statblocks for them as well.
- A gazetteer of interesting regions and locales. However, NO DEFINITIVE MAP, as that strikes me as going against the fundamental theme of the First World being in constant flux.
- Cryptic, ambiguous hints about the origin of the gnomes, but no definitive answer.
- Maybe some news feats, spells, or archetypes.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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- A gazetteer of interesting regions and locales. However, NO DEFINITIVE MAP, as that strikes me as going against the fundamental theme of the First World being in constant flux.A map of Golarion marked with areas connecting to First World realms would be useful though, like the maps they did for the "Into the Darklands" book.
Hear, hear!
Maps for those Golarion locations most touched by the first world would be nice.
A list of other creatures, beings, powerful humanoids who have realms in the first world.
Regions/locations of interest would be cool.
Other inhabitants such humans and other races not from the first world who have made it there home.
list of different natural and unnatural phenomenon such as weather, environmental changes, time effects, random changes in living things, magical surges, etc..
Rules/guidelines/list of alternate and additional abilities creatures from the first world might have.
If the positive energy plane has a stronger connection or any connection to the first world.
- details on the sidhe society, and of all other influential races there
- a table of fey pranks and weird customs/laws/gifts/fey vulnerabilities
- weird natural hazards, and flora and fauna
- witchmarket details (like CalebTGordan's thread)
- fey rings, roads, ley lines, ways of how to enter the First World
- primal magic improvements
- other fey magic, oneiromancy, glamour effects, curses
- interesting npcs
- inspired by the works of Vance, Gaiman, Crowley, Machen
- new monsters (for example a humanoid leshy, na fir ghorma, tomte, horae, pleiades, aitvaras, psotnik, apsara, alux, trenti, enenra, chullachaqui, wakandagi pezi, aziza...)
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Welsh/Irish/Celtic myths.
Red-eared white hounds. The Wild Hunt
Rescuing (captured?) people - Tam Lin
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Ideally, some kind of broader treatment of fey than just the more "standard" Celtic myths; something more than just European myths, for that matter.
I'd love to see some First World residents representative of fey-type mythologies in other cultures- African, American, Asian, etc.
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I'd like to see a continuation of moving more towards historic lore for fey, and less of the "tinker bell" trope.
More information on the Eldest and other powerful beings (like Norns), including archtypes for classes, feats, and traits, tied to the First world.
Information of the fey of winters end, and the Ulfen children that where sent there as part of the pact.
Both "historic" lore for fey and "tinkerbell" trope. Also a summer fey template that makes them good aligned and some fire/heat themed abilities.
huh...I was reading about the Nunnehi last week. Been wondering how much of the legends about them are native to the Americas and how much are a result of cultural transmission from European settlers. They really are uncannily similar to European fairy folklore (especially the Sidhe), especially given the differences possessed by "fairy-like" beings from neighboring tribes.
* Information on genus loci types of things – places of power, place spirits, ley lines/dragon lines, ley line nexi, etc. How they differ between Golarion & the First World. Maybe an alternate version of haunt mechanics for fae place spirits.
* Information about the malleability of time & space and recommendations on how to run it – if appropriate (I’ve gotten the impression that the First World isn’t actually very static).
* Information on the Eldest and if there are others that are less well-known to Golarion.
* Tane.
* Revelation that gnomes are actually spies for the Great Old Ones and were kicked out of the first world generations ago for selling the Eldest out to the cthonic entities. (OK, a biiiiit of personal bias there, maaaaybe)
* Information on if & how the first world and the dream world(s) correspond / cross. Oneiromancy rules might be interesting if space permits.
* Historical perspective from the First World & their influences on non-human civilizations as well as the normal human-dominated ones (Aboleths, I’m squinting in the direction of deep water at you. Lizardfolk & Cyclopes as well, though with less squinting). Deities other than the Eldest that have roots in the First World.
* Motivations for the First World to care about Golarion, especially why the Eldest would bother granting spells.
* What First Worlders fear.
-TimD