A couple questions:
The wiki gives a few details about the test, saying it is actually a dungeon crawl to the centre of Absolom, wherein lies the Starstone, and that the dungeon entails monsters, puzzles and traps. It starts by trying to cross the bottomless pit into the Starstone Cathedral without a bridge (no big deal), but I can't find any info on what comes after. Is there a source of information for this?
Secondly, if you were to design such a dungeon that rewards you with divinity, what would you include? It must be extremely tough if only 3 people have done it, but I'm not sure if any of them were very high level when taking the test..
If I'm mistaken, let me know.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I've got my own theories on the Test of the Starstone. I'll spoiler my response.
Basically, if you take the Test because you want to become a god, then you've already failed. The Test of the Starstone, when passed, will make you the paragon of whatever you happen to be. If you try to grasp divinity because you want to become divine... then you end up becoming the god of wanting to become a god, and you make no sense and just disappear without divinity--the only way you can continue to want to become a god.
Because let's take a look at the three who actually did pass the test. Iomedae did it out of a sense of duty to Aroden. She took the test out of selflessness and sacrifice, not because she wanted it. As a result, she became the goddess of duty and eventually, The Inheritor. Cayden Cailen, well, he just took the test on a drunken lark with an adventuresome spirit. He didn't do it to become a god, he did it because it was there. And, as a result, he's the god of adventure and drunken larks. This leaves Norgorber. We don't know how he did it or why. However, I suspect (more speculation here) that he either entered the Temple to hide from everyone, or as an assassin who was following someone else who was taking the Test. In either case, there are good reasons why he didn't take the Test to become a god.
I agree that the test is morphic. Some interesting thoughts -
Pass or fail, any PC that enters the Starstone has just retired their character (though if passing, it might present your home group with a new deity with unique domains).
Three people are known to pass, this doe not mean that only three have passed. There may be some forgotten or dead deities that passed the test in the past (and was able to do so away from prying eyes - or erase themselves from history).
Razmir took the test of the starstone?
|
Razmir took the test of the starstone?Only if you buy in to fringe Razmiran propaganda.
One thing that is very unclear to me is how many people know that the cult of Razmir is a fraud. An entire country worships him, after all. And certainly the module Masks of the Living God strongly implies that it is a fairly widespread belief that he is a God.
|
It should definitely also present challenges specifically targeting a character's weaknesses and forcing them to find creative solutions to make up for their shortcomings.
The rules of the game, and of physics, should probably be significantly relaxed inside the cathedral as well; after all, Iomedae crossed the chasm surrounding the dungeon by throwing her nonmagical cloak into it, which miraculously transformed into a bridge. On the other hand, magical teleportation and flight have been known to inexplicably fail at accomplishing the same task.
Anything that's creative and dramatically appropriate should potentially work within the Test, while boring but mechanically sound solutions should be unreliable at best.
Creative Director
|
One thing that is very unclear to me is how many people know that the cult of Razmir is a fraud. An entire country worships him, after all. And certainly the module Masks of the Living God strongly implies that it is a fairly widespread belief that he is a God.Razmir took the test of the starstone?Only if you buy in to fringe Razmiran propaganda.
It's more or less the worst-kept secret of Golarion.
In world, I'd say that the further you get from Razmiran's borders, the less likely you'll be to find folks who believe he's a god, though.
|
|
It sounds a lot like Scientology, It's not exactly a secret on how much of a fraud religion it is. That hasn't stopped the flood of converts, including some Big Names, from signing up. It also hasn't stopped it from wielding tremendous influence. Scientology is very good at silencing it's ex-members through the threat of legal action.One thing that is very unclear to me is how many people know that the cult of Razmir is a fraud. An entire country worships him, after all. And certainly the module Masks of the Living God strongly implies that it is a fairly widespread belief that he is a God.Razmir took the test of the starstone?Only if you buy in to fringe Razmiran propaganda.It's more or less the worst-kept secret of Golarion.
In world, I'd say that the further you get from Razmiran's borders, the less likely you'll be to find folks who believe he's a god, though.
1) thanks James
2) I like that analogy
I like the idea of the Test as an extra-dimensional dungeon in the vein of Dark Souls. I have seeds of a campaign where everyone wakes up with amnesia and eventually figure out they were great heroes in Golarion who got into the Cathedral. Throw in small bits and pieces from their character history as events they are reliving.
The mystery is quite excellent...
|
One thing that is very unclear to me is how many people know that the cult of Razmir is a fraud. An entire country worships him, after all. And certainly the module Masks of the Living God strongly implies that it is a fairly widespread belief that he is a God.Razmir took the test of the starstone?Only if you buy in to fringe Razmiran propaganda.It's more or less the worst-kept secret of Golarion.
In world, I'd say that the further you get from Razmiran's borders, the less likely you'll be to find folks who believe he's a god, though.
this directly contradicts the Inner Sea World Guide (pg 158), that states even his most trusted allies do not know the truth about him.
there is certainly going to be suspicion of his divinity, but it is nearly impossible to prove he is not a god. healthy skepticism is not the same as disbelief. John Compton had previously reinforced this as well.
would you say the farther you get from Nidal's borders, the less likely you are to find Zon-Kuthon is believed to be a god? or just the less likely one would be to recognize him as such because he's not relevant?
|
Some quotes from the other Test of the Starstone thread...
See Dungeon magazine's "The 30 Greatest D&D Adventures of All Time" (purchase here). Personally, I like threatening my players with Tomb of Horrors whenever they start waxing poetic about the Starstone Cathedral.
I rather like imagining it as similar to the maze in the death stalker novels or the pattern in the novels of amber. Not massive battles against evil monsters or dastardly traps to kill the unwary. Instead it forces the person to confront who and what they are, all their strengths and weaknesses with any illusions stripped from them. Beating the test of the starstone means knowing yourself as you truly are.
Those who fail are those who can't handle this knowledge. It's one of those things that are a pain to run though. Still I'd have it as something themed around 4 parts.
1) Knowledge of yourself: The person must confront the choices they made in their life. What do you regret, what are you proud of, why did you really make that choice and review them stripped of any self delusion. Did you give the beggar money because you wanted to help them or just because it was expected. Designed to force them to confront just who and what they really are.
2) Knowledge of others: A continuation of part one but now your experiencing those decisions from the perspective of the others involved. Your good natured joking with someone is seen from their view as constant abuse that hurts them, your heroic deeds to impress a girl as seen from her view as idiotic actions that guys do, a casual work said to a passing stranger is seen from their view as a major defining moment in the darkest time of their life as something that gives them strength to go on even though to you it meant nothing and you don't even remember their name. Designed to show them how their view of the world can be very different to others and how even minor actions can cause ripples.
3) Knowledge of the world: A review of events throughout history designed to show the connections and how rarely an event truly is all or nothing good vs evil. They see the rise and fall of empires how things that spanned the world can fall and be forgotten and how the actions of one person can turn the tide of history only for them to be vilified and destroyed because...
I recently ended a five-year campaign that took my players' characters from 1st to 20th level. From level 17 on they played through a mega adventure I wrote.
The final chapter of that adventure was the Test of the Starstone. They didn't take it to become gods, though; they took it because they had discovered that something was wrong with the Starstone itself, something that was tearing reality apart, and they needed to get to the Starstone in order to save/fix both it and all of Golarion.
I don't plan to go into a lot of details of what happened during the Test. Needless to say, they had many harrowing encounters (literally--one encounter was with a Harrowed Deck of Many Things) on their way to the heart of Starstone Cathedral.
Once they made it there, they learned the answers to many mysteries--why Aroden died, why the Worldwound opened, why the Eye of Abendego exists, why prophecy has no meaning, and some others.
They also discovered that in order to save/fix the Starstone, one of them needed to become a god and then voluntarily die at the hands of the Unmaking ability of a Time Flayer (Tome of Horrors Complete, p. 603); this would erase that character from reality, all memory of their existence forgotten by everyone.
The catch, though, was this--only one of them would be granted godhood, and they all had to agree willingly and unanimously as to which one of them it would be. Five out of seven characters volunteered, and they agreed to draw straws to determine who it would be. The arcane trickster of the group, named Lel, used slight of hand to cheat (getting a result well north of 50), and ended up tricking the rest of the parting into choosing him.
So, Lel became a god for a few moments, long enough to save/fix the Starstone, shrink the Worldwound by a few miles, close the Eye of Abendego, return prophecy to the world, and save all of reality from unraveling.
Of course, Lel was forgotten. The rest of the party emerged into a changed world. Their efforts triggered the return of...