I've been looking at some older books of mine and reminiscing on old campaigns and characters. One book that caught my eye was Stormhaven, part of the Cities of Fantasy line by Mongoose Publishing. Nostalgia and interest from my fellow gamers has led me to a new goal:
I want to fully "Pathfinderize" Stormhaven.
The genesis of Stormhaven was that it was discovered by a dwarf merchant ship captain and his elven first mate during a storm. It's a great stone disk held up on four pillars. This is the description from RPGnow.com:
"Among the mysteries of the sea, Stormhaven stands proud and defiant, a city built upon the relic of an unknown civilisation. Four great pillars support a disk of preternatural stone, its architects an enigma as great as the means of its construction. The new inhabitants settled centuries ago, giving the city its current name because the solidity and endurance it offers against the surrounding ocean is undeniable. Settlers erected their own dwellings on top of the disk and, when they crowded it too much, engineered a floating city latched to the four pillars.
Magic is the lifeblood of Stormhaven, coursing through its very foundations and making life comfortable away from the shores of any nation. Its staunch neutrality ensures that the riches keep flowing, making Stormhaven into a monument to unfettered greed and hunger for power. It is the destination of choice for the most ruthless merchants, crime lords and politicians, where a silver tongue, quick wit and a fast blade are invaluable commodities, both on the lowly docks and the glittering palaces. Any adventurer with the right combination of ingenuity, strength and daring will find that Stormhaven embraces him like a lover and that no dream of wealth, no matter how extravagant, is beyond his grasp."
I want to not only change the stats and NPCs to Pathfinder, but also help it work into the setting, and change the tone from the slightly campy 3.0 to the Pathfinder-exploration/realism we're used to.
Does anyone have any idea one which of the Old Empires would have been likely to make such a city in the sea? I don't have any sourcebooks with me, so I can't even think of a proper place for it to be other than in a "sea."
If you want to integrate this into Golarion, then this city should be far away from Absalom. I'd go with Vudra, which is both distant from the Inner Sea and claims immense magical prowess. The city could have been evacuated around the time of Earthfall and believed destroyed, only to be rediscovered later.
I think I'm going to make it just barely in the southern part of the Arcadian Ocean, possibly of Azlanti or Vudran design. Its position would make it a good trading post and help sell the "nexus" feel it has.
Here's a link to an Open Game Content backhistory of Stormhaven, before I go on.
http://www.purpleduckgames.com/scots2
DISCOVERY & FOUNDING
Mostly unchanged. I love the idea of it being an abandoned Azlanti ruin that was evacuated prior to Earthfall.
GROWTH
In my next post, I plan to outline the various meta-organizations of Golarion and how they were involved in the founding of Stormhaven, as well as the ruling 37 guildhouses of Golarion itself.