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I just wanted to share with you guys the drastic changes I made to a lot of the lore relevant to the Iron Gods Adventure Path. I found myself dissatisfied with the canonical fate of Androffa: essentially turning it into Golarion II. I know it was originally James Jacobs’s setting and I think that’s a pretty clever way on having your old homebrew game in a popular, established product, but I still wanted to ramp up the sci-fi and lower the fantasy.
Kinda a long post (okay it’s more than kinda long) but I’m curious what those of y’all who chug through it think. It's not finished and there’s still some details I need to flesh out, so keep that in mind!
Androffa doesn’t exist. Nor do Androffans. At least not in the way the people of Golarion understand. Long ago, a civilization of humanoids (the “first” humans perhaps?) ascended to a higher state of existence, effectively becoming gods. What was unique about their ascension was that they were the first in the Material Plane to do so entirely by technological means. Yet they do not expect to receive worship and do not grant any spells to anyone who tries to, without exception. This is either because they can’t because of how they ascended or because they won’t.
They existed in this post-singularity, god-like state for quite a long time. More specifically, they function as disembodied minds hosted in large megastructures made of computronium and are capable of great feats of engineering: dyson spheres, matrioshka brains, jupiter brains, stellar engines, and more. They use star clusters as people on Golarion might use fields or rich mineral veins. (If you guys are familiar with the Kardashev scale, they exist firmly as a Type III civilization.)
These entities eventually desired to return to the Material Plane inside physical “platforms”. Holdouts against this continued to exist, and there was considerable disagreement on what forms they should take, from biological to synthetic to humanoid to insectoid. Most of the thoughtmind came to a single consensus: human. Thus they set out to create the first of these bio-shells.
Their first attempt at this was a miserable failure. Their platforms simply became another type of human. The problem with these empty shells is that souls sprung up in them almost immediately. Worse, they were able to reproduce . Eventually the thoughtmind (the placeholder name we'll give these post-singularity entities) threw these humans onto a planet and promptly ignored them. These humans called themselves the Pytharans, and their world, Pyth.
These Pytharans are the humans that Golarians think of as the “Androffans”, and Pyth as “Androffa”. Most, but not all, alien technology found in Numeria is Pytharan.
Their second attempt was better, mostly. The creation of a purely biological humanoid template that was hardwired to better house their souls in. Many from the thoughtmind transmitted their souls into their new meat bodies. These platforms are what Golarians know as “androids”.
The problem with these androids is that at some point they, too, began to spontaneously become host to a non-thoughtmind life force. Increasingly impatient, the thoughtmind exiled the androids who “awakened” with a random soul and jealously kept the ones that they were able to successfully inhabit.
So where does the starship Divinity come in? Basically the Pytharans and exiled androids allied against their thoughtmind creators, who became increasingly unstable and eventually lashed out at their creations. The resulting war was vicious yet short, with the Pytharans and rebel androids barely holding out against terrible weapons of war (hurling red giant stars at solar systems tends to be bad for morale).
Long story short, a peace treaty was signed when the thoughtmind(s) further became fractured on the destiny of their creations. A particular “cluster” of the thoughtmind, in fact, encouraged cooperation. We know so much about the universe, this cluster said. We know of energies that no race yet has names for. Yet how much do we truly know of the tiny bacterial specks that are the various races and cultures that orbit stars?
This cluster offered a cooperative with the Pytharans. They wanted to build a ship. A ship that would go out into the stars, explore other races, uplift them to civilization if possible. Explore, cooperate, science ! This cluster of the thoughtmind was known as the Androffan Cluster. And the name of the ship they proposed:
Divinity.
The Androffan Cluster created the Divinity Drive and offered advice on the construction of the ship, along with providing a few key personnel. The Pytharans made up most of the crew, and the ship was to be captained by one of their own. The Unity Interface was jointly programmed, modeled off of a Pytharan (ie human) brain.
And the rest kinda sorta comes back into “canon” Pathfinder. 25 years pass of exploration and adventure, then the Dominion of the Black attacks the ship to get a hold of some neat-o wormhole technology (the thoughtmind is the only civilization the Dominion leaves alone out of caution, but they still can’t resist nabbing some of their super-tech for themselves, ie the Drive). Then boom, crash on Golarion after limping through its solar system.
Sooo yeah. Kinda long, still has some unfinished details and thoughts, and I feel weird posting it here (would belong on a blog maybe), but assuming any of you read it, what do you think?
Damn.
That's badass. I love the Halo and Neon Genesis Evangelion feel to it.
I too was a disenfranchised on how mundane Androffa and its inhabitants were, so seeing this absolutely fantastic.
Have you considered working the Dominion of the Black further into the plot?
Damn.
That's badass. I love the Halo and Neon Genesis Evangelion feel to it.
I too was a disenfranchised on how mundane Androffa and its inhabitants were, so seeing this absolutely fantastic.
Have you considered working the Dominion of the Black further into the plot?
Not for the rest of the adventure. The group is currently on the final book of the Iron Gods game I'm running.
But when the Legendary Planet Adventure Path fully comes out sometime next year I plan on running it as an indirect sequel to this game with this same group. Whatever the main villains are will be replaced (or modified to be in) the Dominion, and the Thoughtmind will be more explored, perhaps encountered directly.
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I admit I didn't like the fate of Androffa, mostly because we have already have Golarion as a standard fantasy world. I'd rather imagine it getting taken over by the Dominion or becoming some sort of Dystopian Empire. That Androffa is out there and MIGHT be searching for the Divinity I think just has more potential for future story telling.