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So, during a recent read-over of various historical notes, had a wingnut thought...
What about an AP that takes place entirely in the distant past of Golarion?
Trooping about in Thassilon a century or three before things went pear-shaped(yeah, the rulers are evil, but the place seemed to function), or kicking around Sarkoris (maybe even culminating in the place's transformation), or fighting against Ghol-Gan.
Creative Director
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Folks have asked about this before, but it's very unlikely. In effect, a historical AP like this is an AP set in a different campaign setting, so all the reasons why we don't do an AP for those reasons apply here. Furthermore, the further back we go, the less content we've published applies. Go back far enough and deities like Cayden Cailean disappear. Races like dwarves stop being available. And we have to decide for each and every spell and item whether or not they exist that far back.
That, on top of the fact that the idea of folks being distracted from the AP and trying to alter the future would be too much temptation for people to get distracted and potentially disappointed.
Go back far enough and deities like Cayden Cailean disappear.
You say that like it's a bad thing!(I keed, I keed. Sorta. I'll admit a passing fondness for Iomedae, but neither of the other Ascended even show up in most of the games I'm partial to.)
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That, on top of the fact that the idea of folks being distracted from the AP and trying to alter the future would be too much temptation for people to get distracted and potentially disappointed.
You could always go the other direction... into the future... so that nothing that is altered affects Golarion as we know it. And maybe once in the future, PCs return to the less-far-in-the-future or maybe the present to basically prevent a horrible future.
We already have a "Distant Worlds" book, I could handle a "Possible Worlds" or a "Possible Futures" book discussing different directions Golarion could go in.
The problems listed above didn't stop White Wolf from doing historical settings on either version of World of Darkness Earth . . . .
Nothing is stopping GMs from doing their own version of what was discussed above. I appreciate what James is saying; Paizo would have to do a ton of reworking things to determine what spells and items might be available. You would almost have to rewrite the entire setting to really be able to delve that in depth into the history.
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The thing with setting stuff in the past, though... is that a lot of the defined history is taken care of.
Mostly, though, this was inspired by the realization that the Runelords and Thassilon are actually pretty fleshed-out, and large chunks of the mechanical aspects are likewise already established (the Thassilonian Specialist archetype in Inner Sea Magic, spells known to have been innovated by various Runelords, deities like Lissala getting writeups).
I can accept that Paizo isn't interested at this time, and trying to keep things interesting while not letting PCs derail the timeline are legitimate concerns, but let's not oversell how underdeveloped certain chunks of the past are- pre-WorldWound Sarkoris is an easy fit, ancient Thassilon is halfway there already- Ghol-Gan and Azlant would indeed be trickier, and certainly justify mechanical objections.
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Yeah, if an area of the past is already fleshed out a lot, you aren't exactly playing with a different setting so much as a different "region" of the setting that you haven't done much with.
So, it's basically the equivalent of doing an AP about Galt.
;P
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Hey!
The more time travel stuff that gets thrown out there, the more reasonable a Galt AP looks. :-)
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Hey, considering we've gotten to close the Worldwound and kill Rasputin...
^All of a sudden this got me wondering if . . .
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Folks have asked about this before, but it's very unlikely. In effect, a historical AP like this is an AP set in a different campaign setting, so all the reasons why we don't do an AP for those reasons apply here. Furthermore, the further back we go, the less content we've published applies. Go back far enough and deities like Cayden Cailean disappear. Races like dwarves stop being available. And we have to decide for each and every spell and item whether or not they exist that far back.
That, on top of the fact that the idea of folks being distracted from the AP and trying to alter the future would be too much temptation for people to get distracted and potentially disappointed.
One night, the PCs helpfully aid a drunk getting back to the inn and change history.
^Fortunately, this was the night that the assassination plot against him would have otherwise gone off without a hitch.
We may get something similar to how the Armageddon Echo worked in Second Darkness as chances to explore the past and interact in it but no real change to the world as a whole.
Working on a homebrew campaign now myself where i am building up to the players facing off against Runelord Belimarius (Though they do not know that yet) Rather they have found what they believe is the hiding spot to Desna's Temple of First Dream absent from Xin-Edrassil. Im having it that Belmarius in her infinite envy and dream of a perfect eternal empire created a minor dreamscape stolen from the Plane of Dream that is a timelocked vision of Xin-Edrassil, in all its "perfect deserving of envy" glory, including dreamformed NPCs and other beings straight from the time period, using the temple and some gems inside it as a focus. Needless to say after nearly 10K years, the introduction of a Night Hag who believes she is the true Belimarius reborn, and the adventurers finding themselves in this little sandbox, things will likely fall apart real fast... assuming the scheming dream nobles dont kill them first.
P.S. Occult Adventures was the BEST help.
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Suddenly I had this vision of an Adventure Path where the PCs have to go back in time to stop a critical diversion of the timeline, like for instance the assassination of a critical personage.
Pathfinder meets The Terminator.
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Go back far enough and deities like Cayden Cailean disappear.You say that like it's a bad thing!(I keed, I keed. Sorta. I'll admit a passing fondness for Iomedae, but neither of the other Ascended even show up in most of the games I'm partial to.)
Cayden Cailean the deity comprises about 20% of my overall enjoyment of the Golarion setting.
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Cayden Cailean the deity comprises about 20% of my overall enjoyment of the Golarion setting.
I made an entire thread for people to say what they liked about him to try and get something to hook onto.
I emerged totally innocent of things I actually appreciate about him as a deity.
The problems listed above didn't stop White Wolf from doing historical settings on either version of World of Darkness Earth . . . .
White Wolf historical settings had the advantage of drawing upon actual history. So there are numerous history books GMs could fall back on for inspiration. A completely fictional setting like Golarion would need to have all of those details provided by Paizo. There just isn't enough material to really go on.
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Neither direction is interesting to me. We didn't put 10-some years of work into a campaign setting to not use it.
What about an alternate reality Path? One that takes the party into a parallel time cycle possibility for Golarion? But, it wouldn't wreck or alter the current setting. It might bring interesting fun.
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Creative Director
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Neither direction is interesting to me. We didn't put 10-some years of work into a campaign setting to not use it.What about an alternate reality Path? One that takes the party into a parallel time cycle possibility for Golarion? But, it wouldn't wreck or alter the current setting. It might bring interesting fun.
Nope. Even less of a possibility than doing one set on another continent. Not really interested in doing an AP that has no impact on Golarion at all.
Nope. Even less of a possibility than doing one set on another continent. Not really interested in doing an AP that has no impact on Golarion at all.Neither direction is interesting to me. We didn't put 10-some years of work into a campaign setting to not use it.What about an alternate reality Path? One that takes the party into a parallel time cycle possibility for Golarion? But, it wouldn't wreck or alter the current setting. It might bring interesting fun.
Oh, I don't know...it COULD be fun. Just because it doesn't have an effect on Golarion Prime...doesn't mean it's ineffective.
Afterall...
"In every revolution, there is one man with a vision."
Perhaps one of the most historic episodes that had a HUGE impact on the series...but perhaps the LEAST impact on the actual universe of that series.