What do you want from a Lost Omens: Shining Kingdoms?

Its treatment in the Spore War Player's Guide has me excited that this take on Kyonin will avoid old elitist tropes, which I appreciate - but I'm hoping there's room for parts of the elven nation to get really weird. Their capital is the hub for a portal network that spans the globe and the solar system; if I remember right, Knights of Lastwall had a lich from Sovyrian commanding Lashunta vampires, and more stuff like that would delight me. Iadara is rocking some really profound magic - let's luxuriate in that high fantasy a little!

The other nations do significantly less for me, admittedly, though I'm a little curious to see what Galt's identity looks like now. Andoran is already Democracy Land, and we're seemingly done with Eternal Revolution being the color for the local theme park... what comes next? Our Fantasy France has a chance to be something new, and that interests me a lot.

Its treatment in the Spore War Player's Guide has me excited that this take on Kyonin will avoid old elitist tropes, which I appreciate - but I'm hoping there's room for parts of the elven nation to get really weird. Their capital is the hub for a portal network that spans the globe and the solar system; if I remember right, Knights of Lastwall had a lich from Sovyrian commanding Lashunta vampires, and more stuff like that would delight me. Iadara is rocking some really profound magic - let's luxuriate in that high fantasy a little!

What were the the old elitest tropes of Kyonin?

keftiu wrote:

Its treatment in the Spore War Player's Guide has me excited that this take on Kyonin will avoid old elitist tropes, which I appreciate - but I'm hoping there's room for parts of the elven nation to get really weird. Their capital is the hub for a portal network that spans the globe and the solar system; if I remember right, Knights of Lastwall had a lich from Sovyrian commanding Lashunta vampires, and more stuff like that would delight me. Iadara is rocking some really profound magic - let's luxuriate in that high fantasy a little!

What were the the old elitest tropes of Kyonin?

Some really old materials presented Kyonin's elves like your typical snooty "high elves"; dismissive of other racers and super orderly (Lawful under the old Alignment paradigm)... despite none of that actually being Golarion Elf lore, which presents them as a pretty fundamentally mercurial culture broadly.

what comes next?

They've been freed, do they know how hard it is to lead?

But more seriously, a country trying to put itself back together after a long Reign of Terror could be a wonderful place to tell stories of intrigue, and as real French history shows the backslide into authoritarianism is entirely possible. Galt has as much of a claim to the old Taldan Empire legacy as Ravounel or Cheliax do, and it has neighbours to the north who are vulnerable and potentially lucrative if Galt could secure the overland route from Sarkoris now that Lake Encarthan isn't safe due to a certain Whispered Tyrant. And as happened in France, there might be any number of potential heirs hoping to be restored to their grandfathers' estates now that the Gray Gardeners are gone.

Meanwhile, I hope that a 2e treatment gives Paizo the chance to make Andoran seem like a cooler place to tell stories. It gets stereotyped as the Revolutionary America setting because Democracy, but I feel like you could do a lot to draw influence from Dutch history, especially the Stadholderless periods and the Anglo-Dutch Wars, with the diminishing of Chelaxian naval power and perhaps the rise of Taldan naval power under Eutropia, Andoran trying to carve itself out as more of a naval power in Golarion's Age of Sail. You could do a great campaign centred around that, never setting foot on land other than maybe a few port cities.

And as happened in France, there might be any number of potential heirs hoping to be restored to their grandfathers' estates now that the Gray Gardeners are gone.

They'll have their hopes realized too, I'll bet.

Andoran is also due for a slight refocus now that the slave trade has largely collapsed across the Inner Sea Region. A big part of Andoran's identity was as anti-slavers. I am curious to see where they place their focus now.

I am personally kind of excited for the Five Kings Mountains. We haven't gotten much regarding the Five Kings Mountains as a Nation and it will be interesting to see it explored as a Nation.

Andoran is also due for a slight refocus now that the slave trade has largely collapsed across the Inner Sea Region. A big part of Andoran's identity was as anti-slavers. I am curious to see where they place their focus now.

Poking Cheliax with a really really long stick, maybe?

For Andoran I would love to see more of the political factions and organizaitons. Major guilds have a seat in the People's Council. Also how council districts are drawn and chosen. The Lumber consortium is a big one but there should be others.

Green Hill zones.

I’ve decided upon prepping my fam for Rusthenge that Pathfinder needs more “Green Hill zones”, or relatively non-threatening micro-settings in a game.

The setting is beautifully gritty in most places, but that can also at times be intimidating for new players. After listening to an episode of Mythkeeper with me, one family member implied she wouldn’t want to live anywhere on Golarion, as it all sounds so hazardous.

The Shining Kingdoms seem a great place to add additional comforting locales in addition to the setting’s danger.

For Andoran I would love to see more of the political factions and organizaitons. Major guilds have a seat in the People's Council. Also how council districts are drawn and chosen. The Lumber consortium is a big one but there should be others.

Kinda reminds me, I would like a good explanation on how the Lumber Consortium has that much power.

My time [to go through campaign setting books] has come once again. Not just for stuff that could be expanded, but to showcase funny and endearing stuff from these nations xD

So Taldor has lot of interesting past to explore and also explore their effect on areas that used to be part of them, lot of noble house shenanigans(some people might be like "pfft, who cares about shenanigans of rich and powerful, they suck", but there are still fun stuff like joke marriage proposal between human grand duke and a dwarf that turned into genuine love and now scandalizes the nobility in Krearis region) and etc, but I assume this thread is probably more interested in more esoteric and obscure matters or at least cities and regions that would be fun to explore xD Like Kazuhn City which has heavy "Kowloon Walled City" vibes. (basically half is abandoned, quarter burned down and the "empty" section is divided by wall from the "polite society")

Another interesting site at Kazuhn region is Peguduor a massive azlanti refuge site that was populated by munavri, caligni and other azlanti descendants but is now mysteriously empty of what must have been tens of thousands of people and contains apparent secret temples to Scal.

Pastorling from Lingian is small hamlet with nothing of note, except really really good bakery. Except that person who owns the bakery and runs the humble place is running massive crime syndicate and smuggling operation despite that bakery is doing well enough she wouldn't even need to do crime. I just had to post that one because npc got really cool art for what is really funny concept xD

Mut from Oppara has self run lighthouse filled with traps, guardians and wards, so most people haven't seen the place's lantern and thus can't confirm whether popular legend about it being a solar dragon's still beating heart is true. I just light idea of lighthouse dungeon with possibly shiny beating heart, so had to mention it xP

Old Sehir: Super popular tourist site that is only 150 year with fictional history reaching antiquity and all local elves and dwarves have given up on trying to convince humans that its in fact not actually old ancient taldan site discovered about 150 years ago.

Karakuru, the City of a Hundred Fountains, known for bathouses and fighting style rondelero that combines peasant dances and noble weapons.

Bafra's Face: adventuring location where bunch of spriggan cultists and gargoyles are trying to build stone god/colossus, would be nice to see if they finally managed to finish animating the colossus with war of immortals and all xD

Blackwood Swamp: besides smugglers and local iruxi enclave, there is sunken azlanti ruins(due to bad building location) Nacar-Azen which has interesting note of containing lot of schools. Like "Astrarium of Mag dedicated itself to understanding what precipitated Earthfall and what the Starstone was." Its interesting stuff

Ruins of Nazilli: adventuring location that has spider cult worshipping Mazmezz. As in cult run by spider monsters xD

(note: huh Emorga All-Seer from wardens of the wild was mentioned originally in taldor book. apparently her class was diviner 8 xD)

But yeah I don't have time to skim through all countries right now, but if this is helpful or fun I'll continue doing so later xD

Kinda reminds me, I would like a good explanation on how the Lumber Consortium has that much power.

I am curious to hear Paizo's explanation. But my explanation is simple, they have a monopoly over lumber products. This includes firewood and charcoal from wood. So if someone wants to heat their home, they buy lumber from the consortium, if someone wants to cook, they buy lumber from the consortium, if someone wants a hot bath, they buy lumber from the consortium, if they want to rebuild anything from their wood home, they buy lumber from the consortium.

So this grants them a whole lot of power, even if people don't like them and are corrupt and greedy and do vile stuff, politicians going against them have to deal with the fact that they have levegered this into power.

The Lumber Consortium is a holdover from Old Cheliax, when some amount of corruption was de rigeur, IIRC they were on the outs with the old Government so they prolonged their power by throwing their weight behind the new Independent Andoran Government, so that the latter felt like they owed the former a favor or two.

That and the fact that Andoran's foreign policy is predicated by "we're a naval power" so they need a lot of wood for a lot of ships. Since they've been preparing for a new war with Cheliax for a while, any action that resulted in "less access to ships, shipbuilding, and lumber" would be disfavored by the Andoran state as it would make them temporarily less ready for that war.

Souls At War wrote:

Kinda reminds me, I would like a good explanation on how the Lumber Consortium has that much power.

I am curious to hear Paizo's explanation. But my explanation is simple, they have a monopoly over lumber products. This includes firewood and charcoal from wood. So if someone wants to heat their home, they buy lumber from the consortium, if someone wants to cook, they buy lumber from the consortium, if someone wants a hot bath, they buy lumber from the consortium, if they want to rebuild anything from their wood home, they buy lumber from the consortium.

So this grants them a whole lot of power, even if people don't like them and are corrupt and greedy and do vile stuff, politicians going against them have to deal with the fact that they have levegered this into power.

The Lumber Consortium is a holdover from Old Cheliax, when some amount of corruption was de rigeur, IIRC they were on the outs with the old Government so they prolonged their power by throwing their weight behind the new Independent Andoran Government, so that the latter felt like they owed the former a favor or two.

That and the fact that Andoran's foreign policy is predicated by "we're a naval power" so they need a lot of wood for a lot of ships. Since they've been preparing for a new war with Cheliax for a while, any action that resulted in "less access to ships, shipbuilding, and lumber" would be disfavored by the Andoran state as it would make them temporarily less ready for that war.

That would help explain quite a few things, including how they can keep powerful beings and organizations at bay.

Until recently the Lumber Consortium also had a monopoly over Andoran's colony in Arcadia, Elesomare, close to the Segada Protocol who restrict Avistani access to Arcadian markets. Elesomare seems to have overthrown the Consortium's control recently, but the wealth that would have flowed into their coffers through lucrative taxes and tariffs, especially as the Chelaxian colonies suffered problems as Canorus was overrun by Caligni and undead, would have bolstered their power elsewhere - perhaps one reason why Andoran was reluctant to do anything about Elsomare's rebelliousness.

Andoran is another one of those countries where lot of people perceive them as "they are more interesting as source of npcs for other adventures. Like eagle knights, steel falcons, twilight talons or grey corsairs fighting cheliax and so on" rather than as interesting country with interesting locales themselves. Well I hope everyone has learned so far that even most seemingly boring country has interesting details. Or I hope so at least, I'm writing this before reminding myself of detail xD

Arthfell region has several interesting conflict looks, like imperial loyalists and conspiracy to restore noble houses, but hook I like is that Alvis, what used to be small fishing village until it grew, is home to Andoren Alchemical Society and they are apparently dumping their alchemical waste to water. So besides potential pollution themed environmentalist adventure there, I mean just imagine monsters born from alchemical waste in Apso Bay xP Cyremirium in same region also had weird problem with thousands of dead fish showing up everytime moon fades to black. (sounds like job for dark archive xp)

Overally lot of locations in Andoran have connection to fey, both friendly(for example, "In truth, the town is protected by three kindly fey who, when settlers came to this area, brokered a deal with the newcomers via their followers among the Primordial Ones rather than fighting them off. Believing they could live in harmony with the settlers, the dryad Gillialara, the nereid Cymewray, and the lampad Yvenliss agreed to care for the town’s citizens, providing them with food, access to clean water, and a supply of valuable quartz to trade with others in exchange for peace and a life of balance with nature.") and hostile(several darkmoon valley modules should make that kinda clear) and its common enough theme to be noticeable. Unfortunately to me personally I don't find fey stuff as standout of a thing by itself, they aren't among my favorite creature types ^^; Still yeah Andoran has lot of stuff for people who love stories involving fey. There are also lot of druidic and primal themes(heck the local druidic major faction is called Primordial Ones) in Andoran, nature vs industry and etc.

Basically, Andoran is land for political intrigue and nature vs civilization adventures. My preference is for weird eldritch mysteries and fleshy organ growths so not as much stuff to me x'D Still yeah, I won't say lot of the adventuring sites aren't cool:

Black Forks: Creepy monastery with massive pool of black stagnant water. Funny thing about this very eldritch location is that the campaign setting book refuses to go into detail to explain any of the weird stuff there or even what hostile npcs or monsters could be found in the location. We know that it was built by bunch of monks fascinated by waters and they started to do violent self torture rituals, then they got slaughtered by goblins who threw their bodies to water which attracted some kind of horror from woods that killed everything else on its path as it started to move to farmlands. Group of Taldan soldiers managed to turn monster back but never returned alive and nobody found trace or evidence of the monster and eventually settles took region back from goblins with villagers leaving the site alone. And now there is group of cowled folks called Tenders doing mysterious rituals.

Basically Black Forks is mystery box that refuses to give direct answers about what exactly happened, but it sure does sound potentially cool xD

Candlestone Cavern is one of my favorite adventuring locations from dungeons of golarion just because I kinda want to run dwarf "we will get to bottom of it and release the flesh eating gas to clear it of undead at all cost" adventure xP Point is, its a cool mega dungeon, I like those.

Claes Redoubt is subterranean azlanti ruins but the adventuring site description just details attempts of one guy to find it and what dangers where in the way, so we don't actually know WHATS in there besides it was some kind of refugee caves. Its bit of bummer to me since hey I want to know what is there to be discovered xD This book loves leaving mysteries vague in adventuring site advertisements.

Andoran also had Droskar's Crag(among other cool things, there were couple of adventure modules in area iirc) which was one of potential location of axe of dwarvish lords. I forget, what was post remastered name of that item and where it was canonically in the end?

Nogortha Necropolis was cool but dunno if we see much of pathfinder wendigo anymore since I don't think they got reprinted or renamed.

Occarin was small village with secret. And the secret is that it has VERY large percentage of changelings and most of them never hear the call because another secret is that some of the changelings work for their hag mothers and choose most potential candidates to target with the call to become hags.

Sooo yeah. Andoran has lot of things if you love lycanthropes, primordial druids, fey, the weird bee-man, Talmandor and hags. I glossed over lot of the examples because I'm the fan of esoteric weird occult stuff xD

(at least I can be glad I don't need to re-tell dwarf lore x'D I mean I couullld locate few interesting adventure hooks I never mentioned, but yeah geezus, just looking at my dwarf lore post from three years ago now made me feel exhausted. Glad that part of the process I've already done and with new high helm book people can just read that instead so no need to comb 3.5 and 1e early lore books of questionable canonicity status)

Until recently the Lumber Consortium also had a monopoly over Andoran's colony in Arcadia, Elesomare, close to the Segada Protocol who restrict Avistani access to Arcadian markets. Elesomare seems to have overthrown the Consortium's control recently, but the wealth that would have flowed into their coffers through lucrative taxes and tariffs, especially as the Chelaxian colonies suffered problems as Canorus was overrun by Caligni and undead, would have bolstered their power elsewhere - perhaps one reason why Andoran was reluctant to do anything about Elsomare's rebelliousness.

I'd be over the moon to see more done with Arcadian trade. Other than the Travel Guide and Blood Lords calling out the existence of those links, it still feels like that continent is unknown to the Inner Sea... but it shouldn't be!

I'm now finding that I'm most curious about Kyonin in the upcoming book, largely because I want to see how Paizo will discuss the recent history of the nation and whether the Winter Council and Lantern Bearers will be discussed and what exactly their roles in Kyonin history will be redefined into, considering the raison d'être of both organizations has been retconned out of the setting.

I'm just really curious if Paizo will acknowledge Second Darkness' events in any capacity, or if it'll all be ignored and thus Paizo's general policy of having the events of each adventure path have taken place to impact the setting's history will be over.

It was pretty tricky navigating the implications of Second Darkness in Spore War, but I feel happy with how we did it... even if it doesn't push the lore revision forward at all on "what about the drow" side of things. But yes, some of Second Darkness' plot points will not only be acknowledged in Spore War, but will be significant callbacks.

It was pretty tricky navigating the implications of Second Darkness in Spore War, but I feel happy with how we did it... even if it doesn't push the lore revision forward at all on "what about the drow" side of things. But yes, some of Second Darkness' plot points will not only be acknowledged in Spore War, but will be significant callbacks.

Now I'm even MORE excited!

James Jacobs wrote:

It was pretty tricky navigating the implications of Second Darkness in Spore War, but I feel happy with how we did it... even if it doesn't push the lore revision forward at all on "what about the drow" side of things. But yes, some of Second Darkness' plot points will not only be acknowledged in Spore War, but will be significant callbacks.

Now I'm even MORE excited!

To manage expectations, though... none of those callbacks touch on the drow.

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

It was pretty tricky navigating the implications of Second Darkness in Spore War, but I feel happy with how we did it... even if it doesn't push the lore revision forward at all on "what about the drow" side of things. But yes, some of Second Darkness' plot points will not only be acknowledged in Spore War, but will be significant callbacks.

Now I'm even MORE excited!

To manage expectations, though... none of those callbacks touch on the drow.

Oh, no worries, I didn't expect them to. I was more wondering just what events actually DID occur (that we see the results of anyway) that might could be interpreted as Second Darkness' results if you tilt your head at a certain angle and narrow your eyes a bit.

It's the least popular AP for many reasons, and I acknowledge the majority of those reasons are legit, but I'd feel more than a little sad if it was just completely became non-canon. You and the other folks at Paizo still worked hard on it and learned from it. I still have a soft spot for Riddleport and the Gold Goblin to this day, even if they only really feature in the first adventure. And more to the point, I found the political nuances between the Winter Council's initial conservative stance and the Lantern Bearers' choice to change and become better intriguing, so if there's a way to let that dynamic remain even if the drow aren't there for them to argue about, I'd be happy.

I personally love Rare Ancestries and I especially enjoy getting to explore any Ancestry in terms of both mechanics and lore/history within the Golarion. So with that in mind, I decided to see if there were any potential Ancestries unique or mostly unique to the Shining Kingdoms. My results are below. While I suspect it is far too late to see these explored in the Shining Kingdoms book, maybe we will get a Shining Kingdoms Adventurer's Guide.