You'd Better Believe It!

Friday, December 7, 2018

Over the course of Pathfinder's over 10-year history, adventurers have trekked all over the globe, pulling back the veil on distant continents and lesser known cultures in the Inner Sea. As stories of these travels filtered back and spread across northern Garund and Avistan, tales of foreign gods came with them, piquing the interest of religious scholars. Now, with PathfinderCampaign Setting: Faiths of Golarion, we're offering up the details of some of these faiths, with a few hotly anticipated divinities and notes from their authors:

Illustration by Vicky Yarova

Illustration by Vlada Hladkova

You know who isn't going to stand for your bullying? Chaldira Zuzaristan, that's who. This halfling demigoddess jumps fist-first into tyrants and oppressors, showing her followers how quick action, trust in luck, and faithful friends can see you through any trouble. Chaldira's worshippers can rely on powers that bolster their fortune and enable their light-hearted mischief. Sure, she's got a paladin code, but when your paladin code includes "It is my sacred duty to explore" and "I know mischief brings joy," you know you'll have a character that can find two fistfuls of trouble. My favorite part of writing Chaldira's entry was bringing her attitude through in the writing, and into your game!

—Ron Lundeen, Pathfinder Adventure Path Developer

I was excited to add a deific creation of my own to this book. Kazutal, Arcadian goddess of community, liberty, and safety, started in an office game run by James Jacobs. I was playing a cleric and asked him if I could make up a deity from my notes on Arcadia. He agreed, and I presented him with a short write up of Lady Jaguar (as I hadn't fully decided on her real name at that point). I knew that she was different long ago than she is now, and I wanted her faith to be concerned with protection and the bonds of community. Playing a cleric of a god that had little lore to start with was a great way to help build lore organically through play and interaction with the other characters. (Fun fact: you can find an illustration of this cleric—Xochitl—in the Segada chapter of Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Distant Shores.)

—Adam Daigle, Pathfinder Managing Developer

So, I got to the write-up on Nivi Rhombodazzle, which makes it hard to nail down one particular part that's my absolute favorite. I mean, the gnome goddess, who is almost perfectly described by Kenny Rogers in the song "The Gambler", what's not to like? But since I have to choose something… I loved writing up Nivi's planar allies. While some of Nivi's allies, like her sapient magical die Seven-Eyes, had already been briefly mentioned in previous works, it was still fun to build out the details of these figures that represent some important aspects of Nivi's personality. Maybe I'm a bit too fond of talking animals (I did read the entire Chronicles of Narnia at least a dozen times as a kid) but I also had to add the earth elemental Rummbrrlar, in no small part because I want to use him in a Pathfinder Society scenario at some point. A powerful elder earth elemental who spends most of its time in the shape of a mole made out of diamond, riding around in adventurer's backpacks dispensing sage advice that would have been most useful about five minutes earlier, just leapt out at me as the kind of individual Nivi would take a special liking to. I hope everyone else who loves Nivi as much as I do finds something worthwhile in this article, and that you all have some fun bringing Nivi's faith and lore into your Pathfinder games. I know I did!

—Michael Sayre, Organized Play Developer

Illustration by Sandra Posada

Much as the Glory domain's mechanics lend themselves to good-aligned deities, the Madness domain seemed nearly exclusive to evil divinities in early Pathfinder. This style of madness hearkened to the slavering beasts, wild psychopathy, or sinister misanthropy presented in many scary movies. A few years later I read about Tsukiyo in Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Dragon Empires Gazetteer, and I reread it in puzzlement for a while. Lawful good madness? How could this be?

The more I considered him, though, the more I understood what might have happened. Tsukiyo's story is similar to that of Osiris in Egyptian mythology: killed by a jealous rival, mourned by his lover, pieced together by divine mysteries, and brought back to life. Whereas Osiris changed in body (having been embalmed in some versions), Tsukiyo had changed mentally. His love for Shizuru had not dimmed, nor had his power diminished; however, he was shy, reserved, and seemed to process the world around himself in a strange way, puzzling his bold and boisterous peers. Yet Tsukiyo overflows with compassion for mortals, especially those whom societies deem insane. He doesn't have the Madness domain because he revels in inflicting psychological distress. He has that domain because he defends, comforts, and above all understands the neurodivergent. Creating the codes for his priests and paladins was an absolute pleasure, as was working with Liane Merciel (author of the Shizuru article) to describe his difficult yet utterly devoted romance with Shizuru.

—John Compton, Organized Play Lead

Some of my other favorites include Grandmother Spider, Achaekek's little sister, who much like younger siblings everywhere likes to play pranks on her big brother… as well as everyone else! In fact, she even managed to steal and copy Asmodeus' keys, an embarrassment that the Dark Prince hates other people knowing about. There's also Gruhastha, whose beautiful features were cited by a coworker as "one way to get people interested in reading." A former mortal, Gruhastha really put himself into his writing—so much so, that he actually became one with the text. I'm sure other authors can sometimes relate.

Eleanor Ferron
Developer

Divine Intervention

Thursday, June 21, 2018

When talking about the planes, you can't skip talking about the planes' most powerful entities. So we're going to chat about the gods for a little bit.

In Pathfinder Roleplaying Planar Adventures, all 20 of the core deities are presented in the book, each with a deity stat block. These stat blocks aren't actual stats for the gods, and they have some of the information you're familiar with from places like Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea Gods. However, the presentation here includes some new things as well. The stat blocks cover things like domains, favored weapons, and sacred animals and colors, but it also helpfully collects information like allies, enemies, holy days, worshipers, minions, and the gods' heralds. The stat blocks also list each of the deities' divine realms and points you to which page in the book features more details on that realm. What's new and exciting about these is that it also includes something new—divine gifts.

Illustration by Ian Perks

Divine gifts are boons that gods bestow on devout followers who achieve a legendary task or perform a particularly pious act. These divine gifts are unique to each god or goddess and allow the GM to spice up the rewards in their game. They work as excellent rewards when treasure just doesn't cut it. Divine gifts should only be used rarely or else they run the risk of feeling underwhelming or watering down the experience. If used against players (or used to favor a specific character) using divine intervention has the potential to upset and alienate your players. Divine gifts should be used to forward the story and reward significant events in the narrative of the campaign. As such, they should only be handed out once per player per campaign—but, hey... as the GM you're the god of the world you present, so you can what you want.

Illustration by Vlada Hladkova

Here are a few examples of some divine gifts.

Pharasma's Divine Gift

The recipient is not affected by the next effect, damage, or other event that would otherwise kill him.

Sarenrae's Divine Gift

As the sun rises over the recipient's home world, he can perform a 10-minute prayer (this may be part of his daily ritual to prepare spells) to invoke the Dawnflower. For the next 24 hours, all healing effects the character generates heal the maximum amount of damage possible. In addition, during this time he can cast breath of life and heal as spell-like abilities 3 times each (CL 20th).

Torag's Divine Gift

The recipient can perform a 10-minute prayer (this can be part of her daily ritual to prepare spells) to gain divine insight into defense and strategic situations for the next 24 hours. During this time, the character gains a pool of 20 defense points. She can allocate these points among any number of recipients as untyped bonuses to AC or on saving throws, to a maximum of 5 points per target (a single target can receive this bonus only to AC or to saving throws, not both). She can reallocate these points as a standard action any point during these 24 hours, but each time she does so, the total pool of defense points available for the next allocation is reduced by 5.

That's it for now with all this deity discussion, but a little later I'll be back to talk about some of the other sections of Planar Adventures.

Adam Daigle
Managing Developer

Wander The Planes!

Thursday, May 31, 2018

There is more to the universe than where most adventurers tread. Beyond the Material Plane lies countless worlds and near infinite planes of reality, where a countless variety of beings play out their lives, many indebted to the cosmic forces of their home plane.

Readers have been eager for more information on the planes beyond what was provided in Pathfinder Campaign Setting: The Great Beyond and the small amount of planar material spread throughout other books and adventures. The call for a hardcover book on the planes was heard and now you can have Pathfinder RPG Planar Adventures in your hands in just a few weeks.

Illustration by Setiawan Lie

Illustration by Fabio Gorla

In addition to exploration of the various planes, demiplanes, and dimensions that make up the cosmology of the setting, Pathfinder RPG Planar Adventures also provides plenty of options for player characters. There are a dozen archetypes, including things like the azatariel swashbuckler archetype, the portal seeker investigator archetype, and the soul warden spiritualist archetype. The remainder of the first chapter also has a few dozen feats, a couple dozen spells and a slew of magic items. The bestiary chapter for Planar Adventures contains nearly two dozen creatures, including three races player characters can select: ganzi, duskwalker, and aphorites.

One last thing, you can expand on the gazetteer information in this book with Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Distant Realms, which also comes out this month and presents expanded gazetteers on six planar cities discussed in Planar Adventures.

Illustrations by Vlada Hladkova

We'll bring you some more teasers and some behind-the-scenes looks at Planar Adventures as we get closer to release, so stay tuned!

Adam Daigle
Managing Developer

With a Little Help From My Fiends

Thursday, September 15, 2017

With a thirst for the fiendish, subscribers have begun digging their claws into Pathfinder RPG Book of the Damned. What vile and wicked things might they find within its covers?

While much of the book contains information on the fiendish movers and shakers of the outer planes and their horrid and terrifying realms, I know that many of you want a glimpse at some of the rules found in the Book of the Damned. Some of the strongest fiends in the planes have risen to become fiendish divinities. This includes archdevils, demon lords, daemonic horsemen, and others. Fifty of these fiendish divinities receive full information on their fiendish boons that work with the Fiendish Obedience feat and the associated prestige classes. In addition, the demoniac, diabolist, and souldrinker have all been updated to work with these boons as well, and Book of the Damned includes a sidebar that provides additional guidance.

Fiendish Divinity Boons

The boons granted by fiendish divinities assume that characters gain them in one of two ways—via the Fiendish Obedience feat (see page 178) or via that feat plus one of the three prestige classes presented on pages 208-213. While the boons of each divinity are categorized into the same three categories of boons used in Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea Gods, the boons granted by deities in that book are less powerful, as they are more likely to be boons gained by PCs, and thus it’s more appropriate for them to be gained at earlier levels.

While the Hit Dice at which you gain boons via Fiendish Obedience or Deific Obedience (from Inner Sea Gods) are identical, the prestige classes in Inner Sea Gods (the evangelist, exalted, and sentinel) that allow accelerated boon achievement have lower entrance requirements than the prestige classes in this book. As a result, if you wish to use one of those three prestige classes for a character who wishes to gain the boons presented by one of the fiendish divinities in this book, increase the requirements for entry into evangelist, exalted, or sentinel so that a character must be 7th level before selecting the class, as summarized below.

Evangelist: Base attack bonus +7, 7 ranks in a skill other than Knowledge (religion), or ability to cast 4th-level spells.

Exalted: Diplomacy 7 ranks, Knowledge (religion) 7 ranks, ability to cast 4th-level divine spells.

Sentinel: Base attack bonus +7.

The third chapter of Book of the Damned has more rules mechanics to help a GM run a game dripping with fiendish influence. It contains feats to help you add new and exciting abilities to your villains and fiends, spells and rituals to spice things up, information on infernal contracts, and evil magic items, talismans, and artifacts—including the Book of the Damned itself!

The final chapter in the book presents a new fiend of each type, as well as statistics for petitioners in each fiendish realm: The damned of Hell, the hunted of Abaddon, larva from the Abyss, the mutilated of the Shadow Plane, the prey of the Material, and the terrorized of the Ethereal.

The new fiends in the Book of the Damned are as follows:

Nikaramsa	Asura	CR 14
Sepsidaemon	Daemon	CR 7
Squamous	Demodand	CR 20
Ghalzarokh	Demon	CR 15
Executioner Devil (munagolas)	Devil	CR 11
Bushyasta	Div	CR 6
Oitos	Kyton	CR 11
Najikai	Oni	CR 8
Deinochos	Qlippoth	CR 5
Orsatka	Rakshasa	CR 13
Nucol	Sahkil	CR 4

I hope that’s enough for now to whet your appetite for the loathsome and malicious Book of the Damned. Check back here next week as I go over some of the more lore-focused elements of this vile tome, including some information on fiendish realms and some of the lesser-known fiendish divinities.

Adam Daigle
Managing Developer