Benjamin Tait's page

Gorum...because he adds nothing particularly interesting to Golarion.

He's completely unneeded/superfluous.

I mean, hardly a great god to hook people into an event with then is it? I don't get the "the dying god must be useless/have little impact with their death" argument, considering this is going to be a big event. For my money, I'm putting it on Sarenrae, as much as I don't want it to be her, she feels likely.

EDIT: Okay I do get it it's not wanting a favourite/one that person likes to be on the chopping block, but it's not going to be as interesting a story if they go for a god that will make zero impact with their death.

Meanwhile, I'm just like...

"Okay, once we figure who we lose of the Core 20, when do we start sweating bullets for favored non-Core deities?"

'Cause I've got a few of them I'd miss far more than anyone who's left...

I cannot help but notice the sudden explosion of non-Core 20 gods showing up in the last two prophecies...

We do have a hint that Torag is preparing for something - but we don't know or have any hint towards what that something may be.

Cori Marie wrote:

Zimmer I think you're getting hung up on different definitions of state. Paizo is a United States based company, and in the US the term state generally refers to one of fifty regional governing bodies that are part of a larger national governing body. Paizo doesn't like to use state to refer to a nation, as in their general audience it would imply that it was part of a larger nation and not a nation on it's own.

I did in fact read Mr. Jacobs's post. And I came away not believing what it said. Because it he did in fact conceptualize "state" as being "self-governing federal or confederal subdivision," he could have said as much when asked "is Vyre independent [sovereign, with bespoke foreign and fiscal policies] or merely autonomous [self-governing]" within a federation or confederation. Because autonomous federal subdivision describes American states well enough.

Instead the comparison we got was to Magnimar and Korvosa, which are obviously independent and sovereign in themselves (and in pretty flagrant competition) rather than part of a confederation or federation to which sovereign powers are delegated.

And @VerBeeker, because apparently pressing the issue is productive of revelations like Vyre still being a part of Cheliax, which deprives Ravounel of "its" biggest city as well as of control of the shipping lanes out of Kintargo.

I mean, Vyre is in name only a part of Cheliax. Cheliax itself lets Vyre get away with basically being its own entity because it's a pleasure city for nobility, training ground for hellknights, etc. Vyre is not going to harm Ravounel on behalf of Cheliax and Cheliax wouldn't risk losing Vyre just to punish Ravounel, the losses would outweigh their gains. Admittedly, I'm surprised that JJ said Vyre is part of Cheliax, considering how Ravounel's borders work, but honestly it's not like Vyre changes any given its essentially free city status.

No hint before Part Ten this week, we going in blind with nine remaining gods (only one Prismatic Ray gets a prophecy, as has been said before, so Sarenrae and Shelyn can't be in the pool)

It also makes some sense from a meta-narrative perspective, as well. Slight spoilers, sorry, but Abomination Vaults is very likely Paizo's most popular PF2E Adventure Path, popular enough to be translated into 5E, and Nhimbaleth is a pivotal figure in that story.

Please use a spoiler tag if you can, we have those here.

This is the kind of weird, abstractness I love in divine stories and fiction; absolute 10/10 read, up there with Asmodeus' for my possible fave!

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I always figured Irori was safe, not because he's boring or anything, but because "the death of Irori" is a hard thing to loop like "ordinary people" and "low-level PCs" into.

Since if this prophecy were to come true, the hole in the universe isn't necessarily something that PCs are more equipped to handle than actual gods.

Still, part of the prophecy that seems odd to me is that I would guess that Pharasma would take it onto herself to patch the hole Irori bore in the fabric of reality since "maintain the universe" is kind of her job.

Or The Monad would be trying to do the same thing. Then again, since it's the Condition of All, it might also be one of the first things to get ripped apart in the growing void, which seems really bad for the rest of the cosmos.

Incidentally, is anybody else starting to get Nhimbaleth vibes from some of these prophecies? She is a goddess of void and consumption, and while fear isn't exactly part of her portfolio (I thought she had the Nightmare domain, but not so) she does focus greatly on despair and the futility of one's death. Despair and futility fit with several of the deities' prophecies, such as CC, Pharasma, Asmodeus to an extent, and ZK; hunger and consumption with Desna Erastil, as well as Asmodeus and Irori in a sense; and death, oblivion, and emptiness work with Irori, Nethys, and Desna's stories. There's also Urgathoa's story, which takes that odd turn of making undead become more numerous rather than less plentiful, which really starts to make sense when you consider the prophecy from Nhimbaleth's perspective. She loves devouring ghosts and other undead.

...Damn I had a thought like that.

Well there goes my theory! Damn, but anyway: We got a void, a god predator, divine fears, fundamental rules of reality being altered, that seem to be common themes?

Plus, its gonna lessen the negative impact of someones favourite god being torn in half and bleeding over Golarion, because its something they can prepare for meta wise.

What's your theory, Benjamin?

Generally noticing a pattern, the first five prophecies were from rows 3, 4, 2, 5, 1. So far we've had gods for rows 3, 4 and 2. The gods on the same row have not only been adjacent to each other but have been able to connect to the row adjacent to it through the "safe" gods (e.g. Desna allows row 2 to connect to row 3 via Nethys). If this pattern is accurate, the next two would be Lamashtu and Iomedae. I wouldn't mind being wrong, and I know it sounds insane, but so far it's working out.

I ship Moloch and Szuriel, because the former has been sending messengers to her and seems to be in some form of communication, and in my head I have the image of Moloch writing incredibly formal messages while trying to be flirtatious, meanwhile Dispater, the only Archdevil in a happy marriage, helps him out with his awkward attempts at courtship.

Honestly my money's on it being Desna who gets a prophecy, we got a good look at what could happen in the material if Shelyn lost influence already so I'm marking her as safe also.

Sarenrae continues to be in a shaky position, but I know who'll be my no.1 if she gets a Prophecy.

Looks like Zon-Kuthon remains to suffer another day. Interesting, seems like there's a pattern emerging in which god gets a prophecy. In any case, ZK was a popular choice and yet he remains.

Looks like it was Nethys this time, that one was a popularish pick too. I for one appreciate that his survival was confirmed the same day that we got the remastered Archives.

Mr. Phillips, GM of Intrigue wrote:

Personally, I'd love to see Iomedae die. It would be fun to see the chaos that would happen across the world as her clerics and paladins lose their holy power! Could make for some interesting adventures for Pathfinder Society!

It would make the edgelords happy. And basically nobody else.

I mean, she's my top guess and I'm not calling myself an edgelord, but sure. What's your current guess by the way? I'm wondering what god you reckon they'll kill that won't be for the "edgelords"?

keftiu wrote:

Souls At War wrote:

would be nice if the setting explained why Abadar has a monopoly on banking system.

Quote:

Edicts: bring civilization to the frontiers, earn wealth through hard work and trade, follow the rule of law

Anathema: engage in banditry or piracy, steal, undermine a law-abiding court

Minor Curse: Any time you steal, illegally harm or kill another creature, or undermine a law-abiding officer or court, a symbol or word describing your crime appears on a visible spot on your skin. This symbol cannot be removed or hidden with makeup (though it can be covered with clothing) and it doesn’t vanish until you make legal restitution for the crime, such as by serving your sentence.
Moderate Curse: Abadar curses all your enterprises, leading to financial disaster as all your ventures always seem to fail. The result of your check to Earn Income is always one degree of success worse than the one you rolled.
Major Curse: You become honest to a fault. You constantly suffer the critical failure effect of zone of truth. Additionally, you are always offered the worst possible option in a bargain.

His clergy are forbidden from breaking the law, will be punished if they earn their generally-fair deity's ire, and have a centuries-long proven track record. Also - and perhaps most importantly - they operate internationally.

And they are beholden to no one except Abadar himself.

Did you miss the bold parts that point out that it's literally against their faith to not be beholden to the law? It's not "undermine Abadar" or "follow Abadar's law".

Here's an interesting detail: it's the same author across all of these prophecies. Whether that changes or not, not sure, but it's definitely something worth noting.

Killing Iomedae would have some serious repercussions of the "things got MUCH worse in a very grimdark way" on the ongoing storyline with the Gravelands.

Fitting though, considering Arazni, the confirmed new Core 20 Member, is already empowering a major faction of the Knights there. Would make sense for her to become the Knights full-time patron as a result.

I'm still betting on Asmodeus for the chop. Too much D&D.

Looks like it's not D&D enough to kill him. Asmodeus has been confirmed to survive as of the Godsrain Prophecies Part 2.

Asmodeus lives! That was another popular guess so the plot thickens. Got to say, I do love the "What If?" nature of these articles, they inspire some pretty rad ideas for alternative settings.

I wonder... does Norse mythology predate Tolkien?

I...Are you serious?

I've had it for about 1 week and a half, so they have been shipping out.

Mind sharing what's in the toolbox?

Benjamin Tait wrote:

I can see Banshees being unmarried from Elves anyhow, since that connection is pretty much just an OGL thing right? The Rakshasa has experienced greater changes over it, lost their backwards hands and are now primordial evil spirits, not even fiends anymore. So I'd be surprised if Banshees were entirely unchanged.

The OGL can't reserve folklore for WotC's use.

OceanshieldwolPF 2.5 wrote:

And that’s the thing with pulling real-world folklore into established Campaign Settings. My understanding was that Golarion’s elves are aliens from Castrovel, and not tied to the fey/fae or the First World.

And that is certainly one of the established things about the setting, which complicates things, because the banshee comes from a body of traditional lore where elves and sidhe are basically synonymous. It means you can't have the banshee be both in this setting. Seems odd, but workable. Not having the banshee be EITHER just makes me wonder what about it is supposed to be a banshee.

Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:

You want to homogenize two similar mythical beings from two different cultures and I'm the one who hates folklore. Funny thing is, among the things these cultures have in common is how little we know about the state of the folklore before Christianization. We simply do not have the information to track the no doubt rich folklorical similarities and connections.

Do not act as if the commonalities between Norse and Celtic culture originates with me. There are countless books on the subject. If you're more of a casual enjoyer of mythology, folklore, and history, the mutual influence of Norse and Celtic cultures is a subject that frequently comes up on several YouTube channels. My favorite folklore channel is The Fortress of Lugh, and while the Norse influence doesn't come up in every video, it has been mentioned several times in the ones I've watched. Yes, a lot of it has been lost to time and Christianization. No, not enough has been lost that we...

First of all, no, obviously OGL doesn't mean WotC reserves folklore, that's not what anyone is saying. The OGL represents a certain expression of the folklore that is WotCs idea/mechanics, the way they did the Banshee is theirs.

And for the record, you don't translate sidhe to elf, they're comparable entities involved but sidhe is the word for the mounds and hills the Aos Si (the actual similar folks) live under. End of the day it is a conflation, and a DnD/WotC original one.

Okay so here we go. It's a 11-20 AP that goes like this:

Beneath the Faceless City (11-14)
A party of experienced Pathfinder Agents are called to investigate a Society Observatory that has failed to report in for a week, only to discover a group of rogue Mordant Spire Elves dismantling the place. They soon uncover the existence of the Faceless City, an Azlanti penal colony on Somal that has been in contact with the Observatory and has apparently uncovered something that resembles the Starstone within the caverns below. Traversing up to the moon, they find their way to the colony and have to fight their way into the caverns, since the only way down has been taken over by demonic remnants from the Moonscar. Below the surface of Somal, they uncover a Xiomorn laboratory and its owner, who has become obsessed with the Moonstone, a fragment of the same meteor that birthed the Starstone.

Star Above the Cerulean Sea (15-17)
The Agents discover that the Moonstone contains the essence of the dead goddess Acavna, and are confronted by a Star Archon who reveals that a nascent godling, Nuruu'gal, has become aware of and obsessed with it. The stone cannot be destroyed or its power claimed by another, not without help; the Archon brings the Agents to Heaven's Shore, so that the Agents can convince the celestial council there to grant them access to the safest passage to their true goal; Basrakal, home of Acavna's old herald. Finding evidence of the godling's corrupting influence the whole way, the Agents make a name for themselves in the bizarre city of outsiders, gaining audience with the Shieldmarshal and securing his advice on how best to deal with the Moonstone. Before they can act on this, the Star Archon, having been corrupted and driven mad by Nuruu'gal, leads an army of burning celestials into the city in a grand purge, forcing the Agents to decide whether to run or fight.

New Moon Rising (18-20)
With a ritual in hand, the Agents must travel to the Mordant Spire to convince the Elves there that they must claim the spiritual essence of Acavna. The tower itself reacts violently to their plans, and must be calmed before the Agents can convince the goddess' remnants to take back the Moonstone's power and be reborn! But it's too late for that; a new creature closest to Acavna's ideals must make the ultimate sacrifice to remove the Moonstone from play, being reborn as a new moon god. To do this, the Agents need to cleanse Acavna's center of worship (and it's master, an undead moon dragon) and perform a ritual that will allow a chosen mortal to ascend. Nuruu'gal refuses to back down though, as a host of demons, devils, mutants and aberrations assault the ritual site, the tripartite forces of Nurgal's pieces making their final ploy to become one again and teach mortalkind to fear the sun! Win or lose, the Agents are the catalyst for the rebirth of a god, be it of the new moon or the burning sun.

Funnily enough I too have an AP idea that involves the Moon. I'll post more later but basic gist is "Pathfinder Agents find themselves in a position where their actions will determine which of two somewhat dead deities will experience a rebirth, the original Nurgal or Acavna. Spans the Moon, Heaven, Basrakal, the Mordant Spire and the domain of an ancient dragon that served Acavna in life."

Yeah I mean I like the idea of the thread but not a fan of the pro-colonial AP where colonists unite and butcher the locals.

SpaceDrake wrote:

I mean, PF2 and PF2R are still perfectly inter-compatible, so it'll be fine.

How do you do alignment damage when a character doesn't have an alignment? I think you're not arguing in good faith.

The Foundry module is going to be removing all references to OGL material, including monsters. I think it's a little more complicated than a condescending "They're inter-compatible so don't worry your pretty little head about it".

They weren't trying to be condescending, but we already know they're replacing alignment damage with Spirit, with Holy/Unholy and Sanctified traits colouring said damage. Odds are they'll just swap out all mentions of Good/Evil damage with spirit, like how they're already subbing out Positive/Negative with Vitality/Void.

Okay, someone above referred to Arazni as evil, and I take issue with that, and it's why I'm glad they're getting rid of alignment.

Arazni was a champion of Aroden, but she was abandoned by her patron, sacrificed by her followers, and eventually killed herself, only to be brought back as an undead lich against her will. She was then "worshiped" by followers were were an affront to everything she'd fought for and believed in life, and force to administrate a nation she found repugnant.

How is she the evil one? she's the victim of evil.

Now the cover shows her flesh back to one of living, so it's not likely she'd be stepping into the roll of a goddess of undeath (Although I could think of some awesome stories for that) I'm actually getting a little worried for Iomedae

Generally agree with "Hate Aroden", but she didn't kill herself, Tar Baphon did her in and tossed her carcass back to the Knights of Ozem. For more messed up stuff, Aroden was both her patron and her friend when she was still a mortal.

For anyone with this one, mind sharing the beasties within?

Anyone with the book happy to share the beasties in the backmatter?

Unfun play experiences are generally being in a party playing another martial class whem their is a fighter in the party and the stakes are high.

Hard and severe encounters are the ones that matter. Hordes of weaker opponents are less a threat than thwy are time consuming and generally easily defeated with some basic tactics that any martial can excel at with a minor amount of support but hard and severe enemies get to be the domain of the fighter with other classes mostly relegated to enabling the fighter.

Got a heroism buff, its better on the fighter than any other martial.

PF2 has tight math, is balanced around accurracy more than pretty much anything else and life or death situations, rhe most important in an published AP or adventure. Non combat scenarios are set backs if you fail and the game is designed that failing at one of those doesn't prevent the story moving forward.

PF2 is a combat centred came almost all feats and definitely the ones rated high are to support or improve combat chances. Same with spells. No one cares whether you used a knock spell, picked the lock 9r kicked down the door. Everyone cares about how well you contribute to combat.

I am suggesting fighters math be brought back in line with the rest of the martials and top modifiers in thw game. They havebaccess to plenry of good combat feats that can chamge combat without the +2. They can make a negative play experience because buffs are better spent on them (mathd shows this) than on any other class.

As someone who actually has both a Barbarian and Fighter in the same party, my Barbarian hasn't said anything about feeling bad/worse than the Fighter, if anything they work together quite well as the front line badasses. But I'll admit that's anecdotal, based on my experiences. I imagine you've experienced games where the Fighter has massively outshone and made the other martials feel like dirt?

We know Imps have been reworked (now they're like outer sphere scamps from what I recall), they'll probably rework what they can and replace what they can't.

keftiu wrote:

'Quite a lot? Prominently?' They're in Second Darkness (which I've seen near-universal disdain for before this news broke), a group almost no one in this discussion has mentioned feature in one book of Extinction Curse, they get a bit part in a single volume of Abomination Vaults, and that's all I personally know of. We haven't had them as a primary antagonist in something since before PF1.

Let's see. Second Darkness, Abomination Vaults, Shattered Star, Hell's Rebels (in the form of Shensen) are just off the top of my head and I am quite sure individual dark elves also appeared in other volumes. Of course there's extensive mention of them whenever an article about fleshwarping comes up. So, yeah, they were an organic part of the setting which now is being ripped out quite inorganically.

All I am mildly argueing for is using a more lore-friendly method of getting rid of them in the setting (canonically speaking) than just stuffing them into a dark closet and pretending they never existed. Have them emigrate to another dimension en masse due to some in-game event, which itself only needs to be mentioned in passing. It's not as if elves are strangers to using portals to GTFO when something bad happens. Much better than to pretend they never existed in the first place.

To be fair with Shensen, literally no one would know she was born a Drow unless they read her NPC block in the back of Song of Silver. It has zero impact on her current character, she doesn't interact with Drow in any way in published material, and has a closer relationship with the Aquatic Elves of Kintargo. Using her as an example of prominent Drowness doesn't really help the argument that they were a prominent and major part of the setting.

And who knows, maybe them organically exiting the setting would also have been a no-no from a legal perspective, but whatever the truth of it I'll accept that how Paizo are handling it is the way they have to handle it moving forwards. Could be smoother than them being made up sure, but it is how it is, and we won't know the lore implications for a while anyway, not until they can start publishing stuff.

I will miss the Drow, but I can definitely see why they're being removed, it's too much of a big grizzly bear to poke. Though, I prefer generic Dark Elves to be perfectly honest.

We do know that Calistria, Grandmother Spider, Besmara and Ashava are getting write ups at least.

GGSigmar wrote:

The only diety (tho also a pretty weak one) we have stats for is Treeraze (lvl 25 demon lord), I believe.

If we have stats for him he ain't a deity. Nor was he ever one.

Milani hasn't gotten a 2E writeup yet, so that seems pretty obvious. Neither has Chaldira. Cayden and Desna probably get their existing writeups expanded. Everybody else relevant has hitherto been an Empyreal Lord as far as I can tell.

Milani and Chaldria have both gotten one page write ups in Gods and Magic though? And Milani got another one in Lastwall. She's definitely going to get one for Firebrands too so that'd make it three for her.

Quick question if you'll indulge me: I'm wondering what season this AP takes place in?

Following the convention of "APs taking place in the AR (Current Year) + 2700 and Month of the module's release," the AP will be starting in 4723 AR, Erastus (in the Summer).

What beasties are in the toolbox?

For those with a digital copy, what's in the toolbox? New archetypes and monsters?

What’s Nhimbaloth’s deal?

Souls are tasty. Mortals ask her for things sometimes, but generally she wants nothing more than to chow down on tasty souls.

What's in this Bestiary?

No one crits like Gaston!
Loads their die like Gaston!
Rolls six straight eighteens for their stats like Gaston!

I like the module, but I'm wondering what's up with some of the art direction. Palqari the Djinni Vizier, one of the genies of the Plane of Air, appears to look like an Efreeti. I see no reference to the fact he looks completely different from the norm, so I'm wondering if he was originally an Efreeti that they changed into a Djinni at the last minute and forgot to/ran out of time to change the art?

Either way, it's been bothering me and I wanted to see if anyone else noticed.

They're evil baboon folk who worship a dragon god of destruction, I'd be more concerned if my players saw them and thought that was a racial caricature or representative of Mwangi/Not!Africa more than anything.

On another note, I can find no mentions whatsoever of how this town relates to the greater Isgeri government. Does it even pay taxes to Elidir, the capital? Given that James Jacob has clarified that Breachill is not, in fact, on a major trade route, it seems to be an entirely self-sufficient city-state providing its own sustenance and materials.

In all fairness, the town was set up by Mengkare after he wiped the first settler's memories, I'd think a eugenics obsessed Ancient Gold Dragon's standards would be high enough that "Just enough to survive and clear his conscience" would put most settlements to shame.

I do agree that the lack of mention about how Breachill interacts with Isgeri is bothersome, but I think it can be inferred that Cheliax and Isger leave it to it's own devices, since it was deemed a fittingly ideal place for the Order of the Nail to set up shop once upon a time and I'd say they give it plenty of leeway.

Plus, an entire self-sufficient town appearing seemingly out of nowhere thanks to a powerful wizard of dubious origin? I wouldn't want to risk kicking that hornet's nest.