Hey people, I've recently been asked by my group if I'd be interested in gming. I've never gm'd any kind of d20 game so I opted to use an existing campaign setting. Our group has been playing PF for several years now and love it, so Golarion is a no brainer.
I've been working through the Inner Sea guide to get a feel for the setting and to think of areas that might work for starting out. As I was reading the Inner Sea Guide I found 2 paragraphs on the Harbingers and instantly loved the idea of using them.
For me, a lot of the excitement comes from the idea of 'what if they're right?' They think the death of Aroden is a cosmic mistake and that if they can get these prophecies working again, they can fix it. That might be woefully naive, but what if they're on to something?
If Aroden wasn't meant to die, why did he? Who is responsible? What forces helped? Is there a way to fix things? Who had the most to gain?
You look at what happened when Aroden died, the world wound, the Cheliax situation, Ustalav. Demons, Devils and Zon-Kuthon all benefitted. Perhaps even the god of the dead considering all the cataclysms that would have sent souls to her. Maybe the serpent folk had a hand in it? They have every reason to hate the last Azlant, given that the Azlanti nearly destroyed all of them. Heck, maybe even Rovagug was somehow involved. Perhaps somehow various evils who normally would never work together saw a once in a million chance to tips the scales heavily in their favour and worked together to make it happen.
Anyways, I found the idea of the Harbingers so appealing because, they could be great allies or great enemies or both depending on which prophecies they're pursuing. If they are right, perhaps there is a way to right the wrong. Perhaps there might be an epic quest that leads to convincing a time dragon to take them back to the death of Aroden to perhaps save him, or pull a chrono trigger and bring him to the presence at the moment of his death (keeping the timeline in order while still saving him).
The fallout of something like that would be interesting. What would he do to his formerly faithful, would he have mercy on those who lost his way? Would the gods who gained clerics and followers as a result of his demise be thrilled to see him or would they have issues with their demotion? What of those who benefitted from his demise? Would his return even fix the issues like the Worldwound or the Eye of Abendego? What of the Harbingers who seem to stray further and further from Aroden's teachings?
Alternately, what if the Harbingers in their mad quest to right the cosmic wrong stumble upon an ancient artifact that they are convinced could redeem the universe or bring back the age of glory, but will actually cause untold destruction and ruin?
Anyways, something about the Harbingers has my brain ticking and I'd love to hear if anyone else has used them in campaigns or given them any thought. It seems like they weren't meant to be particularly important given that they only got a couple paragraphs but I'm really intrigued.
