Callum Finlayson's page

Was there somewhere (pref Avistan) where historically Diabolism was prevalent?

Obviously Cheliax currently, but I'm wondering about a few centuries (or millennia) prior to Aroden's little oops & the kerfuffle that followed.

Only a year and a half late responding... but I think the Oath is in iambic tetrameter, not sure how well that would fit to the Lullaby though

Thanks everyone for your comments.

I've realised what it was that I was missing that meant I couldn't figure out why whichever way I structured it felt wrong -- although the main (ruin) version is location-oriented, the variants (shadow, dream, and fey) are all event-oriented -- they're neither sequential nor parallel, they're orthogonal

I'm in the process of updating (to 2e & Lost Omens) & writing up an old (3.5/1e) campaign that never got finished in order to stick it online in case it would be of use/interest to anyone -- however one of the locations is a bit tricky as there are multiple different "versions" of it the party will interact with at different times and in different ways, so I'd be interested in hearing the community's thoughts on the various ways to write it up and their dis/advantages.

At its simplest it's a haunted house -- a long abandoned manor house overlooking a mining village in a mountain pass. However, planar boundaries are thin in the area and there are parallel versions of the house in the Shadow plane, Dreamlands, and First World -- each house has essentially the same layout, and variations of the same locations & NPCs.

The basic idea is that the PCs explore the main (prime material) house and discover what happened there, in part by exploring the alternate versions of it and interacting with the alternate versions of the various NPCs.

There are also two other "versions" of the house that the party are less likely to interact with but which still need some write-up -- (i) in the past before it "fell" & what happened when it did, and (ii) in the future when it is reclaimed and a new baroness takes up residence. I expect these to be separate, high-level descriptions that don't go into the same level of detail.

So I'm writing up 4 (ruined, shadow, dream, fey) versions that are broadly similar but with significant differences, and there are plenty of locations/encounters where it's useful to compare/contrast different versions of the same event.

How best to do this?

Broadly speaking I can see two straight-forward options -- at opposite extremes to one another. Either (i) write up each version separately, all the ruined locations grouped together, then all the shadow locations grouped together, then... or (ii) group each version of each location together, with the ruined & shadow & dream & fey versions of the dining room all discussed together, then the rsdf versions of the butler's pantry, then ...

I can see advantages & disadvantages to each, it was much simpler when it was just all in my head & sketch notes!

I'd love to hear anyones thoughts on good/bad ways to do this.

:( another 3 weeks... particularly disappointed since this is the first adventure I've really been hyped for in a while

Presumably it's something like there being distribution agreements for the print copies that say the PDFs won't be released more than X weeks early

I'm impressed I managed to miss an answer that obvious! :)

Thanks James

So I'm in the process of writing up an old campaign that never got finished, the big-bad of would have been a Sahkil Tormentor who was concerned with the fear of knowledge (epistemophobia).

One key part of this is that there is a certain piece of knowledge that has a particularly dangerous effect -- simply knowing it is harmful.

But I keep getting the nagging feeling that I've forgotten something already in the setting lore that touches on this -- probably Golarion, but possibly PF more generally, probably 1E since 2E-specific lore is still small enough that I'm pretty sure I've checked all the likely bits.

My Goolge-fu has failed me on this, and I might just be thinking of something from the obvious source of perfectly rational fear of terrible knowledge -- CoC

But, have I missed something from PF lore that already touches on this?

I don't know the AP in question, but just to (belatedly) expand on blahpers' response...

As there's a variant of skip between that specifically allows taking a victim along (snatch between, which only Kimenhul (AFAIK) have) I also wouldn't expect this to be possible with the normal skip between.

However, I'd certainly suggest that it seems (to me) reasonable to give Qoloks snatch between, but only for victims they've swallowed

When Pathfinder agent Inisa Ardaali recovered a relic from Iomedae's ascension, she took every precaution to get it back to Absalom safely ...

Given the PF Society's refusal to return the stolen Truecrown of Iomedae, hopefully any clerics/paladins of hers in this adventure will have the opportunity to not only recover the relic, but also keep it out of the hands of the society :)

So, Tonya's in WA at the end of May, Brum the start of June, Ohio in mid June, back to Brum for late July, then Indy in early August -- spot the person who's got gold status on their air miles :)

See a thousand other discussions on here about alignment. The D&D/PF alignment rules are at best a mill-stone and in many regards cannot have any blanket application. It almost always needs house-ruling according to the attitudes of your gaming group and the nature of your campaign.

Less that a week remaining and over a 1000% funded.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/42228527/the-forgotten-tomb-print-and- play-dungeon-tiles

The campaign closes on October 13th, don't miss out!

Below the box where you typed this it says "How to format your text", click on the "show" button next to it, it tells you how to clickify your links. It's not rocket surgery.

This includes the demigods of other fiends (asura ranas, kyton demagogues, oni daimo, qlippoth lords, rakshasa immortals, and sahkil tormentors), who all get some more description and flavor ... here's a look at the table of sahkil tormentors found in Book of the Damned ...

:D Excellent!

Hmmm... it occurs to me that in order to be in keeping with the theme of the book you really should have tormented subscribers by releasing it to retail first and only sending it out to subs once us lesser mortals have got our hands on it! :)

I don't want to spoil the fun, but I think superstitions like these probably wouldn't be as...prevalent as they are for things like, I dunno, sea travel in renaissance Europe. As more and more people become aware of things like basic causality, superstition begins to wane.

Perhaps, but keep in mind that there's no shortage of superstition in the real world. For example, Gallup do continuous polling on various topics, asking the same questions every year-or-so, including every couple of years since 1982 asking in the US about creationism, and that's more-or-less returned that 40-45% of respondents are creationists every time for 35 years! And that's not people risking their lives on the unforgiving seas to discover unexplored lands, it#s people sat at home or behind desks in the wealthiest, most advanced, most powerful country on the planet.

In the real world superstitions & conspiracy theories abound because people are afraid of things that they don't personally understand (CERN, vaccines, microwave ovens, magnets...) and because people suck at understanding probability and differentiating between causation, correlation, and coincidence.

In Pathfinder it's far worse. People *know* there are things that are truly outside their comprehension -- magic, gods, planes, demons. Then Starfinder takes that even further, not just with "native"/Pact World science & technology, but with aliens who have their own weird science, beliefs, and culture, unknown worlds (and the known world vanishing!). There's a lot more for them to be superstitious about than before.

Plus, superstitions become traditions -- several of the examples I mentioned were based on real, current traditions/superstitions, the practices persist and people just say "of course I don't *actually* believe it, but ..."

But seriously though, Ysoki are people just like everybody else. Leave our heads alone!

Sorry, not even a scratch behind the ears? :)

More seriously ...

A ceremony to celebrate someone's first drift journey -- the equivalent of crossing the equator

A mythical space traveller associated with bringing bad luck to a voyage -- the equivalent of sailors referring to a "Jonah" (based on the character from Judaeo-Christian mythology).

Tattooing lucky and/or relevant symbols

Sky is blue & grass is green -- the ceiling of interior spaces is painted blue, the floor is painted green -- useful for orienting & agreeing direction if in zero G

And back to the Ysoki one last time -- not an actual Ysoki, but a part of the ship near the boarding entrance that is colloquially known as an "ysoki" that everyone touches for good luck whenever they board a ship. Over time it would become slightly worn & polished from being touched, and experienced spacers could tell where the Ysoki is on a ship they board for the first time. Traditions would surround how (if) the Ysoki is cleaned and/or decorated.

Perhaps it's also important that everyone on-board (not just the pilot) rubs the ysoki, there'll be a group ysoki-rubbing session so everyone knows everyone else has rubbed the ysoki.

Hmmm... that's not going to work for ships with a substantial number of passengers. Okay, so it needs to be done at boarding... "board pass please sir... and a quick scratch behind the ears... thankyou, enjoy your flight..." maybe also once onboard when the flight attendants come along they offer you the chance to top your luck up "Coffee? Water? Ysoki head-rub?".

First class passengers will each be provided with their own Ysoki to rub throughout the journey.

-Always have a ysoki on-board; rub their head for luck before the jump.

Ysoki with bald spots & shiny pates will be regarded as luckier since their head-rubbing has clearly warded off starship-eating giant space hamsters on a greater number of jumps.

Perhaps it's also important that everyone on-board (not just the pilot) rubs the ysoki, there'll be a group ysoki-rubbing session so everyone knows everyone else has rubbed the ysoki. This would be one of the reasons why finding a stowaway is so bad -- he hasn't rubbed an Ysoki so the crew have to rush to throw him out of an airlock to avert the inevitable doom! Wise stowaways know to bring their own ysoki with them to avoid this problem if discovered.

Perhaps if you don't have an ysoki on board you can buy synthetic ysoki fur, which the dealer assures you is just as effective as the real thing -- but will anyone be willing to travel on a ship that dosn't have an ysoki? Black marketeers will sell ysoki scalps, which are almost certainly at least as effective as synthetic ysoki fur, and probably just as good as a live ysoki.

In WH40k the thing that stops any FTL travel turning into the Event Horizon movie is a device called a Gellar Field, which basically stops the residents of the Abyss from breaking into your ship while you whizz through the cosmos -- even if that threat wasn't real, as long as you believe it's real and that the device in question prevents it from happening, you'd never fly without it.

"... and the blue button prevents Socothbenoth being summoned when you engage the drift engine; you should probably remember to press the blue button ..."

Triune was an obvious one but also, Pharasma.

And Besmara.

Let's say your average starship is about five times as long as it is tall and wide... A jet airliner has ...

Keep in mind that a cylindrical shape matters far less outside an atmosphere, unless you need to worry about aerodynamics or presenting a small cross-section (stealth and/or combat) a sphere's far better.

I've seen similar discussions on the "Atomic Rockets" web site.

They propose using a design more akin to a nuclear submarine than air craft for determining 'ship density'. Since a submarine has to withstand greater and repeated pressure variances.

Yes, I understand a star ship is invariably only experianceing an atmorpheric difference of about one atmosphere to nill and back per trip... but still, you'd want serious redundancy in something that might pop a leak half way between places in the middle of nothing.

Yep, in many regards underwater engineering is a lot harder than space systems engineering -- and that's one of the main reasons. The pressure goes up *very* quickly as you get deeper underwater. The direction of the pressure's easier to work with underwater than in space, but the magnitude's the killer.

It was discussed over in licensed products

Simply not settling for the lesser evil isn't enough, now's the time to play your part in summoning blasphemous alien gods from outside time to destroy the world! :)

Kickstarter campaign for Sign & Sigil -- already fully funded, 15 days to go.

Being made by Cubicle 7 & Mark Rein Pretentious Dot Hagen, so it's got some great people involved with it.

There's liekly not one simple answer -- it'll depend on what you're using for templating, and most importantly how the pages are being dynamically generated.

Are you using a CMS? If so then exactly how it's done will vary from one CMS to another, and some will have optional modules that provide different ways to dynamically generate pages.

Alternatively, depending on exactly what you're after, one simple option might be the <base> tag -- if the directory structure & names of all the pages & content on the website are the same below a certain level, and it's only the domain and maybe part of the directory path that is changing between the original links and the new ones after the pages are generated, then changing the URL specified in the <base> tag will change where all of the relative URLs in the rest of the page resolve to.

Officially none of the APs are set in any particular year -- the PF timeline never advances in an absolute sense, though some APs can be positioned relative to one another -- e.g. SS takes place a couple of years after RotRL and SD.

However, as you indicate, adventures are sort-of treated as taking place in the real year + 2700. So CotCT was sort of originally set in 4708, and the hardcover is sort of set in 4716. In your game it can be fairly easily set to whatever year you prefer with only minor tweaks.

Advancing the official timeline causes one set of problems, nt advancing it causes a different set. *shrug*

EDIT: RoW must occur in 4713 AR unless you rewrite a bit of Irrisen lore.

The first challenge I had was establishing why Ravenloft is like this and not as defined as it was when I used to play.

Keep in mind that Curse of Strahd is an update of Ravenloft the module, not of Ravenloft the setting. It's essentially the same as I6 / House of Strahd / Expedition to Castle Ravenloft.

If you're looking at starting at 15th level then that's Scuttlecove + jaunting round the planes -- so normally the party would be looking for Lavinia and wondering what's going on with all these Shadow Pearls.

The easiest way to get yourself up to speed is probably to read the various Savage Tidings articles + the adventure introductions & synponses at the start of each chapter. Plus read the threads on here about some of the problems with some of the later parts of the story.

That should be enough for you to cobble together a coherent background & motivation for the party -- I'd probably suggest starting in media res with the party hearing that some trusted ally (a replacement for Lavinia) has vanished in Scuttlecove while investigating the Shadow Pearls.

Maybe have a small introductory adventure in which the Lavinia-replacement asks the party to recover one of these mysterious pearls while she goes on ahead to Scuttlecove on the trail of the others. Perhaps have it that the Lavinia-replacement has done levels 1-14 of STAP and has now called in help when she realises she's out of her depth.

The last few chapters have, IIRC, a few call-backs to earlier chapters but none that are too essential so long as the party realises that the Shadow Pearls aren't merely dodgy magical items, that this is *BAD* and needs stopping ASAP -- give them a little motivation, and so long as they're your bog standard Big Damn Heroes that's enough for them to charge headlong into the lower planes!

And now the man who got us all into this mess has been appointed to the post of Foreign Secretary..in other words "You got us into this Boris now deal with the consequences" Talk about being handed a poison chalice

Serves the bugger right

Except that I don't want him anywhere near it, or any other job of importance. Sure it's a shit job, but's it's a shit job than has to be done and that has to be done right.

BoJo's the wrong choice in s many regards -- not least is it sends completely the wrong message to the rest of the world.

On the other hand, ForSec in this ministry will be everywhere-except-europe (David Davis gets to be the janitor for the Brexit mess), so BoJo has responsibility for our relationship with the US (which he likes), the remains of the Empire^H^H^H^H^H^HCommonwealth (which he likes), Russia, India, and China (which to varying degrees find him entertaining, and where we have lots of experience FO staff to do the heavy lifting), and a bunch of small places he can delegate to junior ministers.

If anyone's interested in backing CoE then the Kickstarter ends in 4 days, though the devs have said they'll subsequently offer the same reward tiers on their website for supporters via paypal.

Should anyone have space in their life for a fantasy sandbox MMO then the Chronicles of Elyria has just launched it's KickStarter campaign.

If any of you decide to register then please feel free to <blatant pimping> use my referral code when you do: E9D898 </blatant pimping>.

I already know of a few PFO players planning on playing CoE, hopefully we can get a good showing on there :)

Just back from the cinema, fairly sure it dosn't count as a spoiler to say I'm pretty chuffed with it -- on a scale of I - VI, I think it gets a V.

Vaguely spoileresque comments...

Problem is there's no one there in the Paizo office to take care of them now ...

Sure, but Seattle'll wake up in a couple of hours.

The options for how spam messages get handled, and whether flagged posts should (under particular circumstances) automatically be hidden have been discussed before.

For now flagging them is the best thing to do.

General Discussion all flagged.

Yeah, it's a productive way to spend a Sunday morning... needs gamifying though :)

So...

In Golarian & Greyhawk I have them being sligghtly rarer than normal -- nobody in the town has ever actually seen one themselves, but everyone's got a cousin who's neighbour's uncle once saw one. A typical 10th level adventurer may have seen one in his career.

In my homebrew setting true dragons are significantly rarer, and are mostly unique -- the colour standardisations are quite loose and are only prevalent among fairly young dragons. All true dragons are directly descended from gods.

LE's generally the least disruptive evil alignment, and IMO is usually less trouble than CN. You don't want to have too much inter-character conflict in the party, so this character's suitability may depend on what the rest of the party looks like -- if they're mostly CG/Cayden/Desna types then it's probably going to be a bit of a headache.

> ...wreak havoc in the name of Asmodeus...
I don't see Asmodeus being a really "wreak havoc" kind of guy, and doing so in his name may be particularly problematic. Manipulative, absolutely -- but he's one of the principal bastions of civilisation, law & order.

> I also believe I read somewhere that clerics of Asmodeus have a role to play in the last module...
For starters, make sure you're familiar with all of the AP before you start running it. things that happen in an adventure should come as a surprise to the players, not the GM!

Vague spoilers...

There's a petition to have him brought back.

Online petitions rarely seem to achieve much, but there's always a chance. *fingers*crossed*

Comparing with open/close (0th level), hold portal (1st), and wizard lock (2nd) I'd say that closing + (normal) locking a single door would be 1st level, slightly weaker than hold portal -- less versatile overall but a little better in some regards.

So effectively we want a "mass" version of that -- I'd concur with blahpers that it feels like a strong 2nd or weak 3rd. I'd probably be inclined to give it a restriction and make it 2nd -- perhaps only affecting doors the caster can see.

Summoned creatures disappear upon death though - there'll be nothing left to re-animate.

PB's a calling not a summoning so they don't vanish when killed.

First World / fantastique
Dark Tapestry / occult
Azlant or Thassilon
Faction-oriented sandbox

I know it's been mooted and declared unlikely before, but community based moderators selected from longstanding account holders (with clearly delineated roles) would probably help.

If they wanted to do something along those lines then the easiest option would probably be to give certain specific permissions to VCs, VLs, 5* GMs, Superstar finalists etc -- people who Paizo have had direct contact with and who've already demonstrated trustworthiness in other contexts. It would also have the advantage of providing a reasonable number of people in non-US timezones.

However, having managed various forums in the past, superusers can cause problems (unintentionally, indirectly, by accident or not), and even with limited permissions, when mini-mods attack it causes headaches.

Thanks for that. I believe you're right about it coming from the LG campaign -- probably around 595 CY or thereabouts as in addition to Torkeep they've reclaimed several major settlements (Gensal, Southkeep, and even Admundfort); Dungeon 113's notes on Franz seem to similarly be from around 594 CY.

I'm looking at the situation around 590 CY (as depicted in the LG Gazetteer, so when only Critwall & Bright Sentry have been reclaimed), and while I can obviously homebrew it all, if there are details (LG or otherwise) I'd rather use them as a starting point -- particularly for Torkeep itself.

Unfortunately the LG campaign was restricted by real-world geography so I saw very little of the Shield Lands material that was published (beyond what was put on the region's website, which while useful obviously didn't include the adventures). As far as I'm aware WotC never made the adventures generally available.

Between the LGG, Canonfire, and a couple of other sources most of the generic, high-level info is covered; I'm just wondering if there are any specifics out there beyond the LG region-specific material that was never made public.

Thanks anyway.

Quick Greyhawk question -- does anyone know if there were any maps of Torkeep in the Shield Lands ever published? Or adventures set in/around there?

The only reason I play all these silly games is as a cover to justify my dice fetish! :)

Though each may be a necromancy specialist, select a second school that they're also strong in and use that to influence their style -- one who favours evocation becomes very direct damage oriented; with conjuration focus on summoning fiends; enchantment lends itself to "curse"-style spells; divinations & illusions suit a creepy/manipulative villain.

Personally I tend to have a clear divide between those necromancers who use undead and those who don't -- either they're very geared towards using them, or they don't use them at all and are all about curses, debuffs, etc.

Has anything been published about the Order of the Vice beyond what's said in AP #28? In particular, has it been said when they were destroyed (other than sometime between 4638 and the present)?

Spoilered for excessive expletiveness rather than actual spoilage...

Well, I'll start with the obvious and point out that small world's don't have to be satellites, they can be planets -- Ganymede (Jupiter's largest moon) and Titan (Saturn's largest) are both larger than Mercury.

As for tidal locking (the effect that one side of the Moon always faces the Earth, or one side of Mercury always faces the Sun), again there's no requirement that moons be tidally locked -- most moons in our solar system aren't. Tidal locking generally requires a relatively large secondary body (Mercury, the Moon) to be relatively close to its primary (the Sun, the Earth) -- if the Moon were either smaller or further away from the Earth then it wouldn't be locked.

Lastly, you may want to reword your post a little for clarity -- it's a bit unclear what you're saying in places as it seems like you're using "planet" to refer to both bodies, particularly in the penultimate sentence.

I'm likely to be organising a smallish games day later this year, probably about half PFS and half card/board games. I'm not sure how much space will be needed for what's currently planned, so would like the advice of any VCs & other event organisers.

Specifically, would I be right in thinking that a 12x8m space would fit 7 full tables (1 admin, 6 gaming), albeit rather snugly.

The priests response will probably be very similar to that of the cops when you demand that you'll only allow yourself to be arrested by the Justice Secretary.