CastleDour's page

I agree that the writers should choose more judiciously what to focus on. Often times, the main story feels disregarded because the author thought it would be cool to have a scene in an arena, a casino, or make an obscure reference to an old film, and take up a lot of word count on that scene, rather than weave the plot around the main attraction of the story.

Sometimes, it works. You clearly enjoyed the devil gambling scene, for example.

But overall, it ends up feeling like everything is a bit disconnected and recycled for me.

What I love about the adventure path line is the fantastic art, the maps, the backmatter when it lifts the story (I don't feel the backmatters in book 1 and 2 were satisfying to read) and the main ideas for the AP are always strong (even though the execution usually strays from the main plot).

What I love about Bring the House Down, and why I think it's the best of the 3 books, is that I don't feel there's any self-indulgent side quest self-insert with quirky NPCs from the author's live game. There's no distractions. It stays with the story it wants to tell and executes on it.

I am really in love with the idea of A Story of Secrets, and I would kill for a fully-fledged theatrical text with all the "The text is dense, complex, and riddled with deliberate confusion and contradictory elements, but a close study of its pages can reveal very real secrets about Norgorber’s early childhood in Vyre." part.

I think it would be a blast to just give the text to my players and instead of rolling checks for the research subsystem let them dissecate the book and compare notes with the information all other sources could present "in roleplay" with dialogues and interactions to slowly let them put Norgorber backstory together by themselves.

PS: Please I would also kill for a portuguese translation that kept the lyrical aspects of the text such as metric and rhymes. I'm awful translating lyrical textes.

I'm dying for the full length novel where Norgorber meets his djinn friend and gives him poisons to transform him into Venomfist. Passes the test of the Starstone. Looks for his missing sister. And rescues his sickly friend and mentor Thamir from the river of souls.

CastleDour wrote:

Predictions on what evil god is in Belkzen?

Urgothoa? Demon Lord? The God of the Ghouls?

Based on the title?

Zagresh.

Well done lol

so any official word yet? are they waiting a few weeks before explaining what's going on?

The audiobook investment is impressive, Samantha Moon did a fantastic job voice acting everybody. I can't imagine anyone else trying to do Kyra. Maybe use some music you have available, since you have a large library of sounds and music at your disposal?

Mark, can you tell us if the sales are encouraging you to do more novels? I need more pathfinder novels...badly.

Also, when you click on godsrain on the main page, the link doesn't work.

Aren't the vampires in Shades of Blood trying to destroy the sun?

What about Jaethal? Wouldn't that nake it 5? But now there is an inquisitor class finally. Hope we get a statblock for her.

I REALLY hope more Norgorberite Vancaskerkins show up in adventures. Best family in Golarion.

Stolen Fate has a chapter set in Absalom. Dead God's Hand, releasing in next year, will happen under Absalom. Outside of those you mentioned...that's it!

I hope we get more adventures set in Absalom!

My interest goes Inner Sea > Impossible Lands > Elemental Planes > Tian Xia > Casmaron > Arcadia > Mwangi Expanse > Other planets

Centaurs are so back!!!

Unfortunately no city battle maps

No I'm using Geb and Shenmen as examples of a micro region (as opposed to macro like Impossible Lands). Ideally, Paizo can organize products around a theme (like Godsrain or Absalom) and have more support for regional adventures happening in that theme (setting book valid for more than 1 adventure) within a 2-3 year timeframe.

In my opinion it's about spacing things out so each area gets enough depth before moving on to the next.

The current pace is too fast for me and leaves me less invested in Golarion.

When we get to a new area, I want to be immersed in it for a longer time. Not back to back APs, but more than one over the course of 3 years.

The reason I don't want Arcadia YET is that it didn't have any seeds / plot hooks in the World Guide, or Legends, or the Character Guide (although I concede it did in Monsters of Myth).

So let's say Paizo delays plots they set up in 2019 for another 2 years. After 7 years, like Leon said, I've moved on.

It's more urgent to resolve the Razmir storyline, and kick off the big wars of the Inner Sea.

I am very interested in Ah Pook, Arcadia, but not if it's going to have such a short release window and with limited adventure support. The setting is best utilized in my opinion when it can support many adventures, like how Lost Omens: Absalom supports Extinction Curse, Agents of Edgewatch, Abomination Vaults (I assume, as I never read or played AV), and Stolen Fate.

I want depth, so I can take my players into a micro region (Geb, Shenmen, etc.) and have more than 10 pages of setting material. At the moment, it just feels not deep enough, with each region just being quick flashes in the pan.

Ultimately I'm not in marketing, analytics, or sales, I'm just expressing my opinion as a customer.

I don't want to colonize. I don't want to get involved in converting the local orcish culture to a different culture, in subjugating orcs, or in extracting their resources and treasure in exploitative trade. I don't want to settle their lands with people from my nation.

What I want is to help the friendly orcs build a nation, to unify the orcs that want to join the international community, those that wish to live under common laws with their neighbors.

Orcs' propensity for violence needs to pacified by force if they are hostile, and security must be established for safe travel to and from the orcish holds.

Right now, Belkzen is a bunch of disparate tribes who don't consider Belkzen to even be its own region.

We have to support and enforce some kind of power structure we can work with so we can have fair (non-exploitative) trade. For example, we help them with their problems and they send us mercenaries to help us with ours.

But as a mercenary, I would stay out of the politics of trade policy and focus on the mission of bringing order and security, and hope to make some friends.

Niktorak wrote:

It's taken over 30 years to get some of the answers to questions that were laid out at the beginning of Warcraft and we're still not even close to done. It's exhausting.

You have roughly 5 years I think to put forth an answer to a mystery or to flesh out a faction you've prototyped in your fiction.

After that, the community has created its own answers, and they find them more interesting than whatever you can come up with. I think with TTRPG's, where GMs are constantly required to have answers to questions not contemplated by line developers, this is even more true.

Yeah, this is why I want to focus on the Inner Sea region and Tian Xia rather than go to Arcadia in the Adventure Path line. I prefer to resolve existing plotlines rather than expanding ever outward to brand new regions again.

CastleDour wrote:

Envoy from the Order of the Nail.

The Order of the Nail is typically pretty straightforward violent colonizers. Do you have a twist there, or is the aim to just be a real bastard for this one?

I like that they have a centaur hellknight, it looks cool! Not a fan of colonizing in general, but taming the wild and savage lands of Belkzen does have a certain appeal.

Envoy from the Order of the Nail.

I want whatever spell Geb used on the Field of Maidens

CastleDour wrote:

So in book 2, Father Skinsaw appears (Norgorber himself, not his manifestation) and takes Fenton's mask away.

In book 3, the manifestation of Father Skinsaw, which was created months ago before the start of the adventure and set loose on Vyre to create a superweapon, now has the mask.

Is this an editing error?

** spoiler omitted **

Why does he do that?

So in book 2, Father Skinsaw appears (Norgorber himself, not his manifestation) and takes Fenton's mask away.

In book 3, the manifestation of Father Skinsaw, which was created months ago before the start of the adventure and set loose on Vyre to create a superweapon, now has the mask.

Is this an editing error?

Teleportation either happens by touching your companions or by going through a portal, so it's one of those.

They are preparing a follow up AP to 7 dooms already

Tusk happens after Curtain Call and Prey for Death, and the latter two happen at the same time. The godsrain interrupts Curtain Call and the main plot revolves around the BBEG preparing for that event which happens in book 3.

Of course, once all of Tusk is out, you could always modify it to fit your party, if you wish.

Staunton Vhane was an accidental slip, from notes that should have been crossed off, nothing more. Your insinuating they did it purposefully, which contradicts what we know.

honestly, i would love to run higher level stuff, but paizo should provide pregens for all their higher level adventures. it's hard to ask players to create 10th level PCs.

Paizo, please make Camilla from Wrath of the Righteous into a 11th level pregen character with the animist class :)

The actual adventures I want are of a Not Sequel variety because I'm hoping for:

1) Razmiran secrets are exposed and he meets an ignominous end at the hands of the PCs. 7-17.

2) Geb invades Nex because Nex has returned. PCs are for Geb, against Nex. 11-20

3) PCs defeat Jorogumos in Shenmen, uncovering the reasons why the Lung Wa empire fell as they journey through different Tian Xia nations. 13-20.

4) Cheliax and Andoran duke it out. PCs control armies to seize territory and make progress on the battlefield, but the war rages on with no end in sight. Hellknights and Eagle Knights scrap on the side. 1-20.

5) PCs hunt BBEG/monster down with an airship from the Shackles to Port Eclipse in the Plane of Air, passing by Holomog and Jalmeray. 1-10.

I had third thought: I think direct sequels to 1-10 aps work best if they don't explicitly assume pcs are same from 1-10 ones. Just like how none of runelord sequels did or a hypotethical "numeria dominion of the black" ap would be a sequel to Iron Gods.

Like, you would leave it up to table if they want to bring old pcs back or create new party. All of level 1-10 aps lead to that kinda naturally.

The only direct sequel I am even interested in is Season of Ghosts lol, the others feel mostly resolved besides Gatewalkers

Tian Xia was not explored enough. I prefer to go deeper on one topic than go wide on a huge map and many topics but only shallow examination.

CastleDour wrote:

Making a Not Sequel isn't a reason to not link to previously established lore and major events.

I 100% agree. I'm on the boat of Not Sequel I see no reason that "meta events" and themes can't be brought forward into new stories and locations as long as we're resolving the issues.

CastleDour wrote:

Curtain Call - Bring the House Down gives us a lot of missing pieces about ** spoiler omitted **, but for every question it answers, 10 more questions come up.

There have been a ton of AP's that have been slowly drip-feeding us info on Norgorber and at this point I'm a little tired of him. I think what they did in CC is very cool but it just felt like a "Until Next Time!" mustache twirl ending...

It's tough to decide how to divide the revelations with multiple product lines too.

Does a story resolution go into a standalone adventure? Adventure path? Lost Omens setting book? Or a pathfinder novel?

All these things take years to make and require extensive planning to link together.

Great feedback so far! Thanks all, and keep it coming!

One thing of note—it's important to me to NOT "use up" the compelling mysteries of the setting. Like when a forester cuts down trees, they plant new trees for the future, I very much enjoy seeding new mysteries whenever an adventure I'm developing resolves them. Often seeding more than I resolve. That way, we enable future adventures and future generations more to work with and explore and be intrigued by.

Some of these new mysteries will eventually be answered and explored, but not all of them. I would rather not have time to resolve everything and keep the unresolved out there to compel and inspire new stories for new generations than get to a point where everything of interest has been covered.

A bit of expectation management, I guess, to not expect us to explain everything we do. Especially not in a timeframe of "soon."

George R.R. Martin will tell you all about his seed-planting gardening style putting his next book 13+ years late!

You have a huge team now working on Setting that can plant new seeds, so you have a lot of runway left, and can aggressively start resolving things.

Some things are better done in adventures, experiencing it yourself, like journeying through war-torn nations, brokering deals with nobles and thieves, beating immortal deities' best servants, and boosting/sabotaging major organizations so much the Setting can't ignore it.

Take the Absalom book alone. We still don't know what happened to all those candidates for Primarch; will Wynsal step down? It's been years.

This is the easiest type of high level Adventure Path for us to produce, because the developer doesn't have to be an expert on the previous ones and doesn't have to spend extra time taking care of linked plot threads.

Making a Not Sequel isn't a reason to not link to previously established lore and major events.

Curtain Call - Bring the House Down gives us a lot of missing pieces about

If you were to not touch on this again, it would be a major disappointment.

As you keep writing new APs, the difficulty curve for the developer and writer keeps going up because the audience expects for previous hooks to be resolved and expanded on, and a canon ending provided.

But that's what makes it exciting. If it's just new stuff, that can be done in any setting, then it won't be as interesting.

I will vote for Not Sequels.

I will be honest, I don't have any nostalgia to Varisia/Runelords since I only started Pathfinder a few years ago. Whenever a spiritual indirect sequel comes out like 7 Dooms, I feel like "this AP wasn't written for me". Even if you start level 1 and previous knowledge isn't required.

But I will say one thing, I will get tired if Paizo just keeps creating new story hooks that don't get resolved.

I can't wait 5 years to know what happens to Geb/Nex, Cheliax/Andoran, Norgorber/Vyre.

I want enough things to get resolved first before new things are introduced, or else it feels like a video game where your quest log gets too filled up and you lose track of the story and give up.

Does Nhimbaloth count? Or we could follow up on the plot of Gatewalkers without making it necessary to have played it, perhaps? Or the Ashen Man cult from Plaguestone for more Dark Tapestry?

I asked if we can start this adventure at level 12. That's why I was given the answer I could EITHER do chapter 1 with no level progression OR skip it and start level 12 with chapter 2.

Nobody said you "should skip it".

Misrepresenting, misunderstanding or misquoting is a guaranteed way to have less interactivity with developers and we would all be worse off for it.

They should make the killer the last boss of the next adventure like how the MCU seeds the next villain in every film, in this case it would be very fitting

Skull and Shackle DOES have a lot of Norgorberites too, I must admit.

Paizo, I bought your War for the Crown pawn box.

I know you have art for a Stabbing Beast human form token.

PLEASE can you share it with me.

...I might have something for the ending of Bring the House Down that is related to audio. :3

I am interested.

"I like the other stuff, not the opera".

Relatable lol. 100%. At least MAYBE it leaves the door open for a full on Norgorber Adventure Path in the future, because that's the content I want more of in this product line.

I had the same reaction as you to Richard Pett's previous work. He wrote Vyre, War for the Crown, Skinsaw Murders, etc., so I expected better connections to Norgorber right from book 1. Fighting a random gang is not memorable enough.

The Ashen cult thing as a red herring is maybe a bit underbaked. I don't understand if this will become a big thing in future APs or they meant in book 2 when Fenton hires them to trouble the opera.

I agree with you that chapter 3 ends on a high note. BUT Richard could have made the gang be more high up in the food chain of Vyre to make it feel more epic, and connect it better to the city lore, like add interactions with the Abbatoir organization. Who even leads the thieves' guild in Vyre? Why do we not meet them?

You liked chapter 1 more than I did. I wish it was set on Vyre island instead of Osirion, and built up to chapter 3, giving us more time to showcase what Vyre is all about.

Anyway, I liked book 2 better than book 1 because of the BBEG and ending, and book 3 is one of the rare books that I LOVE ALL 3 CHAPTERS of, which is a unique experience for me since I tend to not like 1 chapter in every book usually.

So I agree with you guys except on 1 point, I will push back and say that the Opera House becomes a good home base for the players that you spend 1 chapter in each book in, where you can interact with the cast and crew and get to know them better.

There were also callbacks to Rebels in 1e, like the crabapple inn, which didn't do very much for me. Would rather have met Hellknights, which are mentioned in every Vyre centric article in Lost Omens or Rulebook product lines. Why are they sent here, who do they negotiate with, how did this alliance happen? How did the Skinsaw Cult take over Vyre, and why is it so dominant? There are SO MANY unanswered questions.

Very interested in this adventure. Are their opportunities for level-ups in each of the three plots? 1st to 7th is a big leap, and I'm still pretty new to the system.

Seeing as how most adventures cover 3-4 levels, and the wording of the text here, the players will not level up their characters until the end of the adventure.

To be fair, we put out Treerazer's stat block first for 3.5 back during Second Darkness. He's been looming for a lot longer than five years (and longer still if you count his 2nd edition AD&D stats I created for him back in 1989!).

EDIT: Looking at those stats closer, they might actually be 1st Edition AD&D stats.

So what do you think? Sure lots of people only run adventure paths, but Paizo won't have time to deliver on every adventure hook, so why not release more statblocks outside of adventures?

It doesn't have to be Abrograil herself, but maybe her top generals or devils.

I'd rather they only show up in adventures. While I also like to keep as official as possible, the issue with writing statblocks for important NPCs is that they then get locked into that set of mechanics; I'd rather that statblocks appear as and when required by a story, and even be a little flexible in how they're presented between appearances if necessary. It better communicates the idea that different groups can arrange the world how they like, which has been Paizo's stance regarding their world for as long as I can recall.

The regional, city, and organizations books offer a lot of rulers, leaders of groups, commanders, and other interesting figures.

I know this product line is centered on lore, but how would you feel if they threw in 5 statblocks for the most important characters?

Would you prefer getting other content instead, or would this be interesting?

I'm thinking of servitors and heralds of deities, inner circle of world leaders, top lieutenants of organizations...

Should it only appear in rulebooks and adventures?

OK War For the Crown is the one AP I would like to be converted to 2e and remastered lol. I need foundry integration for Reaper's Right Hand.

OK but what's to stop him from gaining a taste for the blood of gods? Or being tricked into killing Torag or Iomadae next? Him even being able to kill Gorum from behind, without warning, is a huge deal. Why would the gods all be aware he was tricked?

It's like someone invented nukes in this universe. There HAS to be a reaction. You don't just let an evil god start killing gods, you dish out punishment.

Hellknights wouldn't be too much of a surprise.

Be still my heart!!

HOLD ON A MINUTE. Is Seldeg still Geb's spymaster?

If yes, I am about to be VERY HAPPY.

If he's a turncoat, I will have to skip the first chapter and rewrite the last so that Agents of Geb take him down with righteous fury in the name of the Ghost King!

I will be EXTREMELY disappointed if there is no revenge against Akaechek by other gods for what he did to Gorum.

The good aligned gods absolutely need to deal with him after he unilaterally caused a massive catastrophe and sparked the War of Immortals.

Yes a time gap is entirely feasible if your GM allows it. Even a year. It won't break the story.

Now, to be fair, I also have Curtain Call and the AP unto itself is a masterpiece (IMO).

I fully agree! I am so happy with Curtain Call. Come join us on that subforum where it's more positive :)