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This is making me confident that my guesses of Sarenrae/Asmodeus/Pharasma are all wrong and all three Divine Mysteries stained glass gods survive :'D (btw, do we still get short stories for 9 gods that aren't part of 10 week countdown or are we left forever wondering what their prophecies would have been? x'D)
So having played this to finish then read pdfs to see what gm changed... Wow, umm... Yeah. I see why lot of things got changed and not just mechanically. So even from our campaign, its kinda apparent this is bait and switch from compelling "Town Guard" ap to "National security secret agents" AP. But like... AP would work much better as 3 part one? Heck, the Twilight Four plot would work as four part level 5-15 ap. Final adventure does nothing plot wise that demands it being level 20, most of enemies are lower level outsiders given power boost. You could adapt it to level 15 and change nothing plotwise (kinda think at that level, the grand plan should involve more than just ruling a city. Our gm did fun thing with them literally trying to steal city to Duskfathom) And like... Its weird when you could literally remove all town guard aspects from plot and barely anything changes? Its kinda clear non lethal thing was added post ap being written to player's guide and ap itself mostly assumes lethal combat. But bigger problem is its framing of pcs being super agents who do everything on their won without backup. Like whole thing of being part of town guard is feeling of being part of organization you can get help from. Named Edgewatch characters as written don't really exist after book 1 and it makes no sense this story wise. Heck lot of them are wasted potential, Lavarsus is treated as sitcom archnemesis you want to see getting his just desserts, but he explicitly does nothing too bad and is just grumpy. That's major waste of "grudging respect" character development plot. ...Sooo yeah the AP is lot of wasted potential. Its very clear it would have been written differently when 3 part aps became a thing, but even then it just doesn't take full appeal of its premise and doesn't care about the npc cast. I'm kinda wondering if I should now try to do individual reviews of the ap? Its kinda hard to split the overall campaign ethos things to six different parts when I feel like what needs improvement is handling of the campaign. I didn't even get tot he "each book assumes it takes week" super fast pace to fit inside two month festival x'D (I'm really confused by that aspect: because there is zero reason why the story would NEED to take place during radiant festival besides it sounding neat thematically. Its really weird time frame for level 1-20 adventure Why does first book assumes it ends on Arodus 3 and final book on Rova 7? That's less than month for entire thing) Overally, I still like campaign, but man its as written super rough. Its good source of inspiration and encounters to be used though if you ask me
Like we all know that post OGL, runelords are not tied to D&D OGl wizard schools anymore now that they are removed, but I find it funny they had the thing with "we are ignoring 8th school because its not REAL school fo magic since we all know real school of magics are themed around seven deadly sins" ...When there actually is eight deadly sins depending on christian tradition and funnily enough sin of Sorrow kinda matches with Divination school? x'D Like in orthodox christianity its considered greatest of deadly sins because the whole point of deadly sins are that they are things that lead you down to temptation of damnation and worst of them is despairing at false belief you are beyond redemption? So that funnily enough matches with typical "I can see into future" villains' flaw at future being unavoidable? (that said I do think seven runelords is much more manageable than eight of them(for example siheidron as seven pointed star is cooler), plus it was fun subversion of "wizard per spell school" symmetry. I mostly find it funny that when you think about it, you could easily justify one more one even if its apocryphal in a way x'D)
I could have sworn I heard some comments on some specific trait being considered redundant and due to that going to be removed, but I now realize that 1)I'm not sure which trait 2) I'm not sure that is actually going to happen and isn't just hearsay or my misunderstanding? But yeah, was there basically trait that was more trouble than its worth?
Like, yeah it can trigger swarm's aoe weaknesses but... Like at level 9 where item is considered appropriate, you would have striking rune at best meaning as written it deals 4 damage on failure. And it has once per hour limit. Like... I can see why it would flavor wise be silly to keep throwing multiplying hail of sharp objects every round*, but besides system already having more gonzo things than this that you can do, why does it have time limit with this amount of damage? I would understand timelimit if it dealt weapon's damage in aoe (4d4 damage with shuriken as aoe isn't much but it makes sense for once a hour free aoe), but why limit aoe that deals from 8 to 2 damage on level where its appropriate since higher level version of rune doesn't exist? *(with returning rune. Though as written, I don't anything actually prevents it being used thrower's bandolier because bandolier etches rune on every thrown weapon inside it rather than you using bandolier's rune? Unless I'm missing a general rule.) I'm mostly confused of "Is this typo or just devs being bit too careful?" since like. Silliest case of scenario is that with 700 gp you could just buy 23 level 3 fireball scrolls and do more damage in single hour. Item would make sense as written either with increased damage or time limit removed, as long both aren't done at same time. Am I just missing something?
Ya know, one of reasons I'm not super enthusiastic about using PF2e ancestry in starfinder cantina is that lot of PF2e ancestry design is made with pathfinder assumptions in mind. Meaning that its kinda sucks for me flavor wise that Automaton is living construct that has nothing interesting from being construct besides that they can avoid eating, sleeping and technically don't breath despite needing oxygen. So I'm still affected by poisons, diseases, can't store smuggle myself in vault inside a box, etc. I assume SF2e isn't just going to be like "for balance reasons, SRO need breathing equipment to survive in vacuum and also have +2 vs poisons", so I would like to see PF2e ancestries have things like "in starfinder, strix can fly since form level 1 instead of needing high level ancestry feat to fly", so figured out I should make thread to say it aloud at this point while I still can :D
So I was thinking that if SF2e gets rarity system from PF2e, it has to be adjusted to standards of the setting. Like its always kinda funny to think of difference between level 20 common, uncommon and rare monster(at least with summon spells uncommon means it can't be summoned even with level 10 summon spell) since for any of them level 1 character can't roll good with recall knowledge anyway, so it becomes this "okay this creature is legendary and this creature is so obscure even scholars probably don't know it exists" kind of dealio. However, starfinder 1e had funny feature of "as long you have access to internet and have about 2 minutes worth of time, you can take nat 20". So you would think by that logic, its much easier to find basic info about common level 20 creatures. So assuming all super high level creatures aren't uncommon or rare in starfinder, it would make sense to use uncommon or rare traits as modifiers for how long it takes to find information(or if its even possible) on local infosphere :D (note: I also think that due to whole interstellar cantina feel of starfinder, the meaning of uncommon and rare has to be drastically different from pathfinder so I'm curious of how devs solve that when it comes to equipment and such. Like I could see possibility of "what if uncommon items ACTUALLY require players to have access to them with license they have bought or trained for", that would be more fun to me than 1e style "uh, gm can stop players buying higher level items they somehow have money for from high level settlements by quoting licenses" :D
Like I obviously want corebook's release to pair with SF2e Alien Archive and Species/Ancestry book, but I'd honestly really like gm book for Starfinder themed variant rules and such. Would be nice to get that vast book in SF eventually, but not at release and I'm not sure I want 2e pactworlds and near space books since 1e ones should still work x'D need to hear any ap setting updates from somewhere though. Starfinder religion book might also be nice now that they use same format as in pathfinder But yeah feeling like I'm forgetting something obvious for what would be nice. So uh, yeah what other books would be nice whether close to release or not?
OBVIOUSLY spoilers for Return of the Runelords: So since everyone keeps believing that Xanderghul has survived due to cheeky hints about it, let's make guesses about how that might be possible considering at first it seemed like his canon fate was super perma mega death. But I believe we can make guesses on this based on hints in Return of the Runelord. We know that in Returns, Alaznist ganks him with time travel shenanigans and thus his mythic powers have been stolen by her and he is resurrected by his contingencies in weakned form composed of Shadowstuff essentially making him living illusion until he can recover his power. Assumption for adventure is that if pcs stop his shrines resurrecting him, the players can kill him for real or humiliate him and make him surrender, canon here seems to be fight to death. Upon death, this is described to happen: If he’s dead when the rod is removed, a distant sound of the runelord’s scream of agony and despair echoes through the chamber, and the entire temple of the Peacock Spirit seems to shudder as its god’s soul finally moves on to face judgment in the Boneyard. As he dies, his remains transform into a creature of resplendence—the Peacock Spirit itself—and then this too vanishes from the world. With the death of its god, the cult of the Peacock Spirit is no more. Then later on when players need to recover Karzoug's soul and find his soul has been stolen by daemons from river of soul, they find Karzoug's soul being used on weight to find souls more sinful than him to be sacrificed to Black Sun in abaddon. When players arrive, Xanderghul's soul is being compared with Karzoug and if players don't interrupt the "cutscene", Xanderghul's soul is sacrificed to Black Sun which you think would destroy his soul completely. Assuming players don't rescue his soul so that Pharasma can properly judge it, it would be bit surprising if that was the canon though because its treated as "if players do something we didn't expect them to do, Pharasma approves" So we are back to question of "how the hell he survived his soul being sacrificed to Bound Prince? He seems to be super mega ultra dead." and I think there are several things that hint at possibility of it DESPITE his soul seemingly being destroyed. 1) His death scene describes his soul moving to Boneyard while his body composed of quasi real shadowstuff transforming into Peacock Spirit and vanishing. While that could be really cool death animation, it does kinda imply something is happening to his body while his soul moves on. 2) His stolen mythic power was supposed to return to him when Alaznist died, so where DID it go? So as result here is bunch of my crazy theories on what might have happened a) he split into multiple entities upon his death and only his human soul went to be judged.(his mythic power might have returned to second entity or became its own one as well) b) being sacrificed to black sun doesn't actually destroy the soul c) he fooled everyone and the soul that went to be judged was also extremely realistic illusion (aka, something something multiple contingency plans) d) canon is that he actually got his souls saved and post judgement he retained his memories and ascended e) Alaznist's time paradoxes caused shenanigans to happen
I'm kinda wondering whats point of aeons and proteans now since preview pdf seems to admit that law vs chaos conflict was irrelevant, are they just random outsider monsters for encounters now without really grand relevance in cosmology or stories? (I'm mostly over it by now, but that did kinda hurt that text directly says it wasn't important x'D Like whats point of keeping axis and maelstrom around if the main themes of them are stated to be unimportant?)
...Does this mean we can finally consider THE VOID official name of Negative Energy Plane? Because I seriously prefer that as the official name of negative energy plane rather than as nickname xD Negative Energy Plane just sounds so... Academic xD the VOID is fun to say aloud
...Do you think paizo will 1) rename them 2) replace them with new devils or... ...and this is my favorite option... ...3) use it as opportunity to have come back of more obscure 1e fiends like Ukobach(tinder devil, CR 4), gidim(posession devil, CR 6) or even chortov(..I don't think this devil got title in council of thieves, anyway CR 9)? ...I really like idea of them bringing back forgotten pathfinder original fiends to replace "iconic OGL ones". Like I think lot of the ogl fiends overshadowed lot of the similar level ranges :'D
I'm feeling drift crisis felt pretty underused. Like majority of the factions or npcs introduced didn't even show up in any of adventures during the year. Other thing I'm thinking is that "If paizo is starting to think that maybe they should do more adventures with bigger impact on setting", they probably should have used drift crisis book to canonize pre drift crisis aps since they likely knew they would choose drift lanes to be canon and thus be obviously outdating the old aps ^^; Like I get idea that "well clearly majority haven't played them yet, so let's try to encourage them to play them even if they use drift crisis with this handy article of how to incorporate drift crisis into aps", but it just feels like nah they should have just canonized them instead to me x'D
Its literally staff used by monks that is sometimes used in martial arts especially in wuxia genre :O Actually, why does monastic weaponry feat not just give monks scaling profiency in martial weapons? Lot of the non monk weapons could be used by variety of different monks and martial artists when you think about it :'D
So as I'm running JR in 2e with homebrew stuff in final two books, I'm kinda curious of what will be canon conclusions of some part in book :'D Like will we finally learn governors of various regions? Will Paizo give canon result for five seals or will they be left unknown so people gming JR can do whatever they wanted with them? x'D Will we answers on some of hooks not used in JR(like last two imperial weapons)? I hunger to know x'D
So I'm in firm belief that SF2e shouldn't be just "PF2e the scifi edition with heavier focus on vehicle/starship/mech combat". Not just because of things like "canteena species system is hard to keep up if everyone has ancestry feats or if species feats are generic" and that "there are lot of different unique weapons out on market and items to allow you to do things that would be higher level in pathfinder at low levels" aspect but also because of things like small flavor differences in mechanics and potential for doing things PF2e did in playtest but didn't get to final version as some of them might be better fit in starfinder. (pathfinder 1e also had dealios with "well 3.5 monsters should be compatible with system" and starfinder had bugs related to "well pathfinder 1e monsters should be portable to starfinder, so I hope starfinder avoids this school of thought so we don't have restrictions because "you should be able to use pathfinder monsters in starfinder and vice versa without conversion issues!") For example of the playtest related dealios 1) in pf2e playtest the untrained profiency bonus being equal to your level (or in later errata -4 your level) might make more sense to players in starfinder than pathfinder. I honestly always preferred idea of untrained profiency also scaling with level, but the "I want my wizard to really suck at athletics" crowd won out for understandable reasons. I'd think though that in starfinder it really does make sense that in futuristic word where common education is a thing that everyone has baseline ability to use computers and drive vehicles :'D Its already kinda hurting in starfinder when vehicles come in and only single character has piloting. There is also that some devs seemed bummed out that removal of baseline for skills meant that skills couldn't be used as DCs more often(in pf2e remnant of this is mostly athletics dc for grapple escape related stuff and deception dc), and I'm curious to see what devs would come up with if all characters could be expected to have at minimum of certain skill dc by specific levels. Other thing from playtest that I think could have potential here is 2) having profiencies only jump one number instead of two (so 1/2/3 instead of 2/4/6). I honestly preferred the change to bigger numbers since it feels better to me, but I do think devs do have point that it harder to play around with class proficiency(so all martials need to have at least master, because +2 isn't competitive with +6, compared to how +2 would have been competitive with +4 in comparison) and I'm again curious to see what devs would do with that. But main reason I think that might work better here is that starfinder in general feels like there should be smaller jump between levels and effectiveness than in pathfinder, especially assuming if they keep around six levels of spells compared to ten levels. This is especially important in starfinder because wizard in pf2e isn't competitive using weapon vs enemies, but I feel like mystic with pistol should stay competitive vs enemies in starfinder and shouldn't be forced to have master profiency to do that :'D So if starfinder 2e uses profiencies, expert should be competitive vs high level enemies even if legendary and master are still better. Third thing isn't strictly playtest thing, its more of how action economy and spells work. I much prefer 3 action economy to swift/move/standard action, but playtest did admittedly show "what if spells had variable effects based on actions you use" where release game just had vast majority of spells be just 2 actions. Basically I think spell design in starfinder using 3 action economy should have all spells have potential of either 1-2 actions or 2-3 actions at least to have spellcasters get full benefit of interesting parts of action economy as well.
So personally Pathfinder 2e is one of my favorite systems, but one of my players seems to prefer Starfinder, so I figured out might as well make post to share gist of their take about it Basically, they kinda feel like Pathfinder 2e doesn't have mechanically gonzo options that are also good at same time due to Pathfinder focusing heavily on balance and having baseline experience be similar, where Starfinder is balanced game that allows things players to have pointlessly strong abilities like immunities or permanent movement options and other weird variety of things. I don't personally have huge stake in this(I like both pathfinder 2e and starfinder, but starfinder has lot of small things that annoy me mechanically), but I do agree that my favorite items from treasure vault previews are the most gonzo ones, I'm fan of gonzo in general x'D
So players are currently done with bandits, so for my homebrew this question rises its head again :'D Minkai has eight provinces named after cities, but the jade regent gazetteer never spells them out, but pathfinder wiki assumes (quite logically to be fair) that the said eight provinces are the only eight cities listed on the map. I guess that is fairly safe assumption, but I'm slightly scared of "what if 2e introduces more cities so I assumed provinces incorrectly" So I'm checking if I'm missing anything and this is literally only information that we have of provinces, the short gazetteer on cities themselves, that one of them actually has a named governor and one of them has comment that governor is lenient? But yeah, it is handy for homebrew since it means I can fill in 7 governors myself, but its kinda scary tbh since I'm expecting any future 2e minkai info to fill in blanks
In effort to do my homebrew and try to understand how Minkai is split into eight provinces (and get any hints on two missing royal weapons) I've done lot of small details research and I realized something: I don't get the timeline. So to check, about 50 years ago the oni started their plan to infiltrate Minkai's society and destroy imperial families one by one in 4651. In 4652 Rokuro already saw through the plan and started escape from Oni? I'm... Honestly confused about this because the timeline assumes it took long for oni to infiltrate everywhere and destroy families one by one, but Amatatsu Rokuro decided to yeet himself out right at start of it. Teikoku, Shojinawa and Sugimatu were taken care during this fifty years(Sugimatu fell first due to poisoning over course of years, Shojinawa went according to rumors period of magical corruption until big explosion and Teikoku were dealt with in military manner it seems. Amatatsu family has no mention so either family was small when Rokuro escaped with his son or everyone else in family just died and its glossed over?) Well anyway, in 4708 they finally assassinate the current emperor (whose predecessors were also assassinated) and presumably imprison or kill everyone else in Higashiyama family as well making them last of the families to fall. ...Yeah I do kinda wish we would have gotten Minkai book or something to clarify this, would make my homebrewing much much easier x'D
I decided to make thread on most evil factions on setting that aren't cultists, genocidal xenophobes, murderhobos or have inherent lack of free will (such as fiends by being literal manifestation of concept of evil into physical form made out of quintessence aka literal stuff experiences, ideas and alignment is made out of). The twist here? Speculating on why these factions became evil and whether they have non evil PC potential ;D This might be caused by my annoyance at people assuming this setting is running out of evil, so I'm kinda running with that idea "Okay, let's theorycraft this, could you make non evil PC". After all, as gm, even without making up homebrew setting lore, you can justify anything. Forewarning: Yeah most of these are aberrations, who would have thunk it. So lets start with almighty fish overlords, Alghollthu and their empire, the mind controlling alien fish wishing to rule their slaves from shadows.:
Why are they evil? Is it because of their powers lead them to easily dominate others? Nah, its most likely because they all share genetic memory from since they were primordial ooze and first Alghollthu with personality to form probably happened to be a jerk who wanted to abuse its natural mind control powers. Alghollthu have individuals due to individual experiences, different bodies and such, but all of them share same lineatic memory to their origin. Their intelligence, power and mind control abilities do kinda foster really narcistic personality types which then pass on to their spawn through the memories, which makes things like "introspection to learn error of my ways" very hard when you have thousands of years of believing in your superiority since from age of mindless cells. The easiest way for non evil Alghollthu I see is them having amnesia to start from blank slate, but them being huge fishes doesn't lead them well to PC status.
Honestly, I only see creations of Alghollthu such as úgothol(wow I did that accent accidentally and now I don't want to correct it) or ulat-kini having non evil potential, especially since ulat-kini don't have the feature of being single gender deep ones anymore. They likely have problems with overcoming psychic programming built into them like how some azarketi have ancient Alghollthu sleeper agent programming hidden inside their minds, but they don't have baggage of literally inheriting your ancestors' narcissism. Dominion of the Black is vast, so let's focus on Intellect Devourer, the OG darkland body snatchers:
So this one is actually fairly clear besides being Dominion of the Black adjacent alien beings: besides their inherent ability to take over bodies by consuming brain, the main incentive for them to take over sapient hosts is that Intellect Devourers don't have much of sensory sensations in their natural form. Its very much directly stated they are fascinated senses like touch, taste and pain. In otherwords, they are very much addicted to tactile senses.
This is actually one of more common traits between various Dominion of the Black aliens. They in general lack empathy for other beings, seem to share overall philosophy of annihilation/void/oblivion, have tendency to see them as purely resources to be harvested and used(more intelligent beings better resources), but some of them also appear to have hunger for something specific. Chyezaeda have endless hunger for sustenance and knowledge, Neshmaal have hunger for life energy of creatures, Deh-Nolo are stated to have hunger for knowledge Brain Collectors aren't spelled out to thave this hunger(they are fanatical to the Dominion's philosophy though) but they do have biological ability to use stolen brains as storage space. I'd say that Intellect Devourers would have better chance of becoming non evil than Alghollthu have since any being based around infiltration and deception has to have some level of empathy to learn to pretend like person whose body they stole, but likely all Dominion species have developed with ability to not think other beings as really "people" in order to be able to make use of their abilities on other sapient beings without sense of guilt. The main thing is over beings like D&D Mind Flayer who explicitly need sapient brains to reproduce, is that Intellect Devourers likely don't need humanoids or such, they just get more out of them due to abilities or infiltration potential. (though arguably animals likely have equal if not greater sensory input than humans) Another thing to realize is that while Intellect Devourers gain knowledge of how to use their new body's abilities and know their role and status in society, they don't gain specific knowledge or feelings of the body. Because likely if they did see the body's memories and live through them, they'd have better chance of learning to empathize with their victim that would be counterproductive for them. I'd think most likely case of non evil Intellect Devourer would be one that has lived as same person and have to be pretend to be friends with other people for so long they have assimilated into the role. Their culture itself has no strong incentive to encourage altruism or empathy because their ability makes them feel good because it helps them break away from complete lack of tactile sensory input. PC wise though never playable since too powerful abilities, but I could see them being represented as reflection heritage being with lineage similar to morph-risen. So another aberration empire, this time Neothelids worm empire:
So why are these level 15 gargantuan psychic worms evil besides having lot of power to abuse? Because they serve the plots of Great Old ones and Outer Gods. Whether because they were created by them or because their alien minds understand and agree their with the alien worldview of Mythos, Neothelids are very much first out of three aberrations listed here that is impossible to fully understand because Ctulhu Mythos relies on concept of "beyond humanoid understanding". Either way, they have knowledge from beyond this reality and plot with their worm servants to rule the world when Great Old Ones arise.
Technically Neothelids could be CN like some great old ones I suppose, but yeah this is very much best argument for always CE out of these three. Its hard to tell even if memory wipe would help here since its unknown how their connection to reality beyond reality works and moment you give them way of thinking that makes sense from human perspective, it doesn't work with Cthulhu mythos rules anymore. They are also last Mythos related faction I discuss because while all mythos factions aren't evil, they just like fiends kinda rely on concept of "it just has to be beyond mortal understanding or it doesn't count". Still though, I think its good thing to note that they aren't evil for evil's sake, their sense of normal is just what would be evil to most beings. Mythos beings can have malice yes, but not necessary from their perspective. Undead in general, because too many factions to note, but I need this as setup for last one:
Okay, undead are fairly simple: Its pretty much directly stated in lore, outside of starfinder, that to remain as non evil undead you need extraordinary will power because you are animated by entropic energy that gives you inherent need to destroy living beings.
So as results undead are perfect pcs for beings who want to resist corruption inherent to them and do good in spite of their condition. Metawise this is because otherwise by killing yourself you could become immortal and stronger being :p Hence why there has to be trade off for being undead unless you are eeeeeeeevil already. In which case its just small price of losing your original personality and memories to undead corruption. Uderfhans, created by horsemen as weapons of the apocalypse INCOMING SPECULATION:
So hear me out here: Uderfhans might have "anti souls" somehow made of negative energy that give them similar anthipathy to living beings as undead have(hence uderfhan's gleefulness towards violence and creating better methods of killing), but they aren't actually inherently evil despite being 99.99% evil. I'm sure at least one developer or writer will do spit take now.
Plot twist here? Fiends have no free will. Undead freewill is heavily affected by the negative energy corrupting their souls. So you'd think that uderfhans have no free will due to having souls of negative energy right? Nah, you are thinking of it wrong way around, they HAVE free will AND inherent taste for violence. Paradoxical? Yes. True? Evidence suggests so. Beings with normal soul made out of positive energy have free will and most of them value life. Uderfhans have souls made out of energy of destruction and thus most value death, but they do still have free will by same logic right? So why is this relevant besides stating that "Its not really that uderfhans don't have choice but to be evil, they just enjoy killing so most of them choose to go with their masters' doomsday plan"? Because of freewill, some of them have created ambitions than just serving their master's will. Some of them want to survive as long as possible. Others want to earn uderfhan species their own glory independent of daemons and culture beyond mindless violence(even if that violence is used towards other things instead in calculated fashion). So it stands to reason that just like how there are super (fictionally) nihilistic serial killers among people, that there probably are uderfhan who have uncharacteristically pacifistic tendencies. Uderfhans have potential to create independent path from daemons, but the main thing that trips us up is that their inherent values are so much different from normal beings that to them, uderfhan who doesn't like violence is as weird as human who loves murdering people with death traps. Aka nobody expects it, but when you think about it, they are very much example of Bizarro people. How far that goes? Hard to say, there are lot of people who don't like killing in real life, but enjoy it in context of games, so I suppose I wouldn't be surprised if its something similar to some of them. I would have written about serpentfolk next, but tbh, I doubt anyone reads all five of those :'D Nobody reads my long wind posts when I get excited to do lore talk x'D
Realized the one thread I revived wasn't on lore side of forum AND that I have lot more extensive questions about topic than I thought. So long time ago I asked around why Animated Dreams didn't have spirit tag and was told it was because they were bodiless beings composed of mental essence(so incorporeal astral thoughtform probably wouldn't be spirit, but incorporeal ethereal being would be), but then secrets of magics lore writings told us animated dreams are composed of mental and spirit essences :'D So that created confusion of whether its just matter of "being is made of majority of spiritual stuff". Further confusing matter is that celestials, monitors and fiends have physical body composed of materialized spirit, but they aren't spirits, so what are spirits with physical bodies like kami composed of? So that's why I made this thread: To theorize and hopefully figure out how variosu beings are composed based on secrets of magics descriptions. My current theory so far is that: Mortals: Balance of four essences unless they are mindless. Elementals: All four essences, but heavily leaning towards matter. Celestials/Monitors/Fiends: Heavily spiritual essence with life and mental mixed in and quintessence replacing need for matter essence. Kami/spirits with body: All four with heavily leaning towards spiritual essence. Etherreals: Heavy mix of mental and spirit essences with some life and matter as well if they have physical body. Shadow: All four, though spiritual essence might be weaker based on shadow creature(implication is that shadow powers are gained by sacrificing parts of your spirits hence why shadowcasters tend to have subdued emotions) Astral: Presumably Mental and life essences if they are bodiless astral thoughform and Astral, life and matter if they are physical one? Though beings like ennosites might have all four essences with heavy lean towards mental essence I'd imagine. Dream: This is confusing one. Secrets of magic implies that Animated dreams have mental and spirit essence but not life? I'd personally had guessed that dream beings have mental and life essences and matter if they have body as well and only spirit if they are just beings that have moved to live in dream world. But is actual case that they have all essences except life? Mortal constructs seem to have all four essences, so would dream beings being actual examples of construct like beings that are essentially fully alive? Another option is that all beings expect spirits have all four essences or one essence replacing need for other essences :'D (like ectoplasm being weird example of spirit stretching matter and quintessence being spirit replacing matter) and only creatures lacking one of essences are mindless creatures?
Synchrony Device that is. I've already long ago finished my ruins of azlant campaign, but I'm currently taking inspiration from this artifact, so I want help on this: what would be realistic effects of various Synchrony Device explosions in different locations? My understanding so far is that positive and negative explosions would funnily enough be least destructive while fire and earth ones could be apocalyptic depending on location. But I have hard time grasping on how wide area any of the effects, besides positive or negative, would affect outside of their 500 miles radius.
So while trying to figure out whether half-elf can be a half-drow officially speaking for a darklands half elf character I was making, I realized something: while cavern elves are confirmed to be different from drow, what ARE cavern elves? Like, is there any elf culture on Golarion that actively lives in darklands or in caves besides drow?
And which's plane you want featured first? ...This isn't because I realized I forgot to include planes in all the obscure setting material, its because I was once again missing gigas... I really want planar giants to come back, I don't care how redundant they would be, they were still among coolest monsters in the 1e x'D They had this really powerful primordial feel to them that I don't think even titans have(despite them being stronger)
So with impending public release of kingmaker 2e, if the kingdom building rules turn out to work great in practice that means it'll be fun to use them in home campaigns as well whether in homebrew or Lost Omens setting :3 So I figured out it'd be fun to ponder where would be good locations for such. (nice thing about kingmaker kingdom building rules is that rules themselves don't assume specific setting per say, though they are missing advice/rules for arctic and desert terrains as those aren't in kingmaker) I'll just get it out of the way, Sarusan would be good location if we had bigger map of it that would be easier to split into hexes ;D But yeah gm only land aside I think most obvious locations would be Ironbound Archipelago and Iobaria. Ironbound Archipelago because devs have noted few time it could be fun kingmaker spiritual successor location and it indeed would be :D There are 13 islands with five of them being taken by Linnorm Kingdom, so both provides you a sponsor to settle on other islands, enough space for rival charters and enough self contained location that you could fit entire thing in hex map and not feel like "wait so what about our neighbor Mivon?" since while sea trade being included would be cool and such, geographical isolation makes ignoring wider international politics much easier campaign wise. (Rest of the Linnorm Kings right now don't have super good space for new kingdom being built since now in 2e two regions don't have linnorm kings, one of them has de-facto ruler who is linnorm king in all but title since he isn't interested in slaying linnorms as he has important border defense thing going on and second is Grungir Forest aka place where Fafnheir lives. So no real new region to build up kingdom in and then cement your place as king by dueling linnorm at higher levels) Iobaria on otherhand makes sense as its decentralized wilderness region with several small city states and three factions that explicitly want to unite it into a nation. So that's three potential sponsors or rivals if you are founding fourth faction that wants to unite the region and build national identity. Plus the whole history of several different people trying to do so previously builds up lot of regional history and interesting roleplaying moments to party's group trying to do so again. Azlant would probably also work more or less, Ruins of Azlant didn't have players involved much in building up Talmandor's Bounty or such much since that one had more of optional "you can use downtime rules for creating business or building home" thing going on, but logically if Ironbound isles could work Azlant could too yeah. Main problem doing it on Azlant would be logistics stuff(like, population growth wouldn't really be that high, it kinda feels that Azlant would fit more of settlement builder than nation builder) and that I think Ruins of Azlant are interesting as locations for underwater campaigns which I suspect doesn't really mix well with kingdom building. Less obviously, I think Five Kings Mountain's would sort of work due to similar themes of "there are only couple city states and there was strong dream of united culture among dwarves that died out", but that one has bit of issue in that unless campaign lasts for hundred years its hard to be convinced that this time it won't collapse in few dwarven lifespans like previous ones did(very Dwarf Fortress-y). Granted maybe its less about what happens in distant future and more about what happens now and giving local dorfs hope about it. *shrugs* Besides that uh, I can think of few "local people decide to centralize" ideas but I'm not really happy about any of them. 2e kingdom building rules do include Yeomanry as government option, so you CAN represent decentralized nation, but I'm still bit iffy on whether that would fit. Like kingdom building in Mwangi Expanse would feel bit weird since region is much more interesting that decentralized. In Varisia you could build case for them uniting in response to new thassilon and such, but becoming new city states that unites other city states into varisian nation sounds bit off to me and still comes with the "settlers vs natives" problems and Shoanti deciding to unite into one nation doesn't seem like their interest either. One such idea I could actually see is a mammoth lord trying to unite realm of mammoth lords, but that would be more of a possible Quest for Frozen Flame continuation campaign if party decides to break away from traditions as its one of possible campaign continuation ideas. Sarkoris Scar I'm bit unsure about, I could see that one also working concept wise, but that's a lot of demon pollution so seems bit of like hard mode campaign :'D
You knew this was coming ;D Anyway, I'm sure that even with starfinder existing, there is presence of scifi tech in pathfinder and not just because of numeria... Hence thread name. I think 2e version of technology guide should be combined with detailing planets in Golarion's star system with heavier tech focus. If Akitonians can have future guns then why not our android gunslingers too? That and would make it easier to run iron gods in 2e :p We kinda need this anyway for that dominion of the black alien invasion campaign or numeria 2e campaign whatever we will end up getting. (and no, guns & gears isn't technology guide, that one was less scifi and more steam punk and early firearms even with tesla coils) Anyway, I'll be doing likely my final lore binge on obscure setting materials since I'm fairly sure this is last corner(or spaaaace) in Golarion('s related material) to discuss. And just remember, having 2e adventures in planets doesn't affect starfinder and vice versa, sword & sorcery planet traveling is as much form of fantasy as other genres present on golarion. We don't even really need AP set on them, we could have just anthology adventure book with one adventure on each of them. Heck detailing them helps with more of Golarion alien shenanigans as well! So yeah summaries of even less technological stuff in solar system(I try to include reason to explore locations in pathfinder era): LORE BINGE:
Sun(Mataras by Lashunta) the Burning Mother: So this is that one adventuring location you won't really ever be able to just "walk" or "fly" into ;P Burning Archipelago bubble cities existed back in 1e as well and they weren't yet completely abandoned like they were when they were discovered in starfinder, so having details on their inhabitants back then and the mr wizard who decided to move to sun would be fun(who is Eziah anyway? Is he older than Azlant? Is he from recent history?). We likely will never see Sun Deep Cultures from starfinder though because I can't imagine anybody from pathfinder era even getting idea of trying to go that deep into blinding burning fire.
Aballon, The Horse: So the most obviously high technological planet of solar system, perfect for tech guide related adventuring ;D There is actually small group of about 50 people who have gotten stuck on Aballon due to portal shenanigans, so adventure about getting stuck on aballon accidentally both makes sense and if they were rescued from planet nobody on starfinder era would even know they had been there in first place ;D (I doubt we would get playable anacites or khizars though in 2e, but still lot of evocative ideas of bunch of fantasy people getting stuck on cold planet with machine cities and only couple of air pockets... Plus hey legendary survivalists would get use out of that feat if its high level adventure instead :D) Also fun fact: before Epoch ascended and combined with Brigh and Casandalee, it was a city on Aballon, Epoch the Striving. Or to be accurate, it was massive neural network that was already close to godhood back in 1e. So yes, we could totally witness ascension of new god and have third pre triune machine god clerics in 2e ;D Castrovel the Green: So this is planet we definitely need to feature in 2e eventually because of elves alone :P I mean, you can't have PCs be aliens, Kyonin have direct portal to Sovyrian and formians and lashunta occasionally on golarion without ever featuring fantasy venus, right? xP They didn't really have space era tech yet in 1e, so its really fitting fantasy location too! Golarion the Cage got featured its moon(or Somal by Azlanti) in distant worlds instead. Not much to say there besides that would be interesting to get update on Moonscar and City of the Faceless in 2e. Moon Dungeons also had "potentially monumental discovery" that was never followed up on, since penal city was established by azlanti to explore the mysterious tunnels in first place. Moon is gone by time of starfinder, so whatever was there? Never discovered by starfinder's people's because of the gap. Akiton the Red is mostly on John Carter of Mars level somewhat advanced scifi technology(1e had picture of ikeshi junk trader on pile of metallic scifi junk and cyborg eye, 2e has apparently futuristic looking rifles), but still very fitting fantasy adventuring ;D Apparently Azlant long ago invaded a region and established an outpost too. Either way, besides lot of interesting potential ancestries and adventures, there is apparently already one 2e adventure that goes there so... Yeah, just saying, technology guide would be good spot to detail more of Akitonian technology ;D I don't know if that was detailed even in 1e. Plus mystery of akitonian ysoki would be nice to delve into more too, plus its perfect location for biker mice from mars reference. Verces the Line is another high technological society, plus an interesting one to see pre its Starfinder incarnation because back in pathfinder their caste system wasn't yet seen as "archaic" and thus it was more culturally important instead of just a tradition. Honestly meeting highly cybernetic society is more fascinating on pathfinder era, especially since clerics and religion is more important in pathfinder than in starfinder, so God-Vessels make me wonder, what were verthani deities? Diapora the Lost Ones is bit of "well there are so many asteroids that you could easily feature ones never shown in starfinder side or that didn't exist on pathfinder side. Like House of the Void, does it still exist in starfinder? I don't think it has ever been mentioned. Anyway, brotherhood of silent robed people of impossible to tell origin? That is very much something fun to explore. All of planets have bunch of adventure hooks that obviously don't exist in starfinder anymore or locations that never got brought up in starfinder either(so either location doesn't exist or its heavily changed by time or starfinder isn't touching them in case pathfinder wants to use them) I'm not honestly sure how technological pathfinder 1e sarcesians are since they can survive in vacuum naturally, but they were at least advanced enough to have interplanetary magic war with Eox and create a kaiju to send to destroy Eox. Eox the Dead or as it seemed in 1e, the cyborg Giger-esque lich planet ;D Since Eoxians are basically immortal aging wise, this is most unchanged location by time of Starfinder in terms of locations matching up, though iirc there are several locations still having disappeared(and locals noticed) or changed in scope a lot. Either way, horror of Eoxian liches invading Golarion or experimenting is something I've wanted to see more of in 1e, thought it was nice to have cameo of one of them in one ap in certain funny location ;D Anyway obviously as technological space, it has place in technology guide! Plus corpse fleet isn't a thing in 1e yet, so focus of Eox would be more on bone sage shenanigans than Corpse Fleet terrorists risking their allegiance with rest of pact worlds. Eox is in politically really different place in pathfinder and starfinder since in pathfinder they'd be hostile antagonist and in starfinder they are uneasy evil creepy allies. Triaxus, the Wanderer, featured in cool book in certain 1e ap ;D Unfortunately both starfinder and pathfinder are in the "winter season" of the planet, but its local dragon related politics and trixians are fun. Not really technology guide related location, but its alternate very dragon focused winter campaign setting with cool dragon riding shenanigans and different feeling from its starfinder counterpart. Either way, you see triaxians occasionally making cameos on Golarion, Triaxus, Castrovel and Akiton are probably planetary stuff references you see most common in pathfinder 1e. Liavara the Dreamer is bit like Diaspora in that "well this is a location that is actually multiple other locations", with amount of moons I'm fairly sure we haven't even explored all of them in starfinder either. Still lot of Liavara's moons would be fascinating to witness in their ancient state, and would be fun to learn whether Forever Queen of Nchak is actually Hylax's avatar or not ;P Well whatever she is, Trox being from Nchak is fun detail and I hope Trox make come back in 2e. Bretheda the Craddle is also a gas planet with moons that are actually multiple settings, though presumably less than Liavara's countless shepherd moons, we haven't gotten all of Bretheda's moons detailed in starfinder either. Honestly same what I said about Liavara applies here, it would be fascinating to see pathfinder era of some of the people, but Liavara and Bretheda in 1e are mostly collection of paragraphs about cool thing on a planet that then in starfinder got adapted into playable species. I consider them potentially interesting locations, but since both planet's moons are isolated from each other, they are more of "interesting mini settings" where other planets in solar system work as entire campaign settings. Still it isn't reason to not give us ancestry stats for them Kalo have displaced people on Golarion as well ;D So why not Maraquai in 2e as well? Eh eh? If nothing else, less technologically advanced barathu would be interesting to witness. Apostae the Messenger: aka the most changed planet by time of starfinder since by starfinder its now the drow planet and Ilee got removed :'D Also since its possibly actually a spaceship with malfunctioning portals... Yeah fitting for technology guide. But yeah would be nice to get adventure to flesh out Ilee and their "each individual of species looks nothing alike" thing. And finally Aucturn the Stranger, confirmed in doomsday dawn to be... Wait is it a spoiler to say it aloud? :'D Another location that hasn't really changed much politically by time of starfinder since mostly ruled by ageless aberrations, though it has gotten some shifts as biological planet with certain creepy locations being no longer in function by starfinder. This is very much just for local aberration cthulhu dominion of the black shenanigans without needing to go to another star system, but its cool and creepy. Honestly I think this one is more terrifying in pathfider than in starfinder when you have assault rifles and spaceships. If you are stuck on this planet with just sword and shield, good luck :'D I'm sure it would also have a place in technology guide as examples of gross organic technology, especially with dominion of the black having some presence on planet Sooo yeah. Hope we will get 2e planetary content back xD
So in 2019 I made thread about idea I really liked and that I would be able to do the idea if paizo would introduce just one new spell of specific type. Yeah three years later and I'm still stuck on "stellifera witchwarper that warps reality around them so they don't need to use hydrobody" idea :'D I never built a witchwarper or stellifera x'D I do know that waiting to build a stellifera witchwarper only after they make water equivalent of "floor is lava!" type spell is silly(perfectly witchwarpery flavor wise though and wouldn't be too unbalanced considering fly spells!). We get new player options in slow enough pace that I feel like "oh maybe if witchwarper/swim speed/aquatic species themed options would get another focus book besides one underwater spell article in AP, I would get option that I want for flavor I'm going for!" :'D Like I feel like I'm living in false hope and that if new options were released more often, it'd be easier to give up on the specific idea because I'd get new witchwarper idea or that I would get option that would be "eh close enough" xD (normally I build characters based on options I've been granted by books, this is only time I've gotten inspiration for really specific idea I've wanted to build that wasn't supported mechanically yet x'D) Right now, whenever I entertain idea of building witchwarper? My brain is like "but that one idea I want to do" and then I lose enthusiasm for witchwarper and do other class instead x'D At this rate my original idea can't live up to build up in my head for it
Thought I would make solar system thread next to have more advocacy for really obscure parts of settings? Well I wanted to do this one first instead xD I kinda thought of reviving the "101 things in Sasuran" thread, but I realized that wouldn't be right place for this type of long post So we already know for sure there won't ever be Sarusan book because Sarusan is the "GM's safe from published content zone" in the setting, I do hope though that like in travel guide, we will get more amusing tidbits at rest of the world wondering whats up with Saruran(it helps the continent to feel less disconnected from world even if paizo can never directly touch it :D) Assuming paizo never goes back on the gm zone concept, I honestly kinda wish that if paizo ever does Galaxy Exploration Manual style world building book for pathfinder that that is where they release high definition version of Sarusan's map and tells us "use advice of this book to go wild" xD We already know from global map that Sarusan's map exists, so I just usable version of it I could use in roll20 games. Maps are biggest reasons I rarely do homebrew campaigns in large scale tbh ^_^; Seriously even blog post for HD Sarusan map would be nice x'D Also fun thing for world building Sarusan is that we know actually something about it to make educated theories: Quote from Lost Omens World Guide:
The smallest and most mysterious of Golarion’s continents lies south of Tian Xia’s Valashmai peninsula, isolated from the outside world by vexing currents and powerful storms. According to legend, the continent was once connected to Tian Xia by a land bridge and inhabited by an empire called Taumata, before the gods shattered the bridge into the archipelago known today as the Wandering Isles. Yet while the archipelago remains inhabited by the nautical Tian-Sing people, whose appearance suggests descendance from unknown Sarusan cultures, even their legends of the shrouded continent are scattered and fragmentary. In their songs and the records of lost empires, Sarusan is a wild and mysterious land where giant mammals long extinct on other continents still roam immense frozen deserts and dense woodlands. Those few modern expeditions that venture near the shores speak of forbidding cliffs lined with smooth monoliths, while those who land and venture into its interior invariably disappear. What’s more, those sailors who do return home often mysteriously forget the details of their voyages shortly afterward, suggesting that the continent’s isolation may not be completely natural. Aka what we know is that 1) ancient world did have connection with Sarusan and back then it presumably wasn't as isolated 2) there are likely humans in Sarusan 3) there are smooth obelisks on shores of Sarusan, that might be serpentfolk related(as serpentfolk obelisks are all around world or at least from crown of the world to Sarusan based on their ecology article. Its kinda funny article btw because it isn't written from perspective of all knowing narrator and it has lot of speculation) 4) its geographically very isolated and hard to travel to, so most people don't even have chance to enter the continent 5) its not "Fantasy Australia" in sense that once Paizo realized that would mean they just told Astralians they won't have representation in the Golarion, they moved Australian related fauna(so yay for marsupials not being stuck in Sarusan) and myths to other regions, but its still in older campaign setting books considered alien to rest of modern Golarion so its still Golarion equivalent of "wow these animals here are extremely weird as continent has been isolated for such a long time!" 6) almost nobody returns from there and those who do forget what they saw. So yeah that is quite plentiful material to do your own world building for :3 I'll tell me own world building extrapolations next I want to imagine that Sarusan being isolated geographically goes to ludiriculous degree. Continent is surrounded by storms and currents and if ship somehow sails to near continent, there isn't good shore to land on because of reefs and continent being surrounded by sheer cliffs. Might be bit of over kill to have thick mists on top of that so you don't even see what is there well, besides mysterious obelisks ;D Even magical transportation like teleportation isn't safe because you don't seem to be able to teleport to continent from another location just by knowing its direction. And presumably once you do get in there, you can't teleport out immediately. Any possible darkland entrances to under Sarusan collapsed when landbridge did, and for all we know maybe vault builders didn't build vaults under it so maybe Orv layer doesn't even exist for Sarusan. Memory erasure thing makes things more complicated because its clearly supernatural, but its unknown why and what causes it. Same as its unknown why people don't return from there often. Is it because they don't want to or because they can't? Second thing I assume for my theories is that there are several, human and non human, advanced, possibly ancient, nations in Sarusan. Mostly because it would be bit boring if Sarusan was just wilderness death world that nobody remembers what is there and I believe Sarusan should be self contained as campaign setting and still provide wide variety of adventuring there. So there definitely should be multiple high magical nations with metropolises and diplomacy going on with each other. Plus idea of ancient advanced civilization trope that never collapsed is school. Maybe they could be more humble remnants of Taumata, maybe something that existed before Taumata or something that formed after its collapse. Splinter of Serpentfolk COULD exist there, but to be honest Serpentfolk were driven from surface long before Taumata and other human empires. Them having left signs of having existed on Sarusan is most likely just because serpentfolk had spread almost everywhere on surface(there were speculations of them having spread to even other planets and planes) so they would have left mark on Sarusan long before geographical and supernatural isolation started. Those two assumptions give me three possible interpretations of what is up with my version of Sarusan :3 a) that the isolation is enforced by people on Sarusan. This is my least favorite option because it overlaps with Osibu's themes, but regardless of whether Sarusan is utopia on Golarion or not that you don't want to return from, one logical assumption is that nobody returns from Sarusan (and with their memories intact) because advanced local empire don't let them leave to keep Sarusan isolated from rest of the world. I also would prefer that entire continent isn't isolationist, so another reason why this isn't exactly my favorite take :p Bit too much of "we are advanced isolationist elves who are too good for everyone else" trope for me. b) that the isolation is enforced by divine curse or some other outside power. Admittedly my favorite idea here because it would provide an overall "goal" for people inside nation to work to counter this effect and provide conflict between groups who want to get rid of it and who don't want to end isolation. Either way, idea here is that nobody can leave Sarusan even if they want to, at least without great effort. Its just as hard to leave country as it was to enter it and you lose your memories once you do. c) that isolation is completely "natural" effect to continent. Bit of mundane boring answer, but basically the supernatural memory effect is "just how it is" and nobody can do much about it. Its basically just the geographical nature of Sarusan and people live with it, making it the continent of extreme isolation. But those are just my own conceptual takes on Sarusan :3 I want to hear other people's theories and homebrew on what is there. (and Paizo please give us map of the continent in hd xD)
Maybe this is advice thread question? But yeah, either way, so we know they sometimes follow guidance aeons, archons or even psychopomps, almost all of them are sworn to aeons and are almost all LN. So does it make sense to them to worship Lawful Neutral gods like Irori who aren't strictly aeon related? (I prefer to avoid making "I'm rebel from my society" characters unless that is specifically what I want to play. Currently I'm doing "I'm trying to pick lore fitting option for raised in belief character that fits build I'm doing" x'D) |
