Darth Game Master's page

I think it's probably good to keep in mind that the ethnicities Pathfinder officially uses tend to be pretty broad compared to real-life ones and in many cases can probably be better understood as "families" of ethnic groups lumped together for convenience. The exceptions to this are groups like the Nidalese which don't quite fit into any of the bigger categories. So, a Chelaxian and someone native to Taldor might arguably be different ethnicities but they are part of the same Ethnicity as far as the framework the rulebooks use is concerned.

Why Ptolemaic? I would've assumed that's the era that's missing the most, since there's no parallel to Hellenistic conquest in Osirion's lore, but you seem more well-versed in Egyptian history than I am.

(I feel like there's also a bit of modern Egypt in there with the sort of nationalistic reclaiming of its ancient history, but that doesn't contradict anything else)

Fair critique, although noteworthy that 1 or 2 previous second edition books have described Kellids as tan or light brown while plenty of art shows lighter-skinned Kellid characters. I think it's meant to be kind of a range.

vyshan wrote:

Plus coffee is still very western. Looks to all the coffee I consumed as Arthur Morgan in RDR2 :P

Coffee-drinking began in the Middle East and spread into Africa long before it hit Europe or any cowboy's boots touched North America - I think you're doing it a disservice by writing it off here! Anything 'foreign' enough to have been condemned to the Pope as a "Muslim drink" could hardly ever be Western in my eyes.

And the cultivation of coffee beans began in Ethiopia, though the first record of the drink was from Yemen.

In this case the hypothetical enemy would be Cheliax, which Camilia Drannoch has already supported rebellions against, and is less of a direct risk since Andoran could be a buffer against counter-invasion. I agree it probably wouldn't go over too well, but people make bad decisions sometimes, so it's not entirely out of the question. Either way, I'd certainly be surprised if Galt immediately joined the war on Andoran's side.

I could see Galt allying with Andoran for some kind of promise or assistance, especially since their respective heads of state already have ties to one another, but only if something happens to pull them into the conflict. Without that, they seem more likely to focus on rebuilding from the revolutions and establishing some kind of internal stability. Unless the Revolutionary Council tries for some kind of gambit at uniting the populace by focusing on an external threat (whether that would work is an entirely different question).

Cheliax can't possibly have a population that small, Egorian and Westcrown together already account for nearly 200,000.

So.... that was a long-winded intro to asking:

In G2K (Golarion 2000), where would the equivalent of Hollywood end up, the center of the film industry? Oppara, maybe? Absalom? Somewhere in Varisia or Arcadia? Something else? Would it end up kinda like the US structure wherein movies are more Hollywood and TV is more NYC but neither of those are anywhere near monolithically true? What about a more global view (irl tehre's Bollywood, Nollywood, etc.) ~ what other centers of the film industry might exist?

How about Osirion? Egypt has a pretty big movie industry and still makes the majority of Arabic-language films. I feel like Osirion is less "fantasy ancient Egypt" and more akin to an alternate version of the modern country anyway, since local people ousted leaders of external origin in the past century and there is common knowledge of both its not!Muslim history and its antique kingdoms. The main twist of course being that a sort of pharaonic-revivalist movement takes the place of Egypt's Arab nationalism, kind of paralleling the neo-classical attitudes of the Renaissance.

There are some parts of the setting that feel more at home in the 20th or 21st century than the middle ages that people tend to associate these kinds of fantasy settings with--which is not a bad thing, I should note, as the creators have admitted to pulling on influences from all time periods. Rahadoum with its secularism comes to mind first, but so do Ustalav's Palatinates, Druma, magocratic Nex, and Vidrian (which has been likened to postcolonial South Africa). A 2000s spin on Razmiran might be fun, making it a modern-style cult of personality rather than a literal theocracy. And an industrialized version of Geb would be as fascinating as it is terrifying...

EDIT: I'd add Bachuan and (to a lesser extent) Goka as places that had modern vibes in the Tian Xia World Guide Also, I can't remember where, but at some point I made the argument that the best IRL analogue to Alkenstar might be small Gulf petrostates like Kuwait or Qatar with oil swapped for guns. Not that I think that was intentional by the writers (it's already the Wild West in northeast Africa) but I consider it a handy frame of reference.

The Raven Black wrote:

Set wrote:

But I kind of feel the same way about the nations. There's fantasy Egypt and fantasy Persia and fantasy China, but where's the fantasy Poland or Ireland or Germany? Why just the 'exotic' (to a white guy...) places?

If you look closely at the Inner Sea Region, you will see that it's actually full of 'exotic' places / tropes to an American guy : Galt, Taldor, Irrisen, Lands of the Linnorm Kings ...

And in my personal opinion, in the case of Taldor, not enough was done to make it unique. I would have been happy if the characters from the Taldor aristocracy wore not the standard European dresses and uniforms, but something inspired by real Byzantine clothing.

Seconded. Obviously it doesn't need to be exactly accurate to the Eastern Roman Empire--it really shouldn't be, both because Golarion generally avoids copying history that directly and because there are lots of differences like the equivalents to Egypt and Syria not being part of it at any point--but it'd be nice to at least have more of the clothing, architecture, & other visual aspects of that period and some influences from the cultures of the Balkans and Anatolia. But I'll admit I'm heavily biased as a Byzantine Empire nerd haha.

Norgorber's true name has been revealed!

** spoiler omitted **

I'm pretty amused with his real name!

Thanks!

Some fun new Iobaria tidbits arrived in Howl of the Wild! Vurnirn is the largest Centaur settlement there, while Roam is a potentially-mythic (as in nonexistent, not Mythic mechanically) home for Awakened Animals.

We also get a new Iblydan origin for minotaurs, as the descendants of a mason cursed for accidentally angering a hero-god.

Making the original minotaur (according to legend anyway) equate to both Daedalus and the Minotaur himself in the original story was a pretty neat twist.

KaiBlob1 wrote:

VerBeeker wrote:

“I invite you to visit Droon!”

*punching ground*

I want to! I WANT TO SO BAD!

I'm really hoping that the droon teasers in this are bread crumbs for a soon-to-be-announced southern garund lost omens book, its a region of the world we've really never explored in anything 1e or 2e. We know more about Akiton than we do about southern garund lol

We actually have names and tidbits about... I think it was either 12 or 14 nations in Southern Garund, the last time I counted! Would love to see it get some actual spotlight, though.

Agreed. My count is 10--Chauxen, Dehrukani, Droon, Eihlona, Ekkeshikaar, Holomog, Nurvatcha, Tirakawhan, Kaz'ulu (3 city-states), and Murraseth (first among equals in a loose alliance of 4 city-states). So arguably up to 15 if you count the nearby city-states separately.

True, but those 3 were also noted as being rare even in the Mwangi Expanse, whereas lutings are said to be somewhat common in parts of Xidao (enough that they're in the list of Peoples in the opening page). I suspect it'll be less than 2 years before we know what these are, though maybe that or much more before they're playable (if ever).

The Tian Xia World Guide's entry on Xidao mentions "lutings" as an ancestry present there, but I can't find the word in the glossary, in my other Pathfinder books, Archive of Nethys, or on Google. Does anyone else know anything about them? I guess they could be elaborated on in the Character Guide, but all of the ancestries in that have already been announced.

Kelseus wrote:

Benjamin Tait wrote:

So we know of unholy animals (like the Thrunosaurus), what holy animals/beasts are there in here?

Karkadann looks like an ugly unicorn. Creature 7 with Fey and Holy trait.

Alicorn- Flying unicorn Creature 11

Makes sense, the Karkadann and Unicorn come from the same original myth interpreted two different ways. The theories I heard in school was early traders saw african rhinos and told stories about them and they spread from South Africa to North Africa, then across the sea to Europe and the Middle East. An extremely long game of telephone.

Europeans heard the stories of a magical hoofed creature with a resistance to weapons (because of a Rhino's thick hide) and a single sword-like horn and assumed it was like a horse with a straight horn, and made the Unicorn. In the Middle East they heard that story and figured it was a lizard-horse with a curved sword-like horn.

At least that's what I half remember from a class about mythology...

Unicorns are more likely inspired by the Indian rhinoceros (fittingly named Rhinoceros unicornis) since they're said to be from India in Greek writings. The same is true of the karkadann, which is of Persian, not North African origin.

VerBeeker wrote:

I find it a little odd they don’t have population numbers next to the capital cities…

Are those in any other Lost Omens book? I don't recall many hard population numbers in 2e.

Yes, most of them. Definitely all of the major regional guides so far.

I recall Firebrands covered post-Night of the Gray Death Galt a bit, though it was somewhat vague about the current state of Galt's government (or attempt at one). Understandable though, there hasn't really been time for things to stabilize.

Technically Cheliax didn't lose Vidrian, since Sargava had already been independent for a century, but the two are still on poor terms with one another and IIRC there is some desire in Cheliax to retake that area, so I guess it's still something of a loss for them.

I assume this was just a typo, seeing as you're (one of?) the resident Egypt expert(s) here, but for the sake of anyone less familiar with that aspect of history, the Ayyubids (i.e. Saladin and family) were a dynasty of sultans, not caliphs. I shall resist going off on a tangent about who they did recognize as caliph and the religious and political complexities of that...more to the point, I agree, that part of Egyptian history is quite underrated and could serve as a fun inspiration for Osirion as well--the corresponding era in Lost Omens covers a whole three millennia!

The Forae Logos

Good answer, and—though it's besides the point of the question—I find Absalom would probably be the best place for Alexandria-like shenanigans in general, since Osirion was never ruled by anyone from the direction of Taldor or Iblydos, but the Isle of Kortos has been influenced by all three. Not that Absalom should be constrained to one source of inspiration, of course, being such a worldly city with its own unique role in the setting, but it's something that would fit.

Dinosaur season!!

Failedlegend The Eternal Gish wrote:

dissapointed halflings didn't get a real name for their race like half-orc and half-elf but 2/3 ain't bad :D

We still don't know what Dwarves call themselves do we?

Pretty sure the term dwarf was used for the creature before it became an adjective/verb, so they could've originated it in-universe. I like to think the Dwarvish version is something akin to the older Germanic root that the modern word descends from.

Pronate11 wrote:

Draco Bahamut wrote:

Chronomancer

Arcanist

Invoker

Runeblade

Theorist

Dreamweaver

Chronomancer, runeblade, and dreamweaver have 4 vowels each, so it can't be those.

Suppose it depends how you interpret "three vowels."

Chronomancer has a, e, & o.
Runeblade has a, e, & u.

Neither of those are 3-syllable words though, no matter how you pronounce them.

No stats that I'm aware of, but she has a section in Lost Omens Legends.

Lost Omens Mwangi Expanse says "Shisks are almost completely unknown outside of the Mwangi Expanse" and goes on to mention there are a handful in southern Thuvia and rumors of an enclave in Nex at the Shattered Range that separates the two regions.

I don't think the Shisk have any basis in real-world cultures or folklore (I am not an expert but have read a decent amount about African history and mythology...though that is of course an extremely broad brush so there easily could be something one of the writers knows about that I don't). One shisk is shown playing a balafon, an instrument of Mandinka origin with equivalents in surrounding regions, so West African aesthetics would fit, but otherwise they seem purely fantasy to me.

Darth Game Master wrote:

Doing something for Australia's deserts would be hard, since all the sizable hot deserts depicted on the world map are already in regions drawing from real-world ones, but I could see the rest potentially fitting in that one mysterious peninsula in southeastern Casmaron. That basically hasn't been covered at all to my knowledge, so it'd be easy to put in something that hasn't been mentioned previously.

Isn't "that one mysterious peninsula in southeastern Casmaron" Vudra??

No, of course not, Vudra has already been mapped in an AP volume. I'm talking about the one to the northeast of Vudra and west of southern Tian Xia which has no equivalent on the (intentionally inaccurate) first edition map but is present in the full second edition world map. It's too far east to be Kelesh and too far south to be Kaladay. Has a triangular-ish island just off the end of it.

There isn't really a single culture that could be definitively stated to be the oldest on Earth--Aboriginal Australians comprise a few hundred cultures that wouldn't have seen themselves as a unified group even in a broader sense until the colonial period. A lot of claims about them being the world's oldest culture are based on their common descent from the people who initially settled the continent 65,000 years ago; one might as well say Africans and/or Eurasians are older "cultures" by that logic. Genetics and geography=/=culture. Some have made arguments based around oral history describing events confirmed by climate research to have happened 10,000 years ago, which is fascinating and impressive, but that doesn't make them all one single culture for the entirety of that period any more than the flood myth proves that all the peoples of Iraq and the Eastern Mediterranean are collectively the second-oldest or something.
The truth is we don't know when most cultural groups first came into being, and the ones we do know tend to be relatively recent. Any one of the hundreds of indigenous Australian ethnic groups COULD have the oldest continuous culture (however you'd even define that to begin with), but there are other candidates across the world. Others may disagree but I personally feel such assertions risk implying their societies have been static for dozens of millennia, an unfortunately common assumption made about many indigenous groups which can get very noble-savage-y very quickly.

With that nitpicky spiel aside (sorry, it's a bit of a pet peeve of mine) I do agree. So long as creatives of that origin are directly involved in the writing (from what I've heard they tend to prefer not to have their traditional beliefs adapted into pop culture without their input) that'd be cool. Doing something for Australia's deserts would be hard, since all the sizable hot deserts depicted on the world map are already in regions drawing from real-world ones, but I could see the rest potentially fitting in that one mysterious peninsula in southeastern Casmaron. That basically hasn't been covered at all to my knowledge, so it'd be easy to put in something that hasn't been mentioned previously.

I don't think it's so much that either of them expects to get much from the other, and more that they're both opposed to Cheliax and motivated to support revolutionary movements similar to the ones which established their respective countries, so their interests are generally aligned.

Elric200 wrote:

Zimmerwald you asking a great deal of Ravounel to set up a standing government in less than 2 years.

The state had been independent for two years by the initial run of setting books (independence 4017, Lost Omens Campaign Setting base year 4019). It has been four years since then, for a total of six. In all that time, Ravounel has had a government, and a functioning government. It has not, however, had a single election, either for the legislature (which is still the self-selected provisional revolutionary council) or the chief executive (who was last elected in the days of the Pathfinder Campaign Setting), or the remainder of the federal/executive council (who likewise persist from the Pathfinder Campaign Setting except for the rokoa of Tastikka), or most importantly for a constituent assembly to come up with a basic law. In fact it does not have a basic law at all, instead persisting under the "provisional" government. Drafting a basic law does not take six years. If anything, the two years that passed since 4017 is a reasonable timeframe. Pennsylvania adopted its first state (ex-colonial) constitution in September 1776, less than three months after the colonies' Declaration of Independence. France's Constitutional Committee took longer, a little over two years from 1789 to 1791, to come up with its first constitution. Russia's Congress of Soviets adopted a constitution in July 1918 - nine months after November 1917 and eighteen months after February 1917 - and that was after the election and dispersal of the constituent assembly. Chile's constituent assembly drafted the recently-rejected constitution in less than two years over 2021 - 22.

Even the constitution of the People's Republic of China, for a gigantic country of over 500 million people and over 3.7 million square miles, took five years from the implementation of the provisional constitution in 1949 to be enacted in 1954. Ravounel covers a land area of about 33 thousand square miles,[1] and has a...

You make a good point, but I think this is more a meta issue since in-universe time moves as fast as real-world, but it's not realistically possible to create enough products to cover everything that would happen in that time for the whole setting. When you add that to the fact that it's am RPG and the player characters being ones to shake things up is often considered preferable, you get a lot of situations where the status quo remains in place for an oddly long amount of time in a certain area if there wasn't just a major product release about it.

(Granted in this case there sort of was, Firebrands. I'll have to check my PDF of that, don't remember if it went over the current government system of Ravounel in detail)

That doesn't contradict my point, which is that the concept of "being Chelaxian" hasn't gone away, just that they are now classified as ethnically Taldan due to shared history, language, etc with the Taldans of eastern Avistan.

Besides, arguments can and have been made that the previous Chelaxian ethnic category can be understood as an in-universe attempt to build a nationalistic identity to distinguish themselves from Taldor despite those obvious similarities . That sort of constructed identity is the basis of plenty of modern European ethnic groups, so it's not unbelievable as a concept, but since Golarion's ethnicities tend to refer to broader groups it's best left as a perception (probably largely by Chelaxian elites who are the most likely to put stock in the concept of Cheliax as a nation to begin with) rather than something referred to in the main rulebooks, hence the change to chelaxian=taldan.
As LOCG points out, ideas of ethnicity are subjective with varying degrees of specificity as in the real world; if Sargavans are sometimes viewed as a group in their own right as LOME implies, a similar attitude towards Cheliax among some people makes sense after 640 years of independence. I'm well aware that sort of ethno-nationalism has often had very unfortunate results in the real world, but this is also a country that's designed to be antagonistic within the setting (even before the Hell stuff, they had a colonial empire and allied with Nidal).

TL;DR yes the ethnicity is Taldan and the nationality is Chelaxian, I was just noting that "Taldans of southwestern Avistan sometimes differentiate themselves from the rest" still works as an idea in 2e lore

Erik Mona wrote:

1) I think it’s possible to identify or extrapolate _most_ of Kelesh’s satrapies, largely from the ethnicity and religion sections of the aforementioned Qadira book.

I tried my own hand a while ago, trying to use up space for what is meant to parallel Achaemenid Persia, the largest empire that lasted more than a single lifetime before the Arabs and Mongols. And in that empire was an incredible amount of diversity, and a surprisingly light imperial hand compared to some regimes. The only thing that really stopped its eastern expansion was Imperial China, the Hindu Kush and the Himalayas, and in the west the annoying stubbornness of the Greeks, and Kelesh has similar imperial ambitions but with less militancy - it's more willing to play the long game and use diplomacy and trade to achieve what force of arms could. But I think mine radically overstates the empire's size - my version had it stretch all along Vudra's northern border to the peninsula to its east, which in hindsight I would make Kaladay instead. Most of the east is entirely speculative, though I'm glad Khattib and Midea sound like they're where I thought they would be.

Yeah, my guess is it probably mostly stops west of Vudra. Also the Amai Birtim wouldn't have a satrapy as they're nearly extinct; I'd put Karazh around that area and the Tzorehiyi in the Whistling Plains. The region you've marked as Ayyarad is probably at least partially taken up by the Parchlands as well. Aside from that, this pretty much matches my guesses about what goes where in Casmaron though.

Similarly, I'm pretty sure Osiriani is the language and Osirian is everything else. The ethnicity is called Garundi, not Osiriani.

Nothing has changed the prevalence of Iobarians in Mendev and Brevoy, I think they're still mentioned as the original populace of the former in LOCG but I'll have to check. In any case 1e was the first to establish that there was a Taldan presence in that area. Ethnic Chelaxians haven't been retconned away so much as redefined as a subgroup.

I don't think alignment is really all that useful as a shorthand for politics given how different any given individual interpretation of such vague terms as "good" "evil" "lawful" etc are going to be be. At least for character alignments it's only addressing one person; trying to fit entire societies into 9 easy categories of morality is even more unreliable. Not that it isn't attempted in the real world (side-eyes political compass tests) but it tends to be very subjective in practice.

For my part, I don't think authoritarians are necessarily opposed to innovation. They can be, but just as often they instead want it to be fully controlled by whatever power they support.

Assuming it's the potential war you're referring to, not sure I'd call the Lands of the Linnorm Kings a "great nation" when they aren't unified, ditto for New Thassilon.

And one more message, because I don't know where to post it, and this question is very distant, but it concerns the regions. I have a question - why is the population of Golarion so small? I mean, Absalom's population of 300,000 is very small. Baghdad in the tenth century AD had a population of two million. At various times prior to this, Rome, Constantinople, and Alexandria very likely had populations of more than a million, and it is also possible that Syracuse and even Babylon. Compared to this, Absalom as the largest city in the world looks rather pathetic.

Baghdad had one million people in the 10th century, not two, and Constantinople/Istanbul didn't reach that until the 20th century. Population numbers for Rome and Alexandria in ancient times are controversial; more recent estimates for the latter have it at nearly a million if you count suburbs and half if not. Nitpicks aside, you absolutely have a point: Absalom having a population double or triple what it has in canon could absolutely be justified based on real world history. I've often considered that strange.

Now, personally, I'd argue that the incentive to gather in protected settlements provided by monsters should make city populations bigger, not smaller. Not to mention how much magic helps with disease, infant mortality, etc--I presume spellcasters are more common per capita in urban areas and that's likely a draw in itself. But one could make a case for the crises that kicked off the Age of Lost Omens shaking things up enough to offset those factors, and at times mages can cause as many problems as they solve. Also, the biggest cities in the world had a population of less than half a million in the 12th-14th centuries so it's not totally unimaginable.

I think a part of it has to do with D&D 3.5's settlement size guidelines, which had 25K+ as "metropolis". But mainly, the designers of the setting probably just didn't feel like they needed to match how things were IRL; plenty of things in Golarion are quite different from actual history. At the end of the day Pathfinder is more "fantasy with a vaguely premodern/early modern aesthetic" than emulating any real time period. So while I would've personally given Absalom more people, I'm not as bothered by it as I used to be.

What's more unusual is the top 2 cities by population both being city-states and not imperial capitals—or port cities serving as provincial capitals in major empires—as has been the case for the past 3500 years or so, but that's a ramble for another time.

Ah right, I'd forgotten the 3rd one will be returning to Arcadia. Exciting.

Heyopan does sound intriguing, but I don't think there's any indication of where it and the Arcane Empires are beyond Arcadia,? I could've missed something though, I'm just going off of Guns & Gears.

Not necessarily disputing your point, but where are you getting these population numbers from? The urban population of Kintargo is already ~15K based on the numbers we already have, and the cities of Varisia add up to 72K. I doubt half (in the former case) or 90% (in the latter) of the population would be in cities.

keftiu wrote:

Tropkagar wrote:

I would also add Mzali. I can't say how they feel about non-humans, but they have different methods of interacting with other humans. If you are not from the people of Mwangi, then when you enter this city, you will simply be executed. I am sure that such a position of the state is very xenophobic.

Strength of Thousands does likely see those restrictions relaxed. We’ll see where the canon results of that land, but progress in that AP assumes Mzali opens up at least a little, and potentially almost completely.

I believe the ban on non-Mwangi applies to nonhumans; some book mentions a Halfling staying away.

Well, I would say that we have to wait another six years until the third edition to be confident about it.

I'm just not sure if this restriction applies to the non-human groups that Mwangi is home to. After all, we have enough varieties of elves from here.

The population of Mzali is 99% human as of the Mwangi Expanse book, make of that what you will.

keftiu wrote:

The nations of the Segada Protocol haven't pushed them out yet, even after a number of heinous crimes from the Chelish colonists; I'd love to know why.

I won't pretend to be as up on Arcadia as I am about the Inner Sea, but the impression I've always had is that the Segada Protocol tolerates the Avistani colonies because they're so geographically small, militarily weak, and economically insignificant compared to its indigenous neighbours that they're simply not worth bothering with, whatever annoyances the people there are capable of causing. And if Segada deals with the Chelish colonies, Razatlan might see an opportunity on its flank.

Easy access to trade goods from across the Arcadian Ocean may be a factor as well.

The Grass Sea, as the last region. At the same time, I would say that for me personally it would be regrettable to see this region as a kind of Mongolia. I mean, historically, the steppes of Eurasia were not only Mongols. There were many other nomads who formed their own states and cultures. Scythians and Sarmatians from ancient times. Ancestors of historical Hungarians who were once brutal raiders. Jews of the Khazar Khaganate. Perhaps even someone similar to the Goths, since the Goths created states in the steppe lands during their migrations.

Agreed, especially since the Tian-La are already coded as Mongol, though I'd like to note that the presence of Judaism among the Khazars has often been exaggerated—it was a portion of the elite who converted to Judaism, not the majority of the population, though of course there were Jewish people in that area previously.

Tarrasques are from folklore. The D&D interpretation of them is pretty clearly Pathfinder's inspiration, but the specifics of them being Spawn of Rovagug and whatnot might be enough for them to get away with it?

The "real" Balor was a deformed Formorian giant with an enlarged eye that if opened (he needed minions to actually lift the eyelid up), it would generate a destructive beam of energy destroying everything in front of it.

Wait, really? They should totally change it to that, then. Sounds awesome.

I think you've got it mostly right. Dragons definitely ruled much of Tian Xia before Earthfall, but I don't think they did in most other regions. According to the wiki the term Age of Dragons is used in Tian Xia, but not in the Inner Sea.

Centaurs, minotaurs, AND Droon stuff? Heck yeah. These new creatures look great too.

Wouldn't that be a pretty big area? The Deadshot Lands seem to be roughly 1500 miles west of Segada based on the map that was created here a few months ago.

Anyway as for the overall thread, looking at my LO:IL copy it's said that Alkenstar is dominated by Garundi but has a lot of ethnic diversity due to "aggressive courtship of migrant laborers and the affluent from all across Golarion".

Going back to this, maybe Alkenstar can be compared in this regard to the smaller modern Gulf states like Qatar, Bahrain, or Kuwait, where a large percentage of the population is expats drawn in by relatively recent economic factors (guns and other steampunk-y tech vs. oil). Incidentally, those places are also all small countries with mostly desert terrain which were much more sparsely populated until the past several decades (and in the case of Qatar and Kuwait, the majority of the population resides in one city).

Maybe that's a lucky coincidence, or perhaps that sort of geographical and economic situation just makes for a situation where the local populace could plausibly become quickly rivaled or exceeded by more recent arrivals as long as the government is open to it. Either way, obviously Alkenstar isn't just a fantasy version of Qatar, but it's analogy that occurred to me. I'd have preferred something that leaned more into its psuedo-African location, but this works well enough as a Watsonian explanation for me; there was no reversing the Western (in multiple senses of the phrase, LOL) aesthetics so at least it can be rationalized.

I fully expect us to get Arcadia book before southern garund or casmaron, but I really do think we should get Southern Garund and Casmaron first because Arcadia was at least isolated lore wise from Avistan while Southern Garund kinda creates "garund nations have no political relations to south because it doesn't exist on meta level" problem and Casmaron creates "everyone travels to Tian Xia through sea or crown of the world but not through casmaron because it doesn't exist on meta level" issue x'D

Agreed. I'm extremely hyped for Tian Xia, don't get me wrong, and an Arcadia book would be great, but I think it'd be an odd choice to leave the areas that directly border the Inner Sea Region for last.

I dunno how comfortable I am with either "fix" for Bachuan's iconoclasm. First, with the idea that it needed to be fixed at all, iconoclasm is a defensible enough position (and what other fixes are going to be sneaking in the backdoor - privatization of the land?). Second, with old cultural objects being reintroduced by the erstwhile inhabitants of Hao Jin's tapestry - I'm not sure that I buy their authenticity? In the real world, reimportations of so-called old cultural objects by longstanding emigre groups range from well-intentioned but mistaken to reactionary and malicious.

Do you mean isolationism? Iconoclasm would involve more destruction of religious idols, I think :P