Movie Smaug is explicitly a bad example for your argument. Because it wasn't arbitrary. There's plenty of interviews explaining that his initial design was based on the original four legged artwork but they couldn't get the model skeleton to move naturally and he came across as a blatantly artificical. The "wyvern," redesign was as much a practical decision based on technical limitations as anything else. Given that Smaug is what a lot of people consider to be the best thing about those movies. Often citing how impressively he moves. It was almost certainly the right choice to change him.
Well guess we should make vampires into glittering vegetarian xmen then after all so many teenager girls loved it.
If "burning in the sunlight" is an inherent trait of vampires, somebody better tell Dracula, Carmilla, Varney, Ruthven, and many other foundational vampires that. They'll just look silly otherwise.
Normally I seem to err towards a side of cautious pessimism, so let me try and be a bit optimistic this time around, as like many of you I really want to see Esoterics, Outers, and Planars returning before any new kinds of Dragon. It's possible, I think, that the reprints are in addition to the 20+ dragons in the book. Looking at it, it appears to be a 224 page book like Book of the Dead and Howl of the Wild, both of which had expansive bestiaries. HotW I think is the best comparison, as it included a wealth of character options alongside its creature. 6 ancestries and plenty of feats and items. Draconic Codex will also have feats and items, but only one new ancestry, and usually ancestry expansions like they mentioned for Kobold and Dragonblood barely take up a page each. Now, I can't account for draconic pacts, and each of the nine deities will take up a page each, but that's still a lot of room for a bestiary. Now, it's a fact dragons take up more room than your average creature, because you have to stat up each age category, with this book seeming to go up to archdragon, with options for caster variants as well. However, even if we say that only leaves room for a third of the creatures in HotW, that's still enough room for 20 or so new dragons plus 18 reprints.
Or I could be on copium. But this book definitely seems to follow the style set by [creature type] books, and that means that the bestiary is going to be the biggest part of its content rather than player options.
Important to note that this is a Lost Omens book, so the % of content which is lore-focused instead of mechanically focused is likely higher vs something like BotD or HotW, which this breakdown doesn't really seem to be accounting for.
I'll also add to the whole treadmill stuff an important element of the +level bonus is that it lets you get the feeling of "As we get more powerful, we can now mow down swarms of enemies who used to be terrifying threats on their own". When combined with the +10/-10 crit rules, that +level is the thing which lets creatures approximately double in power every two levels so that something which was a solo boss (lvl+3) at level 5 is fodder (lvl-4) at level 12. Because of numbers still scaling for reasons beyond level as well as damage scaling & more powerful abilities, there'd still be some level of this without the +level, but at least trusting the proficiency without level chart, creatures would only increase by 1.5x power every two levels and thus it'd take something like 12 levels to get that same impact instead of 7.
This also actually makes balancing monsters easier, as it is much harder to balance a creature's abilities when they only need to be balanced vs a 9 level range instead of a 15 level one (As the prof. without level sections in the GMG and GM Core points out as an example: incorporeality and flight/ranged attack combos would either need to be gated to far higher level on creatures or the system would have to start giving PCs answers to them far earlier, because otherwise matchups involving those would become one-sided thrashings for PCs)
Oh and with the "Keeping AC in line with attack bonuses", do note that whilst AC does scale at a rate far closer to attack bonuses vs PF1, it is still slightly slower as to help give high levels more a distinct vibe compared to low levels (you're rolling more to see if you crit instead of just hit), but even then it's a difference of like, an extra +3 or so, not +10.
Yeah, to add to what QuidEst said, there's also an element that they haven't reprinted all the metallics/chromatics for the same reason they haven't reprinted every single premaster statblock without OGL elements: To reprint a statblock in a new book, you need to actually, y'know, make that new book for them to be in (And making a new Monster Core with redesigns of various creatures is more work than just what they had to do for things like the GnG remaster - and stuff like that still takes time).
To use daemons as an example (Because I like daemons): there is nothing keeping any of them back from coming to the remaster, and yet even looking at just the daemons in Bestiaries 1-3, there's still 7 which are without reprint. Looking at animals we've still got 110 of those from Bestiary 1-3 without remaster reprints, and I highly doubt more than a couple of those are at all dependent on the OGL.
The remastered version of GnG referenced a Monster Core 2 (And the OG book listed Bestiary 3 and an entirely different page, so it wasn't just a case of a mistake from replacing Bestiary with Monster Core and nothing else), so that's likely to be a thing, but even then I expect only a couple of the metallics/chromatics to pop up in that one (As again, like QuidEst said, part of removing them from the OGL is not making them part of those same groups with each other).
I know a Lost Omens: Darklands book is a popular book, and whilst I 100% agree that'd be good, I kind of feel like it might actually work better akin to a HotW/BotD-style rulebook themed around underground adventures (with a BotD/GnG style section listing various major settlements in the Darklands).
Either way, imo the most likely pre-existing ancestries to get a playable option would be caligni, kaseshi, munavris, and xulgaths. Whilst there'd be new options for cavern elves, umbral gnomes, fleshwarps, and dwarves who also get a hryngar heritage*. Sukri, ratfolk, kobolds, leshies, and orcs are all also ancestries which I could see getting content, but I just went with the four pre-existing that I would be kinda suprised if they got nothing.
*There's a strong argument to be made that hryngar would be their own ancestry, given drow were considered as such. But I feel like you can probably still just make them a heritage of dwarf.
I'm somewhat unsure if making "A book which acts as a comprehensive recounting of all of Golarion's history" is feasibly possible. Even if you made it straight up 400 pages and included zero new lore details, it'd still only be a very large general overview (I mean, think about it logically: If it were to cover just APs - so ignoring all the history in adventures, rulebooks, lost omens books, campaign setting books, player companions, ect. - up to Seven Dooms for Sandpoint, then we're looking at only 2 pages per volume which is several times less than the amount of new history each book would introduce).
You could make a book which is themed around being "The history of the world" and that'd be super awesome and I'd love it, but that wouldn't be a "Here's an aid for the devs to go to so they just have one thing to look at instead of having to do a ton of searching", which there's just no way to feasibly do in book form (Well, in a way that's enjoyable for a random consumer. Most folks aren't looking to buy an entire book consisting of one sentence summaries and citations on what book to check to read more).
Kuru and Maftets are my "probably never gonna happen" picks now that I've gotten Androids, Kholos, Minotaurs, and Lashuntas. Shabti felt so heavily teased that it's a little weird we haven't gotten them yet. Wyrwoods are one of the parts of Arcadia I'm looking forward to most.
Oh yes I love Shabti! Really do hope they make a return, lots of interesting stuff you can do with them.
Azlanti were superior as Humans. All the other Humans get a +2 to one Ability Score. Azlanti Humans get a +2 to all six Ability Scores. Just so everyone understands,... this is a game. It's not actually real life.
This is no longer true as of 2e. Azlanti are just regular humans now.
I think even in 1e it was pretty much retcon'd so that Azlantis weren't actually superior to humanity and that was just old Azlanti & Taldane propaganda. It's just that they never actually went out and wrote an explicit erratum going "Actually, they follow the normal boosts" because that's just not how Paizo does lore changes usually.
Make decisions erratically or randomly,
provide aid to Vasaghati or her followers,
engage in treachery
Vasaghati is not included...outside of this mention.
Thats because its a Vudran deity that hasn't actually been statted up yet.
um...What do you mean by 'statted up'?
Vasaghati is a grim goddess of the Vudran pantheon interested in bring corruption and destruction to the world, especially organizations.1
Organizations Knife in the Dark
A secret cult strong in Vudra dedicated to infiltrating organizations to sow corruption and ultimately destruction.
They haven't been statted up in 2e. They have no edicts, anathema, domains, or anything of the sorts. We have lore on them, sure, but the check for deities missing from here is purely for stuff which are in 2e already (this is in large part a "Here's the stats updated for the remaster"). There is a massive host of various deities and demigods who exist but haven't had stats in PF2 yet and thus didn't get included. Admittedly, this also does go and include a bunch of "bonus" deities, but they're fun extras. It would be absurd to expect every single deity who have had stuff written about them get done for this document.
The reason everything has four is just because Paizo went "All deities should have the same number of domains for consistency". As for why four, likely because it is high enough to give a wide breadth of options whilst still being low enough that the deity can actually feel focused.
Is the idea that Razmir and his priests are false something of an open secret? (With people generally being more afraid than devout.) Or does the vast majority of the local population truly believe in their divinity?
Here's an answer from Lost Omens: Travel Guide's section on the average knowledge of civilians across the Broken Lands.
Lost Omens Travel Guide, p.72 wrote:
Most here believe Razmir to be some kind of actual god, but there are general agreements that he seems less powerful than other deities, and his insistence on ruling a nation arouses suspicion.
So presumably no, most people would not be able to just look at some Razmiran priest and go "Pfft, that ain't how it works", and even if someone can figure it out the priest would have an excuse (I remember the one short fiction blog post where the priest actually straight up explained away why so many priests aren't granted spells at all for example)
Anyone care to mention the big spoilers from the godsrain novel (Most interested in how it links to the eye of Abadengo
(To be clear was meaning more pm rather than posting here.)
For the quick answer for the Abadengo:
Godsrain spoilers:
The Eye of Abadengo is kind of the modern day location of the scar of reality which caused Gormuz. Pretty much, it shifts around as Rova writhes & pops up somewhere new whenever he tries to test his bounds. When Aroden died and kinda messed up the whole universe, it gave Rova a chance to go and send his howls into reality.
Additionally, the Godsrain kinda weakened things causing an isle to pop up in the middle of it which housed the corpse of he first god to strike Rovagug in the battle against him. Said god being Kist-Aurek god of ambushes & traps who was the guy who tag team'd with Calistria to distract Rova and was the one who actually made the plan on how to lure him in.
Is the exemplar multiclass dedication really a warcrime against game balance? (Full ikon from the dedication, no rarity tag, only 12 dex or strength prereq, no limitation on just leaving the immanence permanently if you don't want to burn the action to restore your spark after transcending - an issue that goes away at level 12 when you can get a second ikon.)
Sounds like psychic archetype, but for martials, and much worse.
At least that part has been corrected. The dedication is Rare, just like the class.
You can see the clarification in the Alternate Mythic Rules found on the War of Immortals product site.
Where is that PDF from? It also has “copyright 2025” listed on a few pages…so perhaps it is…from the future?
Here's a list of outsiders which we don't have nephilim heritages for:
Celestials (empyreans):
Agathions: I considered these might have been too OGL, but after a quick check, they're apparently Go to safe. Has a pre-existing aasimar heritage that just needs a reprint in Idyllkin.
Couatl: I know Luis Loza made a hb lineage for them a while ago what's neat, though not a massive indicator of likelihood of appearing officially one way or the other.
Garuda: Has a pre-existing heritage that just needs a reprint in Plumekith.
Guardian beasts: Possible, but seems somewhat unlikely
Stone spiders: Overwhelmingly unlikely imo
Monitors (urobians):
Aesirs: been confirmed to have a lineage in WoI.
Aeons: Technically doesn't have a specific type of pre-existing Nephilim, but Aphorites effectively fill that role and are a type of Nephilim.
Proteans: Ganzis have been confirmed to be returning in WoI
Psychopomps: In a weird position. Duskwalkers have almost always been treated as "The TN plane-touched", but weirdly enough weren't merged in with Nephilim, which combined with Duskwalker's much more specific flavour does somewhat imply that you could have a psychopomp Nephilim as something which exists separate from Duskwalkers.
Inevitables: Nuked with the remaster.
Fiends (cambions):
Asuras: Has a pre-existing heritage that just needs a reprint in Faultspawn.
Demodand: I'm just mentioning these for completion's sake. Haven't been mentioned once in PF2 and have almost certainly been nuked with the remaster.
Div: Haven't reappeared post-remaster yet, but almost certainly still around. There's a slight chance they've been made a spirit, but I seriously doubt it. Their cambions were known as "Spitespawn" in PF1
Imp: Technically their own family now. That said, I doubt they'll be getting their own cambion type - even if it'd be pretty funny.
Nindoru: Too new of an addition to PF lore for us to be realistically expecting to get a playable cambion option for them any time soon
Qlippoth: Has a pre-existing heritage that just needs a reprint in Riftmarked.
Sahkil: Similar to Couatl, Luis Loza made a lineage for these
Velstrac: Has a pre-existing heritage that just needs a reprint in Shackleborn.
Some say it's a aardwolf variant, but an aardwolf is also a Hyaenidae, like hyenas... and kholos :p
I feel aardwolf seems funky seeing ant gnolls are already aardwolves, plus neither wolf gnoll nor winter gnoll (whichever you're talking about) really at all line up with what aardwolves look like.
(Also, whilst they're still a long way from fully retaking it, I imagine the Sarkorins would have a thing or two about anyone calling Sarkoris Scar unclaimed land)
Gods are presumably as well as being a lot harder to kill also a lot harder to resurrect. Presumably, if something is capable of killing a god in the first place, it'd also be capable of making the vast vast majority of ways to resurrect them also impossible. Outside Osiris who has... very limited lore in PF, I can only really think of Tsukiyo as an example of a god which has actually died and then came back to life (Stuff like Nurgal/Nergal doesn't count, that's just the killing not doing the full job); inversely there a lots of examples of gods being killed, including a whole bunch new ones this year.
I disagree. PF2e's Inventor and Alchemist work as a classes without monopolizing their specialties to the point that other characters can't interact. I do recognize the obvious differences, tech items and computers are far more pervasive here than, say, alchemical items in PF, but it's not impossible for that to coexist with Mechanic, it just needs to be handled carefully. And I definitely don't think we should pass those judgements until wee actually see the Mechanic playtest for 2e. If the team can't make it work then, we can call to axe it. Simple as.
Do you really thinkt this way? The DCs of alchemical Items and Poisons don't scale because the Alchemist has a feature which grants you that ability. This could be baseline without the alchemist needing it to feel special.
The same thing goes for infused reagents. If the alchemist wouldn't have a need for a resource like infused reagents we could get feats which allow us to use nature or survival to find herbs which we can then turn in to alchemicals. But you can't make any feats which allow you easy access to potions whithout harming the alchemist.
Same thing goes for snares and poisons. Having a class interact with something limits the design space of what those things can do. This is because you need to give the class extra abilities to make them shine. But you can't make them broken. This usually leads to things with class support being underwhelming without the class support.
I don't think the reason for alchemical items not scaling with class DC isn't because of alchemists, but because of that's how items in PF2 work in general, whether they're consumable or permanent, alchemical or magical. Similarly, what you're talking about with the "Making anyone be able to take Infused Reagents" already exists in every archetype which grants Advanced Alchemy Benefits, yes it's a bit more specific and uses class feats, but if you wanted a skill feat to be able to give those benefits without being overly powerful then it'd require making the amounts and power of the reagents utter pittance.
Also notably, even if you did do both of those changes you recommended... it'd barely change the balance of Alchemist compared to other classes in the system, it'd be behind a single 5th level class feature. The only difference is that there's a bunch of options which are overly powerful for everyone now.
I'm not overly certain why you're bringing up snares given the fact that outside a couple Ranger class feats (not features, just feats) which weren't reprinted in PC2, they're pretty much equally available to all classes via a skill feat, or taking an archetype if you really want to dedicate yourself to them.
I highly doubt we're getting playable half-manananggals in LO:TXCG, even if the ancestries & V. Heritages were already stated. Just think of that the same way you'd think about a half-dragon or half-fiend (which I guess means we could get a tanngal-themed V. Heritage one day - all be it I find that unlikely, but even then it wouldn't be called "half-tanngal")
Some idea on what the mythic rules will be looking like will be a massive help. Or more accurately, I less care on the specific rules and more what kinds of stories it is made to tell, as depending how it is built (to list the extremes both of which I find very unlikely "Just normal archetypes but with it being flavoured around fancy things" to "They literally just ctrl+c ctrl+v'd PF1 mythic rules") will greatly change what sorts of stories it is made for.
I'm not really sure if I could say I'm fully craving them, but I've long thought that kaava probably should have been made playable in Mwangi Expanse instead of either conrasu, goloma, or shisk (personally shisk is the one I'd've liked it to have taken the place of most, though goloma seems more likely). They're humanoid creatures which have low level stat blocks (and thus much easier to convert to an ancestry) and from even just the two statblocks show heritage possibilities (namely pygmy kaava being a small sized heritage akin to ant gnoll). Additionally, unlike the previously mentioned trio who are practically never mentioned outside their own specific ancestry writeup kaava are prominent enough in the setting to have an entire region named after them - the Kaava Lands.
Pathfinder even has done "Big changes to mark edition change" before as well, not anywhere near Rovagug dying level, sure, but Tyrant's Grasp has Arazni fleeing Geb and becoming a god, signs of Nethys returning (which when combined with Arazni fleeing means very large shake-ups to that region), Belkzen becoming an "allied" nation which people work with, and of course Lastwall being destroyed and us getting our PF2 equivalent to the Worldwound & Deskari with the Gravelands and Tar-Baphon. Not to mention, we have the 2nd lass PF1 AP in Return of the Runelords which gave us New Thassilon.
Sure, it's not "the setting's big bad dies", but it does show "just before the edition changes" the top time for adventures which massively shake up the setting's status quo.
Oh I can't believe I didn't list the Monochrome Line, the Prismatic Ray's evil Achillean polycule counterpart (And clearly the existence of which is the mentioned shake-up to the Prismatic Ray is). Its creation goes as follows:
1. Shelyn makes fun of Zon-Kuthon for being single
2. Zonny decides to get back at Shelyn by walking up to Asmodeus and goes "You wanna really annoy some good deities?" with them then starting to date.
3. At some point Norgorber joins in. Nobody's quite sure when or how though. It just kinda happened.
4. Cue War of Immortals.
Ok, here's my tier list, with the order of deities within a specific tier correlating to how "high" or "low" the deity is in it (so I guess it's really more a ranking than anything - though note any deities sitting anywhere from A to C tier - and Abadar too - could easily be moved up or down a position or two depending how I'm feeling at that specific day). Important to keep in mind with it though, there really isn't any core deities I actually dislike, with me having a positive view on pretty much every deity apart from Irori (whom I have... an entirely neutral view on). This is just my best attempt at shifting things into a tier list despite that fact.
S tier:
Shelyn. Easily my favourite core deity. She plays with the traditional Aphrodite-inspired tropes in a way which really just speaks to me personally. Sure, she's a goddess of love, but not just romantic/sexual, but also familial (I mean, her longest most notable connection to another deity is her one with her brother after all) and friendship. Sure, she's a goddess of beauty, but not just physical beauty, but inner beauty as well. She really does just teach to be the best person you can be and love others. I'm not really sure how to elaborate on my enjoyment of her properly, but just know her existence has I feel legitimately improved my emotional and mental health.
Pharasma. Used to be my favourite deity, now just my #2. I generally enjoy themes of death, and even more than that really enjoy a neutral death deity, something which Pharasma executes incredibly well.
Urgathoa. I'm a big fan of undead, and Urgathoa is easily my favourite "main undead deity", finding a comparatively quite unique position. Instead of a standard "I use necromancy because it grants me power to do evil, mwhaha" types, Urgathoa really is just "Live large, die young, come back as an undead so you can keep partying", with it being stated that the reason she decided to come back as an undead and in doing so fundamentally rewriting the laws of the universe was not because of some great villainous plot, but simply because she wanted to experience everything the world had to offer. Her holy text is a cookbook.
Abadar. As much as I have some heavy irl socialist leanings, Abadar really is effective at depicting a non-evil god of civilisation and commerce. His goal is to maximise wealth in civilsation, but the key thing is that "10 people are absurdly rich" is in practice far less wealth for the civilisation than "10,*000 people are well off". When his bankers offer you a loan for your business, it's not because they want to make money off you (well, that certainly plays a part, and depending on the specific member may play a BIG part) but because they legitimately want your business to succeed and thus bring more prosperity. One of his holy texts is just a civil engineer guidebook for city planning. He's also a generally load-bearing deity, being the in-universe reason for why the currency & calendars are standardised globally (plus, the logical option of the deity of the cleric the PCs payed to cast a divine spell)
A tier:
Nethys. Cool guy. I honestly enjoy more his character leading up to his ascension than the god itself (walking up to some random warlord and declaring himself said warlord's king & god, forming an entire empire for the warlord, then gaining all the knowledge in the universe and thus ascended to divinity, though in doing so shattering his mind), as the sheer impact of it cannot be understated.
Caydae Cailean. Paragon form of the archetypical adventurer, ascended to divinity. He was an orphan who decided to travel the world as an adventurer to do good; carousing, flirting, and making some bad drunken decisions as he went... namely taking the test of the Starstone which only two people in all of history ever succeeded before. Of course, he succeeded, but then just sort of kept doing what he was doing as a god: telling his followers to go out helping orphans and topple tyrants whilst enjoying a good drink while you do so. I also quite enjoy how he's the only core deity to keep a surname, unlike even Iomedae, Nethys, or Irori who presumably did have surnames which were well known beforehand; Cayden wanted people to be able to tell exactly *which* Cayden-who-was-an-adventurer is now a god for the context of everyone who knew him as a mortal. I also quite like how he decided to resurrect his dead adventuring buddy (who the note was a prostitute is quite nice, positive depictions of sex workers is swell) so she can be his herald, as uplift his pet dog to celestial-status so he could keep it.
Gorum. Yeah, he's just your archetypical god of war, but sometimes you just need a really simple archtypical god of war, y'know?
Gozreh. I'll fully admit, he'll almost certainly get knocked down to B tier within the next few months, but right now at least she holds an important place for me, for admittedly entirely personal reasons (namely, only realising my own enby status around the start of this year, which also because of the whole War of Immortals thing I was thinking about Gozreh a lot more as he was a lot of people's pick, and thus causing her own enby status to really resonate with me, knocking up a deity who was previously D tier way up here)
B tier:
Calistria. I really enjoy her position of a core deity of lust who is explicitly non-evil, and in fact tends to have much more positive interactions with the good deities than the evil ones. Plus, general "Goddess of revenge who's all for utterly destoying those who've wronged you, but does not support getting obsessed with this revenge" is quite nice.
Zon-Kuthon. Whilst a lot of my enjoyment of Zonny comes from Shelyn, this is about where I'd put him even ignoring that (accounting for it, probably top of B tier or bottom of A tier). Yes, "Mwhaha, I'm Pinhead, evil god of sado-masochism" is a bit odd, but honestly he makes it work. The fact that Nidal is legitimately one of the oldest nations in the whole world as per his promise is important. As well as that, I quite like how in places like Geb his followers almost act like a support system for living folks as "well, undead can't feel pain as good, so we gotta protect the living!". His whole pain & suffering thing is also fairly easy to understand why so many people would fall into it: If your life has been filled with horrible things, there is certainly an appeal to going "Actually, pain and suffering are good things, embrace it".
Lamashtu. Evil, yes, but evil in such a way that it honestly makes sense why so many non-evil ancestries still venerate her. She teaches being monstrous is good and never let go of it... just also that you should spread this monstrousness to others. Other folks in the past have made far better essays on how Lamashtu is a really interesting deity than I ever could, so I think I should just accept that and suggest you read one of those.
Norgorber. I quite like his whole four aspects thing, and whilst individually a few of them are quite plain the fact they're all there together makes him very very versatile as a deity. I'd go on, but unfortunately given part of the nature of his lore there isn't tons to talk about
C tier:
Asmodeus. The Devil. That said, a fairly good depiction of him. The fact that it was the good deity who brought free will is quite interesting. Similarly, the fact that Asmodeus does seem to legitimately believe that his goal (namely "create a perfect world without free will") is something to aspire towards and isn't just purely doing it for power's sake is a nice touch.
Sarenrae. She's a nice deity to have around and very effectively fills the roll of "cleric-y sun deity of goodness" whilst still finding her own unique personality.
Torag. Dwarf god. I quite like a lot of his dynamics with his family and he is quite effective at playing the roll of the "Lawful Good god of being a dwarf" (yes alignment isn't a thing anymore, but it still makes sense here imo), but he's not all that more than that.
Rovagug. He's Rovagug, the big monster at the center of the planet who wants to destroy everything & all the other gods had to team up to beat. Important to the setting, but as a character of his own? He sort of inherently doesn't have much to latch onto.
D tier:
Desna. I really want to like Desna, I really do. Tons of other people seem to just utterly adore her. That said, no matter what I try she just never seemed to click with me. Like, she's alright, but even when I intentionally try to get really interested in her she never has seen more than middling to me. Do quite like how in Starfinder she decided that people are used to bugs enough that she can show her true form of a moth lady though. (Also, keep in mind that I honestly probably have a fairly comparable opinion to some of the gods in C tier, she mostly just got here because I still have that opinion in spite of actively trying to improve it, unlike the C tier's where it's just because I haven't really gotten around to doign a real deep look at)
Erastil. He's cool and all and fills and a lot of important for the setting to cover areas of concern (pretty much THE god for the vast majority of non-adventurers from rural areas), and actually for a while held a low-C tier position, but he's also just... somewhat eh.
Irori. I'll admit, I frequently forget he exists. His character never really resonated with me, and seeing I haven't really gotten around to reading about much in Vudra yet (closest would be a bit of Jalmeray's section in Impossible Lands, but unfortunately that was really the one part of that book which never clicked with me) I haven't really gotten to see how he affects areas where he's important either
I'll list off some notable non-core deities I love in another post at some point.
I mean, I personally find Abadar very interesting and my #5 favourite core deity, so my reasons on why he's probably ok is more because he's the in-universe explication why money and calendars (which might have different names for months & year 0's, but apart from that are entirely the same) are standardized throughout the entire world.
I feel like only converting 1 of the Metallics/Chromatics was intentions: They wanted to focus on just doing their new dragon types, but wanted to show how they'll be converting them in future so included one to show off (not to mention I imagine having the dragons kind of return one by one de-emphasizes the "group" element of them and thus help prevent legal issues)
My bad. It was Asura. Faultspawn. That is what I was looking for. They removed the Asura lineage feat from Nephilim.
I think that's just not in there because it's from Impossible Lands. The remaster books are mostly just converting stuff from the CRB and APG, with maybe a bit of padding from LO:AG (the exception of course being ancestries which are straight up from other books like the leshy or kholo. Sticking to just those books would leave you with nothing lol). It's the same as all the other options from Lost Omens books which weren't converted over (Winter Touched humans aren't in the book either and still exist for example)
Actually, ever since Highhelm it has been fully explicit, with it being stated Cayden and Trudd having sharing multiple trysts. Just a fun little thing to note!
Someone mentioned Achaekek; I hope he survives the event, if only because "his major curse is that he personally kills you" is hilarious.
You know, people often make jokes about Achaekek's major curse, but honestly I think it's a crime that's all people look at, instead of the full set which makes it even better. Like, usually the minor is "Some slap on the wrist which'll hurt", the moderate is "something really really annoying that'll force you to course correct, but nothing vital" and the major "Something that will either end up killing you, or at the very least destroy your life"
Meanwhile, with Achaekek we have:
Minor: Achaekek gets insects to try to kill you
Moderate: Achaekek hires a hitman to kill you
Major: Achaekek kills you personally
It's all just increasing levels of "Achaekek tries to kill you", with the extra spice that honestly... only the minor involves an actual curse. The moderate is particularly amazing barely magical, outside him finding your location & giving someone a message he's literally just hiring a hitman same as any mortal might do (I guess also outside the fact that there's no explicit pay given the hitman works for him already).
Personally, my current guess is that it's going to be revealed that these prophecies are actually just saying each of the god's worst fears. That theory would explain the various elements which don't fully make sense for the setting (In this case: Cayden fears the idea that he's just faking it, so his death involves that being the case). Also, The Three Feats of Pharasma does actually list "What's going to happen now that prophesy doesn't work anymore?" as one of her three greatest fears, so her death being caused by that would follow this logic (as would the idea that after her death all the psychopomps would just sit around and do nothing - something Yivali commented as not making sense).
Shelyn is actually my #1 favorite core deity, whilst Desna has always been "that one which people seem to like but I don't get why". And like, whilst the prismatic ray or Zonny might play a part, it's mostly because of her own character which really speaks to me. She superficially seems like an Aphrodite expy, both in design and the whole just "goddess of love & beauty", but then when you actually look at her details she's so much more.
She is a goddess of love, yes, but not just romantic / sexual. She's a goddess of all kinds of love, including things like familial love. Likewise, whilst yes she's a goddess of beauty, it's not just physical beauty, but also inner beauty with her teaching everyone to be the best them they can be and to make the world a better (and by extension more beautiful) place. She really is wonderful and honestly reading about her worldview has legitimately I feel been a positive impact on my own irl mental health.
Oh, and unrelated to that, I actually feel both her and Zonny pretty safe as whilst they say that Starfinder canon won't play a part on Pathfinder canon, the idea of Zon-Shelyn which they'll be doing after the War of Immortals event only is actually interesting if you have both Zonny and Shelyn in Pathfinder for you to compare the merged form to (otherwise it's just "A deity of tortured artists with a kinda neat backstory").
There's also the slightly odd thing that whilst Alkenstar has always been "Wild West meets Steampunk", Outlaws of Alkenstar goes hard into the Wild West element whilst its depiction in Lost Omens: Impossible Lands is much more on the Victorian England Steampunk aesthetic; so if that's what you prefer I might suggest checking that book.
That said, Piltover / Zaun it is not, and really a lot of the slightly magi-tech stuff doesn't really fit the aesthetics it is going for; even if you personally prefer a different aesthetic, it's unfair to evaluate a location on how well it achieves that aesthetic when it's going for something else entirely.
Probably the closer to what you're after in-universe are as others have mentioned Ustalav, the Deadshot Lands, or parts of Nex like Oenopion. Though unfortunately none of those are quite perfectly what you're after. Ustalav is aiming to be a "Gothic Horror Land" and thus whilst might do similar things, depicts them in a different way and the Deadshot Lands (as well as currently still being somewhat lite on actual details) whilst having the magi-tech weaponry isn't going for that whole inequality vibe.
Oenopion (and to a lesser extent other Nexian cities, they all express similar goals in very different ways so worth a check) is probably your best bet, going for that very inequality-heavy magipunk aesthetic with amazing architecture and technology (being the Inner Sea's single biggest producer of alchemical goods) even Piltover & Zaun's whole "it looks amazing but just down from where all the awesome infrastructure there is areas filled with frequent murders" + revolutionary sentiments. The main thing it is missing is the firearms, but given Alkenstar is just one nation over it's not unrealistic for that tech to get over here and maybe even be adapted for a more alchemical style.
Between a decade old post not actually about Pathfinder 2e from a person who doesn't work for Paizo anymore (and as the other point points out has a history of adding some not super lore-compliant statements) and a 2022 post from the creative director which actively addresses that previous post, I feel the second is the one to listen to.
The phrasing is definitely deliberately vague as to make the enemies of your people be referring to actual enemies of your people, not an entire ancestry which another ancestry has a history of racism with.
As others have said, Archives of Nethys has all the rules for pretty much everything on there, and all of that is compatible with post-remaster stuff (At a good enough level that Organised Play lets you use stuff from both), which includes a lot of the stuff that you might be expecting to be in the Player Core (as they decided to more evenly split the content between Player Core 1 & 2, instead of like it was before with 12 classes in the Core Rulebook and 4 in the Advanced Player's Guide). Now, do keep in mind that the people who work on that site haven't yet updated everything to the post-remaster rules, but in the cases where that is different you can just check the Errata page's section on remaster compatibility (which admittedly just covers a couple of the books).
Creator of Darknoth Chronicles wrote:
Next Question I have is are there any type of humanoid dragon-sort of monsters that could easily replace the dragonborn. I don't need them for use by player characters but they are the working population and primarily source of military soldiers for the draconic empire. In my world history they are focal to winning what essentially was a world war in my world.
Is there any such creature? Or will I have to create my own?
There isn't any direct dragonborn equivalent, but that said by just making kobolds medium, changing up the ability scores and reflavoring a couple of their feats themed around cowardice, you already are about 90% of the way there. A lot of their heritages & feats are themed around getting draconic abilities.
Also, an important thing to keep in mind is that the devs have specifically said that chromatics & metallics aren't going the way of the drow and definitely still exist in setting, it'll take them a bit longer to figure out how to use them properly and in the mean time if they ever need the statblock for one of them for an Adventure, they'll just include a unique one for that specific individual. As well as that, a lot of options themed around dragons will be now more geared towards the new dragon types instead of the metallics/chromatics.
Between Mythic, Exemplars, and the ancestries out of HotW, I don't think Iblydos has any bricks left to lay. Vudra is pretty close to where it needs to be too. The only thing that I'm aware of that they'd want would be the Book of Aberrations - probably coming out in the same tranche with them. Qadira would probably want a nice deep-dive on divinities... and that's exactly what LO: Divine mysteries is. Maybe something about trade and mercantile conflict? Regardless, Casmaron in general has been getting bricks for a while now, and it's Real Close.
Note: Whilst we might be able to get a Lost Omens book on specifically Quadira, Vudra, or Iblydos, Casmaron was stated by Erik Mona to not have enough stuff worked out to have a World Guide for, with Erik Mona still just trying to compile the info for what is known on it, which is something that is required before a Casmaron book can even begin being considered
That said that message also included the following section:
Erik Mona wrote:
As I said above, this project kicked into high gear for a short piece I wrote for a book that will be coming out in 2024, and there will be a substantial use for it in 2025, about which I am sure you will be hearing a great deal in short oder. :)
I'm going to guess the "short piece in a 2024 book" is going to be a section of Ibydos in War of Immortals, like how BotD and GnG both included a little section where they had a one page summary of various nations with lots of undead/tech, though in this cast presumably on Mythic / Immortal people. I'll leave it up to the other people here to speculate what the 2025 book will be though.
EDIT: Just realized I forgot to link the thread!
https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42d3b&page=2?So-any-interest-in-Casmaron#8 3
"Book of the Dead, but for Aberrations" remains a slam dunk of an idea.
Book of the Void???
Book of Dread :D
I actually tried to look at a bunch of the names of in-world books about the Dark Tapestry and the Dominion of Black on the wiki for possible names, and the best one I found was "Secrets of the Dreaming Dark" (all be it it might be a bit long + sounds similar to both SoM and DA) followed by "Libram of Absolute Emptines" and "The Last Theorem" . None of these are really amazing though, so it'd probably be named something entirely new & disconnected to pre-exisint in-universe stuff (like pretty much all the Rulebooks outside BotD and DA were admittedly).
Also, it's also good to remember that even with her being still worshiped by some sects in Geb, the king actively wishes to stamp all that out and wants everyone to forget that she ever existed, whilst Arazni hates people who follow her as the queen of Geb even more than most her followers. So whilst there'd be some turbulence, it's not all that much more than her initial leaving already caused.
I'm not saying it's implausible, but do you have a hard confirm that Geb wants to stamp out her cult in his eponymous country? Any info on what he might or might not be doing in service to that? Who knows? Perhaps he's still pining for her and hopes to some day woo her back. Incredibly toxic &%*#$@s can catch unwise irrational feelings and harbor associated deeply implausible fantasies too.
Here's a quote from Impossible Lands. Looks like I've slightly misremembered and it was the whole government as a whole which wants her forgotten.
Impossible Lands p.149 wrote:
Most recently, even the most conservative Blood Lords agreed that in the wake of Arazni’s abdication of her duties, it was imperative to erase any hint of culture she’d established so that they can plaster over her influence entirely. Few know better than the dead that, with enough time, all things—even gods—can be erased.
Elsewhere in the book there's also a whole lot of references of all the Arazni loyalists getting killed / fleeing (such as the ones who ran Mechitar and the ones in the Gebbite embassy in Alkenstar)
- It is highly likely that she allows Holy sanctification. In addition to her probably continued walk towards the light, there's the fact that I just can't imagine her disliking the idea of having Champions that were particularly good at harming Tar-Baphon. Allowing unholy sanctification...?
It was confirmed back in the original Tian Xia Showcase where Divine Mysteries was announced and she got confirmed to be the new core deity that Arazni will allow both Holy & Unholy.
Also, it's also good to remember that even with her being still worshiped by some sects in Geb, the king actively wishes to stamp all that out and wants everyone to forget that she ever existed, whilst Arazni hates people who follow her as the queen of Geb even more than most her followers. So whilst there'd be some turbulence, it's not all that much more than her initial leaving already caused.
It's been confirmed by Luis Loza that Arazni is NOT taking the areas of concern of whichever god dies or "replacing" them, she's just taking the empty slot as a core deity.
On the Pharasma thing specifically, is also stated that whilst the nosoi on the cover was writing the book as a report to Pharasma, they've also been at this for a LONG time (unstated exactly how long, but at the very least it's been confirmed Aroden died whilst it was being written), so doesn't really act as a piece of evidence for or against Pharasma dying (as whilst Arazni and Yivali both being on the cover might suggest a link, could also just be "book author and the new core deity together")
If it is Asmodeus, was he wise enough to put contingency clauses in all his contracts, or was he arrogant enough to believe he was invincible.
What deity would plan for his own demise? He certainly would not want to make things easier for the survivors if something did happen to him.
Of course, a natural thought would be whether consistency with the Starfinder setting would require the removal of Torag and/or Rovagug, as they are the only two deities specifically absent from that setting. But I have always assumed that they went wherever Golarion did and thus are most likely still alive.
Or can dead deities be brought back to life? The loss of power by some of the core deities in Starfinder could be the result of a temporary death.
you can use Thor as much as you want, but you can't put him in the costume that marvel created, that is copyright infringement. But you can use and all the lore around, that he is the god of thunder, all of it, because none of that was created by marvel. the hammer was not created by marvel, but the costume is, however.
This is not the same as Asmodeus, Asmodeus is flat out too close to the D&D version. t. they are both devils, which he is not in the lore, he is not the king of hell either in the lore, he is the king of demons in the lore, a deity, in the lore he does not rule over hell, nor is hell defined as having nine layers, he is not defined as being at war with demons in the lore, in fact in the lore he is the king of demons, every single one of those elements arose in D&D.
You can say that you don't think they are close, but the case law says otherwise.
Whilst you have a point, I think some of your specific examples aren't amazing. To go through them one by one:
"He is not a devil in lore": it's important to keep in mind that "devil" is usually referring to a single figure not a collective, so following this logic literally any Christian demons apart from like, Satan that got carried over to Pathfinder would be DnD-isms. Less a case of Asmo being a devil being an issue as much as the fact "devil vs demon" underling being the DnD-ism as they're pretty much the same thing; something which would be the case no matter the situation.
Secondly, "He is not the king of Hell in the lore, just king of demons", yes, if we ignore the devil vs demon split (what just from this point forwards assume I always am--like I said, you kind of have to do seeing in the "lore" they're not really distinct in the first place) "King of Hell" is incredibly close to "Ruler of the inhabitants of Hell", so it's not like they're really pulling things from nothing.
Next, "Hell is not defined as having 9 layers", ok, whilst it's not defined as having 9 layers in the Book of Tobit or things like that, in probably the most famous classical example of what Hell was described as Dante's Inferno, it is, so it's really insane to me to treat it as some kind of DnD-ism and not just pulling from popular culture perceptions of Hell.
Finally "He is not at war with demons, that's a DnD thing", this really has issues in the fact that in PF lore Hell and the Outer Rifts just... aren't at war, so this's actually a difference between PF and DnD lore. Like, they might not be fond of each other, but then again no planes are fond of either of those planes and in fact at times they're even willing to work together (most famously with the case of daemons).
