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Please give me the information for reporting/your chronicle sheet. Also, please remind me anything I need to know about your character. We won't be starting for a bit while I wait for one of my current games to end, so there is not a hurry to level up, but can you please remind me what level you will be so I can prepare the correct subtier?
Please give me the information for reporting/your chronicle sheet. Also, please remind me anything I need to know about your character. We won't be starting for a bit while I wait for one of my current games to end, so there is not a hurry to level up, but can you please remind me what level you will be so I can prepare the correct subtier?
Here's our gameplay thread. For now, please dot and delete.
Please provide the information for your chronicle sheets. Also, is there anything unusual about your character I should know? Please follow the maps link above and fill out the dice rolling templates and put a token for your character on the first page.
This game is part of Gameday XIV. Players who will be at this table please dot and delete for now. 
discussion thread is now open for game participants
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Welcome, applicants! I'll be running this game, starting soon after August 31, its public release date. I realize it will take a few days to build characters. This game will be recruited using GM choice. I will leave recruitment open for 48 hours, or until I get 12 applicants, whichever comes first. I will be choosing a balance of new players and experienced players. I'll also be balancing people I've played with before and had fun with with new to me people. I'm sorry that I can only take 6 of you, but I know I cannot run two tables of the same adventure and do it well. When you post here, please tell me about your experience with SF1 and with PF2, both as a player and as a GM. Thanks for your interest!
Welcome, applicants! I'll be running this game, starting soon after August 31, its public release date. I realize it will take a few days to build characters. This game will be recruited using GM choice. I will leave recruitment open for 48 hours, or until I get 12 applicants, whichever comes first. I will be choosing a balance of new players and experienced players. I'll also be balancing people I've played with before and had fun with with new to me people. I'm sorry that I can only take 6 of you, but I know I cannot run two tables of the same adventure and do it well. When you post here, please tell me about your experience with SF1 and with PF2, both as a player and as a GM. Thanks for your interest!
Welcome, applicants! I'll be running this game, starting on August 31, its public release date. This game uses pregenerated characters only, so we should be able to start promptly. This game will be recruited using GM choice. I will leave recruitment open for 48 hours, or until I get 12 applicants, whichever comes first. I will be choosing a balance of new players and experienced players. I'll also be balancing people I've played with before and had fun with with new to me people. I'm sorry that I can only take 6 of you, but I know I cannot run two tables of the same adventure and do it well. When you post here, please tell me about your experience with SF1 and with PF2, both as a player and as a GM. Thanks for your interest!
Please provide your chronicle sheet information, and also tell me anything I should know about your character.
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Hi, everyone! I'm looking for a group of 4 tp 6 characters to play this seeker level PFS scenario. Recruitment will be by GM choice; I've reserved one slot for the person who asked for this game. I will leave recruitment open for 72 hours or until I get 10 applicants, whichever comes first. I will be making my choices partly for party balance/subtier, partly to welcome players who are new to our lodge, and partly to make a game that I think will be fun for everyone involved. Please take a look at my GM profile to make sure you're OK with everything there before applying. Posting expectations for this game are one post a day weekdays, one post per weekend, although more frequent posting is welcome and may help the game go faster. If you are interested, please tell me about the character you would like to play. It's fine to submit one in each subtier if you have a character in each that you would enjoy playing.
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Hi, everyone. After looking at what everyone had available, we'll be running this low tier. I am aiming for an APL of right about 2, so I would like each of you to pick a character of about level 2 (so 1 or 3 is also possible). I know several of you indicated you could be building a GM credit blob for this table, so I expect there to be some discussion needed here. Please try for some party balance, but make sure you're playing something you will enjoy. I tend to run very story focused games, so do not feel like you need a really optimized character. Once we've made our decisions as a group, I'll open gameplay for everyone to dot in, and then we can pause for a few days so those who need to build a character can do so. I'm looking forward to working through this series of modules with all of you; I often enjoy several scenario runs with a group more than single scenarios because the characters actually get to know one another.
I am recruiting a group to work through the entire The Devil We Know arc, which includes scenarios #29, 30, 40, and 48. The scenario is for levels 1-7, although the rules do not allow the full range at one table. I will be selecting a party from those who apply. I'll be giving a preference to new players, as well as those who have run games for me recently. I will leave recruitment open for 48 hours, or until I have 12 applicants, whichever comes first. We will be starting soon after one of my current games ends, so within the next week. Please look over my GM profile to make sure you're OK with everything there before you sign up. If you have characters who you might like to play at various levels, please do tell me about them to enable me to put together a reasonable party.
Please fill out the RPG Chronicles listing for this game.
Hello, players who have signed up for this game on the convention spreadsheet. Please dot and delete from this thread for now so that the game appears in your campaigns list. We will start when the convention does.
This adventure comes with a set of four pregenerated characters who all have a backstory tied into the adventure story, so I'd encourage you to use them. There are also some adventure rewards that are only awarded if you use the pregenerated characters. I will provide the pregenerated characters a bit closer to start time. If you will use a pregenerated character, please provide the information on the character you want to receive the credit. If you plan to use your own character, please provide the information about that character I need to report and fill out your chronicle sheet. If you're new here and don't know what some of this means, you are very welcome here. Let me know and either I or some of the other players will be happy to walk you through this stuff.
Hello, everyone who signed up for this game on the convention spreadsheet. Please dot and delete, and we will start when the convention begins.
Hi, everyone. Please provide the information I need to fill out your chronicle sheet, and also tell me anything unusual about your character I should know before we start.
Welcome, everyone who has signed up for this game on the Outpost Event Spreadsheet! Please dot and delete here and then go to the discussion thread to tell me about your character. We will start on March 2.
Hello, players. Please provide me with the information for reporting/your chronicle sheet, and also let me know anything unusual about your character. Please also check my GM profile to make sure you're happy with what is there; by playing at my table there are a few things you're agreeing to, such as me botting your character if you don't post for a while.
Hello, everyone, and welcome. While we are waiting for the special to start, please dot and delete, and provide the information requested in discussion.
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discussion is now open! feel free to begin to discuss your character choices.
Hello! I'm recruiting six players who would like to play through this playtest adventure, learning the rules together. Wee will start building characters together on August 3, and hopefully begin the story on August 8. The game will be reported as a society game. I will leave recruitment open for 48 hours, or until I have 9 applicants, after which I will make my choices to put together a party. It's OK that you won't be familiar with the rules when we start and probably don't know what kind of character you want to make; we'll be learning together!
Hello! I'm recruiting six players who would like to play through this playtest scenario, learning the rules together. The first day the scenario is available is August 1, so we will start on August 3, using pregen characters so that we can get started right away. We will be following society playtest rules, and the game will be reported as a society game. I will leave recruitment open for 48 hours, or until I have 9 applicants, after which I will make my choices to put together a party. It's OK that you won't be familiar with the rules when we start; we'll be learning together!
This will be where GMs can post to look for players for their SFS2 games. Watch this space; I'm sure there will be playtest games recruiting soon!
Hi! This will be where discussions happen for our lodge.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to out new space station! This is a place where we can gather to play Starfinder Society Second Edition games. It is a sister lodge to Flaxseed, Cottonseed, and Castamir Station. We will start out playing playtest games together, and then move to the final rules when they are released. More details will follow later; for now, this is a placeholder. I look forward to exploring the new game rules with all of you!
OK, everyone! We'll be using the quest series the Silverhex Chronicles, available for free here. The first thing I need each student at this table to do is to acquire the adventure. Because PF1 does not have bounties, we will be needing to run one quest at a time. I'll start out, then you'll each run one quest, and then I'll run the remaining ones. Unfortunately, you won't be able to report the game to Paizo or to get GM credit, but you will get credit for the entire series to the character you choose to play as. This is a level 1 quest series, so I need each of you to pick a level 1 character you plan to use whenever you are not the GM.
Hi, everyone! This is the campaign where I'll be running my parts of this quest series. Please dot and delete and come chat in the discussion thread!
Please provide me with the information needed to complete your chronicle sheet.
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I am recruiting for a table of PFS characters to play through these final two levels of the Emerald Spire. Characters who can only play 15 but not 16 are welcome, but characters that can play both are preferred. Please tell me a little about your character. One seat is reserved for the person who asked me to run this. Recruitment will close in 72 hours or after there are 8 applicants, whichever comes first. The game will hopefully get started within a few days of the close to recruitment. We will pause the game as needed if everyone will be busy later this month with holidays. I look forward to playing with many of you.
Hi, everyone! It’s been a while since we’ve run a session of GM school, so early next year I will run GM school again. This time, there will be classroom sessions on the Paizo forums and on Discord. If there is sufficient interest, Starfinder, Pathfinder 1, and Pathfinder 2 will all be covered. We will start on Monday, January 8. For the first few weeks, we will having classroom time only. We will be talking about what makes a good GM, and about best practies to make a game run smoothly. I will be leading these discussions, with Bigrin as my co-teacher on Discord, and mentors will also be contributing their experience to the discussion. After we’ve covered the basics in classroom, we will continue classroom while games start up. A mentor will run a game for students in order to provide material to talk about, and then students will run games for each other. For Starfinder and Pathfinder 2, there can be several games running at the same time. Due to some older rules for Pathfinder 1, only one game can be run at a time, so GM school may take longer for PF1 students. I’m looking for both students and mentors. Requirements to participate as a student:
-ability to post every day for the length of GM school -willingness/ability to pay up to $5 US to purchase an adventure, if needed. We will try to get convention support to give you your adventure for free, but this depends on how many students are interested. Mentors will be selected as needed from those who apply. If you are interested in participating as a student, please fill out this google form. If you are interested in participating as a mentor, please fill out this google form to apply. I’m looking forward to working with many of you. Redelia
please provide chronicle sheet and reporting information here.
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Hi everyone! Please dot and delete for now. We'll get started soon.
Please provide me with the info I need for reporting and to fill out your chronicle sheets here.
I guess there is still possibility for some kind of premium 1-20 hardcover book (or even going experimental and skipping some levels again whether thats 1-3 or some level skips between 1 and 20. *shrugs*), though 10 levels at once is probably better for lot of tables. I do still like having grand coherent 1-20 campaign even if it includes lot of sidetrips to fill space for 20 levels xD
I feel bittersweet at letting my 701 character go, sure he was gm blob I rarely got to play(mostly at low levels then really high levels), but I got really attached to Rahzar's tragicomedic career that formed for him more I played him and when I started to pay attention to what gm chronicles I had given him xD This retirement felt like perfect ending for his character arc, so I feel like elaborating on it, even if someone might find it silly I got this attached to character I didn't get to play at every level of the game. I do wish I got to play him more(I've gm'd more scenarios than I've played overall, so its just natural I have too many gm chronicles), but loved each time I got to play him, if it isn't obvious from this overly long fanfic post I made :p Rahzar's family imposed upon him the traditional Veskarium sense of honor and duty. But despite expectations about glorious military career being placed upon him, Rahzar's true passion was history. He dreamed of becoming an archaeologist and exploring the galaxy. He wanted to be a Starfinder. Further more, Rahzar was disquieted by Veskarium's history of brutal conquest and career of violence against sapient life never sat well with him. But he didn't have any real choices or options to study something else, so history was just a hobby to him. At age of 20, Scoured Stars Incident happened and Society started massive recruitment of new agents, even mercenaries. Rahzar saw his opportunity and took Soldier's Due and left Veskarium. He knew his family would consider quitting military to become a scholar to be unforgivable blemish upon their honor, but Rahzar was determined to follow his dreams and finally he could put his military career into good use. While violence still unsettled him, idea of pursuing his dream career and using his training to protect other explorers didn't sound too bad for him. Violence being only be used to protect others from violence, that is something he could live with. Rahzar was clumsy, but dutiful agent who avoided lethal violence as much as possible. Things were promising to him and his experience from military became useful in missions. He believed he could build up his experience until he could stop being a bodyguard and focus on research. His favorite moments where those quiet periods of downtime between big missions, working on the archaeological expeditions. Sure occasionally Starfinder duties involved things like rubbing elbows with corporate sponsors and such, but introverted vesk could still stand such necessary evils. Everything however changed when Godshield came down and Jinsuls attacked the Scoured Star. Suddenly Starfinder Society was dragged into a war against unreasonable invasive force. And thus Rahzar fought in the war against Jinsuls. It was necessary to protect Society's new allies and innocents under threat of Jinsuls and Rahzar carried no regret about that, but he rose in ranks as the war proceeded. And even once jinsuls were defeated, he kept being sent on military operations. And that bothered him as he became more aware of Society's operation, such as Radaszam's clandestine operations. By time Datch had been stopped, Rahzar had come to conclusion that perhaps she had a point, and that wasn't helped by new realization that Starfinder Society had their own private prison. Sure Luwasi had allowed bunch of mercenaries into society as proper agents, some who still didn't have interest outside of fighting and income, but it was necessary. She made backroom deals and courted new allies, including Zo!, the media mogul known for reality shows that lack any respect for sanctity of sapient life, but she did it because she had to right? Rahzar had mixed feelings about some choices Luwasi had made, but he always respected her especially for stepping down after her mandate was fulfilled. Thus Rahzar ended up voting for Ehu Hadif as his platform of returning back to core Starfinder mission statement appealed to him. It was time to return to peacetime and put aside wartime methods. Then Data Scourge happened. Disquiet inside him worsened as he started to realize that only missions that increased his reputation and career advancement were the military missions he was being sent on. Ehu Hadif was dealt hard hand by Data Scourge, but his value of traditions and stability meant he also continued path of previous first seekers such as more working together with Zo! and keeping up the tenuous agreement with Veskarium. Society's involvement with corporate interests, foreign politics, fighting criminal elements was starting to worn down on Rahzar and he started to withdraw more and more doing paper work and cataloging finds of other starfinder teams working on expeditions involving Kishalee and Sivv empires, while still being occasionally called back to field missions, usually involving military operations. At least occasional charity missions were nice, but why did Starfinders perform work suited for Stewards and Knights of Golarion? He started to wonder if he quit being soldier of Veskarium to instead being soldier of Starfinder Society. Things came to boiling point for him after he was involved with series of secret starfinder operations, including wetwork against Eoxian undead involved with Corpse Fleet and promotion to Forum membership. No matter the reasons, Rahzar couldn't help but feel he was being rewarded for violence and he started mustering grudge towards Guidance. Even though he was involved in lot of paramilitary operations, Rahzar did his best to avoid casualties on opposite side, but destruction of undead target, no matter how vile, and being the invading force was too much on his conscience. Rahzar was in bad headspace for long time afterwards, but after failed attempt at First Seeker candidacy, working to recruit new starfinders and helping new agents and tons of introspection and therapy he came to a realization. Reason why Rahzar was sent on so many military operations was that he was good at it. He was better warrior than he was a scholar and he had talent for killing even if he refrained from it. His family hadn't been wrong per say when they thought he was wasting his potential. But more importantly, he could have all along refused if he wanted to. He could have just refused assignments and stayed as helper in archaeological expeditions and if he truly didn't trust Society, he could have just quit like he did the military. He wasn't held down by his dream to became a starfinder, it was because he genuinely trusted judgement of his coworkers and leaders. Luwasi, Ehu Hadif, Guidance, even Radaszam, he didn't believe any of them would compromise society's ideals for personal gain nor that they would ask him to join mission if they didn't genuinely need his talents for good cause. The thing holding Rahzar on path of violence he detested was his trust in Society and he had never stopped loved wonder of discovery no matter what. He had always had that sense of responsibility his family tried to impose on him, just towards people he could believe in. But that responsibility was conflicting with his conscience and personal philosophy and that's why he felt miserable. This realization brought him inner peace and by end of seventh year in Society, he had resolved that if Society needed him to be a soldier, he would use his talents as long as needed, or at least as long he was able to. He would advocate for new agents to pull back if missions were rough on their mental state, but he was unable to follow on his own advice. Then the life threw an another curve-ball and Master of Nomenclature made their offer. To others, the offer to become a Steward of Scoured Stars was giving up their freedom to explore the galaxy, but to Rahzar it was something else. He didn't give damn about becoming a godling or anything like that. It was a solution to his dilemma. He would have to give up ability to see in person what wonders galaxy had to offer, but Scoured Stars had multiple lifespans worth of archaeological work needing to be done and Rahzar never wanted to be an aggressor, but was always ready to be a protector. Protecting Scoured Stars alongside Jadnura and dedicating himself to study its wonders and preserve it, it was the perfect new path for him. He could still help Society, but now he had something only he could do and he didn't need to sacrifice his conscience. He could stop being a soldier. By allowing himself to make another selfish choice, he could be himself. And now he had all the time to recover and find his peace. (Rahzar could easily be LG if not for fact he genuinely doesn't like going out of his way to fight bad guys and be a hero and that while he is ready to help people in need and do charity, he is really just some guy who wants to do his studies dang it)
Reading other people's comments, I kinda feel like while its nice paizo is setting up expectation that "no, sorry, we won't ever really have level 14-16 tier scenario", it kinda feels like allowing people to ask for "high level scenario, when?" constantly is probably less controversial than straight up telling them "never!", especially when it kinda seems like high level AP content is becoming rarer as well as 2e goes on. Like there are going to be bunch of folks who would try out SFS2e otherwise, but just kinda never bother due to thinking that "its not the 'real' game really, I'd never get my cool character concept to high levels, I just wait until I get chance to join campaign that does" But yeah, I was mostly surprised that level cap is this low despite allowing pcs to start much higher level AND all scenarios being replayable. There are ton of experimentations with this organized play campaign iteration and I'm was thinking that lot of these could have been gradual like "let's test replaying all scenarios AND higher starting point before putting down the foot on level cap due to some scenarios barely selling and barely being played"
Andoran is another one of those countries where lot of people perceive them as "they are more interesting as source of npcs for other adventures. Like eagle knights, steel falcons, twilight talons or grey corsairs fighting cheliax and so on" rather than as interesting country with interesting locales themselves. Well I hope everyone has learned so far that even most seemingly boring country has interesting details. Or I hope so at least, I'm writing this before reminding myself of detail xD Arthfell region has several interesting conflict looks, like imperial loyalists and conspiracy to restore noble houses, but hook I like is that Alvis, what used to be small fishing village until it grew, is home to Andoren Alchemical Society and they are apparently dumping their alchemical waste to water. So besides potential pollution themed environmentalist adventure there, I mean just imagine monsters born from alchemical waste in Apso Bay xP Cyremirium in same region also had weird problem with thousands of dead fish showing up everytime moon fades to black. (sounds like job for dark archive xp) Overally lot of locations in Andoran have connection to fey, both friendly(for example, "In truth, the town is protected by three kindly fey who, when settlers came to this area, brokered a deal with the newcomers via their followers among the Primordial Ones rather than fighting them off. Believing they could live in harmony with the settlers, the dryad Gillialara, the nereid Cymewray, and the lampad Yvenliss agreed to care for the town’s citizens, providing them with food, access to clean water, and a supply of valuable quartz to trade with others in exchange for peace and a life of balance with nature.") and hostile(several darkmoon valley modules should make that kinda clear) and its common enough theme to be noticeable. Unfortunately to me personally I don't find fey stuff as standout of a thing by itself, they aren't among my favorite creature types ^^; Still yeah Andoran has lot of stuff for people who love stories involving fey. There are also lot of druidic and primal themes(heck the local druidic major faction is called Primordial Ones) in Andoran, nature vs industry and etc. Basically, Andoran is land for political intrigue and nature vs civilization adventures. My preference is for weird eldritch mysteries and fleshy organ growths so not as much stuff to me x'D Still yeah, I won't say lot of the adventuring sites aren't cool: Black Forks: Creepy monastery with massive pool of black stagnant water. Funny thing about this very eldritch location is that the campaign setting book refuses to go into detail to explain any of the weird stuff there or even what hostile npcs or monsters could be found in the location. We know that it was built by bunch of monks fascinated by waters and they started to do violent self torture rituals, then they got slaughtered by goblins who threw their bodies to water which attracted some kind of horror from woods that killed everything else on its path as it started to move to farmlands. Group of Taldan soldiers managed to turn monster back but never returned alive and nobody found trace or evidence of the monster and eventually settles took region back from goblins with villagers leaving the site alone. And now there is group of cowled folks called Tenders doing mysterious rituals. Basically Black Forks is mystery box that refuses to give direct answers about what exactly happened, but it sure does sound potentially cool xD Candlestone Cavern is one of my favorite adventuring locations from dungeons of golarion just because I kinda want to run dwarf "we will get to bottom of it and release the flesh eating gas to clear it of undead at all cost" adventure xP Point is, its a cool mega dungeon, I like those. Claes Redoubt is subterranean azlanti ruins but the adventuring site description just details attempts of one guy to find it and what dangers where in the way, so we don't actually know WHATS in there besides it was some kind of refugee caves. Its bit of bummer to me since hey I want to know what is there to be discovered xD This book loves leaving mysteries vague in adventuring site advertisements. Andoran also had Droskar's Crag(among other cool things, there were couple of adventure modules in area iirc) which was one of potential location of axe of dwarvish lords. I forget, what was post remastered name of that item and where it was canonically in the end? Nogortha Necropolis was cool but dunno if we see much of pathfinder wendigo anymore since I don't think they got reprinted or renamed. Occarin was small village with secret. And the secret is that it has VERY large percentage of changelings and most of them never hear the call because another secret is that some of the changelings work for their hag mothers and choose most potential candidates to target with the call to become hags. Sooo yeah. Andoran has lot of things if you love lycanthropes, primordial druids, fey, the weird bee-man, Talmandor and hags. I glossed over lot of the examples because I'm the fan of esoteric weird occult stuff xD
Habit, company policy, same thing when I try to be concise and lose the nuance in progress xD But yeah, I do add that technically the adventurer's guide also mentioned it since it had version of Council of Thieves post the ap, but sadly we haven'ts seen the new phantom thief esque thieves guild (instead of blue collar noble mafia) after that book yet despite it being cool new retooling of the faction
My time [to go through campaign setting books] has come once again. Not just for stuff that could be expanded, but to showcase funny and endearing stuff from these nations xD So Taldor has lot of interesting past to explore and also explore their effect on areas that used to be part of them, lot of noble house shenanigans(some people might be like "pfft, who cares about shenanigans of rich and powerful, they suck", but there are still fun stuff like joke marriage proposal between human grand duke and a dwarf that turned into genuine love and now scandalizes the nobility in Krearis region) and etc, but I assume this thread is probably more interested in more esoteric and obscure matters or at least cities and regions that would be fun to explore xD Like Kazuhn City which has heavy "Kowloon Walled City" vibes. (basically half is abandoned, quarter burned down and the "empty" section is divided by wall from the "polite society") Another interesting site at Kazuhn region is Peguduor a massive azlanti refuge site that was populated by munavri, caligni and other azlanti descendants but is now mysteriously empty of what must have been tens of thousands of people and contains apparent secret temples to Scal. Pastorling from Lingian is small hamlet with nothing of note, except really really good bakery. Except that person who owns the bakery and runs the humble place is running massive crime syndicate and smuggling operation despite that bakery is doing well enough she wouldn't even need to do crime. I just had to post that one because npc got really cool art for what is really funny concept xD Mut from Oppara has self run lighthouse filled with traps, guardians and wards, so most people haven't seen the place's lantern and thus can't confirm whether popular legend about it being a solar dragon's still beating heart is true. I just light idea of lighthouse dungeon with possibly shiny beating heart, so had to mention it xP Old Sehir: Super popular tourist site that is only 150 year with fictional history reaching antiquity and all local elves and dwarves have given up on trying to convince humans that its in fact not actually old ancient taldan site discovered about 150 years ago. Karakuru, the City of a Hundred Fountains, known for bathouses and fighting style rondelero that combines peasant dances and noble weapons. Bafra's Face: adventuring location where bunch of spriggan cultists and gargoyles are trying to build stone god/colossus, would be nice to see if they finally managed to finish animating the colossus with war of immortals and all xD Blackwood Swamp: besides smugglers and local iruxi enclave, there is sunken azlanti ruins(due to bad building location) Nacar-Azen which has interesting note of containing lot of schools. Like "Astrarium of Mag dedicated itself to understanding what precipitated Earthfall and what the Starstone was." Its interesting stuff Ruins of Nazilli: adventuring location that has spider cult worshipping Mazmezz. As in cult run by spider monsters xD (note: huh Emorga All-Seer from wardens of the wild was mentioned originally in taldor book. apparently her class was diviner 8 xD) But yeah I don't have time to skim through all countries right now, but if this is helpful or fun I'll continue doing so later xD
Eh, you see, we say that all the time, but then I read a novel of theirs like Godsrain and we got cannibalism, despair and body horror. It's not that simple, the developers have reigned in some of the darkest stuff from the start of the setting, but plenty of really dark stuff is still happening. I just wish they would address their changes in-lore, instead of just quietly shuffling the stuff they are most embarassed about into the backyard and shooting it in the back of the head. The War of Immortals would have been a prime opportunity to get rid of a being which rhymes with polka, for example, just by adding the name to the list of gods and other immortals who got lost in the shuffle. See that's the thing. Adventure paths? Contain plenty of horrible murder, torture and body horror. Setting books? Contain lot of societal issues and discrimination. Pathfinder tales book? They get often into very personal street level view of bad stuff happening rather than macroscale "ah yes, bad stuff exists". Thing that people don't get is that setting isn't "less dark", its "rulebooks don't present that side of setting". Like, horrible evil things probably exist in setting, but paizo doesn't feel need to focus on those since there isn't reason to, everyone can have those things in their games if they want to and party isn't uncomfortable with them. Heck even slavery basically exists in setting in spots, its just called something else. Lamashtu hasn't gotten changed. The lore just focuses on talking about lamashtu worshipers who are part of some kind of twisted fertility cult. I'd say one of reasons why lot of orc gods died was that it would have been difficult to work around their past deeds in how setting's front facing side is presented. (TLDR: when people are like "sexism and racism doesn't exist in Golarion", you can tell they haven't read setting books or tales books. There are probably thousand unnamed demon lords of "PG rating banned" that we will never learn about because why would we want to read about someone's magical realm of demonic NSFW torture.)
I do kinda wish people took deep breath and thought what it sounds like in real life before they go around exaggerating things. Hyperbole doesn't make the point more convincing, it makes it sound like you are really angry about something that is mildly annoying at worst.
Thing about Ragathiel is that he actually wasn't THAT extreme. Vildeis is much more extreme, but I don't mean that he isn't that bad because Vildeis exist. Like Ragathiel is all about avenging victims and all that jazz, but his faith did acknowledge possibility of good coming from evil origins. Its more of players who keep interpreting him differently.
I mean we have known for ages Norgorber is a human god. That's exact reason why Aroden hated him, because he was worst aspects of humanity in the there ascended gods from starstone test x'D Mr Gorber's funny name is perfect reveal to me because it perfectly shows how power of secrets IS in that they are a secret not because secret itself is grand. He seems mysterious and scary because you don't know who he is, not because who he actually is. (that said I don't agree that mysteries are always great just because they are mysterious, mysteries have to be interesting to solve and if there is no way to make reasonable guesses, then its just "huh weird thing happened". But I absolutely believe that twist of god of secrets being bit of a poser is great secret.)
I can say that even with quoting English dictionary, the word has negative connotation like that person on going for crusade is doing something ridiculous or self righteous even in context of it actually being used to refer to good cause like human rights or something. (I can't really speak from Finnish perspective because Finnish word for it has primarily meaning of "war to spread Christianity especially to non believers" so its primary use IS in historical context) Like having your cause being referred as crusade I've only seen being used in insulting or belittling context. (also I feel like if word "jihad" would absolutely make Christians angry if used to refer to righteous cause in fictional setting, heck the western fiction using the word I've heard of seem to use it in same negative context as word crusade)
I'd assume Pathfinder Society AP is less PFS AP and more something like Shattered Star or Serpent's Skull where you play as member of society or are closely allied with them. Like how Dead Suns isn't SFS AP, but its AP where you play as starfinder society members. (would actually be nice for me too, archaeology focused AP would be nice and I prefer AP gameplay to PFS gameplay if I can choose x'D)
The Euro-centric origin of RPGs has bitten the industry in the past, even when effort is taken to try to mitigate cultural blind-spots. And "crusade" has negative connotations even outside of the Christianity vs. Islam thing: The Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars in the Provence region, the Baltic Crusades in Northern Europe, the Fourth Crusade sacking Byzantium/Constantinople, etc. Yeah, even the quote "main" crusaders were series of unfortunate events where increasingly incompetent and greedy people turned it into increasing farce. I guess its kinda similar to how V for Vendetta made people forget that Guy Fawkes mask is to make fun of guy who tried to blew up the king (because he wanted a catholic monarch on the throne) and failed in incredibly embarrassing way. Over here I don't think school ever taught anyone about crusaders actually having been a good thing, like Crusader Kings game series is probably biggest source of crusader memes and its very explicit about how crusades were greed motivated.
That said, other than themes, I'm also eager to hear about what sorts of monster themes or genre themes people are interested in, beyond just generalized themes and regional themes (all of which are still very interesting and important to continue sharing!). Or even PC build themes. We've done 3 of these so far—the "dwarf" and "orc" and "elf" themed campaigns. Would people be interested in us exploring that in other areas, but instead of focusing on ancestry themes, doing it with religions, or organizations, or even classes? I do have niche interests like seeing Kwanlai tengu politics, nexian fleshforges and mutant groups in mana wastes. Never say no to aberration heavy APs, there is reason why I'm big fan of idea of Dominion of the Black alien invasion ap xD In general, seeing Droon, Nurvatcha, Murraseth and Diguo-Dashu in ap would be cool and unexpected because of my usual interest in xenofiction, heck just ap about those haunted clockworks of Clicking Caverns would be cool and also great opportunity to explore Nagajor. Heck seeing Usaro with chara-kau being less uncomfortable is interesting idea with city's new developments. New aquatic adventure would be great, I'd love more shattered continent content, but 2e aquatic campaign wouldn't need to be ruins of azlant sequel. We've already had couple "evil god" campaigns and those were cool, so why not do that for "neutral" or benevolent gods as well? Regarding more "mainstream" interests, I've wanted to see serpentfolk AP once again xD Serpent's Skull is cool concept that deserves second try. I've also always wanted AP that deals with themes of more obscure fiends, qlippoths, sahkil, rakshasa, asura, they all make for good APs I think with potential demigod as big bad behind the main villain or even final boss. Religion based campaigns does sound like good idea, it reminds me of how some campaigns have subtheme of specific god related material showing up often, but it being explicitly their worshipers' campaign would be something new. I've also been interested in faction specific ap (whether playing as member or just dealing with them, I liked SoT and Prey for Death after all, though I think Hellknight pc AP without anti chaos mechanics feels weird and Hellknights are better enemies anyway since most of orders are different variety of fascist civilian oppression methods and with Firebrands I have really specific kind of AP I'd want to see which is playing as serious firebrands and occasionally having to deal with shenanigans of braggarts and how to turn them into effective assets rather than Chaotic Wildcards that ruin the actual plan xD) (also I was sad that outlaws of alkenstar wasn't written as no caster ap, but we have done great as party of inventor, alchemist, fighter and gunslinger even if we keep finding healing staffs xD So I guess that counts as class specific interest, the martial only ap) There are honestly too many ideas(I didn't even get to ramble about serpent or dragon war xP this post is ALREADY too long, how am I ever expected to tell all the lovely ideas I wanna see? x'D) I'd love to see and I feel unlikely any of them would get picked out because they'd need someone with a passionate elevator pitch to work on them so that the wider audience would get excited about them too
Crusade is from pov of non English speaking person even in out of context a weird thing because it directly refers to crucifix aka Christianity and specific series of real life events and its often used negatively to talk about zealous loons on warpath.(like its often used negatively to talk about moral guardians wanting to censorship media for children) Like out of context, when it gets used positively in fictional settings, it looks like its just because word itself sounds cool or something because there doesn't appear to be deeper reason for the specific mostly negative term being chosen? Like, why don't fictional settings just use term "Holy War" to refer to religious faction organizing a war effort, or does that term have even more negative connotations?
That's basically what my long answer would have been, but I didn't have good moment to write it. Basically, issue isn't that every campaign needs recurring npcs(rotr has some but doesn't need them), issue is that some of campaigns that would benefit from recurring npcs(like ones involving community, group, base, organization, etc) and/or have them don't really use them. Like AP NPCs that are introduced in way that makes you feel like they are gonna be important and you are going to see their stories grow over campaign then they disappear for most of it. (and sometimes even that can work with mixed results, like with ruins of azlant further you move away from colony, less you are going to see settler npcs until you return, and it works because all of npcs are kinda introduced as type of civilians who just want to live their life in peace. But the most of npcs are shopkeepers or minor quest givers, and reason you don't see them is because you travel far away from settlement to new locations. So of course it makes sense that shopkeeper doesn't come with you and you can be like "oh hey long time no see" when you finally return. Meanwhile in SoT new Magambyan npc casts for book 3-5 tend to be students and teachers you never saw before and it makes you wonder "Hey where did our friends go?" Like sure, makes sense when you travel away from Nantambu that you meet new npcs, but why the recurring npc cast from Magambya transforms into a revolving cast for couple books? In Edgewatch the problem is even worse, you spend entire campaign in single city, but your colleagues in Edgewatch are never important npcs and you keep being introduced to new npcs allies who rarely show up again in the newer books. Extinction Curse on other hand treats circus members like equipment peaces, most screentime that explores them as people is the blog fiction on paizo.com. TLDR: Without familiar faces, there isn't building up camaraderie as a member of group.) In 1e it was easier for oneoff book npcs to turn into recurring npcs since they were easier to take along as party npcs and level up over time so that can skew people's views on them. Iron gods doesn't have recurring npcs but it has lot of easy to recruit npcs. Greta from Reign of Winter is technically one scene wonder, but she ended up as party npcs in notable amount of campaigns.
No they didn't. Council of Thieves, Kingmaker, and Serpent's Skull all had early-introduced NPC allies drop out of the story (or, to be more generous, be left to the GM to do with as they would). Correction is that CRIMSON THRONE did well with it. And SoT on is good example for me because there really isn't strong reason to introduce new cast in books 3, 4 and 5 since besides students introduced in book 1, none of book 2 pc's new students show up either :'D Like... Book 1 students coming back in book 6 just kinda highlights that just because adventure is high level isn't reason to not use them (Jade Regent in general is great example of 1e ap that handles NPCs exactly as PF2e aps do for most part besides like Fist of Ruby Phoenix: there is cast of npcs who are supposed to be important allies to PCs, but they never really do anything after book 1 outside of occasional mentions)
I don't see Kerkamoth (Monitor Demigod) listed anywhere, but I don't know if that's an oversight, or just really meta... Heard this from discord, but basically Otolmen disappearing in War of Immortals is kinda meant to imply same happened to all Primordeal Inevitables. Meta wise reason is that they are still inevitables and due to ogl removal they aren't going to show up, but the First Arbiter aeon demigods aren't 100% replacements despite all four of them being suspiciously close to four primordial inevitables that got removed. Anyway, reason why they disappeared like that is that so its easy for GM to bring them back in home game even if they never show up in canon again.
Also heard from discord: Cormigus is inside joke about paizo livestream technical problems when chat started to joke about God of Sound having died. ---- But yeah Neshen has same edicts and anathema so that seems like error. Also slightly confused by some changes between previous PF2e deity statblock and post remaster for Zev, but I don't think that's error per say, just "Wait, Xulgath's can't use stealth now?"
Question: why did Zevgavizeb edicts and anathema get changed from Extinction Curse? It creates weird things like Xulgath Stalkers breaking Zevgavizeb's new anathema, especially because he didn't seem like demon lord how hates stealth x'D like to compare his old edicts/anathema Edicts expand your clutch’s domain, dominate your enemies, demonstrate mastery over your crafts and environment, devour the weak
got changed to Edicts Slaughter the cowardly, subjugate the weak
making it kinda seem like his cunning predator aspects got changed to "he is purely brute force"
Well well well :O According to Nexus, set has indeed gotten changes "Areas of Concern Darkness, deserts, murder, storms Divine Sanctification Can choose holy or unholy Edicts Bring chaos to society, murder those who stand in your way, defeat your foes with personal strength and cunning, kill fiends Anathema Permit the spread of the desert to fertile lands, refuse to fight your own battles, aid Apep or other omnicidal gods" Just to compare his previous anathema was "Anathema Refuse to fight your own battles, destroy a soul instead of turning it to undeath"
I don't have divine mysteries on demiplane and I was able to see link to Naderi you posted .-. Turns out you can witness deities list without book I guess? I'm slightly confused (Either way its handy, I can now update my PFS Damerrich champion without needing to wait web supplemental table to be out xD) (nexus seems to have missed book had two versions of Lissala, the ancient version and modern version. Ancient version allows both holy and unholy and modern only unholy)
Which page?Naderi is in there.It kinda seems like they could have just emphasized her nature as goddess of tragedy and grief, if they really did remove her completely that seems confusing.Nope, no sign of her...I suspect it might be because of what she's the goddess OF, and the risk of portraying that as glamorous or romantic...** spoiler omitted **Does she appear in the supplemental table? Because if yes then its just matter of space, if no, then that raises eyebrow. I'm assuming they mean the web supplemental table that only the subscribers got early and we haven't seen final version of it on public yet? But now I'm confused with mixed info
I heard other half was reprinted in supplemental table file subscribers apparently got, but the updated version isn't available yet and I'm like "when will we get it? I wanna the full list" x'D
Well this is annoying. The other osirian gods indeed aren't listed in memoriam section and several of them are mentioned in list of pantheon/etc members (like Sekhmet in Faith's Flamekeeper" as possible witch patron god), but I can't find them from appendix so unless there is extra table I'm missing, they are among gods that don't have remaster updated mechanics despite still being around :p
Nope, no sign of her...I suspect it might be because of what she's the goddess OF, and the risk of portraying that as glamorous or romantic...** spoiler omitted **Does she appear in the supplemental table? Because if yes then its just matter of space, if no, then that raises eyebrow. It kinda seems like they could have just emphasized her nature as goddess of tragedy and grief, if they really did remove her completely that seems confusing.
(Psst what was the perfect quip opportunity for Mr. Gorber?? I might need suggestions to up my quip game x'D) Also uh, that review made me realize that while I'm not one to speak(one of my edgewatch reviews was so long it broke text count), being concise definitely helps than making overly long feedback so I should learn that lesson. Like, I can grasp the points of review on second reading ("overall lack of focus, too many victory point subsystems that feel like they aren't meaningful while ignoring campaign specific mechanics, red herrings and such taking away from developing norgorber side of plot, big bad being more incompetent than they should be, editing mistakes"), but by time I'm done with reading it, I forget what was the actual argument of the point. For example, my own reading of ap as whole was that its a plot about Opera that transitions eventually to Opera like plot about Norgorber in final act in book 3. So why does the review treat Opera half of Opera AP as sideplot? Is it saying that circus ap should indeed never have been built around as circus or that ap doesn't succeed at making opera half as compelling as norgorber half or fusing them enough? Is it related to Opera's flavor and mechanics being written as generic because they are supposed to be customized around PCs' previous campaign or something else? I have kind of similar "I think I lost the plot of what argument was trying to say on each point" experience through reading the review. I feel like review from time moves onto from critical analysis to kinda just being feeling negative(like 10 sessions to collect victory points confuses me if that was hyperbole or what actually happened. Was it criticism of what the campaign was like or hyperbolic exclamation?) and drag to read. Its super heavy to read and just sheer amount of it kinda tired me out. (I feel like its not even necessarily about me disagreeing with review, I haven't read either of book 1 and 2 in detail, but book 3 was my clear favorite to read. In my case though I know its mostly because the generic nature of "use this as toolbox to tell players' opera" isn't as interesting to read for me, but I did like how genuinely ap dedicated itself to non combat stuff. But to me an ideal opera campaign would have the story around producing it somehow thematically resonate with plot of opera itself and that's just not impossible to write in the generic setup, so to me most of book 1 and 2 felt like "This is what gm will replace if they or players have better idea on how to do THEIR opera". But yeah its kinda like with Strength of Thousand, I've been enjoying playing through the AP, but there are comments both us players and gm agree are weird or feel off or could have been handled better so its definitely not the perfect ap despite amount of positive attitude towards it I could grasp on paizo.com. Season of Ghost is so far to me the best written 2e AP as a whole.)
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