Urgir is Koldukar. The Hold is a much, much bigger place.
Details of what's under Urgir have been covered in depth (pardon the pun) in the adventures of Eando Kline as covered in his collected Journals: The Compass Stone. These are serialised in RoTR, CoCT and 2nd Darkness.
Chapters 9 (Thin Air) to 16 (City of Serpents) relate to Belkzen and the world below it.
I don't see how this is complicated - Detect Poison pings on everything that is designated as "poison", by use of that game term. If the word "poison" doesn't appear in the description (or the description of anything referenced), it's not poison.
I'm going to end up being that dude who won't drop the PF Tales line, but in at least one PF Tales novel (Liar's Island) they go mad if away from their master for too long and become dangerously aggressive. In that case, it was homunculi and mandragoras who were deliberately sealed away to defend a place in the specific knowledge that this would happen.
Honestly, after re-reading Bloodbound by Wes over the weekend, I can see a fringe sect of Pharasma doing this on the sneaky.
However, I can't believe your party only has one big red button pusher.
My group has 3 of them who would do it for different reasons and one who might do it in pursuit of knowledge if he felt at the time that the benefits outweighed the risks.
There are non-state societies on Golarion (Sarkoris is one, though possibly not for much longer; the Realm of the Mammoth Lord's is another; still others include the various Ekujae nations). And there are countries with more than one state. For instance, the River Kimgdoms is a country that includes the states of Narland, Daggermark, Gralton and others; Varisia is a country and contains the states of Magnimar, Korvosa, and Janderhoff, and the non-state Shoanti peoples; the Lands of the Linnorm Kings include several loosely confederated states.
There certainly are non-State societies but by what measure are you defining them as 'countries'? Rather than defining the states themselves as countries?
For example, what definition of 'country' are you using for Varisia? It seems more to be, as the wiki describes it: "a collection of independent city-states that each holds sway over a small collection of towns and villages, while the wilds on the edges of their territory"
A city-state is a country by most definitions that I can find. See Monaco's title of second most densely populated country in the world.
I'd be similarly hard-pressed to define the River Kingdoms as a country.
There seems to be very little unifying anything across either Varisia or the River Kingdoms, same for the Ekujae nations, to call them countries any more than we would call Africa, Asia or Europe countries. The Realm of the Mammoth Lords seems to be a bit more culturally homogenous but still doesn't seem to meet the criteria.
You are rather more politically educated than me, from what I recall of your posting history, so this isn't some kind of trap question or anything. Just a thread derail based on genuine curiosity.
Secondly, if this or any player wants some well written evil in their campaign, first check their level of engagement with the rest of the setting. Do they get emotional at small moments, not just when defeating some conflict? Do they connect with the NPCs you introduce, solely for the purpose of roleplaying and not because it gives their PC a mechanical advantage?
If a player wants evil, they've got to give you a real and honest level of whatever alignment they're playing first. Otherwise, if THEY'RE being a trope, it makes no sense for you to go above and beyond. Remember: this player is managing ONE character. You, as the GM, are EVERYONE they meet.
See this right here? This is spot on.
You don't break out the good plates or glasses or dice or whatever for the guests you know are just gonna pee in your backyard.
I'll also point out that OP doesn't even say that this person is a player of theirs.
If they're not even a player, they can jog on. Ask them what their campaign universe looks like. When they don't answer tell them to come back when they have one so you can point out all the tropes and crap on their ideas.
To be fair that artifact does a lot more than I'm looking for it doesn't just control the portal there it also powers all the other elf gates.
My interpretation of events is that the Stone was designed to empower and control the elf-gates and by accident or coincidence it resonated with the portal and allowed it to be re-opened and used.
I would expect that the magic required to create and direct a portal would be even more advanced than the Stone.
I have nothing to base that on, mind you. But I think it makes for a cool story.
The Sovyrian Stone which is said to control the portal was crafted by Candlaron, an elven hero. The same stone that also powers the elf gates.
Unless the implication is that the portal existed prior to the Sovyrian Stone with some other means to create it. It's unclear.
Well, nobody can ask Candlaron because he's vanished. But my assumption is that he worked out how to control a pre-existing portal for which the original (and correct) method was long lost. Like someone hooking a car battery up to power other electrical devices or something.
Also, I cannot pronounce his name as anything other than 'candle-ron' in my head and that name inspires images of thick 1970's mustache.
Quote:
Regardless! The magic used to do this is ancient artifact level magic and whatever in game method is decided upon should be similar in scope (i.e. artifact level magic). So I stand by my earlier point.
Absolutely agreed on that point. In fact, this points to it being super-mega-ultra artifact level because elf-gates are artifact level magic in any case so portals would be even artifactier.
I guess that could be one take, but I'm not sure I agree with it fully.
The lore is explicit that they are different things:
Distant Worlds - pg53 wrote:
Few realize, however, that the portal binding Golarion to Sovyrian was not one of their legendary aiudara (or “elf gates”) which link locations on a single world, but rather one of a network of interplanetary portals that predate the elves' existence
The Deck of Many Things is noted as a campaign killer and we all know why.
But what is the minimum level you think you'd need to be for everything it can do to be resolvable with a bit of effort?
For the sake of argument, assume a level of TO that's consistent with published guides but doesn't allow RAW tomfoolery. Pretend that you haven't necessarily just selected ALL THE PURPLE THINGS though.
Assume that you will have a party to help and just to make it interesting, assume the following party make-up:
- 1 x non-caster melee
- 1 x 6/9 support/buff spontaneous caster
- 1 x 9/9 arcane prepared caster
- 1 x Alchemist (I like alchemists :D, this is the only mandatory class)
- 1 x bizarre mishmash of 3 not very well aligned classes (To make things interesting. But assume you have the stats to support the MAD with at least a 16 in one key stat for each class and an 18 in the key stat for whatever is the 'primary' of the 3 classes. There can be some overlap of stats and abilities here, but we're looking more wiz/rogue/gunslinger than Oradin, for example)
You can assume that your PC is any one of these and also assume that the party is reasonably well coordinated and might even discuss build options to avoid overlap.
Assume your choice of either chained or unchained.
It’s not that it might be boring, but that as several posters have pointed out there is the very real possibility that HR will only exist to protect the company from the workers.
Both my dad and my sister in-law are qualified HR professionals working in the field. At different stages, both my spouse and I have had recourse to refer matters to our own HR for resolution.
In conversation in both of our personal experiences (and yes, I mean direct responses from HR), and with people in the same field in other circumstances it has been confirmed to us, in writing, that the role of HR is to act on the company's behalf and not the workers'.
That is literally what a union is designed to counteract.
I agree fully with Twisted Tendrils--simply recognizing it isn't enough.
Agreed with both of you.
Voluntarily recognising the union would have been a good first step in demonstrating the commitments in the various blog post vague assurances that we have received were genuine.
In fact, the longer this takes, the more concerned I am.
However, recognising the union would still only be a first step, and a small one. There are many issues that still need to be addressed with concrete action including transphobic policies & practices and the doxxing of customers by an executive of the company.
They are, imo, the two most serious issues that have still not been addressed. One received a half-hearted pseudo-mea-culpa. The other has yet to be even raised beyond a vague allusion to executives having gay(not sure of the relevance) staff that they kind of like and wouldn't say mean things in front of.
Oh, sure it would be difficult but not impossible to enforce.
However, since I brought up the GDPR first, I should probably explain my reasons for doing so:
1. I'm pretty happy that any legal protections I have from similar circumstances extend beyond charges of doxxing or harassment. This is as it should be and I wish more people had those protections.
2. It demonstrates one of either two things. Especially since it happened twice. Either
(i) Jeff behaved in a fit of pique on two separate occasions without giving thought to the ramifications his actions might have for the company he represented at the time and continues to represent. Remember, Paizo certainly does have international forum users and customers. Both would be protected from such actions. I'm pretty sure the only shipping info Paizo have for me is from when I lived in Australia. I am now safely within the bosom of my EU home, so even if the addresses held by Paizo were checked, that doesn't mean they were correct at the time.
or
(ii) Jeff did consider the ramifications of those actions and decided that since there were lesser protections available to the individuals whose personal information he released, he decided to go ahead and do it.
I too work in this area, and the name, in each case, was absolutely both provided, processed and leaked as an identifier as defined in Article 4 of the Regulation.
More GDPR:
The GDPR is not specifically around making sure algorithms don't go rogue and that is a bizarre claim to make, given that the Regulation specifically refers to data that is processed wholly, partly or in a non-automated manner for filing purposes. Storage in eletronic data bases is well established as processing in an automated manner, even in cases where manual retrieval occurs, as happened in both cases being discussed.
Article 5(1)(b) prevents data from being processed in a way that is incompatible with the legitimate purposes for which it is provided. Releasing names via online forums in order to intimidate customers is, pretty soundly, not within the legitimate purposes for which that data was provided.
Aaaannnddd.... even if you might try to argue on the Article 5 issues and claim that that was a legitimate purpose, consent for the data to be processed in that manner was withdrawn a couple of weeks prior to the identifiers being redacted - in line with Article 7(3).
What is murky from the regulation is if protection only applies to citizens. The Regulation (Article 3) refers to data subjects who are in the Union, not to data subjects who are citizens of the Union and wider principles of EU law confirm that anyone residing in the Union wold be equally protected.
If either data subject had been on a holiday, or even a work trip, at the time of the breaches, they may arguably be protected.
Agreed that the protections should be more widely available in other jurisdictions, but I'm not optimistic.
I'd love to be proven wrong about management, but I'll settle for supporting a company where I know the trans-friendly workers have enough power to make demands and to be paid more fairly for their contributions.
The Union have enough of the good names on board that I'd buy their OGL content for the rest of my life rather than anything Paizo created if it ever came to that.
Thank you for sharing EU law. It is nice to see how other parts of the world's jurisprudence works.
I would be interested in learning if Jeff was aware of any potential international legal implications (particularly given that shipping address is no indicator of or genuine location of residence) when he went off half-cocked or if it was further evidence poor leadership by extremely senior management in the company.
Either way, it's not a good look and is, frankly, despicable from a company that expects to be trusted with personal information regardless of the legality of the situation.
And I take great comfort in the fact that should a similar fit of pique take place in my case, I would be excellently protected.
Paizo, including their website, specifically operate within Europe and are, therefore, required to comply with EU data protection requirements, including the General Data Protection Regulation.
This was (at least two instances of) a malicious breach by senior management of the company that went unrectified for at least several weeks in one case and almost two years in the other.
In fact, ast least one such breach was doubled down on by that senior manager, who is the president of the company to this day.
Fines in this instance can stretch up to 5% of global turnover per instance to a maximum of €20m, again per instance.
It is hard to see how deliberate malfeasance would not attract the maximum penalty.
I love a lack of grey areas arising from respect for personal data.
Surprisingly, we've had a slight burst of new guides recently. Except as noted, all of the following (ignoring guides to 3rd party stuff) are linked from the Zenith Gaming Guide to the (1st Edition) Guides (and this might have missed some guides that got updated in 2019 or later but didn't have this reflected in the Guide to the Guides
Hmmmm.
I didn't phrase myself very well there. It's not that you're not doing a dashed fine job. It's that for many classes, the most up to date overall guide is still years out of date.
Looking at clerics as an example. The last whole-of-class guide is Tark's from 2014, dealing with Core and APG only.
Then there are a couple of guides about specific builds or class features.
The same holds true for many of the classes. It's not a Zenith thing though. It's just that very few people really did much in the way of bigger guides after a certain point and focused on specifics instead.
Zenith is getting remarkably depopulated from a 1e perspective and even before 2e came about, many of the guides hadn't been updated for new material in years.
I really love the shifting nature of our hobby sometimes...
you want to daka daka and buff and heal and use all marital weapons and armor (and disable magic traps with the right obedience) then you need to be a Calamity Caller like everyone else.
What's the highest level digital only pledge and what decisions does I need to make on it?
I'm new to kickstarter and live where shipping costs make fun and love things of the past.
I think that is the $14 tier. All the pledge levels are on the page. It it best to ask your questions directly on the Kickstarter page so they can guide you. Enjoy!
Thanks! Asked a more KS savvy friend and will be backing over the weekend when the pay comes in.
No such list - I outsource that sort of thing to search engines - but I could give you a bunch of suggestions if you like. Are you looking at threads here or ones on other forums too?
That would be awesome.
I've started a small list on my profile based on some posts I still had open in tabs. I'm going to keep the list public and keep working on it as I come across anything.
I haven't always linked directly to the first post in a thread either.
The issue with searching seems to be that they don't all use the consistent '1001...' terminology.
I think primarily on Paizo forums first but if you have any good links to other sources, I'll just add your post to the list.
I think the broader we can make the list the better a resource it can be for pretty much anyone who needs it and if it starts to get unwieldy, I'm happy to curate it into different lists with different criteria.
