Joviwan's page

One of the handiest narrative tools there is in Pathifnder is that on the other planes, things can just be what they need to be for funsies or because it feels right. The bones in the Boneyard are there because a boneyard needs bones. Whether they're manifestations of previous realities remains, echoes of all the dead who have perished in the current reality, remains left by the countless eons of living creatures who have died in that particular plane, mirrors of all bones on all worlds that have decayed to powder, the final remains of those judged to remain in the Boneyard in their afterlife, trophies claimed by something unknown... or something else entirely... they're there.

THE VIBES really are just a wonderfully compelling argument.

Thanks everyone, this has been helpful! :D

Habibi's answer is probably the most accurate--there are bones in the Boneyard because there should be, and the spiritual nature of the plane makes physical what is true to its purpose or meaning.

That said, I'm familiar with at least one adventure which seems to imply that the bones (and grave goods) of mortals also make their way to the Boneyard, which imho asks for at least one more layer of explanation. For me, this explanation was particularly convenient as I was also looking to elide the timeless trait of the Boneyard (as a matter of personal preference). I decided that, in addition to tombs being uploaded on consecration, there were further processes that allowed one to 'add' to the consecrated tomb. Namely, what made sense to me was that a body being laid to rest would be now considered a 'part' of the tomb and cause it's planar duplicate to manifest remains (for what reason youd want to create am extra corpse, I can't say--maybe having a skeleton waiting for you in the Boneyard symbolically guides your passage to the afterlife or even helps your soul accept Mortality once you're in the great afterlife queue awaiting your jusgement, idk).

Likewise, I liked the idea that living relatives may make offerings of food to the dead that manifested spiritual copies in the Boneyard at their graves. The dead don't *need* the food, but it's tasty and nourishes their heart, and mortal adventurers can maybe bargain with a departed soul for the food (normally not necessary in canon, but again, I was interested in removing the timeless trait).

Yeah it sounds like we're talking about the same adventure!

I've basically come up with that explanation as well, while pursuing a 'real' answer: As long as a place is consecrated, any remains properly interred afterwards get an appropriate backup. I've got two explanations I've decided are both true:
1) This is 'bait' for restless spirits to float back to first, rather than the material plane, leaving them safe and vulnerable for Psychopomps to come put them back where they belong.
2) This is the "final record" for the dead, a truly eternal memory that will persist and survive beyond what the material plane's mortals can preserve.

Outer planes (that Boneyard is part of) are metaphysical in nature and made of quitessence, or "soulstuff". Bones in Boneyard might not be actual bones but metaphysical manifestations of death, passing and moving on etc. This applies to all material and most of the beings in plane (here psychopomps). Hence the bones are not brought there but they have manifested in plane.

I do like this explanation. However, at least in this case, the module author is on record as saying "the critters that want to eat bones are in the boneyard in order to eat bones," so they appear on some level to be real actual bones being eaten.

Hello! I have some very silly questions and I have to assume there's a coherent answer and I just can't find it very quickly.

Why are there bones in the Boneyard? How did they get there? Who do they belong to?

People that die on Golarion don't take their bones to the boneyard, as far as I understand it. And copies of tombs and gravesites that are uploaded into the boneyard upon consecration copy everything that was there, but does that include people who were only laid to rest afterwards?

I've started running a particular 1e campaign and this is gonna be an extremely salient question for my group in one or two sessions. I can make something up, but I'm sure there's a real answer somewhere. Any insight appreciated!

I came searching the forums for answers to basically all the same questions and couldn't find any. I suspect there just may not be answers to these questions at this time.

...4 months later:

there's a chart on the bottom of this page

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment---final/armor

That says Tiny and smaller armors have their defense decreased by half.

I'd probably have to lean on Mage Armor if I wanted to go that route. Armor values for tiny creatures get cut in half, so it's not really worth it until I have buckets of cash lying around.

Thanks for the advice everyone. :) Some neat ideas I hadn't thought of all up ins.

invisibility should be the way... Same problem with levels... but rings of invis or being a wizard should do the trick

I was thinking Vanish, but yeah, it's a good track.

Poking people with shocking grasp is better than sneak attack?

Oh, and dont forget the wording of the "long limbs" abberant ability:

Long Limbs (Ex): At 3rd level, your reach increases by 5 feet whenever you are making a melee touch attack. This ability does not otherwise increase your threatened area. At 11th level, this bonus to your reach increases to 10 feet. At 17th level, this bonus to your reach increases to 15 feet.

So you can poke farther with it, but you wont threaten.

I believe you'll be better off as a magus (or sorcerer) played rogue-ishly than playing an actual rogue. Much more chance to get damage.

It's not necessarily a question of better. But in theory, the goal is for Shocking Grasp *and* Sneak Attack. The campaign has rules already to get my caster level high enough, if not my actual spellcasting, so it's a fun thing to add to it. Sneak attack on attack roll spells is just fun in general. :) And good catch on the long limbs. The important part really is "don't provoke AoO's by having to enter my enemy's square."

You're almost assuredly right re: not being a rogue, i was just really hoping to be a rogue for concept.

Aberrant is the only way to get it on touch spells. For normal attacks, a whip will let you attack at 5 or 10 ft, but it won't threaten without whip mastery.

Feat intensive, but it's not an awful idea. It's also funny.

Pretend for a minute you're in a Pathfinder E6 game. You have an arbitrarily large number of feats, but only 6 levels/hit dice.

Pretend, also, that your GM is totally insane and has used the ARG with you to make a Tiny faerie pc race.

Pretend, even more also, that you want to be a Rogue/Spellcaster hybrid that gets sneak attack on touch spells.

While pretending all of these things:

Name all the ways you can get to threaten adjacent squares while using Dex on attack rolls--preferably with your fingers!

Aberrant Bloodline Sorcerer is the only thing I could come up with so far. It's nearly perfect, except for the following points:
-To get to Sneak Attack that matters, you must be Rogue 3, but...
-If you are Rogue 3, you are not Sorcerer 4 (which means no 2nd level spells, because this is an E6 campaign).

Discuss!