Khasalianus Nightstar's page

Stepping in here just to explain where the Starfinder team is at on this. Note, this applies to STARFINDER and not for anything related to the Pathfinder stuff.

Right now, and in our upcoming products, drow are drow and remain so as long as our products are under the OGL. Don't worry about some radical change suddenly appearing in Starfinder Enhanced or Mechageddon!.

Going forward, the team has had some talks about drow and how we might handle them in a post-ORC published Starfinder world. I want to share some insight into this, in hopes of not adding fuel to the fire, but instead let you know how seriously we're taking this, and because I firmly believe we should be open about as much as we can be.

The biggest element that we've agreed on for this whole situation, is that we don't just be "disappearing" drow and having Apostae suddenly become a barren world or have it entirely populated by xulgaths. What we are leaning towards is likely a change to Apostae's primary residents that keeps the spirit of what they currently are in-line with what we have, but make them less directly pulled from OGL-isms. This means a redesign that would remove their existing name, and a lot of the old associations with certain elements that, quite honestly, we've barely had time to delve into with Starfinder beyond stuff like the write-ups in Pact Worlds and some appearances by drow in APs.

A good example of this, would be that instead of households, we might just shift Apostae's residents to being corporation-based, which works WAY better anyways for telling futuristic dystopian stories. Similarly, we'd already been planning on removing some of the matriarchal elements from this, and I suspect we'll just clear those out going forward.

TLDR: Yes, the team is actively aware of the likely need to change. We have plans and discussions have already happened. We're not at a point to lock anything in place, and really don't need to, because we have at least a year of OGL-content that we're still releasing for Starfinder....

Appreciate the honesty and straight-forwardness of this. I'm sad Drow are going extinct, but as someone pointed out, why not just replace them with the Svartalfar that you already have? Perhaps you could even introduce a split, with the Svartalfar staying focused on the arcane, while a splinter group could be the Dokkalfar, focusing on corporations, tech, etc.

Hmm, I need to re-evaluate the timeline, then. I didn't see the reference to 1 AT for the Azlanti Star Empire, so more research is required.

-D

So, I got bored one day, and combed through lots of different references and came up with the following suggested timeline of stuff related to the Gap. See what you think and offer up any suggestions.

Azlanti Time (AT) is used to denote years from the founding of the Azlanti Empire on Golarion.

Absalom Reckoning (AR) is used to denote years on Golarion before the gap.

Pre-Gap (PG) is used to denote years of Pact Standard Time prior to the known end of the Gap in the Pact Worlds system, about 323 years ago.

After Gap (AG) is used to denote years of Pact Standard Time that have passed since the known end of the Gap in the Pact Worlds system, about 323 years ago.

-6820 AR / 9615 BC Earth / 0 AT / -10218 PG / -13678 AG
The Azlanti Empire is founded

-6632 AR / 9427 BC Earth / 188 AT / -10030 PG / -13490 AG
Eox fired their experimental planetary destroyer weapon on Daimar and Iovo (known as the twins. The weapon successfully shattered thet wins and it got turned into the asteroid belt now called The Disapora, but the weapon also completely destroyed Eox's atmopsphere and killed off much of its population. Eoxian used necromancy to survive, and today Eox is dominated by the undead and ruled by powerful Necrovites.

-6530 AR / 9325 BC Earth / 290 AT / -9928 PG / -13388 AG
Founding of the Thassalion Empire.

-5968 AR / 8763 BC Earth / 852 AT / -9366 PG / -12826 AG
The imperator drafted a formal charter to provide resources for space exploration programs, split between the Scientific Exploration and Expansion Bureau and the Aeon Exploitation Office, which explored technological and magical approaches, respectively. Both managed to send unmanned craft to suborbital space, but all were destroyed upon re-entry.

-5293 AR / 8088 BC Earth / 1527 AT / -8691 PG / -12151 AG Earthfall
A giant meteorite, now referred to as the Starstone, is called down from the heavens by alghollthus and destroys the continent of Azlant. The event becomes known as Earthfall, reshapes the surface of Golarion, creates the Inner Sea, and plunges the world into the Age of Darkness. The great empires of Azlant and Thassilon are destroyed by Earthfall. Worship of Lissala was wiped out on Golarion.

Almost the entire staff of Amaznen Research Station in orbit around Eostrillon was killed in an explosion resulting from an experiment with aeon stone-laced gears. By replicating the incident, ISA scientists invented the onos drive, rendering space travel quick, reliable, safe and routine; this is considered to be the end of the early Azlanti space age.7 In the subsequent millennia, the onos drive was key to the Azlanti's conquest of all worlds in the Aristia system, but was still too slow for interstellar travel. Their scientists tried to develop starships and engines that could traverse to other solar systems, but no experiment succeeded, the other stars remained out of reach and the Star Empire confined to a single star.

4606 AR / 1811 AD Earth / 11426 AT / 1208 PG / -2252 AG
Death of Aroden.

4858 AR / 2063 AD Earth / 11678 AT / 1460 PG / -2000 AG
The Aeon Throne was created by Ixomander I, founder of the current Ixomander dynasty, when he became Star Imperator. The empire's supreme leader is called the Star Imperator, a role filled for the last two millennia by the Ixomander dynasty. This part of history is lost to the Gap and cannot be confirmed by historical records.

Space exploration begins?

Gap begins? Lasts approximately two thousand years.

6858 AR / 4063 AD Earth / 13678 AT / 3460 PG / 0 AG
The Gap ends. All dates are counted from this year forward. Ixomander dynasty now two millennia old.

Notes: I choose the year 2063 AD 'cause of Star Trek. Had to pick some date for this to make sense. Also, I'm just assuming a flat 2,000 years for the Ixomander dynasty, since it lasted two millennia.

-D

Well to quote from the store owner "It probably means we won't carry Pathfinder into the future. It's a trend over the last year."

Are there any plans to create a galaxy map for the Starfinder setting?

And just how much of the galaxy is explored/known?