Kittyburger's page

I STRONGLY advise against playing this in an uptier party. Many of the DCs for tier 11-12 are flatly impossible for a level 10 character, especially the save DCs in the final encounter.

"Lost Golarion"??

Lost Golarion has been a thing since the beginning of Starfinder! Golarion is VANISHED FROM THE UNIVERSE, the only thing present is Absalom Station.

It would not be fun for the player that it happened to on, but is there any reason why penumbra would not want to use her soul cage to drop a 6th level banishment spell on a player to thin out the PC's Ranks. It might to anti-fun to do first round and basically make someone miss out on a whole fight if they fail but if she where being threatnend by a big scary melee combatanbt I dont see any reason she would want that person to stick around.

Penumbra's tactics in general are pretty anti-fun for the player who, say, gets slammed as a 10th level champion with a dominate from a 13th level boss monster that her character has to roll a natural 22 to clear...

PF2 also just doesn't publish class specific content very often in general. Classes like the Investigator have never gotten a new subclass and only a tiny handful of new character options ever. In general, other than the APG there hasn't been much for any class. If anything the Champion is batting above average here.

Plus like, the Champion is a great class and it's kind of wild to point to that horrible new cleric archetype as evidence of some anti-Champion conspiracy.

Writers and editors are human beings and make human decisions. If they don't like/don't want a particular character (class) in their world, they're less likely to write for that character. No conspiracy required, just a plot element that may or may not be to a particular group of writers'/editors' taste.

"My class is too good at spellcasting, and I wish I had fewer spell slots so I could Strike more" is a really weird way of justifying the Battle Harbinger, but there's a valid point to be made that the Warpriest is more of a spellcaster with some gishy elements than a full gish. A Warpriest will want to Strike when they can, but they also have a lot of power to leverage via their spell slots and of course their divine font, so even a Warpriest who leans heavily into the Striking aspect of their playstyle will still cast spells. It's valid to want a Cleric doctrine that goes full gish, and trades off that spellcasting power for proper martial power.

Trouble is, the Battle Harbinger doesn't do that very well, and in fact it doesn't even do that better than a Warpriest. Despite the former's faster scaling, both end up with the same attack modifier, because the Battle Harbinger gets stuck with a Wisdom key attribute and is thus behind most other martials in accuracy half the time. When either hits with a Strike, they end up dealing the same baseline damage, because the Battle Harbinger still only gets weapon specialization at 13th level, and doesn't get greater weapon specialization, putting them significantly behind other martials. A Warpriest could use any 6th-rank or higher spell slot the Battle Harbinger doesn't get to prebuff with heroism and match or exceed the latter in accuracy, and could use any of their many lower-rank slots to cast bane, benediction, bless, and malediction on-tap, also to the same effect as a Battle Harbinger in any instance that doesn't involve counteracting. Effectively, the Battle Harbinger falls short at its intended assignment compared to existing options, and whatever feats the archetype picks to make up for it, the Warpriest can do equal or better, such as by picking Channel Smite for divine Spellstrikes (the Battle Harbinger is also behind a feat due to their dedication requirement).

In my opinion, here are the changes the Battle...

Battle Harbinger really would have fit better as a Champion archetype, but nooooooooo...

Literally ANYTHING for Champions.

I'm starting to feel like I should have rebuilt my PFS champion as a cleric because right now it feels like the champion's narrative space is getting steadily squeezed out of the game - you've got exemplar for the god-adjacent melee beatstick space, guardian for the stop the enemies from beating my friends space, and battle harbinger for the divine gish space; and champions don't even have their full premaster functionality back yet.

It kinda feels like Paizo hates champions and only even still has them in remaster to retain backwards compatibility with premaster.

Wooooooo!

Oh, also, they renamed the slayer, too, pretty obviously because "slayer sounds kind of murderous". I'm not actually saying the inquisitor change was entirely about offensiveness. I think they probably thought "inquisitor sounds kind of evil and might distract players".

Source, by the way: One of my players who didn't know the game well once played an inquisitor of Shelyn. His read on the class was that of an oppressive heel, so the joke was an extremely aggro orc Shelynite. The connotation is there.

I'm pretty sure the devs would change barbarian to berserker if they could get away with it, just because it's clearer, but it was a core class.

To me, "Slayer" should be some kind of magical rogue subtype - but I'm admittedly a 90s girl and when you say "Slayer," I think Buffy.

KoriCongo wrote:

Michael Sayre wrote:

CyberMephit wrote:

And those who came up with and support the idea of renaming it better not read up on real-life paladins :facepalm:

As of the remaster, PF2 doesn't have paladins, either.

I'm...unironically mad it took me two months for me to realize you guys did that...

Kind of does justify my point that the asterisk text there is showing your hands too much.

I would hazard a guess that moving away from paladin was to divorce from D&D-isms primarily and that this aspect is a happy accident. Where divorcing from associations with the people who destroyed the history of the Mayans, the Meshika(Aztec), and probably more cultures on Turtle Island(North America), is just good sense

Did I miss something? The Paladins were the 12 knights-companion of Charlemagne. The application of that name to characters who were more like the Knights Templar was largely an example of the anachronism stew that was Gygax's D&D game.

Saw some archetype pictures in the twitch stream. The Rivethun emissary is Shardra, so combining the archetype with the new animist class...

:)

So glad to see Shardra make her triumphant return. I was hoping she wouldn't be consigned to the history books after Crystal left.

I’m still curious how illustrations are being accused of being “photoshopped”.

It's a way of discrediting the artists (and by implication, the company that commissioned them) by accusing them of plagiarism. It's also trivially easy to prove wrong, as many if not most of the comparisons he made are between images that share little more than a slight cosmetic resemblance (he moved off of the claim of "photoshopping" when challenged, revising it to a claim that Lucasfilm or Paramount might sue over a "vague resemblance" when the legal standard for copyright violation is "striking similarity," i.e. the presence of features whose ONLY explanation is direct copying of copyrighted material).

It's also a way to derail the conversation by moving the topic onto something unrelated but at least mildly spicy.

I assume US law requires Paizo to have made efforts to protect their IP or else lose their rights to it. IANAL, I don't know for sure.

Copyrights are a simple monopoly on the use of the work throughout the period of the copyright (which is why preservation of old films is such a pain - in many cases the owner of the copyright of the film literally does not exist anymore and there's no clear heir to those rights). If copyright was lost due to non-use or non-protection it would clear up a LOT of problems in archiving copyrighted material.

Trademarks, on the other hand (which is a weird blanket that basically covers every single possible proper noun in a fictional work that could be economically exploitable) do have to be protected or you do lose them.

I also don't get why someone's fan AP, if they're not charging any money, isn't protected as a transformative work even if it does use Golarion proper nouns. What would happen if someone posted their homebrew Numeria content to AO3?

Generally speaking, transformative uses are, to quote the US Copyright Office, "those that add something new, with a further purpose or different character, and do not substitute for the original use of the work." (emphasis mine) Fan APs actually DO "substitute for the original use of the work," which is why you can't use "Golarion proper nouns" without a license to do so. You can make fan APs because the rules qua the rules are not copyrightable - i.e. the common observation that you can't copyright game mechanics, only a particular expression of them.

Copyright law sucks and is a huge headache for everybody.

I am very concerned about the abruptness of this change. This feels really sudden and awkward, as well as problematic from an Organized Play perspective since Starfinder 1st is still going to be supported through the Year of Era's End season through GenCon 2025. This feels like it wasn't fully thought-out before it was announced.

I'm so stoked to see the final release, and sink my teeth into the new witchwarper and precog!!

I really don't like calling their "alternate [reality / timeline / spatiality / whatever]" schtick a Quantum Field. I have said it before, but, the word "quantum" is so overused and diluted in sci fi, it's lost all meaning. Especially given that quantum science and quantum computing are still burgeoning fields in real life, the more that those fields develop and mature (and usage of the word "quantum" along with that), the more that using "quantum" as a stand-in for "something weird, spooky, and/or high tech" will feel quaint and outdated.

Fun fact: There was a "Radio Cleaners" in downtown Minneapolis in the 1930s. It had nothing to do with radio, just a dry cleaner shop, but "radio" had connotations of new, modern, and high-tech.

In the 1940s-60s it was anything to do with aviation and space (jet-, strato-, rocket-, space-age...) In the 1970s-90s it was computer tech. Same as it ever was, same as it ever was.

Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti wrote:

What information do we have on the dragon folk heritage?

The Dragonblood versatile heritage will be very customizable. You can choose how dragon-looking you are (ranging from "basically a humanoid with a dragon for a head, to just having horns and draconic eyes, and everything else in-between). There'll be 4 lineages to choose, one of each magical tradition (Arcane, Divine, Occult and Primal). And a fair bit of the Kobold's draconic features were ported over and adjusted for the Dragonblood.

So everything from Dragonborn (D&D) to Dragonborn (Skyrim). Cool!

Starcatcher wrote:

RIP... no, wait, he'd hate that.

I believe the appropriate epitaph would be RIV.

}

This feels like a trend for Quinn, but I’m not sure why I think that.

Also what is Quinn’s orientation? MLM?

Mark Moreland just said he's gay. And apparently clueless. ;)

Legendary investigator. Clueless AF. That's our Quinn!

Quinn. Buddy. My Paladin Sophiriel is the epitome of useless lesbian and SHE could see the goo-goo eyes that Rhys was giving you!

Qaianna wrote:

Gromiel the "Archeologist" wrote:

Ravingdork wrote:

They have and they haven't, and where they have, it's pretty scattered about in various official blogs, Twitch streams, book publications, and other sources.

Drow have been retconned to have never existed. They were either subterranean lizard people, false reports made by surface dwellers, or evil cabals of cavern elves.

Dragons and many other creatures don't need such changes; as they're still very much a part of the setting. Even though you won't see them printed anymore owlbears still populate the forests of the Inner Sea.

I said it was underground lizard people all along and everyone just laughed at me.

Well, what do surface iruxi think?

I think the surface iruxi would kindly remind inquiring apefolk that not every reptile is a lizard, and that once upon a time in the world there were many reptilian civilizations and very few mammalian civilizations so an underground reptile empire seems just as plausible as an underground mammal empire

You just reminded me that I have a Xulgath tribe led by a disguised Skelm lurking around in my campaign that clearly needs something to do.

"Press [F] to pay respects"

moosher12 wrote:

Of course they should follow their code, but what I find concerning is this situation:

So if a justice champion is a loyalist for one brother, and hates the other brother, but the other brother wins, should the justice champion be obliged toward switching to that brother's side or change class?

If both brothers have a host of justice champions that are loyal to their seat on the throne, what should the champions of the losing side do?

They should... follow their code.

Perhaps they think that fully claiming the throne by force and/or killing everyone else with a claim is enough to make you the rightful ruler. Then they should acknowledge and accept that the winner is now the rightful ruler. Perhaps they do not think this thing, and instead think that the man currently on the throne has somehow rendered himself unfit for the position. Then they should react accordingly. If two brothers each have a group of loyal champions of justice, and each orders them into battle, and they consider these to be lawful orders, then they should do battle with one another... just as they would if they were aligned with different governments, and those governments were in a dispute over the proper disposition of a certain chunk of land.

A justice champion's code just tells you what to do with respect to the rightful rulers. You yourself have to decide who is the local rightful ruler (or if anyone is) based on your own interpretations. Everything else descends from that.

Squiggit wrote:

Sanityfaerie wrote:

I mean, I'd love to play around the grey edges of these things, but... it only goes so far.

Farther than I think you're giving it credit for.

A cleric of Abadar or Calistria (or another god that allows both) can choose to Sanctify to Unholy and as far as I can tell has absolutely no requirements whatsoever needed to maintain that sanctification (other than the rule about gaining the opposite trait). Maintaining their powers as is, including

...

Just gonna repeat what I said before: "My Lord is the rightful ruler of these lands, and his brother is a feckless usurper who must be overthrown for the good of all" is a CLASSIC character trope for a paladin knight (in the classical sense of the word "paladin" - a senior knight whose post is as a close guard to the king).

Sanityfaerie wrote:

I mean, there's an even simpler form. Old king dies, has two kids. Both kids have claims to the throne. Each asserts that their claim is the rightful one for various reasons. Which one is rightful? There's all sorts of different things you could slap in as arguments on either side and the answer would inevitably boil down to "personal interpretation".

Of course they should follow their code, but what I find concerning is this situation:

So if a justice champion is a loyalist for one brother, and hates the other brother, but the other brother wins, should the justice champion be obliged toward switching to that brother's side or change class?

If both brothers have a host of justice champions that are loyal to their seat on the throne, what should the champions of the losing side do?

"My lord is the rightful ruler and his brother is a feckless usurper " is a valid option.

MadScientistWorking wrote:

Ezekieru wrote:

Also, I do hope we get a lot more detail about the Alchemist if/when we get a blog about them! We were left with a lot more questions than answers from the Remaster panel at PaizoCon, so I hope Logan, or whoever they get to write the blog on the Alchemist, will give us a lot of detail about the class's changes in the coming weeks!

Shhh... Let them cook.

The book has to already be printing it is already as cooked as it is going to be for the moment.

Based on schedule, the first printing isn't just already printing, it's printed, in North America, and ready to be shipped out from the warehouse.

Helmic wrote:

Justice is a little annoying in that it does seem to be assuming Lawful tendencies, so not justice in that broad a sense. Liberation would probably be closer to the "justice" of the old Chaos alignment, more of the justice of the people weilded against authority rather htan the justice of the paladins that is more about defeating those that oppose a just (and usually, but now not always, benevolent) authoirty.

While Justice is typically interpreted as lawful, there are applications to non-lawful classical alignments.

Neutral Good might would of course favor fair treatment to all. A Sarenite

True Neutral would look at all sides of an issue, and try to come to the conclusion that is most objective. Ahem: Pharasma's court.

Neutral Evil would lean to more personal justices, or a more detached and professional view of what justice is, at the cost of others. Like an avenger going along a dark path. An antihero could be this type, attempting to exterminate an evil faction to exact justice on them, but they remain cruel to the citizenry as well, or care not for casualties. Alternatively, a professional agent that metes out what appears as justice to the average citizen, but is absolutely otherwise evil, like Homelander or Omniman.

Chaotic Good wants to bring about justice independent from law, actively righting wrongs that the rule of law could not. Firebrand ideology, basically.

Chaotic Neutral would seek personal interpretations of Justice, independent from law. Calistrians only care for the rule of law if it directly benefits them. Ultimately, they simply meet out revenge whenever they see fit.

And Chaotic Evil would alike seek personal intepretations of Justice, at the expense of others. Lamashtan ideology, for example wants justice for mistreated monsterfolk, but they are willing to exterminite non-monsterfolk to achieve this.

There are of course, other unsaid avenues by how alignments could gravitate toward Justice, but the main point is, Justice as a middle...

As you say, there are a LOT of interpretations of "justice." I have one RPG in my closet where "Justice" is used as a Bad Thing - it's a concept used by the monsters in the game to convince people to do horrible things to others because they think they have the just right to do so.

I love the split of 2 Holy Causes, 2 Unholy, and 3 Causes that can be sanctified, but you don't have to. That offers a lot of choice for how you want your Champion to play like, and opens the doors to many more kinds of "more Neutral" Champions post-Remaster.

Can we have someone confirm which of the two (Iniquity or Obedience) is the Tyrant/Antipaladin Cause? If I were a betting man, I'd say Tyrant sounds more like Obedience, while the Unholy-only Iniquity sounds like the new name of the former Antipaladin.

Obedience looks very Tyrant-y, with changes (I can see a stern and unyielding but not unholy Obedience Champion of Pharasma, for example).

Kittyburger wrote:

I'm sure that Disney lawyers had something to say about it, too.

They might have a ton to say about it (I hope they all play Starfinder, after all) but immediately assuming that they were involved in this decision in any way is a huge logical leap.

Not sure what grounds they'd have to get involved in whether or not Dae could have manifested a stellar mote at birth or not, in any case.

I did some work for Star Wars, once upon a time, and anything that looks sort of "Jedi-y" makes me imagine lawyers with red lightsabers closing in on the heroic redoubt, if you know what I mean and I think you do. ;)

Even casters have 3 actions per turn, and since casting typically takes 2, casters should have something useful to spend their third action on, like guidance, intimidation, battle medicine, bon mot, athletics, recall knowledge...

Don't get me wrong, getting slowed 2 as a caster IS harsh and eats away the majority of what you can do, but it's unlikely to crit fail twice in a row (with your heropoint) and if shield is the only 1-action thing your character can do, that's kinda on you. You could be taking out resources such as healing potions or scrolls or bombs and using those. You could be providing flank, aiding, or on the very least, tank a hit or two.

2/3 of the combat encounters in this scenario deal with monsters that can cast slow. If someone is unlucky enough on the dice, they can be reduced to 1 action per turn for 2/3 of the entire scenario, which doesn't feel right to my designer brain. Remember that a critical failure is not just a natural 1 but also -10 from the DC number (19 for the low tier). With level 1 proficiencies, that's on average 4 or under on the die if Fort is the character's weak save, or a whopping 20% chance of critically failing in a tier where the average party doesn't have access to dispels or other removal options.

I get what the designer was going for, but I feel like this should have been a tier 3-6 scenario because of the number of monsters with Rank 3 spell slots, and having the possibility for a player's first experience with Pathfinder (tier 1-4 is open to beginning players, after all) be having 2/3 of their actions stripped from them for one or more fights could be seriously damaging to the game and PFS.

The scaling on this adventure feels off in multiple ways.

As was stated in the review that was posted, the influence encounter to rouse the crew has a very high degree of difficulty and is harder the more PCs are involved; especially with the captain, whose thresholds are incredibly high.

Probably more seriously, though, even at the 1-2 tier you have to deal with a Rank 3 spell, Slow, a lot, also with a really high DC, which means with average proficiencies for level, the party is very likely to have at least one crit fail. If that crit fail falls on a sorcerer or other spell caster, expect to have a very frustrated player on your hands. I rolled a 1 and I was like, "Welp. I'm going outside. I'll shield every turn because there's literally nothing else I can do unless a monster wanders into melee range."

I get what the designer was going for, but I feel like this should have been a tier 3-6 scenario because of the number of monsters with Rank 3 spell slots, and having the possibility for a player's first experience with Pathfinder (tier 1-4 is open to beginning players, after all) be having 2/3 of their actions stripped from them for one or more fights could be seriously damaging to the game and PFS.

And, for some people, everything is offensive.

Most often, the people making that sort of observation are highest on that list (but sadly lacking in self-awareness).

What if the hole in Gorum's armor wasn't caused by an attack from without but rather was caused by something hatching from inside him? ;)

"Oh no... Not again!" - the aptly named William Hurt

Just because a god isn't killed as a result of the War of Immortals doesn't mean they won't be affected by it in some way...

The foreshadowed disruption to the Prismatic Ray could very easily occur simply due to character development, rather than character termination.

Maybe Arshea joins them and the divine polycule gets both more queer and more awesome.

Perpdepog wrote:

I think what I'm most interested in is what could kill Gorum? Not so much who, but by what means? I think someone mentioned there was black smoke or shadow coming off of his armor; I wonder if that's important somehow.

Back whispy smoke coming out of a massive whole in the front of his chest/armor and the only remnant of his greatsword is the pommel and handle with crossgard shattered and the blade nowhere in sight except for one tiny little red chip. He is slumped to his knees with his chin on his clavicle and there are cracks radiating out from the whole in the armor. The armor and helmet itself looks empty and black inside almost like Aphonse from FMA as if when he died only the armor was left behind.

A tiny bit of Gorum remains, growing into a tiny baby god.

"I AM GORUM!"

Kittyburger wrote:

VerBeeker wrote:

And yet again I am surprised.

Two of my favored deities still have the guillotine hovering over their head and I’m growing increasingly nervous to see where it falls.

Seven of the ten remaining deities (Sarenrae, Torag, Iomedae, Shelyn, Abadar, Calistria, and Lamashtu) are big fan favorites. Of the 10 safe ones, we have the three major baddies (Asmodeus, Zonk, and Rovagug), three that it seems like most have something of a "meh" reaction to (Erastil, Irori, and Nethys) and four that I'd consider "fan favorites" (CC, Desna, Pharasma, and Urgathoa).

But what about Gorum! I'm so worried about Gorum!

(to all Gorum fans out there...if you exist: I jest, I jest, but he's a tad bland for my tastes. He, Gozreh, Abadar, and Norgorber are probably the safest of the remaining deities though. Re-enacting the global financial crisis of 2008 with the death of Abadar is a little too on the nose...)

As it turns out...

(though this does actually crystallize my plans for a Gorumite fighter who doesn't give a damn that their god is dead. "BLOOD FOR GORUM!" will still ring out across the plain regardless as they charge into battle time after time, weapons in hand as they go for a ride)

Cole Deschain wrote:

Nintendogeek01 wrote:

YES IT'S NOT SHELYN!!!

I stopped worrying about her when Zonny-boy was marked safe.

I started worrying about her when he was marked safe lol.

Gorum's definitely the safest option from a PR perspective they could have gone with.

Even knowing that the two religious-themed iconics were theirs, I was worried about Sarenrae and Iomedae through the whole thing.

In general, people are talented at interpreting gods differently to fit what they want to play

And, apparently, to the straw man they want to spar with.

Revised:

I'm hoping for Abadar (goodbye capitalist god), Iomedae(goodbye evangelist crusaders), or Gorum (goodbye deity of murderhobos).

Dreading Shelyn (THE Pride deity), Lamashtu (Honest about monstrosity), Calistria (Honest about payback and lust positivity).

Not super-worried about Gozreh(Climate Change is a thing), Norgorber (Dirty political tricks), or Torag (Genocidal dirtbag who has a lot to answer for even if the stance has 'softened'.).

Why do you think ganking Iomedae will do anything about the player behavior you're obviously extremely angry about?

Evangelist crusaders will just go with Erastil or someone else that they can vaguely identify with their group politics. You underestimate the ability of people wanting to play "smite the unbeliever" to figure out a deity who plays into their biases.

And yet again I am surprised.

Two of my favored deities still have the guillotine hovering over their head and I’m growing increasingly nervous to see where it falls.

Seven of the ten remaining deities (Sarenrae, Torag, Iomedae, Shelyn, Abadar, Calistria, and Lamashtu) are big fan favorites. Of the 10 safe ones, we have the three major baddies (Asmodeus, Zonk, and Rovagug), three that it seems like most have something of a "meh" reaction to (Erastil, Irori, and Nethys) and four that I'd consider "fan favorites" (CC, Desna, Pharasma, and Urgathoa).

Kittyburger wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

Irori still stays the most boring Core 20 IMO.

Cayden's miracle was not reiterated.

I think this really iterates the basic problem with Irori: He's so self-absorbed because of his obsession with personal perfection that he doesn't give a whole lot of hooks for RP. His main character hook is being "perfect," and it's imperfections that make a character interesting.

Cayden is interesting because his status as the "Accidental God" or the "Drunken Hero" implies some weakness in with his godly power, and his death story reiterates that it's not the power that made him worth emulating, but his personal qualities like humor and compassion.

The other ascended gods have obvious hooks - Nethys being obsessed with knowledge blinds him to the physical; Norgorber's many faces mean that nobody will ever REALLY know him; Iomedae's righteousness means she's at least partially blind to the ways of those who fight dirty. But Irori? His main character hooks are "I have reached physical and mental perfection" and "I think that any other way of attaining godhood is a cheat so I look down on scrubs like Cayden, Norgorber, and Iomedae."

To me, Irori is kind of the Gary Stu of the gods and this story doesn't really move the needle but instead just illustrates his basic flaw in the story 'verse.

Because arrogance, callousness, selfish ambition, and distance aren't flaws, apparently.

Seriously? This showed a flaw in the story and not in Irori? The temptation to decide the world does not matter to your enlightenment and to become something alien, cosmic, and fearful out of lack of concern and sheer bullheaded arrogance? If anything, this actually showed why in pre-Remaster, he had Lawful Evil worshipers; enlightenment is a morally neutral concept. I don't disagree he's too introspective for his own good as a figure, but really, this does show Irori can be interesting if he wants to be.

He's a xianxia protagonist. Anyone who is familiar with...

I didn't say it was a flaw in the story, I said the story illustrates why I think the character doesn't offer much in the way of story hooks. It's because of the self-absorption you observe.

It's clear that Irori has worshippers in-universe for reasons. The thing is, and I'm far from the first player to notice this, as an element of the metafictional world of Pathfinder, he's kind of a dud. He doesn't really move the needle for a lot of players, because he doesn't have much in the way of narrative texture to grab onto.

Irori still stays the most boring Core 20 IMO.

Cayden's miracle was not reiterated.

I think this really iterates the basic problem with Irori: He's so self-absorbed because of his obsession with personal perfection that he doesn't give a whole lot of hooks for RP. His main character hook is being "perfect," and it's imperfections that make a character interesting.

Cayden is interesting because his status as the "Accidental God" or the "Drunken Hero" implies some weakness in with his godly power, and his death story reiterates that it's not the power that made him worth emulating, but his personal qualities like humor and compassion.

The other ascended gods have obvious hooks - Nethys being obsessed with knowledge blinds him to the physical; Norgorber's many faces mean that nobody will ever REALLY know him; Iomedae's righteousness means she's at least partially blind to the ways of those who fight dirty. But Irori? His main character hooks are "I have reached physical and mental perfection" and "I think that any other way of attaining godhood is a cheat so I look down on scrubs like Cayden, Norgorber, and Iomedae."

To me, Irori is kind of the Gary Stu of the gods and this story doesn't really move the needle but instead just illustrates his basic flaw in the story 'verse.

Irori: Secretly Lex Luthor.

IOMEDAE: "You could have saved the universe any time you wanted, Irori. You just didn't want to."

I think one of the reasons I've had such a sinking dread of the god being killed being Iomedae is because she has the allegiance of a LOT of the particularly powerful trans NPCs in the setting.

"Trans people can't have nice things" is a thing I play RPGs to escape from.

We will actually be losing half of the deities.

Source: my friend keeps calling the "Core 20" the "Big 10", and I don't know that they aren't prophetic.

Considering the Big 10 is actually fourteen universities at this point and about to expand to 18, it's possible that we might lose only 3 (the one replaced by Arazni, plus two more; the first being referred to hereafter as "the Chicago God").

Sy Kerraduess wrote:

Crazy Theory:

A new threat appears that is stronger than the Core 20. It starts killing gods, making them actually fear for their lives for possibly the first time ever.

That’s right. Ensign Johnny, the Godripper.

Sy Kerraduess wrote:

Feeling powerless, some deities start plotting to free Rovagug to unleash him against this new threat, Godzilla style. They are betting on the idea that they caged Rovagug once, so they could always cage him a second time after he has defeated the threat.

And so at the worst possible time the gods go to war with each other, with the gods who want to free Rovagug on one side and those not willing to risk freeing him on the other.

All the while Ensign Johnny just wants to make it back home in one… piece.

/after Kittyburger

Thank you!

(and after Ensign Johnny gets an artificial heart from being stabbed through the torso by a Nausicaan with a bad attitude he grows up to be Captain Jean-Luc Picard)

Ed Reppert wrote:

Kittyburger wrote:

magnuskn wrote:

Hurk. Saranrae getting more certain to be the one gets killed off every week. :-/ I don't know how to deal with that, if it really happens.

I'm thinking Sarenrae and Iomedae are PROBABLY safe, because they have the advantage of being deities associated with the two most significant religious Iconic characters, Kyra (Cleric of Sarenrae) and Seoni (Champion (Paladin) of Iomedae).

When and how did Seoni become a Champion? Last I heard, she's a Sorceress.

Context clues can tell us they mean Seelah :)

Yes, yes, I realized that mistake AFTER it was too late to edit that comment.

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

Rovagug's about to make things at the Boneyard super awkward.

Look. It was the only way he could get the chance to ask Pharasma out on a date.

My birthday is in Rova, and I feel like that explains so much... I too am socially awkward and would probably destroy reality if I asked someone out on a date.

Kittyburger wrote:

magnuskn wrote:

Hurk. Saranrae getting more certain to be the one gets killed off every week. :-/ I don't know how to deal with that, if it really happens.

I'm thinking Sarenrae and Iomedae are PROBABLY safe, because they have the advantage of being deities associated with the two most significant religious Iconic characters, Kyra (Cleric of Sarenrae) and Seoni (Champion (Paladin) of Iomedae).

I actually still think Iomedae will be the one to bite the dust.

So far, with the sole exception of Erastil, the gods who have been marked safe are the ones with the strongest ties to existing plotlines or who are recognizable as symbols of the property as a whole (I include Nethys in the latter category because of how crucial Archive of Nethys is to understanding and playing the game)). Iomedae sits at the intersection of both circles.

I'm treating the gods as any other character for this purpose - yeah, you might SAY that anybody can be killed at any time and nobody is safe, but if Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, and Ensign Johnny are beaming down to a planet, you can damn sure bet that Ensign Johnny's the one who's not making it back.

See, my marker's on a deity I actually like and who I think enriches the setting, even if she has her issues.

Because a collective shrug at a deity's demise is not, to my thinking, the desired reaction here.

For example- I have not seen anyone passionately defend the likes of Irori or Gorum or Torag, which means, yes, you might be able to bin one of them with minimal ripples, but is the death of a god something you want to have create minimal ripples?

I think that's a valid choice. I think that there's a possibility, though, that they're looking to prune an option that has less impact to bring in an option that has more impact. For example, losing Gorum and gaining Arazni gives you a warrior deity who is more fun to play with, has more dramatic angles, and has chemistry with multiple other deities.

(I actually rather like Irori, even if the right moment to use a character who venerates him has not come for me yet, and I'd be a little annoyed if he was the one who bites it. I see him as a thorn in the side of two of my favorite gods - Cayden Cailean and Iomedae - being someone who sees the former as a shiftless drunk and pricks the self-importance of the latter)