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Also, I thought the Varki had some Sami influence, not just Inuit. Am I off-base on that one?Definitely, yeah - they're nomadic caribou-herders in northern Fantasy Europe! But they also wear armor from PNW Native groups like the Haida and Tlingit. Correct. There may be other Golarian peoples based upon the Inuit but the Varki aren’t them. Edit: so excited for this Gazetteer!
I’m really hoping that Paizo hired an international relations and/or strategic studies consultant for this. I’ve been waiting for a long time to see some broad(er) power-moves between inner sea countries. While I don’t expect everything in real life IR or Strat studies scholarship to be applicable, I think a book that borrowed from the major IR theories in its explaination of what’s going on would be glorious. Think of it. We have four?! IR levels of analysis here: individual, state, system, AND cosmic (extraplanar)!!! They could introduce new scholarly factions of International relations scholars that mirror the budding paradigms and theories of WWI and the Interwar period before WWII. Heck, I’d even go so far as to argue that Golarion’s international system is more advanced than what earth’s was in pre- and post WWI so it would make sense that later theoretical schools would already be in development in today’s Golarian. IR Realism and Liberal internationalism would obviously take precedence among Golarian’s IR debates, but so too would more critical theories and approaches such as world systems theory, constructivism, feminism, and more! The presence of magic and cosmic ‘great powers’ would also lend itself to IR frameworks that aren’t really reputable in earth’s understanding of IR. There are entire heavens and held duking it out across the multiverse and maybe most of Golarian’s IR is best explained as the result of all this greater cosmic conflict. This is a chance for Paizo to really step up its game and distinguish itself from the poorer worldbuilding of other settings.
Late on here but I think a ‘draconic’ destiny would also be fun, with the PC becoming a mythic powered dragon or perhaps servitude of a draconic god/otherworldly force. Draconic disciples also need their fun. An elementalist destiny would also be wonderful to have.
They apparently have healing capabilities as well. They were the healers of Xin-Edasseril pre-earth fall, though even they struggled to cure its citizens from its frequent marsh-borne plagues.
I just rewatched The Sandman and it made me wonder: Are there Malabranche in Pathfinder for planes such as the Dreamlands/Dimension of Dreams, elemental and transitive planes, or smaller demiplanes with mortal populations? The lore I’ve read thus far suggests the answer is no, but it makes more sense that Hell would be interested in any plane with exploitable resources, beings and souls. There are entire mortal cities and nations among many of these planes, but they’re also sometimes much larger than a single world than Golarian. Maybe these planes have multiple Malabranche orchestrating Hell’s interests there? I dunno, but I now wanna run a campaign where Hell begins invading the Dreamlands.
~ Is it possible James , that we could we have a mid to high-level AP or adventure that picks up on the plot point of Sorshen and Belimarius’ delicate and quiet feud? This is why I asked about any planned sequels to Rusthenge a few months back, as everything’s pointing to a confrontation there of some kind, and it would delineate nicely from Seven Dooms as a up-to-date Varisia series of adventures. The worldbuilding, updated maps and city profiles could then be put in the backmatter.
I foresee a mid to high level adventure/path stemming from this arc. Belimarius is too obvious an unresolved plot point to leave alone for long.
Thx James! This might be helpful for my Rusthenge campaign if it doesn’t fork into another AP. I’m torn as I really would like another book on New Thassilon but not at the expense of a few more books on other regions like Iblydos, Crown of the world and Vudra. I’m more curious about New Thassilon as a modern state and how it’s reconstructing itself politically, culturally and economically than the now-well-established history. Same for Xin Edasseril, as the Rusthenge adventure encourages players to (re)visit these locations, yet we’re mostly left in the dark as to how they’re managed currently.
How does most of the city’s (Shalast’s) imports and exports enter and leave? Magic? I imagine there’d be base camp settlements. I would also think there’d be more people settling the mountain’s valleys and foothills post-resettlement to sell and buy goods.
Iblydos!! Yaaay! Pathfinder Greece gets some love! I like that it’s low level as another potential avenue for those who want a classical game and start from first level. My newbie group was surprised at how many 2e starter paths had horror/other grimdark and gritty themes. A sword and sandal setting is also nice in that it’s familiar enough to my family as alternative introd should they wish it.
Green Hill zones. I’ve decided upon prepping my fam for Rusthenge that Pathfinder needs more “Green Hill zones”, or relatively non-threatening micro-settings in a game. The setting is beautifully gritty in most places, but that can also at times be intimidating for new players. After listening to an episode of Mythkeeper with me, one family member implied she wouldn’t want to live anywhere on Golarion, as it all sounds so hazardous. The Shining Kingdoms seem a great place to add additional comforting locales in addition to the setting’s danger.
I think I unintentionally killed this post with a question about an update on crunch. Any new or interesting wants in terms of AP themes or ideas?
Has Paizo updated Underwater adventures or rules to 2e?
Myth keeper is becoming one of my favourite YouTube channels
For the next aquatic/sea-based campaign, what about Wanshou? A campaign where you undermine the Kraken Lord, and build make way for a new successor state? What I like about Wanshou as a setting is that it set up aquatic aberrations as a major enemy that, while possibly related to Lovecraft, would more likely relate to Asian mythology and pop culture on tentacled monstrosities from the deep. The only problem ofc is that the setting lends itself to horror, and they just did a horror themed AP last time they visited Tian Xia.
Love seeing more Rusthenge advice
Actually I like this idea. Why not an AP that’s like the “Claw of the Tyrant” compilation adventure. Think of it: your players each build two characters on opposite sides of the war. The book is split, featuring adventures for either side, with one half dedicated to one and the other to the other. The final adventure then concludes with a Big bad/greater threat worse than both Geb and Nex (or maybe you’re forced to confront Geb and Nex) and both parties must work together to bring the conflict to a halt. This allows GM’s to also modify the ending of they want one of the two nations to “win” or have the edge in the aftermath.
I would personally love a Geb v. Nex AP but would prefer that the NPC’s are the ones trying to stop such a confrontation. Otherwise I don’t see how you could do it without forcing players to support a particular side.
Is the vampire fully statted as a vampire? From what I remember vampires are notoriously difficult to kill for low level players. (Not a critique, in fact I kinda hope he is statted as a full vampire)
Oddly enough this seems like a fun AP to go full Champion, either as a rugged orc or half-orc hero or a literal knight of Lastwall. Holy + vitality gonna go far this AP.
This AP is now fully published. Does it end well? Satisfyingly?
Are you capable of making a single post on this website that isn't openly and obviously insulting towards Paizo staff? Your constant contempt for the people working on these books makes me extremely hesitant to value anything you have to say about them, and this goes for basically every post you make. Seriously, tone down the vitriol. Some of the criticism is valid, others less so. I don’t understand the criticism re: the vampire and I even watched your entire vid. The character is a hypocrite but there’s nothing to suggest that as somehow bad writing or a betrayal of character. Quite common in fact to want something and not reciprocate. The Oregon Trail part sounds pretty rad and I’m not annoyed that Ardax left as much as I am that the author forgot that he left. I’m also willing to wait and see if there’s any benefits for the influence gained in book 1 in books 2 and 3. The inconsistency re: Ardax is a problem worth bringing up and I would expect editors to catch that as well as the item issues. Hoping they can correct the matter on the PDF and other digital products at the very least. I think Bramble’s critiques are useful when it concerns ‘crunch’, but unless the narrative has gaping holes/editing issues, I find that his critiques of an AP’s overall story to be less relevant or reliable than his comments on the mechanics. As more people get into Pathfinder from D&D we should expect more reviewers and budding influencers across the spectrum of production value- and as much as I find Bramble’s tone and comments sometimes pedantic and grating, I also don’t see anyone else doing accessible AP reviews on the Tube. Bramble’s critics (which includes sometimes myself) are just as free to write their own AP reviews as Bramble is to write his own AP’s (and sell them). That’s what the ORC licence is for. I do think that Paizo, at the very least, should reconsider their editing process, because aside from a few slip ups, the adventure itself sounds pretty fun. If a single editor tackling all of an AP’s content is impossible, then I would gently suggest divvying different editorial tasks to different persons. One for crunch, another for grammar, and one lastly for the broader narrative.
I would agree in that I find building characters more enjoyable when there are constraints in addition to choice. Like the grit that forms to become an oyster’s pearl, giving players a narrational constraint helps them develop interesting characters they might never have played without the AP’s narrational conceit.
I too want both Nagajor and Serpenfolk!
What about and AP where you are all Agents or lodge-managers of the PFS? With a story that’s more or less tied to the region the lodge or society’s interest there lay? I’m not proposing anything structurally like the real world PFS of gamers, but an AP where you are all agents solving a mystery or something.
Also, it’s be nice to have another maritime adventure, but maybe one in a different region than the Shackles. There are other places to do high seas adventures and while a return to the shackles would be fun, I’d like to explore other coastal cultures and environments as well.
I like the idea of exploring that with religions, and organizations, but classes are tricky and if the latter, you’d need to find a way to do it while maintaining party balance. I love the Pathfinder Society and remain surprised that there isn’t a Pathfinder faction AP for those that can’t play PFS. Building a new lodge in a new and far away setting would be super fun. I would also find fun an AP that focuses upon benevolent mystery cults, where non-core deities, demogods, and religious networking for a common good is the focus. A message like ‘pluralism is power’ could be the theme, with minimal emphasis on competing with other religions (aside from explicitly evil ones). Witches, oracles, champions, exemplars, clerics, etc. these would be the focus. Maybe someplace like Iblydos where you’re working to build up a hero-god and end up having to take over and become hero gods in response to a crisis.
I'd love to make corrections and updates as possible. It would probably line up with the Spring/Fall errata updates. Feronia is also missing. I dunno what she’d be categorized as. She’s almost like a tertiary elemental Lord of fire.
Those are at the very top of the document, right above the core gods.There are superscript foot note markers on entries like Ragathiel (t), Cong, some weapons and domains but the handout doesn't include the footnotes. I assume in Ragathiel's case it means "so cool we put him on the back cover." Sorry I just realized I should use the reply function. Zibik and Benoras are missing.
This is really good. Is Benoras still canon as an Angel Lord? I don’t see him but maybe he’s dead. Zibik is also missing. Set seems to better reflect his duality in Ancient Egyptian mythology
Source is in the PFS guidance it lists the supplemental table. Link? I tried to find this and gave up. No supplemental table.
A Nex AP would also be cool. It’s one of the more obvious options for the next high-fantasy, wizard AP. We’ve been waiting for Nex’s return for years and we finally have respondent Geb :)
Wardens of Wildwood kinda wanted to be a nature hero AP, but you spend more time fighting eco-extremists than exploitative institutions/individuals.
Supposedly there's going to be a supplemental god table released sometime soon, for gods that didn't make it into the book. Some subscribers got an old version of it with the main pdf. Supposedly. Haven’t heard anything yet and I’ve sworn off buying the book until I get my current project done. If they’ve updated the supplemental table I’ve not heard anything and they have also yet to provide the PFS guidance document.
I suspect the actual issue with Council of Thieves is that it came out long before Hells Rebels, so the people who wanted to be playing Hells Rebels ended up playing council of thieves, an AP that is definitely not about people rebelling against the hellish rule of Chelliax, and definitely is about... well, a council made up of thieves. Whilst this is blindingly obvious (see previous sentence) now you can choose between the two, I suspect a lot of the people dissappointed in playing CoT were so not because it broadly preserves the rule of central government in Chelliax, but because they didn't, at the time, have the option to play an adventure which wasn't actually about the shady underworld of the nation's former capital. Though I also think it might be that some of the older APs are a bit less committed to the PCs having 'good' alignment (which is somewhat ironic given that the newest ones are in an edition with no alignments at all, they're just less likely to give you an intro where you're probably playing a low-grade criminal in a real dump of a city). That’s an interesting point, as you’re essentially saying that each region has a few core core story beats players are most excited to play. A region can host many more adventures ofc but a play group will likely be disappointed if one of the region’s primary adventures fail to fulfil their basic expectations.
Aye, and precisely. You’ve got Arcadian interests well and covered heh.
I expect/hope we see more AP’s outside of the Inner Sea region. Paizo has recently worked very hard to expand on areas outside the Inner Sea and I’d like to see this continue. I don’t need to argue on behalf of Arcadia (it has motivated advocates enough) but Vudra, Kellesh, Iblydos and other parts of Casmaron seem ripe for an AP. Happy to see a return to Azlant in the near future.aybe I’m seeing things but they seem to be doing one non-Inner-Sea-Region AP a year. I approve.
WoW I felt gave too much of a bait and switch. I’m fine with it cuz that means my table is more likely to enjoy it (they doubt anthropogenic climate change) but I myself was disappointed because I expected many more exploitative antagonists from the AP. I like that we explore the plane of wood and I actually like Zibok’s role, but the storytelling was convoluted and often unclear. The closest AP to an eco-fantasy narrative currently is Quest for the Frozen Flame.
I don’t see Arazni as being evil. There have been no innocents targeted by her since her release from Geb’s enslavement. Sorshen however has no excuse in my mind. Just because she avoids atrocity now doesn’t mean she has atoned for the evil she willfully chose for hundreds of years prior to Earthfall. Arazni was an undead puppet that still bore intellect and a soul. Sorshen was a tyrant who did what she did to maintain her own authority, immortality, and intemperance. I got nothing against lust per se (it’s not a sin in my worldview) but she maintained said lust via her own subjects’ servitude, death and constant subjection to violence. Her character furthermore hasn’t much changed, and you bet she’d continue on in a world absent of heroes. The work of ending the runelords’ reign remains unfinished.
Are we allowed to vaguely refer to real life politics here? Because with all big global and US-related stuff happening over the past year and past two weeks, I also see something personal in the elevation of Arazni to full Core-20 status. Role-playing is often used as both a means for both escape and (counterintuitively) finding resolution for real-life hardship and trauma. Few of these Paizo gods have been so degraded as Arazni. Even fewer have managed to pave a way of resolving said degradation without resorting to normative (often Christian) assumptions about forgiveness, closure, and acceptance of what was done. With everything that’s been happening, may or about to happen, I know I could personally use a construct like Arazni, the Survivor.
Arazni is great for revealing the existentialism and flaws within the setting’s cosmology. The idea that neither the chief forces of good, evil, or judgement are omniscient, omnipotent, or necessarily “correct”. It also means that despite the presence of literal gods, Pathfinder’s cosmology bears greater similarity to our own in the sense that goodness, purpose, and meaning aren’t exactly clear. There’s ambiguity, differences of priorities- and agency- all bound within a context where nothing is safe, and the reasons for things are often inscrutable, absurdist, and manifold. Thus players can be agents (whatever that means) as e’en Pharasma doth not know the meaning nor proper course of creation’s entirety. It hath become something new.
Personally I think that the interesting part about Arazni is that she's *not* redeemed. She's mean and selfish and angry but also endorses good causes. No. She’s basically Sylvanus Windrunner from Warcraft III, before that character’s deliberate transformation into the very thing that abused her. Arazni represents tho a different choice. “Screw redemption, screw willful corruption, Ima gonna find a third path.” I like her. She likewise reminds me of The Exile in Knights of the Old Republic II. The heavens and traditional forces of good don’t always have it right, and there is beauty in reclaiming moral autonomy.
Can confirm that neither are part of my plans for that specific potential future from Stolen Fate... it's a plot I've had in my back pocket waiting for the right time to deploy for longer than 2nd edition's been a thing but not one that I'm ready to talk about or that will be coming out within the next few years, I suspect...Perhaps Apep will eat the sun as part of an Osirion AP. Apparently Shades of Blood is NOT the subject of that Stolen Fate prophesy. That’s fair. I hope ya’ll eventually incorporate the remaining Osirion gods into the setting more fully in the future. Apep and Set need to be kept in check :p
Perhaps Apep will eat the sun as part of an Osirion AP. Apparently Shades of Blood is NOT the subject of that Stolen Fate prophesy.
Sobek, Set and buddies live!! This makes me happy. Apep and Set make for interesting enemy deities, and maybe can fill the role that Orcus had before the latter was retconned out. I wonder if Bes will become adopted into the Dwarf Pantheon more.
My questions at this point are for clarification. I accept that whatever Paizo decided has been decided and set in (future) print for a while now. Yes I want to understand the external reasons why, but barring that I at least want a semi coherent canonical reason in universe. Perhaps the entirety of the pantheon is magically tied to Ra’s presence and without him they either fade or are also drawn in to the alternative dimension. That still leaves Apep as an unchecked divine power, and that still leaves Thoth who (while unable to reach his followers) might still be alive but hang’in with Yog Sothoth in the beyond. Yes the latter part is headcanon, but there are still loose threads is what I’m getting at. The 2 events (Thoth battle and Hag-battle) is also pretty epic and worthy of a commissioned art piece. It needs to be referenced in later products involving Hags, witches, Osirion, even if they decide not to feature it in an adventure/AP. We have (may or may not) just lost an entire pantheon and that should have consequences. Hope Divine Mysteries adds clarification.
Beautiful work. So, Michael Sayre, any info or background on the short story in the Osirion Pantheon, like what inspired it, which gods are gone, and more?
I wish to reshare the following quote (from a page or so back) and re-emphasize the need for more choices within each meta-region that allows various pathways to level 20.
Ra, Horus, Anubis, Osiris, Maat, Isis, and Thoth are gone (though in the case of Thoth not nec to the same place for the same reasons) but what about Sobek, Apep, Set, Neith, Bes, Sekhmet, Hathor, Selket, Ptah, Khepri, Nephthys, Wadjet, and Bastet?
I’m still confused if it’s the entirety of the Osirion Pantheon that disappeared and can no longer interact with their followers or just the Osirion gods that participated. I would one day like clarification from Paizo on the subject. Ra is the head of the Pantheon so I can see an argument being made threat his disappearance causes the other (unmentioned) members of the pantheon to also disappear and/or disconnect from their followers. But Apep is Ra’s enemy/opposite. Unlike Set, there’s no reason to think Apep would be divinely connected to Ra, and thus negatively affected by his absence. (As an aside, I’ve always wondered if Apep is just Dahak by another name ) |
