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Having skimmed through this thread, paying special attention to discussions of Loy Rezbin and Tatzlford, I'm confused about what this event is supposed to look like from the players' point of view. When Loy and his wife ask for "support to get this village started", what are they asking for? I just bought a copy of "Blood for Blood", and it seems to imply the real choice the PCs face is whether to claim the hex containing Tatzlford, which of course requires claiming any hexes needed to connect their kingdom to Tatzlford. But... how do you explain that in an in-character manner? It would be very weird for Loy to specifically ask, "I'd like you to start patrolling the area around the Fangberry Thicket, and then next month expand the patrols to the area where you found the Trapped Thylacine, and then the month after *that* expand the patrols to the area around the where Tatzlwyrn's den was, so I can establish a village in that last location." It's also unclear why he is so intent on settling that location specifically, beyond the fact that the adventure wants the players to start expanding westward eventually.

The medieval world is only one inspiration for Golarion, in fact. There's arguably MUCH more inspiration for the regions of Golarion taken from the ancient world and from the modern world than simply the medieval world.

This is obviously true flavor-wise—from Osirion being inspired by ancient Egypt to Galt being inspired by late 18th century France. But in terms of the populations given for cities, it seems distinctly medieval Europe, with no cities as large as Rome at its Imperial peak or 18th century Paris. Possibly this was not intentional, and merely the result of indirect influence from authors who did go to the trouble of looking up medieval demographic numbers. But intentional or not, the result is definitely medieval.

> Some of these have probably changed a bit with 2nd edition but that's probably close enough for the most part.

Yes, I believe the changes are that three nations lost land area: Cheliax lost the archduchy of Ravounel (now an independent state), Nirtmathaas lost the mountains along its westernmost edge (now the Hobgoblin nation of Oprak), and Varisia lost the territory that became New Thassilon. Well, Varisia was never unified but you know what I mean. A couple other places underwent significant changes but I don't think any borders changed.

I got thinking about the relative military strength of the various nations of Avistan, which got me wondering about their populations, which in turn got me wondering about their land areas. So I downloaded the following map from the wiki: https://pathfinderwiki.com/mediawiki/images/a/a1/Inner_Sea_region_map.jpg

Then I used some image editing tools to work out the area, in square miles, of each marked region in the Avistani part of the map (maybe at some point in the future I'll do Garund). Here are my results, in every case rounded to three significant figures:

* Absalom: 11,300
* Andoran: 136,000
* Brevoy: 67,700
* Cheliax: 375,000
* Druma: 60,400
* Five Kings Mountains: 31,700
* Galt: 114,000
* Hold of Belkzen: 68,700
* Irrisen: 84,500
* Isger: 46,600
* Kyonin: 33,300
* Lands of the Linnorm Kings: 120,000
* Lastwall: 41,000
* Mendev: 57,100
* Molthune: 74,600
* Nidal: 90,300
* Nirtmathaas: 53,600
* Numeria: 106,000
* Razmiran: 21,800
* Realm of the Mammoth Lords: 110,000
* River Kingdoms: 217,000
* Taldor: 256,000
* Ustalav: 98,200
* Varisia: 289,000
* Worldwound: 161,000

But what about population? Looking at the populations for the largest cities in the various regions, primarily capitals, it reminded me of figures I'd seen for historical cities in medieval Europe. I looked up the details in the widely-cited article Medieval Demographics Made Easy (Google it) and tried the math for Cheliax. In most cases, I found the sizes of the largest cities were consistent with what you could generate using Medieval Demographics Made Easy. In a few cases, such as Taldor, the largest city was 5-10% larger than it "should" have been, but I honestly wondered if Paizo had used the article's guidelines straight, and I had merely made a slight mis-estimate of land area.

There were also a few more extreme outliers, which seem to have been intentional—Absalom, of course, is explicitly an island port that relies on food imports to survive. Iadara (capital of the elven nation of Kyonin) may have been made intentionally on the large side, especially for a city in the middle of a forest, because Elves Are Just Better. And we're likely meant to understand that Nerosyan (capital of Mendev) relies on a steady flow of crusaders from the south to maintain its large population.

If Paizo really used Medieval Demographics Made Easy when planning out Avistan, this means most if not all of the regions above should have a population density between 30 and 120 people per square mile. The exact population density within this range will depend on terrain and climate. The Realm of the Mammoth Lords is likely near the bottom of this range, while Andoran and Taldor are likely near the top. Most nations will be somewhere int he middle.

One odd case is Karlsgard, largest city in the Lands of the Linnorm Kings. Its canonical population of 72,080 wouldn't be out of place in southern Avistan—but it's way up north in the setting's Scandanavia stand-in, in an area explicitly stated to be terrible for farming to boot. The explanation seems to be that it's positioned at one end of the land route between Avistan and Tian Xia. Possibly it imports food in much the same way Absalom does.

Books like Ultimate Campaign and Ultimate Intrigue introduced a bunch of rules subsystems for mass combat, kingdom building, nemeses, and so on. These are fairly easy to find because they're all in the SRD in the "other rules" section. But it's come to my attention that some Golarion-specific products have similar material which did *not* make it into the SRD. For example, Lands of Conflict has a militia subsystem which is essentially a more generic version of the Hell's Rebels rebellion system (which I loved), and which I can see being very useful for any campaign with a lot of intrigue.

What other Golarion-specific products are like this? I'd love to have a big index of them for ideas to mine for homebrew campaigns.

These are great ideas Razcar! Some questions:

I added a large part in book three where the PCs follow in his footsteps during his preparations and uncover parts of his plans (for this I used a modified From Shore to Sea instead of the Dead in the Deep part).

I may not have read Dead in the Deep carefully enough—does that adventure having them learning things about Barzi, or is it just securing the alliance? Also, totally unfamiliar with From Shore to Sea—can you explain how he used that?

As for the attack in book four, I made it clear to the PCs that when he was back in office (his convalescence was of course a secret but the PCs found out) he would attack them with force. So they presumed an attack against the Lucky Bones would be unwinnable at this time, and made arrangements for a quick and safe retreat (I made the Lucky Bones connect to the sewers which book two does not for some reason). So when it happened I could really put it on thick, with cadres of screaming powerful devils attacking, and created a fun retreating battle (saving friends and assets instead of winning the day) Empire Strikes Back-style. This really managed to set the tone for book four in a fun way with the movement scattered and the Ravens forced into momentary hiding.

How did you handle the consequences of the Ravens being scattered / forced into hiding?

Now I'm thinking about one of my original questions when I started this thread—so what if the PCs *are* driven out of the Lucky Bones? It's not clear to me that the rebellion rules actually give any game mechanical benefit for setting up shop in the Lucky Bones. Perhaps being driven out means that they get 1 less rebellion action per week, to represent all the trouble they'll have to go to moving from safe house to safe house? Or should the effects be more severe?

The physical structure of the Lucky Bones is not an important target, but the *rebellion's leadership* certainly is. If Barzy finds out where they are, killing or capturing them is going to be a top priority. I guess the attack could make sense if Barzy thinks its *just* a random hideout—but if any of the attackers get away to report that the rebellion's leadership is there,

The more I look at Tommy Boy's attack, the less sense it makes as something that happens at the Luck Bones. It's really just a 1-on-1 fight with Tommy Boy, with the Troop serving as a mobile piece of scenery that gives flanking bonuses (and, importantly, sneak attack). But this is unlikely to work well in the 10' hallways of the Lucky Bones, unless you declare arbitrarily the attackers burst in while the PCs are having a meeting in one of the larger rooms. It would make more sense if he tried to ambush them on the streets, where there's more room to maneuver. You could even use the stats from the goblin troop from Bestiary 6 to represent CCG thugs as opposed to "real" troops—it doesn't matter for purposes of granting flanking and sneak attack.

Tangent101—

Yeah, the whole idea of the PCs being taken by surprise mid-meeting is weird. Surely there is, at the very least, someone closer to the entrance of the Lucky Bones who could flee back towards them and given them some advance notice?

I like the idea of Barzillai losing a competent advisor. Perhaps while the Chelish military knows all about the concept of force concentration (see Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_concentration), the Chelish Inquisition has no such concept.

roguerouge—

The ritual to summon the Pit Fiends is AFAICT a desperation measure once Barzillai's essentially lost control of the city and has barricaded himself in the temple. It's described as being "dangerous" and involving the sacrifice of Asmodean believers, so probably not Barzillai's plan A.

Other than that, though, I really like your suggestions, and might use them.

Lanathar—

The description of Tombus Regegious's attack on the PCs hideout says, "Normally, Barzillai would have preferred to use more trusted agents, but this gives him the opportunity to test the PCs’ reactions early on without risking any of his more loyal and important minions", which along with the fact that Tommy Boy is leading a troop of dottari, strongly implies Barzillai knows all about what he's doing.

I guess you could homebrew stats for a "CCG Troop" to replace the dottari. Though Tommy finding out the location of the PCs hideout actually seems significantly harder to explain that Barzillai doing so some other way. Barzillai is an inquisitor, his whole thing is rooting out hidden enemies of Asmodeus. There are numerous ways he could have found the location of the PCs hideout, such as the gambit with the gifts and Locate Object, having Grivenner cast higher level divinations (e.g. Divination or Scrying), the Xian investigator (at least if she hands over the info before switching sides, before she switches sides), capturing a low-level member of the rebellion and torturing them for information... really the possibilities are endless.

I also don't think it's plausible that Barzillai is running low on resources. Looking at the available random encounters for the Kintargo streets, you could easily assemble a 15 CR+ encounter from the things listed there, even without touching the most powerful monsters. Say two Dottari Troops, an Inquisitor Troop, four Hellknights, and a devil or three.

Re: your question about the final third of the AP, I haven't actually bought them (yet?) but my understanding is:
* Some people feel part 5 kind of dragged, like "why are we fighting the serial killer from part 2 again?" and other complaints I forget.
* More controversially, apparently part 6 involves Mephistopheles letting the PCs re-kill Barzillai because he actually benefits from that. Also the PCs can't go anywhere Mephistopheles doesn't want them to, or rescue any of the damned souls they see being tortured in Hell, because he won't let them.

Years ago, I was a player in a Hell's Rebels campaign. It was a lot of fun, though unfortunately we only got through the first two chapters. Now I'm thinking about running a Pathfinder adventure path, and Hell's Rebels is rather high on my list of ones I'm seriously considering—both because I've played part of it, and because there seems to be a broad consensus about the awesomeness of the AP (aside from some controversial bits in the final third).

However, there's one aspect of the AP I'm having trouble with. I understand that Hell's Rebels is somewhat unusual in that the Big Bad is "on screen" from the very beginning of the AP. This raises the question of why he doesn't just kill the PCs before they're high enough level to fight him. I've bought chapters 1-4 and read them, and it first the AP seems to answer this question well enough. Over the first two chapters, the PCs go from "beneath Barzillai's notice" to "local celebrities who it would be unpopular to kill". So far so good.

The trouble starts at the end of chapter 3 when Barzy decides he finally needs to put down the rebellion, starting with the frame job at the Ruby Masquerade. The explanation of how Cizmekris was disguised as Barzy on p. 59 made me go, "wow, that's a lot of effort for a very unclear upside". Why isn't Barzilai overseeing the massacre himself? I get that he's recovering from cutting his own heart out—but that didn't stop him from appearing personally to thank the PCs for their service to the city at the end of chapter 2. And Barzillai would be a lot more formidable than Cizmekris even if you gave him the Sickened condition, or a few negative levels, to represent the fact that he hasn't fully recovered from the ritual yet.

It gets worse in chapter 4. At the very beginning of the chapter, Barzy has apparently discovered the location of the PCs hideout—but rather than show up in force, he sends an unproven amateur leading a relatively small force of dottari. Not only does this make Barzy look incompetent, it's a level of incompetence that seems incompatible with having pulled off the Night of Ashes successfully. Compare the first chapter's description of the assault on the Sacred Order of Archivists (p. 45): "Powerful devils and high-ranking Asmodeans worked together to smite the archivists in a devastating assault." It's also unclear how he could have captured a high-level character like Shensen with such a half-hearted approach.

What do people think of this? Is there a way to make all this more plausible than I'm seeing? Or is there a way to fix chapter 4 especially so that it initially has a very Empire Strikes Back feel *without* just killing the PCs or driving them from the city permanently?

Chris Hallquist wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

Chris Hallquist wrote:

What are typical tactics when two devout, Chelish Asmodeans get into a political knife fight? What are the "gotchas" they can throw at an opponent who's staunchly Lawful and not guilty of any obvious heresies? (E.g. nothing blatant enough to cause a divine spell caster to lose her spell-casting ability.)

They'd vary, but it would likely fall into pedantry, strawman traps, baiting, and citing of old written works by both sides.

Kind of like a fiery internet argument. :-P

I'm having a hard time imagining how this works in detail, though. Especially if we're talking not about weaseling out of trouble, but ruining a political opponent? A lot of Pathfinder sourcebooks seem to give an impression of Asmodean law as oddly permissive—Empire of Devils even says "everything which is not forbidden is allowed", which is made to sound like this insidious thing but it's actually a totally normal legal principle in the real world (in common-law countries, anyway).

So are the Asmodean Disciplines full of totally random stuff like the prohibition on mint from Hell's Rebels? A fractally complicated tax code that makes everyone guilty of tax "fraud"? Convoluted official definitions of "disparaging the Church"?

Check out Hell's Rebels, Hell's Vengeance, and the Cheliax book, I suppose, for several in-world examples. But basically, the idea of Asmodeans is that they're icons of law and evil, and in such they LOVE overly complex laws with countless loopholes and variables that allow for rules-lawyering to the extreme degree.

Hell's Vengeance spoiler:

Chris Hallquist wrote:

What are typical tactics when two devout, Chelish Asmodeans get into a political knife fight? What are the "gotchas" they can throw at an opponent who's staunchly Lawful and not guilty of any obvious heresies? (E.g. nothing blatant enough to cause a divine spell caster to lose her spell-casting ability.)

They'd vary, but it would likely fall into pedantry, strawman traps, baiting, and citing of old written works by both sides.

Kind of like a fiery internet argument. :-P

I'm having a hard time imagining how this works in detail, though. Especially if we're talking not about weaseling out of trouble, but ruining a political opponent? A lot of Pathfinder sourcebooks seem to give an impression of Asmodean law as oddly permissive—Empire of Devils even says "everything which is not forbidden is allowed", which is made to sound like this insidious thing but it's actually a totally normal legal principle in the real world (in common-law countries, anyway).

So are the Asmodean Disciplines full of totally random stuff like the prohibition on mint from Hell's Rebels? A fractally complicated tax code that makes everyone guilty of tax "fraud"? Convoluted official definitions of "disparaging the Church"?

What are typical tactics when two devout, Chelish Asmodeans get into a political knife fight? What are the "gotchas" they can throw at an opponent who's staunchly Lawful and not guilty of any obvious heresies? (E.g. nothing blatant enough to cause a divine spell caster to lose her spell-casting ability.)