Myrryr's page

Geb is seemingly bound in terms of where he can travel, and has managed to avoid starting any wars of conquest for a remarkably long time; his nation is undoubtedly evil (the whole 'eating living people at a massive scale' thing), but remains a pretty peaceful neighbor.

We have every reason to believe a returned Nex would show no such restraint, and would likely pop out of the Refuge with a blasting wand in each hand. I imagine just about everyone with any shred of power in the region wants to keep that from happening - this might be the AP where that comes up.

Interestingly, Geb is the largest agricultural exporter in both Avistan and Garund, as far as I know. Due to being very fertile land, and because a large majority of it's population doesn't require food.

So, amusingly, going to war with Geb has pretty major logistical issues. Beyond the fact that your own country might rely on importing food, you'd also piss off all of your neighbors that also import food from Geb.

It might not be enough to cause a famine across Avistan/Garund, but it would definitely cause some serious economic issues if Geb is attacked.

Food for thought. Though sadly, it's not all that often that authors tend to think on a large scale political/economic level for APs sadly. There's quite a few that would have more going on, but there's page count limits and stuff. Iron Gods is a big one for that, as is WotR.

I mean, Korvosa literally has aerial dogfights several times a year with hundreds of devils and miniature dragons above it. I don't think the people would be all that surprised by the sight of a celestial or two.

Ones for Nocticula:
"Nocticula's Tits!" -an exclamation or curse.

"Fickle shades!" -as a curse or "The shades are fickle." -as a blessing.

"May Shadows cradle you." -a blessing.

"Accept the outcast, for you do not know when you may be ostracized yourself." -a proverb/warning.

"Why suffer the sun's heat when the shadow is cool and comforting?" -saying for shrugging off the insults or criticisms or others.

"Art can be found in the darkest areas." -a proverb to seek beauty in many places.

"Suffer not the torturous kill, kill swiftly and move to the next." -a saying regarding Nocticula's propensity for body count over needless cruelty.

"The shadows tickle." -a flirtatious saying.

"To survive it all, you must plan to survive it all, luck always has a limit." -a saying meaning to have a plan to betray even your allies in case they turn on you, from her CE alignment.

"Greetings sister." -used between succubi, referring to Nocticula as the First succubus and meaning to meet in peace or parley, not to explicit relations.

Ultimate Kineticist Compendium. Dear god, it does soooo much for the kineticist. It's amazing, and really really should've been something that Paizo did, but I'm glad that Legendary Games did it instead. Really makes the kineticist feel like a fleshed out class.

Death and reincarnation/true resurrection will both work.

You just have to trust your team mates.

But yeah...becoming an undead to defeat the whispering way....doesn't seem like it would work. All the methods I know of that turn you undead also turn you evil. Once you get to that side, you're unlikely to willingly return. After all, it's a forcible alignment change that's supposed to change your character's outlook.

Yeah, but there's also forced alignment changes to good you can slurp up right after becoming undead that you can plan ahead for. Turn undead and have your party tie you down and apply some good ol' alignment therapy and poof, CG zombie, ghoul, skeleton, whathaveyou. Probably works best on a vampire or lich though if you're a changeling.

That art is terrible... it looks like a human with the head/hands/feet photoshopped out. It doesn't look anything even remotely bird-like. What's wrong the current tengu look? Where they have a posture that at least evokes an avian image?

The image on the blog post for the Advanced Race Guide has a tengu that actually looks good and way better than this one. ARG blog.

Myrryr wrote:

Eh? Your biggest bad, Tar-Baphon, is a human. The Runelords were all human. Lamashtu is a pregnant human woman. Asmodeus is a red human. Queen Ileosa is human. Areelu Vorlesh is human. Norgorber is human. Geb is human. Nex is human. Razmiran is human. Irovetti is human. Abrogail II is human. Unity was built by humans. Zura is a succubus who was, wait for it... a human Azlanti princess! And of course then there's Baba Yaga just for good measure, who not only is a human, but decided to just make a demon lord out of, you guessed it, a human.

<snip>

Eh? What? There's a lot in this paragraph that's not strictly true...

• Tar-Baphon: While he was once human, he is now a lich -> undead.
• Runelords: Mostly true (Zutha was a lich).
• Lamashtu: Is a demon & goddess, & I don't think was ever human.
• Asmodeus: Is a devil & god, & was never human.
• Areelu Vorlesh: While she was once human, she became a succubus -> demon.
• Geb: While he was once human, he is now a ghost -> undead.
• Norgorber: While he's assumed to have been human, there are bits of lore here & there that seem to hint that he might have been something else...
• Unity: As you've said, he was built by humans, but that doesn't make him human.
• Zura: While she was once human, she is now a demon (I don't recall her being a succubus, but that still wouldn't make her human).

All the others (including Baba Yaga, who is not a demon lord!) are/were human (iirc...), so your point applies to them.

*Also, I'm not sure that the Alghollthu(sp?) created humans - they certainly "uplifted" a specific group of them, but that's not the same as "creating" them.

The rest of your post (except for *) is... fine. Doesn't change what the Creative Director said, though...

The 'in appearance' is the biggest part of that. Asmodeus appears to just be a red human. He's not a Lovecraftian monstrosity. Same with the others. And being undead somehow makes you not-human anymore? Since when? I guess then that dracolich is literally identical to a human lich by that logic! No, he's human. He thinks like a human, acts like a human, looks like a human and is an a++#$~$ like a human. Same thing with Geb, Urgathoa, every single evil mummy pharoah from Osirion and the lich there too. Being undead doesn't make you not human, in fact, the point is that it makes you worse as a monster.

That's the entire point of this. The worst monsters are human or made by humans. By contrast, there's very few big AP enemies that wholly and completely disconnected from humanity... Hastur in Strange Aeons, the Algolthu in Ruins of Azlant, the drow in Second Darkness, the genies in LoF, Serpentfolk in Serpent's Skull, giants in giantslayer, hobgoblins in Ironfang, and Deskari in WotR. That's 8 out of 24. And of those 8, only the Algolthu, Hastur and Deskari do not appear human. Drow are just grey humans with pointy ears. Genies are red humans. Giants are big humans. Serpentfolk are humans with scales and fangs. And hobgoblins are grey/green short humans.

So it seems very weird to me to say that you want to make serpentfolk as enemies because they're inhuman and it's easier to fight/demonize inhuman enemies... and then most of our enemies are either explicitly human or humans with minor aesthetic changes.

7) If we made serpentfolk a PC ancestry, we'd have to soften their themes as villains, and we've done that enough already with numerous other ancestries in 2nd edition; for a game that focuses mostly on combat, it's important to maintain combat targets for heroes to fight against, and the less human in appearance things get, the easier it is to maintain the creatures as monsters.

Eh? Your biggest bad, Tar-Baphon, is a human. The Runelords were all human. Lamashtu is a pregnant human woman. Asmodeus is a red human. Queen Ileosa is human. Areelu Vorlesh is human. Norgorber is human. Geb is human. Nex is human. Razmiran is human. Irovetti is human. Abrogail II is human. Unity was built by humans. Zura is a succubus who was, wait for it... a human Azlanti princess! And of course then there's Baba Yaga just for good measure, who not only is a human, but decided to just make a demon lord out of, you guessed it, a human.

Humans are by far the most numerous and successful villainous race on Golarion. Which stands to reason, considering that the only other race that compares are the algollthu... who basically made them.

It seems very weird to me to say it's easier to fight monsters that are less human when human is the number one enemy in most APs and easily the best overall choice for Ranger favored enemy.

Hrothgar Rannúlfr wrote:

Hi, everyone.

What level is the average human in PF2?

And, how rare are higher level human NPCs?

Just wondering if the assumption that 95% of the population is 1st level is accurate?

And, maybe 2% are 2nd or 3rd level? And, another 1% are 4th or 5th level?

And, higher levels are even rarer?

Just wondering.

Thank you.

The average human could be any level the GM likes in PF2, unless you're in Golarion.

In Golarion, probably 0-2.

I mean, even just looking through Sandpoints gazetteer, almost every NPC was 3-5, even the whore that ran the Pixie's Kitten was a level 3 sorc, lvl 2 aristocrat, the orphanage owner is a lvl 4 wizard, lvl 2 rogue, the general store owner is a lvl 7 commoner...

I'm not sure where people get the average person being lvl 0-2. Because it really doesn't seem to hold up on the actual examples in the campaign settings.

I still don't understand why they removed the ability for all familiars to just talk to you when you hit lvl 5. And why if you have a familiar like say, a spider, it randomly loses natural abilities and you can't give it anything because it was born being able to see in the dark and climb things.

F~&+ I hate the familiar rules, they're such garbage now.

Its a pretty major improvement, barring some weird interactions (persistent bludgeoning damage from produce <element> can trip is a bit odd.

I mean... I guess your wet hair is just really really heavy and until it dries it's gonna keep making your head squished. And the, uh, dust and dirt is doing the same thing.

...I got nothin' for air though.

Dragons are not immortal in Golarion. They do in fact die of old age. There's no listed maximum age, but according to Dragon's Revisited, apparently Daralathyxl is a 'major concern' to the Conclave of Dragons because he's over two thousand years old and hasn't died of old age yet. So it's apparently less than 2k years, to take from that.

Even in 3.5e they weren't immortal. In the Draconomicon, metallic dragons had a lifespan of about 4500-6500 years and chromatics were about 1k-2k shorter.

So even if Dragon Form assumed the age rate of a dragon, you'd still die eventually.

Colonel Kurtz wrote:

Yeah, as they started nonhuman planetouched in 3rd Ed (dwarves with devil ancestry, etc), makes sense to make them heritages you can apply to any humanoid race.

Which really makes sense as there is no reason humans would be any more desirable or fertile with various supernatural forces like elementals/geneies/vampires/devils/demons and what not.

Yeah everyone knows knife-ears and short, bearded women are sexier than run-of-the-mill humans.

Myrryr wrote:

Ellias Aubec wrote:

I remember watching a show on Netflix where they were recreating a breastplate from just after guns were around. From the time to melting the original ore was several days. Hammering the raw metal into plates took several more, and then weeks to turn that into a basic breastplate. Then they took longer to make it fancy. And that was just the breastplate and no arm or leg pieces, along with using modern hammering tools to reduce that time as well.

Granted smaller objects should take less, but for the majority of things PCs would probably craft it is shorter than would be expected.

Sure. For a breastplate. This is why 1e crafting had variable craft times. They were done on price, which was hardly accurate, but it was something.

How long does it take to make a club? Well according to 2e, 4 days. I can make a club in ~10 seconds by picking up a stick from outside. Ok, maybe 20 seconds, I do need to put on my sandals as it rained earlier and I don't want to get my feet dirty.

You haven't made a club. You've picked up an improvised bludgeoning weapon.

Not in 1e. Clubs have a price of 0gp. You can walk up to a tree and instantly craft it into hundreds of clubs. Or do the same to a pile of ore if you wanted metal clubs.

I remember watching a show on Netflix where they were recreating a breastplate from just after guns were around. From the time to melting the original ore was several days. Hammering the raw metal into plates took several more, and then weeks to turn that into a basic breastplate. Then they took longer to make it fancy. And that was just the breastplate and no arm or leg pieces, along with using modern hammering tools to reduce that time as well.

Granted smaller objects should take less, but for the majority of things PCs would probably craft it is shorter than would be expected.

Sure. For a breastplate. This is why 1e crafting had variable craft times. They were done on price, which was hardly accurate, but it was something.

How long does it take to make a club? Well according to 2e, 4 days. I can make a club in ~10 seconds by picking up a stick from outside. Ok, maybe 20 seconds, I do need to put on my sandals as it rained earlier and I don't want to get my feet dirty.

Looking at the maneuvers and not the classes... no, it's not even slightly balanced. It's ridiculously broken.
The classes as a baseline aren't that bad, as others say, they're about the same as an inquisitor or swashbuckler or paladin.

But the issue is the actual maneuvers. There's lvl 1 maneuvers that just straight up give you two full BAB attacks with a 2h weapon (and each deal 2 additional damage), a maneuver that gives your ally an immediate AoO plus your own attack, and more. Just for free hits. There's one that staggers the enemy with no save, just auto staggers.

Those are just the lvl 1 ones. The high level ones make 9th lvl spells look like ass. The Veiled Moon one deals bonus damage, and plane shifts them to the astral if they fail a save, but if they make the save, they take 50 bonus damage and are astrally projected for 1 minute instead... which means their body is unconscious on the ground in front of you so you just coup de grace and murder them. For making your save.
Then there's the one that deals +12d6 damage and gives you two attacks (on top of the weapon damage for doing two full BAB attacks), and forces a save or die... twice. Yep, you read that right. You hit them twice, and they must make TWO saves, or instantly die.
Those are not 'outliers'. All of the maneuvers are that ridiculous.

Yqatuba wrote:

Considering Azathoth is the size of a star I would imagine he has some cities built on his body that are peopled by aliens who worship him (though, considering he's so dumb he probably doesn't even know).

I've always imagined Azathoth is more than just the size of a star—he's a living star, and as such anything you try to build on him or near him will get pretty much insta-destroyed.

Doesn't Azathoth have art? I don't think PF art, but Lovecraft art, which shows him as basically a gigantic pile of flesh, tentacles, mouths, teeth and sphincters. So he could have a city on his 'solid' surface. If they survive the necessary gravity he'd be producing (and since we know there are plenty of living things on Golarions sun, which is the same size as Earth's sun, IE a main sequence G-type star, there are clearly things that can handle star gravity.

There's also possibly Maghara, a CG copper dragon ghost that lives in a lighthouse that I think is in Cheliax? I know he was killed by the red dragon Aashaq the Annihilator that lives around the Shackles, which Cheliax routinely sends ships through.

I'm quite partial to the theory of multiple Gods having access to the same portfolio, but because of that, they are ALL responsible for it.

If two or more Sun Gods start to go to war over total dominion of their Portfolio, you could end up with sweltering heatwaves, world-wide drought or even two suns, smaller and weaker, in the sky. And that's where the other Sun Gods, and the other Gods whose domains are now at risk or under dire threat move, potentially creating an all-in divine scrum to stop the conflict and causing all manner of divine and mortal chaos as the world reels under all this Godly power being thrown around and warping the world and it's denizens in the process.

Divine shenanigans and petty godling tantrums over having to share their 'toys' can be so much fun for a DM to use to really put the screws to a campaign, not just the PCs.

Gods are not responsible for things like that. Golarion's star doesn't give two shits about Sarenrae, Nergal or anyone else. It's a star and it'll be there for another ~4.5 billion years until it grows giant and red and eventually shrinks into a white dwarf as it's a G-type main sequence star, just like Earth's.

A god's portfolio is more or less just a very powerful being's particular interests. And very very few gods are actually powerful enough to affect celestial bodies (two have died just trying to stop a meteor and to move a moon, let alone affecting a star).

On top of that, most gods are generally planetary in scope. Many of Golarion's gods are only concerned with/worshipped by Golarionites. Nobody on Castrovel knows or cares about Aroden, Nalinivati, Irori, Nethys, Cayden Cailean or Iomedae. By contrast, there are demigods that are well known and worshipped throughout the entire material plane like the Four Horsemen or Archdevils because their scope is planar, not planetary, yet they are still 'merely' demigods compared to full divinities like Iomedae who's a tiny 900 years old.

Also, worship has absolutely zero effect on a god's personal power, it only affects their political/military power (more worshippers is more soldiers, but the god's direct magic is unaffected). James clarified that in multiple posts. Pharasma is the strongest deity.

Dragons Revisited specifically mentions one 'yellow' dragon that was found, but it was dead and unnamed. Unfortunately, actually named tarnished or gleaming metallics/chromatics in canon, I've never seen. I don't think there are any that are unequivocally stated as such.

Mengkare is probably the closest to being off-alignment to named canon metallics, but is unconfirmed. Aethervox is probably the closest to being off-alignment to named canon chromatics, but is actually listed as LE, just has no actual evil actions in her written history whatsoever.

Even though she's not really well defined, I do like the idea of Aethervox quite a bit. Might be a little colored by the fact I've used her in a few games as a DM.

Do add a lot from the CRPG. Notably Chapter 3, the entire Womb of Lamashtu, magical beast invasion and goblin village/fort was really good. Seconding, thirding, and fourthing the entire plot with Nyrissa from Chap. 1 all the way through Chap 7, including allowing you to romance her and join her in attacking the Lantern King as the final boss.

Allow more evil options, like recruiting the lich from book 3/chapter 4, and even make it so that he can help a possible PC undergo lichdom.

Please please please put in some of the unique magic items, especially the three magic items that add damage per damage die to spells, and rules in the back for crafting them. They are completely non-existent and impossible to build in the tabletop and would be amazing editions to the game. Blasters are already weak and control casters too strong, it would encourage more blasters, which would lessen the number of control casters.

Also, Tartuk and more kobolds. They're great. Allow Tartuk to be an advisor or an actual vassal state you interact with, can levy troops from, collect taxes, hire workers (I mean, what ruler doesn't want kobolds building their siege defense traps? Everyone knows kobolds make the best traps!)

Also, put in Kanerah/Kalikke as NPC's somewhere because that whole character is just really cool and really unique.

Irrisen would also suck as a non-Jadwigga.

What’s before Golarion?

Multiverse as an Origin and an age or exist from... timeless time?
The Originals Gods of Golarion were mortals of more ancient worlds (as happened to Aroden)?
Beyond Golarion the metaphysic changes; there are different gods in charge (such as in Krynn)?
Whose gods are worshipped in other worlds (Asmodeus? &?)?
There is some kind of cooperation between the gods of different pantheons and the gods ruling different worlds?
Material plane world number is infinite?
Every Material Plane world as a “private” set of related Planes?
So, for ex, the Prime World of Golarion is the same one of a Different world or they have different ones?
It changes something for external Planes?
(Planets of the same solar sistem such as Castrovel are linked to the same places in other planes and have the same Gods in Charge? Pharasma rules there too?)
Different planets sytuation is different or similar to distant worlds such as the Thriece Tenths Kingdom of Rasputin?

Quite a bit is before Golarion. As a planet, Golarion is only a few billion years old, and the 'verse is the same as our real one, ~14 billion years old. If Golarion was as old as the Big Bang, the planet would be long gone as the star it revolves around would've turned into a red giant and consumed it by now.

Nocticula. Not only is she now CN, but she's still also a demon, which means you can totally do a CN demonic ritual, become a succubus and bypass the whole 'dying and losing your memories', while being good!

On top of that, I just love her new domains and portfolio. Outcasts, artists and midnight? I'm a loner, writer and nocturnal, absolutely perfect! Add in the succubus part and it's just win win win win!

I'd love to see some more information on Hadregash. What exactly does a lawful goblin god look like? And goblin supremacy? That sounds amazing. Want more plx.

As an alternate question, who is the oldest deity?

Which is older the Dark Tapestry or the Qlippoths? Is Rovagug as old as Pharasma?

I believe that'd be the Eldest, actually. The First World is the oldest plane and I don't think that's a 'creation myth'. However, there are likely at least some gods that were around for it being made (Pharasma likely being one of them), but most gods seem to be at least younger than the outer planes. The Maelstrom spawned the Abyss, and the First World was made prior to the Abyss, so we know that the First World (and by extension the Eldest) are older than qlippoths, which means older than Rovagug.

A lot of mortals who follow anything in the dark tapestry are already a little insane.

A 'little' he says...

On topic, they can also be deathly afraid they might be part Garundi. (Lovecraft had issues, man. Issues)

Erm, reading the player's guide, if you don't have actual old PC's for this, aren't you supposed to allow the players to create new ones for the Sihedron heroes?

That seems to be the way it reads to me, to allow them to still have their own sort of backstory as though they had created/played the characters through the AP's, and whether or not they want them to have met/had significant impact on their RotRL actual PC.

Admittedly, it does require having players that don't mind making a lvl 17-19 toon, depending on how you play your games (mine run to lvl 20 even if I have to add thigns to the AP, for example. Feels more epic to end at lvl 20)

Bumping because I'd also love to know some Deific Obedience boons, and would this count for Demoniac (she's still technically also a demon, Lamashtu also counts for both Demonic Obedience and Deific Obediences, as well as the Demoniac prestige class and Evangelist/Sentinel/Exalted, and we know that Arushelae retained her Demon subtype when she redeemed all the way to CG).

Jester's Jaunt made into a core spell.

Vancian spellcasting. Which is why I dropped it for a created mana system that's worked wonders for me. Granted, I have a lot of other homerules as well, but that's one of my big ones that I just can't play/DM without. I can be flexible on the others, but I hate Vancian casting.

Whites may not even be intelligent enough for that. Blacks and reds are most likely to have this kind of attitude. Greens and Blues might get more diplomatic and devious about it, extracting items from humanoids as taxes, ransoms (or get eaten), or even commissioning such items through patsies and trying to browbeat or convince others to pay the full price so they won't have to deplete their precious reserve of shinies...

Blacks explicitly hate things of beauty and rip them to pieces, are horrific torturers and mutilate pretty people just because, and even prefer rotten food. The idea of a black 'creating' anything is wildly out of character for the most misanthropic of the dragons.

Reds would totally seek out skilled craftsmen for slaves. Their slaves are treated as a part of their horde itself and often many adventurers that slay a red find their slaves are better hidden/protected than the rest of the horde itself.

A green that took up crafting would likely be one of the best magical artisans on the planet, with the way they're set up to super OCD about their particular obsession, as a point of pride to the dragon and their own innate discipline.

Blues would extort, steal, rob, and even legitimately purchase items, and like greens, also have enough discipline to learn crafting (Arantaros being a great example of an alchemist).

Whites... yeah. Feral and savage. Until they're Old, they're not really smart enough nor would they particularly care.

For the metallics, bronze's are noted scholars and authors and all of them have a library as part of their hoard. A bronze that's a scribe or has craft wondrous to make spellbooks and such sounds entirely possible. Silvers are basically paladins and would have zero qualms using some of their coin to gear themselves up in the pursuit of crushing evil. Copper and brass dragons are more social and pretty unlikely to shut themselves into a workshop for days to make something when they could be out having fun. And golds find themselves just too busy trying to help the world to laze about crafting with all of the suffering that needs to be alleviated.

Could always adapt the video game's rules. If the target is flanked by your party members (IE, there's a melee on both sides), then you also get the flank bonus for the purpose of landing ranged sneak attacks.

I mean, if you're already trying (and failing) to dodge someone stabbing in you the front and back, why are you somehow able to perfectly dodge the arrows too?

Meirril wrote:

Though if you wanted to be more realistic, dragons are powerful, intelligent, long lived, patient. If they ever herd of economics they would all be bankers, industrialists, and merchants. Sitting at the top of a corporate pyramid raking in the money while those lesser beings it hold in such contempt work themselves to death to increase the side of the horde. Honestly, its not a story anyone wants to tell, right?

I dunno. Shadowrun seems to run Dragons pretty well considering :>

Was gonna say, Shadowrun dragons are exactly this.

And on top of that, Blue dragons, according to Dragons Revisited are ALSO this, only they do it illegally as shadowy crime lords instead of publicly corporate ones.

But even disregarding that, dragons do interact with civilization on Golarion very frequently and commonly. Heck, there's two separate countries ruled by dragons, Hermea by Mengkare and over in Tian Xia there's the Dragon Empires ruled by... w/e that one imperial dragon's name is that I forget off the top of my head. Terrendelev lives in Mendev and works with the paladins there frequently, Aashaq the Annihilator has an entire cult that lives around her lair, Athervox has human students from Cheliax studying astronomy at her observatory, Susurex rules over the Glazen Sheet in Osirion, and there are plenty others.

Well, for an outsider improved familiar, part of the binding ritual does include calling them from the outer (or inner, in the case of an elemental) plane.
I don't see a reason why a wizard couldn't go through the first part of the ritual to call the imp or whatever and just stop there. It should work fine.

Alternatively, since a familiar is utterly incapable of disobeying a direct order, you can just get your familiar's Truename, and if you have an outsiders Truename, you can call them to your side by speaking it whenever you want, according to the Wizard Arcane Discovery.

I'll be sticking with PF myself instead of DnD 4.5. I already use multiple house rules to fix some of PF's issues, including replacing the vancian spell system with a modified spell point system.

I am looking over the playtest for things to cannibalize from it, of the ideas I do like, such as the ancestral feats. An additional feat line to draw upon new and awesome race-specific things that doesn't take from your general feats is a brilliant idea. Race feats in base PF1e are mostly ignored because they don't compare to general feats like Power Attack.

It's probably worth noting that Asmodeus actively focuses his efforts on conquering the Prime Material - but the Prime Material is infinite in scope, meaning the task itself is an infinite undertaking. (And of course a quite daunting task as well - only of the strongest of devils can stand against giants, dragons, krakens, high level mortals, etc.)

While the Night Queen Eisieth is actually really angry that Asmodeus spends so much resources on the Prime Material - she wants to overthrow Moloch, seize its authority, and devote all of those resources to conquering Heaven. (Which is also an infinite plane, and thus a different infinite undertaking. Even if Eisieth breached the gates, she'd need eternity to penetrate all the way to the summit.)

If you wanted a Blood War situation in Pathfinder, it'd probably involve Lamashtu and Asmodeus going into another "hot" phase against each other - Lamashtu might have a specific stretch of Hell she's trying claim (probably because of its tied to a specific creature that intrigues her, like the Barghest realm), while Asmodeus might want to "rescue" the enormous mortal population in Lamashtu's realm for relocation and re-education.

And yes, I do suspect that the entirety of Hell v. Lamashtu's realm is probably an even match-up. Lamashtu is bad, bad news.

The bottom line of any real war in the Outer Planes should relate to mortal souls, because that's what determines your realm's growth and longevity. Territory acquisition in of itself does nothing if you don't have the means to retain it.

(There's also the matter that lawful evil and chaotic evil souls need to go somewhere; if Hell or the Abyss was somehow destroyed, a new plane could well form to accommodate those souls.)

IIRC, didn't the Great Beyond sourebook state that only the Abyss and the Material were actually infinite in size? I do not believe Hell or Heaven are even close to being infinite. They are constantly growing with the influx of souls happening, but are not supposed to be infinite.

Myrryr wrote:

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

Empyreal Lords are less true deities and more like heroes among their particular type. Like an Azata Empyreal Lord is more like Achilles, not Mars. Make sense?

That's strictly untrue. Demon lords/infernal dukes/daemonic harbingers and empyreal lords are direct equivalents, but opposite alignment. They are not weaker, nor stronger than the evil ones.

Actually, CR-wise the evil equivilant to the Empyreal Lords are the Demon Lord, Archdevils and Horsemen. The infernal dukes and deamonic harbingers are on par with nancest demon lords and minor empyreal lords.

Depends pretty heavily on individuals at that point. Nocticula might be CR 30, and so is Cernunnos, but Kostschie and Korada are both only CR 26.

You can also abuse certain other stats, and assuming the Golarion-verse, abuse wording too. I made a witch that abused the fact that there's a quasit witch in RotR book 1. Since both the Abyss and the Material plane are canonically stated in The Great Beyond sourcebook as being infinite, there are an infinite number of CE souls that would become an infinite number of lvl 1 quasit witches with the coven hex.
Since outsiders do not need to eat, drink or sleep, you grab a simple air freshening magic item and stuff as many quasit witches as you need to into bags of holding and slip one of your prehensile hairs into it so you're within 30ft of them so the coven hex functions.
Grab more bags of holding with more quasits until you've reached the numbers you need/want (I got up to several million).

Then, with your Caster Level of XXXXXXXX, cast numerological evocation, choosing one of the elemental damage types that has no immunity because it doesn't exist anywhere but that spell such as 'water' or 'earth', modify the range to whatever you want, and the damage to whatever you want, because it has no caster level cap.

Congrats, you can kill anything with HP. You can bore a hole right through the planet if you want, with your massive spell laser as a walking witch Death Star.

This is why you don't give things stats if you don't want them to die. Because there's always going to be a fiddly little rule somewhere that an author forgot to cap, or didn't think through with the other 100+ books that have things it could combo with.

Some canon dragons are experienced craftsmen. Arantaros for example is a master alchemist (just not quite good enough to make the Star Orchid Elixir). The beastiary entries for creatures only ever have combat feats because they're supposed to simply be used for combat.

If you're creating a dragon for a campaign, *you* should be the one creating and designing it and putting thought into the dragon's lifestyle and personality and what that given dragon would choose to study. As another example, there's the green dragon Aethervox in Cheliax that's a noted astronomer and spends a great amount of her time studying the heavens and actually lives in an observatory near a town. The bronze dragon Tiruvinn, living off the coast near Sandpoint, is a noted librarian.

Dragons do not only live in caves far from civilization. Several dragons, especially brass, silver, gold and blue, are known to work with people on a daily basis to expand their influence, power and wealth.

There very much are dragons out there who have crafting feats, and dragons who have levels in wizard too. One in particular, Aashaq, is a cleric. Just because the beastiary entries don't have those doesn't mean every dragon is the same, anymore than every single human is a lvl 1 commoner because that's what the beastiary says.

Empyreal Lords are less true deities and more like heroes among their particular type. Like an Azata Empyreal Lord is more like Achilles, not Mars. Make sense?

That's strictly untrue. Demon lords/infernal dukes/daemonic harbingers and empyreal lords are direct equivalents, but opposite alignment. They are not weaker, nor stronger than the evil ones.

Well, a few corrections to the thread. First off, James has stated explicitly several times over in the campaign setting forum that Pharasma is the most powerful god (more powerful than Rovagug) by a longshot. Rovagug is second, and beyond that it varies, sometimes drastically.

For example, it took TWO Azlanti gods to stop a meteor from destroying Golarion entirely, both died, and the meteorite still caused worldwide damage anyway. And then there's Azathoth who is literally the size of a black hole and the center of a galaxy and couldn't even notice if a million meteors the size of the starstone slammed into him. So deities are simply not always comparable.

If there were no ill-defined godly pact, then yes, those few ultra-powerful gods would just instantly crush all of the others and do with the multiverse what they wanted. As it is, they can't.
Now, as to why the pact exists, or who enforces it, that's not written anywhere, but an easy obvious answer is 'because Pharasma said so'.

Why? Lots of reasons, but no canon ones. Perhaps the godly pact was written by Asmodeus and is filled with minutiae that allows interference in specific circumstances and many different cases. The most likely reason, in fact.

And keep in mind that demigods are NOT held by that pact, which is why individuals like Deskari can invade a world where Rovagug is held prisoner without siccing every single god onto his face like would result if he just had a divine spark. That's the reason why I allow evil characters to be played in WotR, incidentally. Asmodeus and Zon-Kuthon and the like screaming at their clerics to go stop that moronic bug from breaking the Prison open since they can't do it.

Another thing to keep in mind is that there are a lot of gods. I mean a LOT of gods. Golarion alone has three deities (Nethys, Irori and Nalinivati) that have achieved apotheosis entirely on their own as mortals. Four more thanks to the starstone, just written in canon, and just in the last ~10k years. Now expand that to every planet in the material plane with life. Even if you only got one god out of every 10 planets (and ignore the fact that the material plane is explicitly called out as being infinite in size in The Great Beyond), there are still Trillions of gods out there before you even start to look at the other planes.
None of the gods, expecting possibly Pharasma, are omnipotent, so can you imagine a cross planar universal war between trillions of what basically amounts to Superman merged with Doctor Strange? Kind of a neat thought, but 'chaos' is the only words that truly comes to mind and then... only the proteans win.

I ignore the Blood War myself, mostly because it's just not necessary. The various powers on the lower planes do plenty of fighting for personal reasons without needing a specific race war.
Demons and devils don't get along anymore than proteans and axiomites do. Being evil together does not allow law and chaos to coexist peacefully.
And in fact, azata and archons butt heads in my setting just as often, to the point of outright warfare because the archons refuse to accept society can exist in lawlessness and the azata refuse to accept enforced rules on their personal freedoms.

As for why the countless demons don't overrun the other planes despite outnumbering them all, well that doesn't need a war with Hell. They already have the best enemy to keep them in check. Themselves. Countless demons fighting countless demons seems like an excellent method of keeping countless fiends in check.

Hell does fight the upper planes, Ragathiel is specifically called out as always fielding battle against the Hellish legions, especially his father Dispater.

I do wish there was more written on the proteans and inevitables, and James has said multiple times that the most powerful god is Pharasma so if one of the planar powers truly wanted to take over the 9 planes, they'd eventually have to figure out what to do about her.

Oh my mistake, I thought they were both level 5. Also could a lich cast caustic blood? Not sure they have enough blood in them.

A smart lich would cast restore corpse on themselves and then gentle repose to last for 11+X days and look and feel entirely alive for the low low cast of a 1st and 2nd level spell last week. So yeah, they could easily use caustic blood.

Not sure why they would, except to pretend to be alive (which is an entirely legitimate reason), but they're certainly capable of it.

For the most part it doesn't. Raising a family is pretty much antithetical to continuing in an adventuring career. The former demands stability, the latter eliminates it. Given that the bare minimum of time commitment is in the two decade range, deciding on a family is essentially the end of an adventuring career. You settle down and take a real steady job of work or craft (or if you've hit a big score), a business or domain.

That's why there aren't, and aren't likely to be (save doubtless from some third party who'll be looking to make a few quick bucks from a broadside PDF), rules in this area.

Two decades minimum? That really depends on race. Goblin parents would be out of commission for a couple months at most and toss their kid into a playpen. Even if they were good and raised it, it'd be self-sufficient in 5-6 years. If it's elven parents, their child won't be self-sufficient for a century RAW (which I agree is pretty adventure ending, also a dumb RAW rule)

More on topic, it really depends on a given campaign, the table, and the DM. There's rules in certain books like the aforementioned BoEF, and I've written some rules myself for PF for it. Copulation chances vary and depends on species. Elves are supposed to breed rarely, but for example is that because they have a menstruation cycle that is yearly or more? Unlike humans, where it's 12-13 times a year? What about outsiders, in the OP's case, Djinn? Does a sylph inherit the human menstruation cycle, or the djinn menstruation cycle?
Or do you ignore all of that entirely and just make it a d100 roll with a set chance for every given copulation?
The latter is obviously the easiest for a DM.

The other option is of course magic. I'm sure there'd be a necromancy spell that can insure pregnancy with a 100% success rate, and likely variations of it using outsider body parts (blood for example) as material components that an enterprising wizard or cleric (or probably druid/witch, pregnancy magic seems more inclined to those) could use to infuse the unborn and create half-celestials or fiends, planetouched, maybe even half-dragons, dhampir, fey-touched and the like. We have magic that scoffs at death, so magic that plays with life at it's conception wouldn't really be any different at all. Probably 4th-6th level spells with a 1-5k material component cost.

Rovagug attracts a high number of "Chaotic Stupid/Stupid Evil" adherents because of his association with unrestrained destruction. However, this is more to do with a misunderstanding of his domains than any true stupidity.

How is it a misunderstanding? Rovagug's entire goal is to kill everything that has a soul because he wants to empty the Abyss of demons. If you worship Rovagug and aren't a qlippoth, you're suicidal by definition because your god wants to kill you and destroy your soul. That pretty firmly puts you in the Stupid Evil camp, or the severe nihilism camp. There's no real grey area here...

So, an interesting thing came up in a session today and apparently google was not able to find me an answer.
What happens when you cast a cure spell on a living person who's possessed by an undead? (Ghost, lich with magic jar, doesn't matter really) Does the undead creature feel any feedback at all? Positive energy can affect incorporeal creatures, regardless of whether or not they're inside a solid object, even if it's at half-damage (barring effects like Ghostbane Dirge), but generally speaking a possessed creature is the target of spells and effects unless they say they'll affect a possessing creature, such as Protection from Evil being able to force them out.

Adjoint wrote:

Alkenstar City lays partly in an a dead magic zone, and partly in a primal magic zone. I don't think that in the primal magic zone magic is completely outlawed, but I suppose it may be strictly regulated, as it can have wild results. Possibly only acredited people are allowed to use magic, and only with utmost caution.

If you can get magic to work reliably in the Mana Wastes, clearly you are Up To No Good.

The Mana Wastes are a desert, so what if it's a Brass Dragon casting spells? Also, the concentration checks to avoid wild magic aren't that difficult. By level 7-8 you should be able to make them reliably.

So Jiggy, are you going to tell us what this magical game is, or just describe what sounds like freeform imagination?