Prismatic “Mat” Gay's page

Prismatic “Mat” Gay wrote:

Might just be me, but I feel like it makes the Mana Wastes feel less special :/

The defining trait of the Mana Wastes, to me, has always been the wild and dead magic zones. Alkenstar's focus on clockwork, gunpowder, and other tangible innovations over magics they can't rely on is the real trend of that region.

A mutant in the Mana Wastes got caught in a sandstorm that fundamentally altered their soul. A mutant in Nex was probably the deliberate efforts of an alchemist who went to school for fleshwarping (or else they drank the giant ooze in the middle of that aforementioned city). I think they're plenty distinct, personally!

The lingering effects of the war between Geb and Nex have always cast a shadow over the entire region.

Oh, I didn’t realize the origin of the Nex mutants/that there were enough fleshforged people to make up substantial amounts of bandits. Thanks!

Might just be me, but I feel like it makes the Mana Wastes feel less special :/

Apparently, there’s a lot of mutants in Nex in the wastelands outside of the cities. Why is this? Also, any tips on differentiating them/Nex from the mutants in the Mana Wastes right next door?

In Impossible Lands, it mentions in a few places, such as page 96, that the Donguni dwarves do quite a lot of mining in the Shattered Range. However, in the map provided in that same book--and the maps I can find online--Dongun Hold is quite a distance from the Shattered Range, so I don't know how that would work, especially because they're noted to have, prior to the arrival of Ancil Alkenstar, not gone to the surface for millennia. Any idea as to how to make this make sense? Or is there something I'm missing?

Wait, they're killing Harold!?

Kidding. But also, Heralds die more often than you think. The Stabbing Beast in particular has been killed in TWO different adventure paths (How many times do we have to teach you this lesson, old stabby man!?)
Personally, I'd be pretty sad if Cayden's herald died. I love her. Sex worker celestial who was besties with the god in life and then got to become his herald after death? Pretty good deal there.

Thais is great! She hates Asmodeus so much she once flew down to his layer of Hell and 1v1ed him. I mean, she lost a wing as a result and barely escaped, but the fact that she is survived at all is crazy, given that Asmodeus is one of the more powerful gods, and Thais…can theoretically be defeated by a high-level non-mythic party (at least, in 1E; I don’t think we’ve gotten any statblocks for heralds in 2E, but I could be wrong).

Abadar only has about an hour left until he dies.

What do you mean?

I’m prepping (and rewriting parts of) Outlaws of Alkenstar to play with my group starting this fall. Since many of them will be learning the system for the first time (we’re transitioning from DnD 5e), and since I am hoping to continue on to Stolen Fate if the group hasn’t dissolved into scheduling issues by the time we’re done with OoA, I figured doing the whole thing using 2emaster would be the simplest solution (for them, at least—but I’m a forever GM, I’m used to complicated, heh). However, I have no idea to convert between 2e and 2emaster; I’m aware someone has a spreadsheet tracking all the changes, but I’m not sure how practicable just going off that would be. Any advice, tips, resources, whatever would be greatly appreciated!

I’m putting my (imaginary) money on Abadar, for the following reasons:
1) When deciding whether to kill off a character, writers have to do the mental “math” of whether their death will create more storytelling opportunities than their life. Abadar isn’t going through a character arc like some other gods (Shelyn has her whole thing with her brother going on, and Sarenrae has very recently in-canon started putting her foot down and been less tolerant of the Cult of the Dawnflower and slavery, for instance), and he’s generally a pretty static, unwavering, unchanging character—so his death wouldn’t, frankly, “cost” much (ironic for the god of money!).
2) His death, on the other hand, would create lots of storytelling opportunities. Abadar has the First Vault, which is essentially full of “things people would fight over”. He’s also one of the gods who is very willing to negotiate with others and come to agreements, meaning his death could leave the gods without a mediator, of sorts—especially since the other formerly neutral gods aren’t so diplomatically inclined or positioned (Irori is a young god who isn’t very social; Calistria is charismatic but can be very much a wild card, and is also just very self-centered; Nethys is unstable and mostly only cares about magic; Gozreh experiences the world very differently than even most gods, what with their nature deity status and how they are aware of basically Everything Everywhere (that touches water and/or is alive) All At Once; Gorum is…Gorum). Also, of course, the consequences of “what happens when the god of civilization dies” could just be a really interesting, non-apocalyptic shake-up of the setting!
3) Reportedly, James Jacobs killed Abadar in his proto-Golarion home game specifically to explore that last idea. Now, this idea has two main weaknesses—one, that even though I’ve seen it referenced by people on the forums, I’ve not found a citation (I presume it was at a con interview or something?), so it could be untrue; two, that even if Jacobs did indeed kill Abadar to explore that idea in proto-Golarion, it’s possible that the death of Aroden, god of humanity, fills that role in the final, published role of Golarion; I have no idea whether Aroden died in proto-Golarion, whether Abadar died before or after the modern time of the proto-setting, etc. BUT, at any rate, should this be true, it means that the idea of killing Abadar, regardless of whether they initially planned on doing it, existed at Paizo for years—which is especially important since, according to a reddit post by Luis Loza, the idea of killing one of the Core 20 has been in the works since sometime before summer 2022.
4) Wishful thinking. I don’t really care about Abadar, personally, and I would prefer if a god I don’t really care about dies, heh!

Arkat wrote:

Jonathan Morgantini wrote:

Having seen the rough outline for stuff I think people will be very excited for what we are unveiling. From the Office of Expectation Management, its certainly a tease/hype stream and not a deep dive, but people will be excited nonetheless.

I'm interested in the WoI tie-in products.

It seems pretty clear there will be an AP and pawns/maps to go with it, but what about a novel that gives some background on the whole conflict?

King of Chaos was a pretty decent precursor to the Wrath of the Righteous AP. Announce something like this, please.

And a Mythic discussion. That would also be very cool.

IIRC the death of the Core 20 deity will be in a novel written by Liane Merciel.

Wait, where was that revealed? I love Merciel's work!

Did they say that only one of the Core 20 will die? Maybe someone else's death kicks off the war, and at some point in there Torag heroically sacrifices himself for some reason or another, so the dwarves aren't a focus for most of the war but have a lot to do in the aftermath?

Yep, they did in a reddit post I believe

All my favorite gods being revealed to be safe, of course!
Speaking genuinely, though, I’m really interested in learning about all the War of Immortals stuff, although I’m sure we’ll only get hints about the AP proper.

I'm still betting on Torag for reasons I can no longer recall. Gorum is my second pick. Dunno who is in my third slot; I've heard pretty compelling cases for Iomadae, Gozreh, and now Lamashtu, with her apparently not showing up in any prophecy.

Re: Torag—maybe you heard about how, in an interview with the podcast Know Direction last summer, Luis Loza said "I may be intentionally seeding the idea that like, dwarves had to figure out how to like, live without Torag. Or like, maybe Torag isn't the end-all be-all for things. There might just be something going on there that, uh, we'll get to learn about over the coming, uh, months, coming years about what might be happening with that."?

Probably was in reference to the Sky King AP, especially because I doubt they would do two dwarf-heavy events in a row, but still. Maybe they’re doing that trope where you develop a character then kill them off? That might be a bit cheap writing for Paizo, though…

BookBird wrote:

A very cool prophecy to cap it off! I never quite settled on whether it was possible they'd be willing to kill Rovagug, but I suppose this settles that. But it's an interesting future this offers; he can be killed, he can be beaten. Even if doing so would be catastrophic for the Cage he inhabits.

A few of the gods haven't been mentioned at all in the prophecies thus far. Gozreh, Lamashtu and I think Calistria have so far been unmentioned. Though I don't think this has any bearing on anything. No mentions of Dark Tapestry stuff here either, which is what I was thinking based on the previous prophecy. Unless you count Rovagug himself as lovecraftian enough. Anyway, is it too insane of a theory that some of the non-core deities mentioned here might be in danger in War of Immortals? Apsu, Hanspur, Grandmother Spider, Hei Feng, Thamir. Though I seriously doubt they'd kill Hei Feng only a few months after the Tian Xia World Guide comes out, and even more so Grandmother Spider.

...And the prophecies end with my two favourite core 20 gods on the chopping block. John Paizo, I will pay you two whole dollarydoos if you kill literally anyone except Lamashtu. It can be all nine of the rest, I'm willing to do that. Now let's keep this hush-hush.

Yes but Calistria and Gozreh were suddenly mentioned here on the tenth prophecy leaving Lamashtu as the only unmentioned god. Too much of a coincidence imho. I betcha someone on Paizo thinks its clever to secretly hint at the dead god by having them as the only unmentioned one. Plus it technically makes sense since, if the main subject of every prophecy is 'guaranteed safe' then the one and only unmentioned god is the 'guaranteed dead'. Too much of a coincidence here imho

Don't know how likely I think that is, but that would be a very fun and clever loophole-adjacent thing

Has it been announced how late into the livestream the dead god will be announced? Or will it be a countdown of safe gods or something? Or just unknown?

[LOUD EXPLETIVE CENSORED}
I was really hoping it would be Iomedae..... at least it's only a 10% chance she'll die? (Well. Not really. But you know.)

I really hope Iomedae doesn’t die. It would be so cool to see how their relationship evolves once Arazni becomes a proper god (especially given she seems to be going to become un-undead, given the cover of Divine Mysteries).

Hopefully what their relationship will evolve into will involve kissing.

Re: the importance of learning from one’s mistakes, it’s interesting to note that Iomedae’s paladin code (as taken from Archives of Nethys), reads, in part:
I will not be taken prisoner by my free will. I will not surrender those under my command.
I will never abandon a companion, though I will honor sacrifice freely given.
“Freely given” is, I think, important here.

I mean, the sources about Arazni’s binding say that it planted seeds of doubt and mistrust in her mind, so she may have just looked past it because she thought it was for the greater good.

Plus, though Iomedae is the archetypal Knight in Shining Armor, especially as a mortal, people don’t always act with perfect righteousness. She may be truly, cosmically, capital letters Lawful Good now after having been kicking around in heaven for a milennia, but in her mortal life she probably had to make some hard decisions regarding Arazni. In terms of how it got her killed, it’s stated that the Tar-Baphon toyed with and then killed Arazni. I imagine that if she wasn’t bound, she could’ve gone back to the Outer Planes and recuperated. The wording of the binding is specifically that they “bound her to their will.” I can imagine that the Tyrant had Arazni on the ropes, and even if she wanted to retreat, the Knight’s will was that Arazni fight him, and so that was all she could do.

About the timing of her leadership, if the official sources timing of her rapidly becoming their leader feels off, this is how I see it. In the Windsong Testaments, it’s clearly stated that she perfom the first of her three acts before the start of the Shining Crusade. She had made quite the name for herself as a paladin of Arazni, and when she joined the Knights of Ozem, having such a strong and renowned paladin as their leader would’ve been really great for them. Even the earliest substantial sources we have about Iomedae (the article about her in Council of Thieves) links her joining the Shining Crusade with leading the Knights. Essentially, I can’t see any way that Iomedae didn’t have a hand in the binding and subsequent death of Arazni. The timing is so strongly established as to seem deliberate on the part of the writers.

Edit: Also in terms of Arazni’s alignment, angels can be any good alignment. I don’t think her pre-lichdom alignment was stated, but LG seems fitting for the herald of a LN god. As with Prismatic Gay’s other...

After seeing your post, I just went back and re-checked the Windsong Testament about Iomedae’s Acts and it turns out WOW she had done quite a lot before she joined!

First came her memorable clash with legendary Nakorshor’mond, a gluttonous monstrosity spawned and abandoned by Lamashtu. The glutton consumed members of her adventuring group, and Iomedae had to cut her companions free from otherwise eternal slumber from the fiend’s supernatural gullets.

Next was her defeat of the Pallid Sisters, a coven of Garundi witches who had been terrorizing the city of Senghor. Here, Iomedae found triumph without ever drawing her blade, achieving victory through the clever use of wordplay and diplomacy alone.
The last of these initial acts performed before the Shining Crusade was the defeat of Segruchen the Iron Gargoyle, who had proclaimed himself the King of the Barrowood. Iomedae’s griffon-mounted battle saw the so-called King metaphorically dethroned in mid-air.

Frankly, unless the Knights of Ozem were way massive and storied and had a really mired-down promotion system, then of course she would get promoted quickly!

EDIT: fixed a typo

Pardon, I hadn't meant to imply that Iomedae calling upon Arazni in the Fourth Act resulted in any physical manifestation. We really seem to have too little information about the Fourth Act to place it any more clearly than during the Shining Crusade. Rather I meant to show that Iomedae's faith in Arazni was such that (whether through divine blessing or simple morale) she turned the tide of the battle, which seemed to me at odds with the more coldly practical image of ordering her goddess bound to her will so that she couldn't be turned against them somehow.

Even so, unless Knights of Lastwall is in error in describing Iomedae becoming commander of the knights of Ozem in her first year of joining, either she gave the order (and I see now your link to Erik Mona's post) or somebody in her command acted without her approval, which would be unlikely until such a time that more concrete details about the event are released--if that time ever comes.

This in mind, it certainly is an interesting choice to have the setting's chief deity of paladins have enslaved her own goddess when she was mortal. One that only adds to the potential drama of any future interactions! That being the case, my first impression of Arazni continuing to grant Iomedae and the knights powers and spells after binding is a matter of her being like "Of course it only makes sense... this is just for the best... right?" in that weird way when you're not entirely certain somebody who cares about you really is violating your agency as long as it's just a formality.

--

Incidentally, I was under the impression that Arazni's alignment had been NG, not LG, as an angel. Tangentially related to that, do we actually have any sources that confirm Arazni died because of the binding, or is it simply that she happened to die while so bound, engaged in a fight she was explicitly willing to join before the binding?

I think she didn’t die because of the binding—I’m pretty sure in Pathfinder, heralds just die if you kill them, because they’re not powerful enough to resurrect like demon lords or what have you—except for in the indirect sense that she wouldn’t’ve been in the fight that got her killed if she wasn’t bound.

First--it's entirely possible that I got Arazni's original alignment wrong; I'm honestly not sure if it was ever listed.

Second--if they wanted Iomedae to have joined and become later in separate years, it would've said something like "3816 AR Iomedae joins the Knights of Ozem" "3820 AR Iomedae becomes leader of the Knights of Ozem"; having it be in the same year unless it was well, in the same year, doesn't make much sense. While it's absolutely a possibility that some sort of error happened and made it to print, I don't think it's necessary the most likely scenario?

I think Iomedae's rapid rise makes more sense if you consider the possibility that the Knights weren't necessarily a prominent organization when she joined. While the description of Taldor being "aided by the dwarven kingdom of Kraggodan and the Knights of Ozem" (Inner Sea World Guide, 98) does place them alongside a kingdom and thus suggest a certain amount of importance, they are literally not noted as having participated in any historical events before then. Additionally, on the same page, the ISWG also says "[f]rom all of Taldor's provinces along the Inner Sea crusaders assembled." Since Cheliax was still under Taldan control at this point, Iomedae, as a Cheliaxian, would have been one of those Taldan crusaders, even if she was in a subfaction. I theorize that the Knights were a pretty small-time order before the Crusade, when Iomedae's skills first caused her herself to rise to the rank of leader ("Iomedae rose to prominence in the era of the Shining Crusade, when she led the Knights of Ozem is a series of victories over the Whispering Tyrant" (Inner Sea World Guide, 222)), and then caused the Knights as a whole to rise in prominence due to her leadership ability, and, of course, eventually, the aid of a frigging herald.
(Of course, if someone has one of the many sourcebooks I don't have on hand and can contradict this, I'd welcome the, if not clarity, at least more certainty)

Additionally, Arazni's resentment of the Knights of Ozem is...not as intense as I thought it would be? While her binding is described as "an arrogance that planted the seed of mistrust that would lead to her defeat" (which, honestly, I'm not sure what exactly that means?) (Knights of Lastwall, 8), and it is specified that "many among the sentinels recall the the betrayal of the Knights of Ozem, and...[are] deeply loath to trust the goddess [Arazni]" (Knights of Lastwall, 29), she doesn't seem to have any desire to actually harm them or anything. In fact, I could make a good case--and others have--that she is probably one of the divinities empowering the Crimson Reclaimers, who are in many ways the literal and metaphorical descendants of the Knights of Ozem.
If the Knights weren't that prominent and/or were originally a small force, their decision to bind her could have been more understandable, maybe??? Either way, they at the very least take a back seat to her grudges against Tar-Baphon and Geb (very understandably, considering that they had no intention of letting her die, and didn't force her to do anything she wouldn't have done or been willing to do otherwise (the binding of the Knights still sucks, let's be clear, but it was probably much more palatable than being controlled by Geb, for a variety of reasons).

No hint this week, so.... whats everyones final guess? And how would YOU end the Prophecies if it were up to you?

For who’s being declared safe—I’d guess you’d want to end with a bang, so Shelyn, Sarenrae, Iomedae, Abadar, or Rovagug. Or Norgorber, if his true identity was revealed in his death prophecy maybe?

The Windsong Testaments about Iomedae’s Acts, published in 2019, says that “[d]uring the Second Battle of Encharthan, Iomedae’s legacy grew as she took command of a regiment of mortally wounded knights and held back a wave of wraiths long enough for reinforcements to arrive at dawn,” with no mention of Arazni’s presence.
Meanwhile, Inner Sea Gods, published in 2014, states that Iomedae’s Fourth Act was when “[w]ith heartfelt words and an prayer to Arazni, she convinced a regiment of mortally wounded knights at the Second Battle of Encarthan to hold back a wave of wraiths long enough for reinforcements to arrive at dawn” (Inner Sea Gods, 81).

In my personal opinion, I think it’s possible that Iomedae’s Fourth Act wasn’t empowered by Arazni, and that the prayer was a morale thing she invoked—especially since “Arazni [was]…the patron saint of the Shining Crusade, and the victories she achieved inspired ever more crusaders to flock to the front lines” (Knights of Lastwall, 8)—but I also think that it’s possible (probably more possible than the alternative) that Arazni would’ve chosen to bestow a divine blessing or something upon Iomedae even under her circumstances, since she was evidently willing to continue granting Iomedae her smites and spells despite Iomedae almost definitely carrying some level of blame for Arazni’s binding. Maybe Herald!Arazni was particularly forgiving, and/or saw it as necessary for the greater good she pursued as a LG angel?

EDIT: Got rid of the discussion of PathfinderWiki and The Sixfold Trial because it wasn’t really relevant.
EDIT 2: Fixed a spot where I somehow accidentally wrote Iomedae instead of Arazni

I don't know any strict canon sources on this question, but since Iomedae only just joined the knights two years before they summoned Arazni, I suspect and prefer to believe she was only a rank-and-file member still. In fact, personally I feel like the most logical point where Iomedae officially becomes the general and leader of the knights is when she rallies the troops in the wake of Arazni's death, but she could easily have risen sometime in the 5 years between the summoning and the Battle of Three Sorrows.

This is not to say there's no way Iomedae could have been in charge of Arazni's binding (at minimum it's likely she was a participant) but it doesn't seem terribly consistent with her character and what we've glimpsed of the relationship between the goddesses that Iomedae was the one to give the order to bind Arazni to their will. The story of how Iomedae could have made such a mistake would be an interesting one, but doesn't entirely sit right with me in light of her calling upon Arazni in a show of faith for her Fourth Act, which could well have been in that same five-year span.

Yeah, that’s what I initially assumed, but I was just reading Knights of Lastwall, and it says

They never really say it explicitly, but, as near as I can tell, there’s no reason for it not to be the case (maybe they want to leave it “ambiguous” so they can decide later?). I do wonder why—perhaps it was a “desperate times call for desperate measures” sort of thing? (Especially interesting, given Iomedae as we know her now is Honorable-with-a-capital-H). Maybe she thought it was Arazni’s duty as a “soldier” of Aroden? But if so, why would she think Aroden’s herald, who she had enough faith in to literally worship and be a paladin of, wouldn’t do her duty unless forced?

To be clear, this isn’t a criticism of the writing—it’s a puzzle I’m genuinely interested in unravelling!

They never really say it explicitly, but, as near as I can tell, there’s no reason for it not to be the case (maybe they want to leave it “ambiguous” so they can decide later?). I do wonder why—perhaps it was a “desperate times call for desperate measures” sort of thing? (Especially interesting, given Iomedae as we know her now is Honorable-with-a-capital-H). Maybe she thought it was Arazni’s duty as a “soldier” of Aroden? But if so, why would she think Aroden’s herald, who she had enough faith in to literally worship and be a paladin of, wouldn’t do her duty unless forced?

The more I read about Arazni and Iomedae’s relationship, the more I become fascinated with it and the more I really want the latter to survive.
Iomedae was originally a paladin specifically of Arazni (Inner Sea Gods, 77), back when Arazni was Aroden’s herald—and Iomedae was also the leader of the Knights of Ozem (who considered Arazni their “patron saint” (Knights of Lastwall, 8)) who bound her and forced her to lead the Shining Crusade against Tar-Baphon*, who ended up killing her, allowing her to eventually be transformed unwillingly into a lich by Geb (Knights of Lastwall, 9).
Arazni’s whole thing as a god (okay, not her whole thing, that’s a bit reductive), of course, is that she doesn’t forgive (see, for instance, her edicts in Gods and Magic, 54). And yet there’s no specification of her holding the hatred one might expect towards Iomedae (although she absolutely has a grudge and is resentful, she doesn’t seem to blame her)—in fact, “a small part of her takes comfort and even pride in Iomedae’s achievements” (Eulogy for Roslar’s Coffer, 72).

*I’m not sure if Iomedae was the one who bound Arazni, or if she even gave the order for it, but there’s no specification that she didn’t, and frankly, it would be weird for something this big to happen under the leader’s nose. The idea that Iomedae gave at least tacit approval to binding Arazni is supported by their creator, Erik Mona, in this thread although, as he himself notes, messageboard posts are generally only “quasi-canonical”.

I'm sorry, but I just don't see this as a fight between proper deities and other immortals i.e. non-gods like Old Mage Jatembe (he is immortal, right?), living gods (e.g. quasi-deities), and demigods like the Great Old Ones, Empyreal Lords, Infernal Dukes, Demon Lords, etc.

Having said that, I don't know who the fight will actually be between, though.

I think it would be a cop-out to suggest Rovagug will be involved, however, even though that's the big fight to come in Pathfinder lore.

Oh, I didn’t mean to imply that I thought it would be gods vs non-god immortals; I just meant that, in my opinion, non-god immortals will probably be significant players, and something/things from the Dark Tapestry will probably be the greater-scope villain. I’m just (somewhat educated) guessing though!

I think it’s a fairly common interpretation that the instigator is going to, in some way, be part of the Dark Tapestry. Also, maybe this is just a quibble—after all, at least in my opinion, War of Immortals sounds a little bit cooler than War of Gods, maybe because of that extra syllable, or the Germanic-origin vs Latinate-origin register differences—but I feel like perhaps “Immortals” was chosen because not all of the big players will be gods, which, if true, would support the whole Dark Tapestry BBEG thing, because I wouldn’t say the beings from it are exactly gods, per se.

Hi! I’m currently working on writing up, essentially, an as-exhaustive-as-possible “sourcebook” (in heavy quotation marks) that contains all the information available on pre-Worldwound Sarkoris and Sarkorians in an organized fashion. I’ve currently gone through Lost Kingdoms, Lost Cities of Golarion, King of Chaos, Lost Omens World Guide, Rule of Fear, Inner Sea NPC Codex, and The Worldwound. What other sources would people recommend?