Set's page

Given how the thralls are described as being composed, its possible that they are using "Scraps" of souls. Memories being a part of that, impressions of emotion and other spiritual "Residue". not using a full soul, being why their thralls are so flimsy and weak.

Possibly making use of the same sort of 'memory of the soul' that one contacted back in the day with Speak With Dead, which was explicitly talking to the person up to the moment of their death, and couldn't answer any questions about the *current* status of that person. So no asking, 'So what's heaven like? Is it nice? Or did you go to the other place, and me casting this spell is like, a brief welcome respite from eternal torment?'

The Egyptians, IIRC, called that sort of thing the khaibit, the bit of soul or 'shadow of the soul' that stays behind in a dead body, while the 'higher soul' crossed the river Duat into what comes next.

Still, if animating a person's skeleton distressed *the khaibit* and not the actual soul-in-heaven (or wherever), it's still kinda like kicking a puppy, and not nice. :(

Khaibit's got feels!

655. Driftblooms

Scattered throughout the elemental plane of air, and the base of a unique ecosystem, driftblooms are an airborne algal bloom that feeds primarily on the diffuse light of the plane, and sends streaks of brilliant, and occasionally toxic, color across the sky. This airborne algae is fed upon by countless small winged insects and birds, with the insects themselves, in turn, being fed upon by yet other birds, and the smaller birds often serving as prey for raptors and similar more predatory birds.

The driftblooms themselves often sprout and flourish in the bodies of those insects and birds who die from drifting into the less common toxic blooms, and a flavorful and nourishing bloom can change with unusual speed to a toxic bloom at some predictable trigger that the tiny brains of the insects and birds that serve as their ‘fertilizer’ cannot always reliably anticipate or escape.

Clumps of such decaying organic matter eventually reach such size that they become host to small gardens, as seeds and spores from distant earth-islands sprout in the fertile 'soil' of the bodies of those that brought them to this streak of color in the endless sky. At other times, strong winds break such clumps up, and provide a rich substrate for the bloom to expand in new directions, such that algal blooms frequently move across the sky, in accordance to the whims of the wind.

84. Sigil Grove

Dozens of old trees preside over this glade, standing out from the surrounding trees because of A) their age and size, B) their being a completely different species from the surrounding forest and C) each tree has a unique sigil or glyph emblazoned on one of their leaves in some bright (non-green, or at least a very different and strongly contrasting shade of green) color.

Familiarity with the Arcane Mark spell, and / or the Elven language will lead to the conclusion that these trees each bear the arcane mark of a different individual, presumably elven, based on the style of the glyphs, often resembling highly stylized (and old) characters in the elven script.

Each tree was planted centuries ago by a sect of elven wizards who had each apprentice plant a tree when she graduated to work magics beyond the level of simple cantrips, and the trees matured as they grew in power.

Using one of these leaves as a 'power component' when casting the message spell, allows the caster to send a message to the elf who planted this tree, assuming they are still alive, regardless of range. Speak with dead will also function when cast upon one of these trees, if the elf who planted it has passed on. Such elves tend to be very old and quite powerful, although in different parts of the forest, one can find immature trees of the same sort, presumably planted by elves who never quite reached these lofty heights of power...

More about what lower level practitioners of that kind of magic are up to would interest me more than what the Runelords and ex-Runelords are doing.

And other traditions, for that matter. An 'iconic' (not bad guy) Hemotheurge or Winter Witch could be interesting to see in an Adventure (Path).

78. The Sword in the Stone

Not to be mistaken with;

82. The Sward in the Stone

This circular expanse of pleasant grassy meadow occurs in the middle of some place it should very much not be, such as the arctic, a desert, or an underground cavern. It is ringed by stone, and markings in a dialect of the primordial language shared by elementals seem to appear almost naturally as cracks in the stone, barely recognizable as writing. Traveling around the entire circumference of the circle and reciting the seemingly nonsense sounds those characters represent causes the entire sward to shrink to a tiny stone pendant with a mossy emerald in the center, that is oddly heavy, about a pound. Reciting the sounds again, in the reverse order, which could be a challenge if they were not transcribed, as the writing is now illegibly tiny, causes the stone disk to begin to tremble, and over the next minute, reform into the grassy meadow, if in a place large enough to contain the entire meadow, which is well over 100 feet in diameter. No matter what the climate is like outside of the meadow, inside the meadow, it is always gently breezy, sunny and warm, with fresh air and the lit as if by a mid-day sun, even if it is cold and dark outside of the meadow. Weather effects end when they reach the stone ring encircling the meadow, as if the whole thing was protected by a tiny hut spell.

The meadow does not include any source of potable water, although the grasses seem to thrive just fine, nor are any of the local plants particularly nutritious, save as fodder for horses, although one could cobble together an unsatisfying meal out of dandelion salad or something.

Also not to be mistaken with The Stone in the Sword, which is an aeon stone mounted on an otherwise unexceptional sword, which could be removed and mounted on a different weapon, if one could figure out how it was done...

Drinking so much of the sweet thunderbrew that you puke is called a thunderspew.

Or so I've heard.

Still on a 'mortal races spread throughout the planes' kick inspired by the idea of a community of oreads (descended from dwarves and orcs abducted away as workers by the Vault Builders) on the plane of Earth.

The Aeromantic Imperium
(Forgotten Shory city still thriving on the Elemental Plane of Air)

The Shory empire was in decline, but this was not readily apparent to those who lived in its magnificent flying cities. Still, for every resident of these marvels of magic and artifice, there were ten who dreamed of the sky, and cast envious eyes at those who drifted high overhead.

There were plans, most merely pipe-dreams, and almost a half-dozen more flying cities were dreamt of, with unrealistic plans to create a city centered around a grand magical academy, and others wishing to make a fantastic garden city, or a city entirely composed of artisans, musicians and entertainers, where others would flock to spend the crystals that served as currency among the sky-dwellers.

A wealthy group of merchants, weary of the way even the lowest of sky-city residents would look down at them and call them ‘grounders’ or ‘lowborn,’ pooled their resources and planned their own glorious city. Lacking the rare few mages and artificers that already knew how to craft an Aeromantic Infantibulum, they recruited from among students of Shory academies, sometimes iconoclausts, sometimes failed students, and assembled a somewhat dubious group of such to craft the Aeromantic Infantibulum that would bring the city they were having constructed, and themselves, up into the clouds, to join the elite, as they felt they deserved after toiling so long in their shadow to provide for their needs.

The city was only half-constructed, and the wealthiest of the city’s founding coalition held a lottery, in which other ‘grounders’ of means could buy a place in their new city, to help defray the not-inconsiderable costs they had already paid, when a bit of overly creative tinkering with the not-yet-operational Aeromantic Infantibulum by a student who wondered if it were possible to more directly tap into the endless power of the plane of elemental air, caused it to pulse and the entire city to be enveloped in a terrible windstorm, blowing up choking dust and debris that obscured it from sight. The beastly howling of the winds ended with a thunderous clap and an explosion of dust and wind that heralded the abrupt end of the windstorm, and, when the dust cleared, the disappearance of the city, forever.

Hundreds of citizens had already paid for a place on the new city, and were now without recourse, as the city, and those whom they had paid for a place there, were gone. Most were relieved not to have been swept from the world by the terrible accident, but there were accusations of fraud, or it all being a grand hoax to rob them of their glittering wealth, for decades thereafter. The other cities, for their part, had their own concerns, and were not terribly shocked that an aeromantic infantibulum ‘cobbled together from scraps, by scoundrels, ne’er do wells and dropouts, alarmists and iconoclausts’ would fail so catastrophically. Those who had not lost members of their family, or their livelihoods, shrugged and went on with life, remembering the vanished city, if at all, as a cautionary tale, or used to promote the elitist notion that not everyone deserved such a lofty perch among the clouds.

The city was not destroyed, as some assumed, but indeed whisked away, the malfunctioning Aeromantic Infantibulum plunging the entire thing into the elemental plane of air. The plane recoiled at this unwelcome intrusion, and a vast windstorm howled through the city, demolishing many of the incomplete structures, and only failing to topple the tallest because of clever Shory construction, in which streets were fashioned in gentle curves, to channel the wind in a spiraling pattern that diffused it’s strength and sent it upwards, a design refined over the centuries by the preceding sky-cities. The population huddled where they could, in those buildings strong enough to weather the gale, and over the course of a day that seemed like forever to the survivors, the apprentice artificers and ‘failed students’ that had assembled the Aeromantic Infantibulum managed to bend its power to hold the winds at bay, so that the city, as ravaged as it was, now floated serenely in a safe pocket of calm air at the center of the maelstrom endlessly raging around it.

And so the city, half-built and half-destroyed, not yet equipped with the stores, or even adequate foodstuffs that had yet to arrive and be stocked in its larders, and with perhaps a tenth the population it had been designed for, was adrift in the elemental plane of air, dire straits indeed.

The Shory quickly realized that the nature of the storm blocked any attempt at returning to Golarion, or even communicating with those left behind. Much finger-pointing ensued, and there were several deaths in the resulting turmoil, but the founders that remained did not lie down and die, but quickly secured every edible thing they could for the survival of what people remained. Within a week, there was no livestock left, and if no new source of meat was found, a vegetarian life seemed their fate, so they turned to plant every edible plant they could salvage from what they had brought. Entire buildings, some half in ruins, some still yet serviceable, were converted into growing spaces, and any tree that did not provide fruit or berries or nuts was cut down and used for construction, to repair what buildings they could. The ‘sun’ in this place would have been mid-day, were it not for the storm, and so the city was in perpetual stormy twilight, with diverse sources ranging from magical illumination to great mirrors being used to bring light to their crops. The air was cool, a temperate clime, and many of the more tropical crops they grew up with, citrus fruits and dates, grew poorly, if at all, and were quickly contained with greenhouses, where they could be kept warm, or simply abandoned, leaving a city now overgrown with green and nourishing plants, where all the streets are lined with cherry trees, the most popular of the fruiting trees.

Abundant rainfall fuels their magically-accelerated growth and endless power from the wind and lightning just outside the ‘storm shield’ protects the city from the tempest that surrounds it, a defense that is, itself, powered in part by the very storm raging against it, and is tapped to turn mills and power magical engines that keep the storm at bay, and the city constantly lit in a dusk-like glow.

Even these heroic efforts to feed themselves would have come to naught had they not had access to the conjured food provided by djinn crafters that had helped assemble the city. For long months, while plants were tended and slowly matured, every soul had to work to earn a ration of conjured food, which was hardly the life that any of these mostly wealthy-merchant-princes and their families, had imagined for themselves. After a rabble-rouser, who had fomented a revolt and tried to seize more food for themself and their supporters, was seized by a pair of genies and thrown bodily into the storm, there was a degree of resigned cooperation. The genies made it abundantly clear that if everyone in the city wanted to eat, they would have representation on the city council, and no longer be treated like subjects, but actual citizens of the Shory imperium. The merchant-princes turned to their arcane support, whom they hoped would quell this ‘genie uprising’ and compel their obedience, but the mages, iconoclaust to the last, shrugged and said, ‘that sounds fair.’ A single token ‘genie seat’ was added to the council, and intended to be ignored, but centuries later, there are two genies on the council, and their input is as valued as any human councilors.

The entire population of Shory remnants now have Sylph traits, after so many generations in the plane of elemental Air, but still resemble traditional Shory, tall and lean, with broad faces and frizzy clouds of fly-away hair that they rarely bother to tame, but are more prone to white, yellow, blue or cloud-gray eyes, prematurely gray or white hair, and a blue-ish tinge to their ebony skin.

In the centuries, they have forged new pacts with geniekind, and some local elemental residents, as well as the ability to form (or predict) temporary safe corridors through the storm, allowing them to travel out into the larger plane and not remain trapped within the storm that rages around them. Indeed, it is widely thought among the magical elite of the city that they could end the storm, if they committed themselves to the task, but with so many of their needs met by the tempest, fresh water, endless power, impassable protection…, they agree that it would be counter-productive to do so, and they regard the storm, once their jailer, as their provider and protector, entire generations have grown up with it raging around them, and wanting no other life.

The original residents were fierce falconers, and brought well over a hundred hawks of various breeds with them when they found themselves transported to the elemental plane of air. Unable to fly free of the city, thanks to the impassable storm, they might have starved and faced extinction, if not for a pair of wererats who had been hiding among the half-completed buildings, who kept the city’s vermin under control for their own protection, and over generations, wererats have been integrated into Shory society. Every council has exactly one ‘Ratmaster,’ and those who volunteer for this position, are soon infected by one of the rare remaining wererats, who almost never number more than a half-dozen, fiercely jealous and protective of their rare status, and equally aware that they are more ‘needed’ than ‘wanted,’ and would wear their welcome thin quickly if they went on a ‘recruiting spree.’ The various rodents that made the transition have adapted to a mostly vegetarian diet, supplemented by the occasional insect, and remain under control of the ‘Ratmaster,’ who keeps them foraging in the food waste areas, and out of the gardens, meal preparation and food storage areas, and moves them to designated hunting and hawking areas, so as to provide fodder for the prized hawks of the imperium. It is to the great fortune of the Shory that none who volunteer for the position of Ratmaster have any real loyalty to, or love of, the rats that answer their call…

Have domesticated a few juvenile members of the native roc population living on plane of air, and keep them rooked inside the storm shield (which they could not reach without a Shory to guide them through the ‘safe paths’). They have to be taken outside of the shield each day to hunt and feed, as there is no food supply adequate for them in the city, and they do not thrive on conjured genie-food, needing to fly and hunt to flourish. Shory druids and some rangers can take them as companions. No full size rocs are so tamed, only large sized ‘companions,’ which the Shory call ‘rukhs’ to differentiate them from their much larger kin. The region of the elemental plane where they drift remains in a perpetual mid-dawn or early dusk, the ‘sun’s’ light (and warmth) less than that of full day, which results in few or no nocturnal creatures, like bats, owls, dire bats or giant owls, which are more common in darker regions of the plane of Air.
There are surprisingly few other animals in the city itself. Notable hives of bees, usually quite belligerent and in metallic shades of green, blue and purple, tended carefully by professional beekeepers, and a fairly small population of Osirioni wise-eye cats and ravens, many times removed offspring of familiars brought across, and occasionally still serving as such today (although well over half of familiars are some species of hawk or falcon). Even sorcerers or wizards, and some other spellcasters, like clerics, who would not normally have a familiar, will take the option when it becomes available via feat, and improved familiars include a preponderance of air scamps, small air elementals, and celestial avians, as well as the occasional odder specimen, like the miniature sphinx-kin called riddlers, six-winged ‘formian attendants’ (particularly popular again this generation, their popularity seems to wax and wane in some as-yet-undiscovered mathematical progression), or tiny linnorm-like creatures called windwyrms.
Shory of the city tend to dress warmly, in layers, due to the cooler air in the outer city, but sparsely, even, by some standards, scandalously, inside their well-warmed inner homes, which are designed to keep heat trapped within, so as not to waste their not-entirely-endless arcane power ‘trying to heat up the storm,’ which is a colloquialism for a futile endeavor. As a result of this climate, their crops tend to be the sort that thrive in cooler climes, like apples, blackberries and cherries, with the only tropical fruit like bananas, citrus fruits or dates being raised in the few enclosed (and heated) greenhouses.

Primary churches are to Shelyn and Gozreh, with a well-tended shrine to Nethys in the ‘mages quarter’ where the original Aeromantic Infantibulum used to lay, and a more perfunctory shrine to Pharasma that serves more as a funeral destination than for more traditional religious services. Those who die are ‘given to the storm’ and, reverently, allowed to fall into the endless storm raging just beyond the city’s boundaries. Since the original dissident was thrown to the storm, only seven more executions of this sort have taken place, as the Shory value the all-too-few lives available to them, murder being one of the few crimes that could lead to execution. [On Golarion, this is also the traditional means of execution among sky-city dwellers, being tossed off the island.] Smaller in-home shrines exist to diverse other patrons, such as Soralyon, or mwangi diety here, but do not have temples of their own. The Shory of the city have a marked disdain for idleness, left over from the lean times when they all had to labor to earn their ration of food, and the faith of Desna, formerly popular among some Shory, saw a marked decline, the building originally created to serve as a temple to her, now operating as a greenhouse, although still with Desnan motifs and decorations suggesting its original intended use. This ‘decline’ in popularity is fueled, at least in part, by the simple coincidence that the majority of the Desna-following branch had not arrived to take their place in the city when it abruptly departed, more than any active resistance to the goddess or her tenets.

An underground cult of Hshurha thrives, only to be more recently challenged by a new cult to Ranginori, although neither faith is yet recognized officially. Followers of Pazuzu have been a recurring threat among the riders of the great rukhs, over the centuries, and keep cropping up, in some cases with riders being driven to the faith at least partially because others seem to be expecting them all to be Pazuzu cultists anyway… Unsuspected to most, the ruling council has been infiltrated both by agents of Hshurha, one of them a genie, and a dynamic cleric of Pazuzu who seems all too close to winning the central, tiebreaker, position.

The governing council itself only meets weekly, each of its members having other duties to attend to, and issues are discussed, and alliances brokered, all through the week, so that voting happens with surprising speed, on the assigned days. There are no chairs in the council chamber (although one can be brought in for a councilor who requires one), which is the site of the former aeromantic infantibulum (which has, centuries ago, been slowly duplicated and shifted component by component, function by function, to six separate sites through the city, any three of which can ‘bear the load’ of the aging, and, admittedly, cobbled-together, original), and like so much of the city, serves multiple purposes, depending on the day of the week. Each member stands on one of the old glyphs or sigils of arcane power that are arrayed in rings, and that position is called the ‘stand of air’ or ‘the stand of stone,’ depending on the nature of the rune, but these positions carry no difference in weight, other than one central position, which has a vote that counts for two for the purposes of breaking a tie between the twelve councilors, and certain traditions, like a genie always occupying the stand of air, and the Ratmaster always standing on the glyph of talon.

ECOLOGY of Air
Wells to the plane of Fire act as ‘suns’ in some areas. The nearest one to the city is not particularly large or close, and so the area is lit as by the half-light of dawn or dusk, and the air is cool, like that of a perpetual autumn day in a temperate clime, or the rarified air of the upper altitudes that this mountain-dwelling branch of the Shory already preferred. It is, of course, even dimmer within the city itself, the howling winds and ragged bands of cloud that sprinkle them fairly regularly with a light rainfall, shading them even further. Out beyond the windstorm, clouds of pollen form into ‘drift-blooms,’ a sort of airborne algal bloom that sends streaks of brilliant, and occasionally toxic, color across the sky, which are in turn fed upon by countless small winged insects and birds, with the insects themselves, in turn, being fed upon by yet other birds, and the smaller birds often serving as prey for raptors and similar more predatory birds. The driftblooms themselves often sprout and flourish in the bodies of those insects and birds who die from drifting into the less common toxic blooms, and a flavorful and nourishing bloom can change with unusual speed to a toxic bloom at some predictable trigger that the tiny brains of the insects and birds that serve as their ‘fertilizer’ cannot reliably anticipate. In some places, pockets of elemental earth serve as lush gardens, while pockets of elemental water, some as large as terrestrial lakes, or even oceans, similarly keep the lives that flourish in this plane hydrated, and perhaps serve as a reservoir for the not infrequent storms that sweep through the plane, according to some cycle of wind currents that only the local elementals can keep track of. In areas further from the fire pockets that serve as miniature suns, it can grow dim indeed, although rarely darker than twilight, unless a storm is further darkening the sky, and nocturnal life, flying insects, owls and bats, can be found in sparser numbers, as there are less algal blooms in the darker sky to sustain the herbivores that are in turn devoured by the predators.

As a familiar it would prefer an arcane trickster. It might give a bonus to hide in shadows.

Good catch. Between that and the 'disguising self as a boulder' bit, it does sound like a bonus to Stealth checks would be right on target for it's skill bonus as a familiar!

653. Desert's Shadow
[carrion-eating camel spider that makes it's own camouflage]

The arachnid known as desert's shadow, due to it's unsettling habit of crabwalking in a taller creatures shadow, to avoid the desert sun, came originally from Qadira, but has spread across Osirion, into Thuvia, and is just now starting to appear in Rahadoum, centuries after it's arrival in Garund on Qadiran ships.

Growing to roughly the size of a human's head, with a jerky scuttling gait, desert's shadow prefers fresh carrion, and will wait patiently after biting something for it to die of it's slow necrotizing venom (which can often take hours to kill a man-sized target, a rare occurrence as desert's shadow prefers to opportunitistically scavenge prey that is already dead). They can smell decay, or fresh blood, over great distances, and come scurrying quickly, or race to sites where they see vultures circling. When they find fresh bodies, they quickly inject their liquifying venom and wait for it to do it's work, turning flesh into fluid that they can ingest, proving more than a match for most vultures, but not larger scavengers like hyenas.

When they find a rich meal, and even a single person (or camel) counts as a bountiful feast of many days), they drag many short strands of silk behind them until they are coated in sand, and then pull this 'sand blanket' over themselves and wait out the day while their toxins do their work breaking down their meal, disguised as a sandstone boulder.

In the deep desert, finding bodies with strange pits seemingly scooped out of them, reeking bitterly from the toxins at work in their flesh, and surrounded by oddly placed sandstone boulders, an experienced traveler knows not to sit on any of those 'boulders' or to probe too closely to the bodies, as the spiders waiting patiently nearby will emerge from their stony disguises to defend their bounty, hissing and waving their arms threateningly (but rarely attacking a man-sized target, which could easily squash them, even if it might die hours later from their own toxic reprisals).

Desert's shadow leave a trail of pheromones where they tread, detectable mostly to their own kind, which allows them to track each other during mating season, and to identify each other as kin or not kin. They find the scent of kin irksome, and attracted to the scent of 'not-kin,' which perhaps has protected the species from the dangers of inbreeding, and leads to the odd sight of differently colored or slightly differently shaped specimens sharing a meal together, instead of the more expected related family groups of some other species.

So the new nation of Oprak, and the Vault, have *really* intrigued me, and, as always, I have thoughts. (Disorganized! Stream of consciousness! But, thoughts!)

Veterans of the original Iron Fang divisions have become something like noble families (even if most are not at all related by blood, and children of members are more likely to advance in other ‘families’ entirely, due to a cultural resistance to showing favoritism to blood relatives, making the various factions less nepotistic than expected). Higher ranking members of different divisions or legions often have champions to handle challenges, both a form of sport, but also a serious form of conflict resolution that does not risk the commander themselves (although duels between leaders does happen, when approved by a higher up, which means Azaersi’s division commanders cannot duel each other without her permission to risk their lives in this manner!). Champions are traditionally bugbears, and are treated as honored members of the legions (although not all of them have an actual rank, as some are… undisciplined) and betting on the outcomes of champion challenges is fierce. A few hobgoblins also hold champion rank, and it is considered a point of pride for a hobgoblin officer to represent a superior in such a challenge match (particularly if the opposing champion is a member of a people known for their physical might, like an ogre, bugbear or minotaur).

The most common Opraki race is, of course, hobgoblins, but a surprising number of kobolds have shown up and adapted well to serving under hobgoblin rule, often providing unique spellcasting services, as not all hobgoblins are adverse to benefitting from ‘elf magic’ under the table, if it is cast by a discrete kobold sorcerer.

Azaersi has sent ambassadors across Avistan to find other ‘monster’ races that may wish to join her fledgling nation. The orcs of Belkzen are cautiously continuing diplomacy, while the Matanje orcs of the Mwangi Expanse have themselves expressed interest, although their ambassador being an Abyssal Sorcerer has somewhat dampened Opraki enthusiasm for an alliance on that front. The gnolls of Katapesh have no apparent central leadership to meet with, and are quietly considered unreliable and fractious, much like goblins, who are technically welcome, but tend to be treated dismissively, or even contemptuously, like little more than vermin, by disciplined hobgoblin society. (Bugbears can be similarly fractious, but at least *useful,* and so earn a soldier’s wary respect.) The ogres of Varisia have similarly been dismissed as a meaningful source of alliance (despite some overtures from that direction), but some Ogres from Omash, in Qadira, have proven to be cut from a different cloth and capable of adapting to a more regimented life. Sahuagin (or Deep Ones) have proven to be even less approachable than gnolls, and Oprak has little to offer an aquatic partner in any event. The centaur tribes of Cheliax, and the Isle of Kortos have been separately approached, and negotiations continue. A small number of Strix have relocated to the mountains near Oprak, but not enough to field more than few messengers per legion, which is their valued role. No serious effort has been made to contact any sizable enclave of iruxi (nor does Azaersi know enough about the existence of Droon to send an embassy there) or ysoki (although an unknown number of ysoki already lived within the Vault), and the boggard tribes of the Sodden Lands have been dismissed as degenerate and a ‘bad influence’ on unit discipline. The minotaurs of the Isle of Kortos have cautiously agreed to a tentative alliance, but only a few have come to Oprak, and none from Kortos itself, as those minotaurs are almost fanatically devoted to their (contested) claim on the Isle of Kortos itself. The charau-ka and awakened apes of Usaro fit under those ‘disruptive to unit cohesion’ influences, like boggards, gnolls and (most) ogres, and have not been approached, as of yet (and probably never will be). Azaersi has a wary distrust of cultures that are wholly devoted to such unruly patrons as the demon lord Angazhan as she would like to remain the uncontested top of Oprak’s pyramid. Oprak has a tentative agreement to ‘leave each other alone’ with one regional ‘kingdom’ of fire giants, but that does not hold true to any other giant communities, and for the most part, the giant holdings of the surrounding mountains want little or nothing to do with her fledgling kingdom, save perhaps some limited trade, on their own terms, or not at all. A dozen or so mites serve as ‘vermin tamers’ and wranglers, with various types of vermin serving as work-beasts, mounts and / or foodstuffs, and the mites are valued for their skills in this area. Gremlins of various sorts, but particularly pugwampi and vexgits, are regarded as despised vermin, to be eradicated on sight, with bounties for their tiny bodies, and a team consisting of a gnoll, her two sons (rangers with favored enemy (fey) and an array of cold iron weaponry) and a few bugbears calling themselves Coldest Iron Solutions, specialize in hunting them down and eradicating them. Other than the gnolls of CIS, there are few gnolls, and none in respected positions or considered ‘useful’ by hobgoblins of rank (and recognizing that her kin are not considered ‘reliable’ by the hobgoblins, the matriarch of CIS tends to let her bugbear employees negotiate with hobgoblin authorities on her behalf). So far, the Duergar/'gray dwarves' contacted have proven hostile to the idea of an alliance, and it is believed that they covet the secrets of the Vault, which they consider ‘theirs’ and the hobgoblins currently in charge as usurpers. The final population also comes from the Vault itself, like the Ysoki, and consists of Oreads, which are given special status (Ysoki, not so much), somewhat below hobgoblins, but above most others, due to their ties to the earthen Vault, and an early alliance against pech and xiomorn, of whom they provided invaluable intelligence. They often remain *in* the Vault, and so are not as likely to be recognized as any significant fraction of the population by someone viewing Oprak from Golarion. A recent infusion of both abyssal and infernal tieflings/cambions* have come from the former Worldwound, and Cheliax, respectively, both feeling distinctly unwelcome, for different reasons, in the lands of their births, but are having to prove their worth individually, in many case, as few have any organization (save for one ‘thieves guild’ from Cheliax, which has useful scouting skills, but little regard for Opraki regulations, which has resulted in a few ‘examples’, by way of summary public execution, having to be made).

*I have no idea what aasimar and tieflings are called in Remastered, but have never loved either of those names, and prefer calling them nephilim and cambions, myself.

Of special note, the Oread population is a mixed society of originally dwarvish and orcish bloodlines, abducted away to serve the Vault Builders millena ago, which are not interfertile, but are otherwise completely integrated, and show no signs of the animosity between those two races seen outside of the Vault. Family units may have oreads of both dwarven and orcish heritage, although they cannot produce children together, and mixed marriages seek the intervention of ‘free agents’ of the appropriate heritage to bless them with children. (Mixed marriages of both dwarven and orcish pairings, and partners of the same gender are much more common, to the point of the practice being accepted as ‘the norm’ by this culture.) This culture had spent centuries defending itself against the Xiomorn-loyalist Pech, and the golems that they commanded on behalf of their reclusive masters, and it had taken hundreds of oread lives to slowly whittle down the number of golems available to the point where the two factions had reached a fragile détente, as the pech lacked the military strength to go on the offense (or will to risk any more of their nigh-unstoppable, but irreplaceable, war machines). The arrival of Azaersi and her forces ended that stalemate, as her forces drove the Pech before them, and the oreads seized their chance to strike their age-old oppressors from behind.

This sowed the seeds of the oread alliance with the Hobgoblin ‘invaders,’ whom they welcomed over the Pech, while fully aware that the Hobgoblins weren’t particularly nice people either, carefully negotiating from a position of strength and usefulness, providing Azaersi with all the intelligence (such as the strengths, tactics and few weaknesses of the Xiomorn themselves) she needed to seize the Onyx Vault without a much greater loss of hobgoblin life. As useful allies to Azaersi, their position would be stronger than as the worker slaves the Xiomorn had so long ago considered them, before they freed themselves. The one thing that became clear to Azaersi was that the oreads did not care what the hobgoblins did or wanted or believed in, but were adamant that they would not be slaves again, and she chose to accept their assistance, and honor her word to them to allow them a place as citizens of Oprak, if not necessarily on the same level as a hobgoblin soldier.

How the ratfolk found their way into the Vault, why they so rarely develop oread traits, and ‘which side they are on,’ remain perpetual mysteries. Ysoki dwell in concealed warrens that seem to move around, and have provided information and sometimes assistance to either faction, over the generations, but generally side more with the oreads than the pech/xiomorn, and did so this time as well, which is why Azaersi tolerates their presence and has not ordered them hunted down and eradicated from ‘her’ Vault (as she has the Xiomorn, and the Pech). She is all too aware of how militant societies, in absence of an ‘other’, tend to turn their aggressions on each other and tear themselves apart, and she somewhat cold-bloodedly wants to save the mostly-unobjectionable Ysoki as a convenient ‘other,’ if that time arises…

Opraki citizens – Hobgoblins (only hobgoblins have full citizen status), Kobolds (hundreds, dozens of which are studiously picking up adept or alchemist abilities, to make themselves ‘valuable’ to their hobgoblin superiors, those with the talent for neither are drafted into craftsman and combat engineer roles, or, lowest of the low, miners), Oreads (thousands in the Vault, dozens outside at any given time, most originally of orcish or dwarven, both somewhat bemused that their respective ancestral kin are bitter foes still in this world), Ysoki (hundreds in the Vault, hundreds outside as well, almost never have Oread traits, for unclear reasons), Bugbears (at least a hundred, which is practically a thriving metropolis for such a solitary race), Goblins (too many!), Minotaurs (a dozen or so), Ogres (Omashi, less than a dozen, oddly erudite, sophisticated and hygenic, for ogres, acting almost like smaller (dumber) cloud giants…), Strix (around thirty), Orcs (a few ‘ambassadors’ from both the Matanje and Belkzen, as much establishing ties with *each other*, and the Vault dwelling oread/orcs, as Azaersi’s hobgoblin nation, if nothing else, it’s sowing the seeds of a trans-continental, or even trans-planar *orc* alliance!), Mites (a dozen, or more?, more than the Opraki realize…), Gnolls (like, three?), Tieflings (several dozen, with more arriving as word spreads of a land more tolerant to their kind, almost all infernal and abyssal, generally from Cheliax and the former Worldwound). Goblins, thus far, do not rank as even ‘lesser’ citizens, unless they individually prove themselves worthy of such a promotion.

An unusually patient hobgoblin cleric of Zarongel is attempting to foster dozens upon dozens of goblins into at the very least, functioning as Adepts, if not actual Clerics of the faith. It is… not going great, but he hasn’t killed nearly as many as a less patient hobgoblin would have. (Attempting to train them to be ‘wolf / worg riders’, but actually as cannon-fodder / tail-gunners for the more intelligent, disciplined and competent worgs. Also attempting to train a group of goblin pyros, mostly alchemists, but more likely to carry alchemist’s fire into a fight and then die, hopefully exploding in the midst of the enemy? Disaster imminent…)

D&D races not mentioned – Drow, Svirfneblin, Morlocks, Derro, Serpentfolk, Mongrelfolk, Dire Corbies, Tengu, Wayangs, Vishkanya, Vanara, Nagaji,

Monsters – Giants, Minotaurs, Ogres, Ettins, Hags (a single Annis Hag witch provides arcane spellcasting services for those, mostly non-hobgoblins, who seek that sort of magic), Naga (several individual naga of various types have flocked to Oprak, only to find the welcome chillier than expected, thanks to Azaersi’s lingering resentment over Zanathura’s betrayal), Lamia, Harpies, Aranea, Jorogamu, Deep Ones, Sahuagin, Locathah, Merfolk, Tritons, Aasimar, Tieflings, Barghests, Trolls, Troglodytes, Skum, Vampires, Dopplegangers (required to register their true form, which has proven unpopular), Ogre Magi, Rakshasa, Urdefan, Redcaps, Quicklings (three serve as fast messengers, competing with Strix and Scamps (primarily Dust) for this duty),

Scamps – Earth, Ooze, Magma, Dust
Crystal, Root

Earth scamps are the most common scamps, and spent centuries working on behalf of the pech and xiomorn, which they didn’t really care for, and are just happy to be freed from that onerous never-ending drudgery, although they aren't finding the hobgoblins much better... (Another group work for a Shaitan, and he alternately treats them affectionately, condescendingly or even dismissively, as the mood takes him, but they seem to adore him regardless.)

Magma and Ooze scamps want A) to be left alone and B) to expand their territories. Azaersi wants neither of these things. She’s actively planning on draining the swampy territories and reclaiming that usable land, which will probably require her to set a price on ooze scamp heads, soon enough, as they put up a feeble, but annoying, resistance.

Dust scamps had a great deal as exclusive messengers, and milked it for all that they could. They HATE that the Strix have arrived and are much more cooperative and competent and have ‘ruined this gig for them,’ but after a few scamps attacked and waylaid Strix who had ‘stolen their jobs’ and were made violent and fatal examples of by Azaersi’s commanders in the field, they have grumbled and begun to slowly comply… Many dust scamps petulantly abandoned their posts, marking them as unreliable, and ironically leading to *more* Strix finding work as messengers. Dust scamps, lazy, but also dumb.

Crystal scamps are rare, and used to being treated as living jewelry, kept as pampered pets, or treated like prized bits of treasure, and are not at all fond of the hobgoblin preference for function over form, since they much prefer being pretty and idle, than useful and doing work.
(Found primarily in the planes of Earth and Metal, and interstitial spaces between them, crystal scamps are one of the rarer breeds of scamps, often kept as decorative household accents by earth genies and other notables in the plane of Earth. It’s not clear whether nature or nurture is responsible for their truly supernatural sense of narcissism and vanity, but, given how incredibly over-the-top it can be, the best answer might be ‘yes, to both.’)

Root scamps are somewhat concerned about the amount of logging going on, and are at a loss what to do about it, other than maybe encourage the hobgoblins to build more out of earth and rock, perhaps in some way involving setting fire to some of their wooden constructions? That can only end well.
(Also a rarer breed of scamp, found primarily in the planes of Earth and Wood, root scamps are slow to, well, everything. Anger, movement, thought. They don’t get worked up for much, or, at all. They can very, very slowly move through even the strongest rock, though, and are potentially useful for crafting tunnels, for those who are in no hurry...)

Hobgoblins (or Ysoki) born in the Vault have a remote chance to have Oread traits, and / or inclinations towards Elemental (earth) sorcery, or the Stone oracle Mystery. Other races settling into the Vault include goblins (not technically invited, but it has proven challenging keeping them out…) and kobolds, both of whom breed faster than hobgoblins, are even more prone to Oread traits, or Earth Elemental sorcery or Stone Mystery oracular talents.

New division commander has integrated many ‘extended visitors’ from Koa Lin, and is herself from that community, being an Ogre Magi magus. While on ‘detached duty’ in Oprak, they represent their homeland, but also are expected to be faultlessly loyal to Oprak, so long as they are not asked to betray their homeland (so as to set a good example).

A Shaitan ambassador dwells in the Vault, and has not been seen to leave it (and is indeed rumored to be trapped there, if not by magic, by some oath or duty). He is attended by myriad scamps, who regard him as their lord, and some earth elementals of various sizes, and has malachite skin marbled with gold, his hair is fine chains of red and yellow gold, his eyes are black opals, and he has the power to create +1 Large distance spears of cold iron or silver as a free action, which disappear if anyone else lays a hand on them, or at the end of a round if they leave his grasp.

652. Trembleweed
Nibbling on this grassy plant results in it's burr-covered seeds getting stuck to an animals fur, and, nature perhaps hoped, carried far away from the parent plant. To encourage this sort of migration, trembleweed contains an alkaloid that makes most mammalian ingesters a bit jumpy and nervous, which, ideally, would have made them travel some distance from the parent plant. Instead, most creatures who live in the plains climate trembleweed thrives in, avoid the stuff after the first episode of 'nerves' knowing that it 'didn't feel safe' in the area.

Trembleweed turned out to be just too darn good at making creatures nervous for their own good! It's fairly rare in the wild, as a result, but is prized for making a tea with stimulant properties that is quite useful for dealing with a local form of 'sleeping sickness' that leaves people lethargic and feeling drained.

And so the plant has actually come full circle, as it is has proven useful to local people who cultivate it for it's medicinal uses, making it more common in herb gardens than the wild, these days.

Like any large organisation, some are in it for the grift and personal gain, some are true believers, most are probably just going with the flow because even if Razmir isn't a god, he's powerful enough (politically and magically) that functionally there's no difference.

That sounds about right. In Golarion, Aroden, Iomedae, Cayden Cailean, Norgorber, Irori, Urgathoa and Nethys all ascended from human(ish?) to god status, so it's not even unbelievable that Razmir could just be the *eighth* person to make the jump. And even if one isn't convinced that he really did, he's still powerful enough that it doesn't matter. Tar-Baphon doesn't claim to be a god, and yet still killed a (demi)god. Geb doesn't claim to be a god, and still raised one up and bound her to his side as his undead queen.

And there's the brainwashing said to happen. I suspect that 'priests' who are a little too openly Doubting Thomas' get brought to Thronestep for some attitude adjusting, and come back full-throated 'I have seen the light! Hallalujah! Have you heard the good word of Razmir?' which leads anyone with a bit more discretion to keep any doubts they have about Razmir's divinity entirely to themselves.

And, bear in mind, not a single person who doubts Razmir's 'divinity' has ever had the gall to walk up to Nethys and ask him to *prove* that he's a god, and not just a ludicrously powerful Archmage... :)

None of the 'big 20' have really provided proof of divinity. to the people of Golarion They have clerics that cast healing spells, but Razmir's got 'priests' that can, in some cases, cast healing spells as well (even if they have class levels in Bard, rather than Cleric...).

And few, if any, folk outside of Razmir's immediate borders, have any idea that Razmir doesn't have clerics, anyway. I live in a world with information about stuff going on across the world at my fingertips, and I have no idea if a dentist certified to operate as such in Indonesia, would count as a licensed dentist in the United States. I doubt someone living in Andoran would have the slightest clue about the ecclesiastical status of 'priests' in an old established nation like Qadira, let alone some little podunk River Kingdom like Razmiran.

I am curious about whether or not there are any survivors of the original ruling family (an heir to the 'Duke of Melcat'), who might find themselves propped up (possibly with their enthusiastic approval, perhaps very much against their will!) to serve as a legitimizing face for a movement to oust Razmir... Or, even if there aren't any such survivors, could an 'heir' be manufactured with some magical chicanery?

This is a world where people opposed to a woman leading Taldor would dig up a grave to find a suitable challenger for her claim...

Quark Blast wrote:

@Aaron

You mention here, in part, "For years, I've been seeking out stories - mostly novels - told from a nonhuman point of view. And I mean REAL animals, behaving as animals do; I don't mean anthropomorphic animals communicating with each other in complex sentences."

Have you tried Hollow Kingdom?

Written from exactly the POV you describe liking. My cousin's wife has been trying to get me to read this for a few years.

I've never heard of it. I just jotted down the title and author for future reference. Thank you.

I'm sure this author has been mentioned before, perhaps in this very thread, or by one you in particular (such is the rubbish that is my A) memory and B) ability to use this site's search function reliably), but Adrian Tchaikovsky [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Tchaikovsky]

The series starting with Children of Time is one of the better ones, but the series starting with the Tiger and the Wolf, and the trilogy starting with Dogs of War are also good.

None of the nations are really a 1:1 take on real world nations or cultures but some things in the setting are clearly inspired by real life.

I'm basically looking for a really repressive atmosphere, where it's due to the people and not any separate supernatural thing like the threat of the Worldwound or Tar-Baphon. A domineering government with a vast spy network of secret police dedicated more towards surveilling its own populace than outside threats.

Razmiran seems is a little like this but is there anything with a party-based leadership and not a god-king? If not, is there any place that seems like it could turn that way? There's been a lot of turnover since the setting popped up. Maybe Molthune or Ravounel?

In the 'repressed puppet state of a larger regime' stance, Isger, vassal of Cheliax, seems like it might have some East Germany vibes.

But yeah, Razmiran definitely feels like a place where your masked 'allies' would be likely to report you for an off-color joke and have you dragged off to Thronestep for 'attitude adjustment' / reprogramming.

Claxon wrote:

I think a concept within Pathfinder is that worship can grant a being divine power, but worship isn't required to maintain divine power. And also the amount of worshippers doesn't translate to amount of divine power.

That's definitely how it seems to work for the goblin gods, at least. Lamashtu and the Bargast Hero-Gods aren't happy about it, either.

Indeed, if more worshippers meant more power, then gods with relatively few devout worshippers, like Nethys, would be practically powerless compared to Lamashtu, who has large percentages of multiple races devoted to her (goblins, gnolls, minotaurs) as well as probably almost as many human followers as Nethys!

It would also introduce such wonkiness that I wouldn't love as 'the sooner your followers DIE, the sooner you harvest their power, and the less likely they are to embrace the following of one of the 29,943 other gods competing for their souls in the mortal world,' which would encourage A) kill 'em young, by encouraging wars and crusades, if nothing else, and B) gods with shorter lived followers (like goblins) being vastly more powerful than gods with long lived or deathless followers (like gods of elves, gods of androids, or gods with a lot of vampire / lich / ghoul followers).

Oh, and extra wonky bit. It would also encourage *not* killing followers of a hated deity because doing so empowers them. Very real motivation for using spells like Temporal Stasis or Imprisonment, or alternate (cheaper) techniques like Flesh to Stone or Baleful Polymorph (to some really long lived and simple creature, like a box tortoise), to take the souls of their followers that you defeat and deny them to the god they serve. If every goblin you kill just makes Lamashtu .000001% stronger than Sarenrae, suddenly her 'redeem 'em, don't kill 'em!' stance feel less merciful and more mercenary...

Golarion's gods are already a bit of a hodgepodge. You got 'gods that always were' (Pharasma), gods that clawed their way to godhood (Irori, Nethys, Urgathoa), gods that are top-tier outsiders (Lamashtu, Asmodeus), gods that became gods because of a big space rock in Absalom (Iomedae, Cayden, Norgorber) and gods who got rich the old fashioned way, by inheriting it (Shelyn, Dou-Bral/Zon-Kuthon, possibly Kurgess?).

I love that they have multiple origin points, and aren't all one big (incestuous) family, like the Greek or Norse or Egyptian pantheons can sometimes appear.

Bardic inspiration die?

Level of exhaustion?

Yeah, that was Golarion stuff adapted to D&D 5e, so not necessarily useful to Pathfinder 1e or 2e fans.

I go where my friends go, which did broaden my Realms-specific horizons back in the day and get me into Greyhawk and even Spelljammer, so it's not all dire!

Adapting stuff, I noted that there was a lot for some classes, like the Wizard, in particular (Cyphermage, Hemotheurge, Magaambyan, Arclord, Thassilonian Sin-Specialist), and not a ton for others, like the Ranger.

So, something for the Ranger;

Chernasado Warden (Ranger)

Level 3: Sprite’s Teachings. You become Proficient in Stealth and Survival. If you are already Proficient in one of these skills, you gain Expertise with that skill.

Additionally, you have Advantage on Acrobatics and Athletics checks in forested terrain.

Finally, you add Find Familiar to your spell list, but can only use it to summon a Fey spirit, or, at 11th level, a Sprite.

Level 3: Guerilla Tactics. If you have Advantage on an Attack roll, and have Weapon Mastery with the weapon with which you made the attack, you can choose to use Vex, Sap or Slow, instead of the usual Weapon Mastery property. If the weapon is a Heavy Crossbow, Longbow, Heavy weapon or Two-Handed weapon, you can also use Cleave, Graze, Push or Topple instead of the weapon’s normal Mastery property.

Additionally, you ignore Difficult Terrain when using the Dash or Disengage maneuvers in forested terrain.

Level 7: Sneak Attack. You gain 2d6 Sneak Attack, like the Rogue feature of the same name.

Level 11: Unchained Heart. As a Reaction, you can give yourself Advantage on a saving throw versus compulsions and mind-affecting effects, if you succeed on the resulting saving throw, you then have Advantage on attack rolls against the source of the spell until the end of your next turn. You can take this action twice, and then must complete a Long Rest before doing so again.

Level 15: Phantom Strike. You are no longer affected by nonmagical Difficult Terrain, and do not treat a Heavily Obscured area as Difficult Terrain.

Additionally, when you hit a creature who is unaware of your presence, they take an additional 2d6 Sneak Attack damage and must make a Wisdom save or be Frightened for 1 minute. They are allowed another Wisdom save each round to end the Frightened condition. You can use this ability a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier, and then must complete a Long Rest before doing so again.

Finally, as a Magic Action, you can create a Sylvan Hideaway, creating a passageway within the ground that acts like Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion with the following changes; Range is 30 feet, floorplan is a number of 10 foot cubes equal to your Proficiency Bonus, only has enough food and water for 10 people, and there are no servants. The furnishings are decidedly less opulent, and more rural in character, but no less functional. You can create a Sylvan Hideaway once, and then must complete a Long Rest before doing so again. Any existing Sylvan Hideaway ends if you create a new one.

[Most of the spells that Chernasado Wardens get as SLAs are already on the Ranger list, but obviously no substitute for the Spectral Scout or Sylvan Hideaway spells, so I just sort of tweaked Find Familiar to fit the theme and be usable as a scout, and Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion, which, as it was written was a few levels above what a Ranger could ever have anyway, to downgrade it to more Sylvan Hideaway levels of effect. The Chernasado Warden, unlike some other adaptations where I feel like I'm chainsawing off class features to squeeze them into the much tighter 5e subclass format, actually came out leaner than usual for me, which is way closer to how 5e tends to do it.]

Random other Golarian specific stuff adapted for the D&D 5e rules.

Varisian Harrower (Bard)
3, 3, 6, 14 or 3, 6, 6, 14

Level 3: Harrow Deck
You receive a special Harrow Deck, which is treated as a Gaming Set, and are Proficient in its use, but can also be used as one or more Daggers. The individual cards are never lost or damaged by being Thrown, and reappear in your deck when you next complete a Long Rest, if lost, stolen or destroyed. If you expend a Bardic Inspiration die when you Attack with your Harrow Cards in this fashion, you do Bonus damage equal to your Inspiration die, and can choose for this attack to do Force or Psychic damage.

Your Harrow Deck can also be used as a Spellcasting Focus.

At 6th level, the cards from your deck are treated as magical weapons, for the purposes of Resistance to damage from non-magical weapons, you gain the Mastery Property of Nick when using your Harrow cards as daggers, and you are treated as holding a shield and receive a +1 bonus to Armor Class when holding your special Harrow cards in one or both hands.

Level 3: Blessing of the Harrow
When you complete a Long Rest, you can perform a Harrow reading for yourself and a number of allies equal to your Charisma modifier. Roll 6d6, with 1’s representing Strength, 2’s Dexterity, 3’s Constitution, 4’s Intelligence, 5’s Wisdom and 6’s Charisma. Those affected can choose to have Advantage with a number of d20 Tests with the Attribute that appears the most in your roll, equal to your Proficiency Bonus, until the end of your next Long Rest. In case of a tie, you choose which of those Attributes receives the buff.

Level 6: Harrow Casting
You can draw a single card as part of the action of casting a spell. Roll 1d6, and if the number on the card is 2, representing Dexterity, and your spell requires an Attack roll, you can grant yourself Advantage on that Attack roll. If your spell gives the target a saving throw, and you rolled the number associated with that Attribute, you can give the opponent Disadvantage on that saving throw. You can always draw a card as part of casting a spell, but can only choose to give yourself Advantage, or a target Disadvantage in this manner if you choose to expend a Bardic Inspiration die.

You can also use your Harrow deck to cast Augury or Cloud of Daggers, and always have both spells prepared. You can cast Cloud of Daggers, which manifests as a cloud of razor-edged Harrow cards, twice without expending a spell slot, but cannot do so again before completing a Long Rest.

Level 14: Dancer with Destiny
Using your Harrow Deck, you can cast Blade Barrier, Contact Other Plane, Divination or Speak with Dead, and always have these spells Prepared. When you cast Speak with Dead in this manner, the spell takes 10 minutes to cast, and your Blade Barrier manifests as a swirling barrier of razor edged Harrow cards.

[As usual, trying to capture the theme of the Prestige Class, and setting, and the cool visuals from the Harrow Handbook!, while keeping to the preferred mechanics of D&D 5e subclasses. Some Prestige Classes, are narrow enough that they *might* even work as Feats... Some attempts at that follow.]

Thassilonian Sin-Mage
General Feat (Prerequisite: Level 4+, Specialist Wizard (Abjurer, Conjurer, Enchanter, Evoker, Illusionist, Necromancer or Transmuter))
Starting at the level you take this feat, one of the two Wizard spells you gain each level must be from your School of Specialization. In addition, the spell you gain each level from the ‘Savant’ class feature for your School of Specialization must still be a spell of a level you can cast, and from your School of Specialization, but it can come from *any* class list.

[On the one hand, this Feat leaves the Thassilonian Specialist with no additional spells over any other Wizard of the same level, but does widely open up their versatility, particularly for Specialists in schools whose spells have a lot of options on other lists, like Enchanters and Conjurers. It is, perhaps, not so great for Evokers, since many of the sexy Evocation spells are already on the Wizard list...]

Risen Guard
General Feat (Prerequisite: Level 4+, Must have been raised, reincarnated or resurrected from the dead, Revivify is not sufficient for this purpose.)
Your soul has been anchored to your body after being called back from the Boneyard by a gem embedded into your forehead called a Ka stone. This stone cannot be destroyed or removed, and gives you the ability to avoid a repeat of your original death. Whenever you take damage that would reduce you to 0 Hit Points, you can instead choose to remain at 1 Hit Point. Taking this action gives you 1 level of Exhaustion, and you cannot take it again until you no longer have any levels of Exhaustion.

Razmiran Priest
(General Feat, Prerequisite: Level 4+, Spellcasting or Pact Magic Feature)
You add False Life to your spells known and always have it prepared. Additionally, you can cast False Life (either by spell or invocation) on an ally by Touch.

If a target is suffering from Hit Point damage, and you affect them with a spell or invocation that grants them Temporary Hit Points, the target must make a Medicine or Religion check at your spell DC or believe that you have cured them of Hit Point damage they have received by using a spell such as Cure Wounds or Word of Healing.

Finally, at 14th level, you add Power Word Fortify to your spells known and always have it prepared.

Masked Caster (available toboth Halycon Speakers and Hellknight Signifers)
(General Feat, Prerequisite: Level 4+, Spellcasting or Pact Magic Feature)
You have a mask that conceals your features, but does not impede your vision, hearing or speech. If it is lost or destroyed, you can replace or repair it over your next Long Rest. It functions as an Arcane Focus, Druidic Focus or Holy Symbol, as appropriate to your spellcasting class.

While wearing this mask, you have Advantage on any saving throw to resist a Divination spell cast by any creature that does not know your true name and identity. In addition, while wearing this mask, as a Reaction you can give yourself Advantage on any saving throw against an Enchantment spell cast by a creature that does not know your true name and identity. If you succeed on this saving throw, the caster of the Enchantment spell is Frightened of you until the end of your next turn. Once you use this Reaction, you must complete a Long or Short rest before you can do so again.

So the Forgotten Realms setting had like, a bajillion new spells, and it felt like 20% of them followed a pattern. Weapon (sword, staff, whip, mace) of (force, fire, lightning). Floating balls what spin around the caster and absorb attacks (maybe spells, maybe a specific energy like lightning or force) and can be sent off to deliver that energy (or cast those absorbed spells). Ways to cast multiple spells in a round (variations on Contingency, by such luminaries as Elminster and the Witch-Queen of Aglarond).

Inspired by that sort of spell design philosophy, but with Golarion flavor, I present;

Sihedron Strike
You conjure a spinning sihedron rune that floats above and behind your head, the seven 'blades' of the sihedron individually as long as short swords and made of force. When you cast it, you can cause one or all of the blades to strike any target within medium range, doing force damage as a short sword. Those not commanded to strike will remain orbiting you and provide you with a +1 bonus to Armor Class and Reflex saves (for each remaining blade), as they move to intercept attacks directed at you. Blades that are sent to attack hit automatically and continue attacking their selected target as long as they remain within range, returning to station behind you if the target dies, or leaves range, or if you use a movement action to call them back (you can recall one or more of them as part of the same movement action).

At any time during the spell's duration, you can assign one or more blades to attack a single or separate targets as a standard action, but those blades will not be available for defensive purposes while attacking.

This is a snippet of an idea, which I haven't really worked out the mechanics for, but I kind of like the idea of using one settings 'design philosophy' to create something with flavor from a very different setting.

And a spell that sends sihedron blades spinning off to slash and stab folk? That's just good fun!

Friends have been playing D&D 5e, but have been using Golarion, as WotC seems weirdly embarrassed by their own lushly realized settings like Greyhawk, Athas, Krynn or Eberron, and is shy about really diving back into them.

So, some random ideas for Golarion-specific subclases;

Winter Witch (Warlock) 3,3, 6, 10, 14
Spells
3rd Find Familiar, Hex, Hold Person, Ice Knife, Ray of Frost
5th Bestow Curse, Sleet Storm
7th Charm Monster, Ice Storm
9th Cone of Cold, Geas

3rd Winter Witchery. Spells using the Warlocks spell slots that normally inflict Cold damage take effect as if cast with a spell slot one level higher. Additionally, spells or invocations that inflict acid, fire, lightning, necrotic, radiant or thunder damage, can instead inflict cold damage, but these spells do not qualify for the automatic heightening effect.

3rd Hexcraft / Beast of Ill Omen. If you have a Familiar and it is summoned, you can choose when you cast Bane, Hex or Bestow Curse that the Familiar maintains the Concentration on that spell, in your stead. Your Familiar can only maintain Concentration on a single spell, and must remain within 30 ft. of you to do so.
Additionally, have the Potent Cantrip feature of an Evoker, but it only applies to Ray of Frost.

6th Winter Walker / The Cold Never Bothered Me Anyway. You have Resistance to Cold damage. You do not treat snow or ice as Difficult terrain, and if winter conditions, including magical ones, such as from the Sleet Storm spell, would make an area Heavily Obscured, you treat it as Lightly Obscured. If such conditions would make an area Lightly Obscured, you are unpenalized.
Additionally, Ray of Frost’s damage dice become d8s.

10th Uttercold. The only targets that have Resistance against Cold damage from your spells or invocations are those that would normally be Immune to Cold damage.
Additionally, Ray of Frost’s damage dice become d10’s.

14th Advanced Witchery / Grand Mal Damme. You add Otiluke’s Freezing Sphere and Wall of Ice to your spells known, and like other spells you cast with Warlock slots that inflict Cold damage, they are automatically heightened to use slots one higher than your current slot level.
Additionally, Ray of Frost’s damage dice become d12s.

Umbral Court Shadowcaster (Sorcerer) 3, 3, 6, 14, 18

Tenebrous Spells
3rd Bane, Darkness, Entangle, Phantasmal Force, Thorn Whip
5th Phantom Steed, Vampiric Touch
7th Evard’s Black Tentacles, Phantasmal Killer
9th Dominate Person, Hold Monster

3rd Eyes of Night. You gain Darkvision with a range of 60 ft. If you already have Darkvision, its range increases by 60 ft. You can also see in magical darkness of your own creation. Additionally, you are Proficient in Stealth.

6th Shadowcraft. You can spend one minute weaving together threads of shadow into simple tangible objects. Any item that can be made by Fast Crafting (p 201) can be crafted, and will remain in existence until you dismiss it, or the completion of your next Long Rest. You can have a number of such shadowcraft objects equal to your Charisma modifier.
Additionally, if you have a Tool proficiency in an Artisan Tool, at the end of a Long Rest, you can craft one item from those craftable items on p 220-221. You do not need to actually have Artisan Tools or materials for this crafting, but do need the Proficiency. In the case of a Spell Scroll, it must be one of a spell that you know. This item also remains in existence until you dismiss it or the completion of your next Long Rest. You can only have one of these special shadowcraft creations in existence at any time, and expendable items, such as Spell Scrolls, Potions of Healing or alchemical Acid, are consumed when used, as normal for such items.

14th Shadows Dance. You add Summon Beast, Summon Undead, Summon Aberration, Summon Dragon and Summon Fiend to your spells known, but these spells are Illusion spells, the creatures summoned have half normal hit points, and are Vulnerable to Radiant damage. You can cast these spells with spell slots, or by expending Sorcery Points equal to the level of the spell.
Additionally, If you are entirely within Dim Light or Darkness, you can use a Bonus Action to teleport up to 60 feet to an unoccupied space that you can see that is also in Dim Light or Darkness. You can do this a number of times equal to your Proficiency Bonus and then require a Long Rest to recover. If you have no uses remaining when you finish a Short Rest, you recover a single use.

18th Shadow of Yourself. As a Bonus Action or Reaction, you can transform into shadow, becoming Immune to Bludgeoning, Piercing and Slashing damage, Resistant to Acid, Cold and Necrotic damage, and Vulnerable to Radiant damage. In this form, you move at twice your normal ground speed, and are Partially Incorporeal and can move through occupied spaces as if they were Difficult Terrain. If you end your turn in such a space, you are shunted to the last unoccupied space you were in. You cannot make any physical attacks or manipulate any solid object in this form. This effect lasts 1 minute, unless Dismissed early, and once you return to your corporeal form, you cannot return to shadow until you have completed a Short or Long Rest.

Cyphermage (Wizard)
Wizard 3, 3, 6, 10, 14

3rd Swift Scrivener. You start with Calligrapher’s Supplies and are Proficient with them. Additionally, you can Fast Craft a level 0 or 1 Spell Scroll after completing a Long Rest, so long as you have Calligrapher’s Supplies. As with normal Fast Crafted materials, these Scrolls become nonmagical after you complete your next Long Rest.

3rd Scroll Specialist. When you Activate a Scroll of a spell in your Spellbook, you can use your own attack roll or Save DC, instead of the flat +5 / DC 13, if you wish.
When you Craft (but not Fast Craft!) a Scroll, you no longer need to have that spell prepared, but it must be in your Spellbook.

6th Bibliophile You can now Fast Craft a Scroll of a 2nd level spell, or two Scrolls of Cantrips or 1st level spells. Additionally, you can now Fast Craft a 1st level Scroll after a Short Rest, but these Scrolls become nonmagical after your next Short Rest.
You no longer need to have a spell prepared to Fast Craft a Scroll of it, but the spell must be in your Spellbook.

10th Archivist You can now Fast Craft Scrolls of up to 3 levels of spells after a Long Rest, or 2 levels of spells after a Short Rest (which become nonmagical after your next Short Rest).
When you Craft (but not Fast Craft!) a Scroll, it can be any spell on your spell list, even if you do not have that spell in your Spellbook.

14th Master Inscriptionist You can now Fast Craft Scrolls of up to 6 levels of spells after a Long Rest, or 3 levels of spells after a Short Rest (which become nonmagical after your next Short Rest).
When you Fast Craft a spell after a Long Rest, it can be any spell on your spell list, even if you do not have that spell in your Spellbook.

[As much as possible, I do not want to reinvent the wheel, so I tried to use rules and concepts that already existed in 5e, like Fast Crafting or Potent Cantrips.]

I loved Clancy Brown's Kurgan, but Rutger Hauer as the Kurgan? Ooh. I'd also like to see the movie that would have been!

Winter Witch / Irriseni curses

46) Summer Will Never Return - when the temperature is normal or lower, you experience it one step lower, to a maximum of extreme cold (if the temperature is punishingly hot, you receive no such modification). If you have cold resistance, it does not apply to the nonlethal damage of extreme cold exposure.

47) Respect Your Betters - whenever you strike a Jadwiga (insert class of individuals for non-Winter Witch uses, Nethyn priests might curse you when you strike spellcasters, Calistrians when you strike elves, etc.), the Jadwiga takes half damage, and you take the other half (as if they benefited from a Shield Other, with you are the damage-recipient). This applies to damage from physical attacks, spells or spell-like abilities alike.

48) No Escape - any step outside of the borders of Irrisen counts as difficult terrain, and you remain shaken the entire time. This stacks with other forms of difficult terrain (but not with other sources of fear). Movement that is (more or less) *back* towards the border is not penalized. Mother forgives those who stray and return. Not really, but it sounds nice...

Chelish / Asmodean curses

Respect Your Betters is obviously popular.

49) Asmodean Brand - a glaring red pentacle appears branded on your flesh, usually in a visible area like the cheek or forehead or throat. Any cleric of Asmodeus or member of House Thrune can, as a standard action, cause it to flare up, nauseating you with pain, once per round. [Similar to the 'lose 50% of actions', but requires a foe to spend their own action to hinder yours.] Additionally, whenever you attack or otherwise oppose (even in a contested skill check, like attempting to Bluff one) against a cleric of Asmodeus or member of House Thrune, you suffer the penalties of being sickened. This is a pain effect.

50) Fires of Hell - fire damage directed at you counts as half fire damage and half profane damage (which ignores fire resistance). Any time you take hit points of fire damage equal to your total Hit Dice, you catch on fire, and the DC to extinguish these infernal flames is equal to the DC of the original attack. Against attacks that already cause one to catch on fire, the DC to extinguish this condition increases by five.

51) Evil Is as Evil Does - you radiate a strong aura of evil, like a cleric of Asmodeus, and when you cast a spell like summon monster that optionally *can* be an Evil spell, it automatically becomes an evil spell. Any animal you attempt to summon always has the fiendish quality, and you cannot summon any creature with the Good type, such as an archon, angel or azata. You are treated as evil for the purposes of any spells or abilities that detrimentally affect evil individuals, such as Holy Smite, Holy Word, Holy Aura or Protection from Evil.

Eagly rocks harder than ever in this 5th episode.

I wonder if

Other people do other stuff, but whatever. Eagly!

I am kinda hoping Adrian gets a chance to shine soon. I'm not sure if we've even seen him in costume yet?

Oh, that had better have been foreshadowing when Adrian said, 'I wonder if there's another version of me over there?' Anyone else might learn something from meeting an AU version of themselves, perhaps a hard lesson about how other people see them. Not Adrian, I suspect!

IIRC, in Byrne's Man of Steel, Lara expressed some unease at humans for being 'savages' and wondered aloud to Jor-El if their son would 'teach them proper Kryptonian values,' and Jor-El seemed less concerned about such things. (In her defense, she was seeing humans for the first time, in the context of 'these people are going to be raising my baby,' and Jor-El had been studying and acclimating himself to Earth and humanity for weeks, if not months. Plus Byrne can be wildly misogynistic at times, so there's also that.)

I could see this message as a shout-out to this story beat.

It would hardly be the first Superman treatment to present Krypton as far from idyllic. The last run of movies had a caste system where the 'leader caste' seemed stone-cold terrible at leadership, the 'military caste' seemed completely bugnuts crazy, and the 'science caste' seemed to be, if Jor-El's scene in the beginning was any indication, way better at fighty stuff than half the military caste!

I'm personally more interested in Lex having faked the message, but I'm willing to see what Gunn has in mind if it's genuine, since we've always had unpleasant Kryptonian factions, like General Zod's people, and we've always had a version of Krypton that is, one way or another, more or less responsible for their own genocide (whether they caused it, in some versions, or simply ignored warnings and let it happen, in others).

I'm a little confused by that particular headcanon. If the Kelesh Empire's fallen apart, then what kind of imperial censure is the ruler of Qadira restraining his ambitions for? The whole thing keeping the Taldan-Qadiran conflict from reigniting is the much bigger fish that would eat the Satrap if he got cocky.

Oh, that's easy. The Satrap is lying. He talks a lot of smack, but really doesn't want to get into a fight and have his total lack of powerful backing exposed. (By pretending that Qadira is just a border province of a vast and powerful empire, that, uh, you can't see from here, he hopes to discourage anyone else from attacking *him.*)

He's totally the sketchy guy with a hot girlfriend, but you wouldn't know her, she's from Canada...

He gets to blame his own hesitance among the more red-meat-hungry members of his own forces, on 'orders from above.' Almost nobody in Qadira has made the long journey into 'greater Kel' and knows that they have spent the last few decades squabbling over some succession crisis, and are more or less a beast without a head, ineffectual and lacking the sort of power and influence that Qadirans take such pride in.

But it is just headcanon. I just like the idea of some things being 'known' (in this case by an entire culture) being, in fact, misleading, or wildly exaggerated.

An animated zombie that doesnt even have a soul

At various times, even mindless undead have been described as requiring a fragment of a soul torn from the original. This seems unlikely to be always true, given spontaneous undead, but ymmv

I could see the creation of undead as anathema to *all* gods, from Iomedae to Asmodeus, if animating a corpse as a zombie could tear souls (or fragments of souls) out of Asmodeus's hells or Iomedae's heavens.

Once Pharasma has sent someone's soul on to it's final destination, I'm not sure I love the idea of a spell being able to drag them back, particularly for a process of animation that is, IMO, not particularly advantageous over what transmutation already does through animate objects.

Necromancy, more and more, is kind of junk, and should just be removed from the game, rather than all sorts of arbitrary 'some god says you are destroying the universe by using it!' not-really-rules.

Save the space in the book for stuff we are supposed to use (and not going to be judged for using, or even finding interesting)!

If you reject the idea undeath hurts the cycle of souls in some way, then you are unlikely to agree with Pharasma's view. If you agree that undeath damages souls and degrades the cycle, hastening the death of the universe and potentially damaging future births of universes...then it becomes obvious why undeath is inherently a problem, even if its not a problem for any specific (non-deity) to worry about (because you wont exist when it becomes a problem).

I am somewhat intrigued by how this cycle of souls requires a timely process of birth->life->death to function. An animated zombie, who doesn't even have a soul, last a mere decade, before collapsing into rot and ruin, or being 'killed', and yet an elf, who keeps her soul out of the cycle for centuries, or someone who drinks the Sun Orchid Elixir, to do likewise, is not 'gumming up the works' in the same way.

If the cycle of souls being delayed or degraded is 'the answer', it's applied inconsistently, at best. As a non-good, non-lawful entity, it would make sense for Pharasma to be almost as opposed to races that live for centuries (like elves), or individuals (like high level Thassilonian wizards named Sorshen) who just flip her off and refuse to age and die and surrender their soul back to the cycle.

I wonder also what sort of creatures have souls, in game. She clearly isn't a goddess of vegetarians, so killing animals and 'desecrating' their corpses by making leather and meat out of them, seems perfectly fine with much of her church. (Although eating nothing but cold turnip stew sounds appropriately 'ugh' for the 'life must be misery' Pharasmin Penitence...) Are people's culturally inclined to those sorts of behaviors (eating 'people,' making stuff out of bone), like lizardfolk or gnolls, automatically anathema to her church? Are animals that desecrate the dead by their very nature, like worms, vultures, hyenas, etc. seen as part of the natural order, or filthy creatures? (I could see different orders of Pharasmins having wildly different views on this point, and Pharasma herself perhaps not caring in the slightest, if animals don't have souls and are just 'doing their job!')

It does seem she draws a hard line at undead, even if some undead (skeletons and zombies) don't *appear* to have bupkiss to do with the river of souls, while others (liches and mummies) don't do more than an elf or Sun Orchid elixir purchaser in keeping their own soul past their sell-by date. (Shadows, wraiths, spectres, any sort of undead that pretty much *is* a (usually discorporate) soul, and can, with a touch, pull some other living person out of the cycle, I could see being her enemy #1, by this logic.)

Coincidentally, the exact sort of undead that I, when playing a necromancer, loathe as well. :)

What would another con based class look like?

A 'Vitalist' that manipulates life-force to damage others (by draining their life force), heals allies (by infusing them with their own life force), buffs allies (more vitality!), debuffs foes (fatigue, etc.) and enhances themselves (burn that excess vitality for Rage like benefits) could be interesting.

Somewhat more adjacent abilities could allow them to manipulate people's or animals feelings (depress or energize them), or cause plants to grow or wither, or food to decay or freshen. A bit of 'psychic vampire' on the side, perhaps, able to bring down a room, or get a crowd pumped.

I think a mesmerist, or mesmerist-like class with a different name, would be a cool addition. Their method of implanting abilities in their friends via their mental tricks, sort of setting up multiple tiny contingency spells, and locking down a singular enemy with their stare could blossome into something to really help them stand out from other casters.

Assuming they stayed casters at all. I think you could make a fun mesmerist who doesn't do any slotted spellcasting and have a cool mesmerist.

I found the Mesmerist to be an embarrassment of riches. I would have *loved* a Mesmerist AT that focused *entirely* on Tricks, implanting them all day long in multiple allies, etc. but had no spells at all.

OR another Mesmerist who focused entirely on the Stare abilities, and, again, no need for spells. A 'Basilisk' AT that could focus Stares on two people at a time, and take extra Stare feats, and just gaze of doom enemies!

Much like the Alchemist (bombs or mutagens), before it, or the Druid (wild shape or animal companion), even before that, it was a class that had multiple class abilities that would, IMO, have been a great chassis for an entire class, with all the other stuff feeling like it just split the focus and made it not really great at the one thing I wanted to focus on (or any of the other things, it seemed, too many very distinct class features, that often didn't synergize particularly well).

That's one reason why I wanted to discuss this, frankly: it feels like there's a disconnect between Pathfinder and Starfinder's opinions on undeath, Starfinder treating undead as morally neutral while Pathfinder implies they're not.

While yes, the devs have stated one game's canon doesn't impact the other, I feel like this is something that could cause problems for writers of both games in the future, as they have different ideas on the fundamental metaphysics of the game world and the intended moral and ethical dynamics of their respective narratives.

** spoiler omitted **

It is possible that something can change, metaphysically or cosmologically, and that there *weren't* any 'morally neutral' forms of undeath, until, in the Starfinder era, yes, there was *now* one.

Either that specific form of undeath was special, perhaps even specifically designed in such a way as to avoid the cosmologically bad thing (much how liches or mummies pump so much magical energy into their creation process that they can exist for millenia that it slows most forms of entropic decay and get away from the sorts of hunger / degeneration faced by ghouls or vampires) *or* the entire universe has changed in such a way that the process itself is no longer hurtful to the river of souls.

So it doesn't *have* to mean that Gray Lady was wrong. Just that this is A) a specific exception that just came into existence recently or B) she was right *then*, but things are different *now.*

Admittedly, my preference, as always, is to find a reason why both things can be true. I prefer offering solutions to just pointing out problems!

And I prefer not to be part of the problem, when I can be *the entire problem!* :)

Eagly remains the best thing I never knew I wanted.

Wow, that was the least sexy orgy, ever. (And, clearly, deliberately so?)

Economos walking next to his boss makes him look like a fricking bear in a people suit. He's gigantic! (And / or the actor playing Flagg Sr. was shot in such a way to make him look tiny!)

175. Ring of Animal Fiendship This cold iron band resembles a creature with the head of a cat, lower body of a snake, and folded wings of a bat, coiled around one's finger. Once worn, it cannot be removed, and any familiar, animal companion or summoned animal gains the fiendish template, an evil alignment and does not respond to your commands (although it does not *automatically* attack you exclusively)...

176. Cloak of Arachnids This fine spider-silk cloak has a web motif and appears to be decorated with hundreds of barely visible spiders crafted of metal and stone. Once donned, if you try to remove it, or if it suffers any damage (from being specifically targeted, or the wearer being affected by AoE damage), it immediately transforms into a spider swarm and attacks the wearer.

177. Defunding weapon This magical weapon was intended to steal coin from the target struck, and transfer it to the user. But, no. It steals coin from the user, equal to 1 gp / hit point of damage inflicted, and that money goes straight to Mammon's vault, because he's like that.

If you run out of gold, damage inflicted is reduced appropriately, and if you have not a single gold worth of coinage, you can whale away all day and inflict zero damage. (A small saving grace, the weapon only consumes coinage, and will not devour jewelry or gemstones or valuable equipment to cover the expense of doing damage.)

I really want to know more about the greater Empire. the 1e book Qadira Jewel of the east really added a whole lot of details and fleshed out that satrapy and details on the Kelishites. Notably the Kelishite ethnicity is a delibertly constructed identity to bring about unity to the empire. There are six major ethnicities(Aishmayars, Althameri, Khattibi, Mideans, Susianams, Tzorehiyi) Each is associated with a virtue , and the kelishite identity as a whole is associated with Unity.

While it's 100% headcanon, I love the notion that Qadira is IT, and that this great empire barely even exists, having collapsed into feuding city-states, and being even more 'vaporware' than the 'great Taldan empire' (which itself has fragmented into several other countries).

Qadira talks all sorts of talk about how they are just the tip of a much, MUCH bigger spear, and have this 800 lb. gorilla backing them up, but they are just a last lingering echo of the empire's former glory, and it's such a successful smokescreen that the average citizen of Qadira (who, like most people in that day and age, will never travel more than a few days away from where they were born), *have no idea* that they are alone, and that there isn't some magical super-empire standing behind them.

New Magnimarian holiday

Like carnivale, this autumn festival includes a costume masquerade, where everyone dresses like characters from the Harrow deck. All Harrow's Eve runs from sundown to midnight, and involves dancing, feasting, drinking, plays and skits and comedy acts involving Harrow characters, and, naturally, a bit of Harrow reading on the side.

Two years ago, some strange coincidence led to an overabundance of people dressed as the Rabbit Prince. There were parties with upwards of a dozen Rabbit Princes in attendance! An overreaction to this embarrassment of riches led to the following year having nearly no Rabbit Princes, as everyone strove to find different characters to come as.

Who knows what this year will bring! Too many Rabbit Princes? Not enough Rabbit Princes? The *actual* Rabbit Prince?

You'll have to come and see for yourself!

This was the impression I got, yes, along with the fact that undead constantly need to feed on life to keep from deteriorating, and that does similar damage to the souls of their victims, especially with undead whose feeding habits produce more of their kind, such as shadows, wraiths and ghouls.

I have long disliked the notion from earlier editions of D&D, that creatures animated by negative energy are somehow 'free.' IMO, negative energy should be a hungry void, devouring constantly to survive. Instead, we've had a system where one could be a living creature, subject to aging, death and decay, constantly needing to kill and devour other living creatures to survive (even if some choose to only kill and devour plants), while a mindless skeleton can keep trucking for all eternity, and never *needs* to kill anything to sustain itself.

A more on-theme form of undead, IMO, would *lose* hit points every day, when a living creature instead gains them, as negative energy cannot 'grow more of itself' the way a person or animal can. Those undead capable of draining energy, shadows, wraiths, wights, would have to do so *just to continue existing*, while a few, such as ghouls and vampires, can do so by devouring flesh and blood. Only the vary rarest of undead, like liches, might get around this constant 'hunger' and daily loss of hit points, by some ridiculously hard-to-achieve input and assimilation of magical energy, in place of stolen vitality.

Negative energy would not be infinite free energy, it would be endless hunger, forced to kill and devour even more so than living creatures (who can, if they choose, sustain themselves on products like honey or milk or fruit or vegetables that do not require killing any creature to consume, although *some* undead, like vampires, could similarly feed 'sustainably' by not killing those whose blood they drink. What would make the vast majority of them evil with a capital E is that *they choose not to do so*).

Obviously this would impact stories. One could not, under this paradigm, expect to open a crypt that's been sealed + buried for centuries, or even days!, and expect to find functional undead, as they would have 'starved to death' within a week or so! A workaround would be that undead only 'burn life' when they are active, and can go dormant and lie around motionless and all-but-insensate, perhaps even for millenia, without suffering this deterioration. (But gosh, they will be desperate for new life energy when they do awaken, since if they don't feed, they are just taking time off their clock / draining their battery!)

From what we've seen, we can extrapolate that undeath is, at the end of the day, an unsustainable state: the undead need to feed on life will result in one of two ends: either they will overhunt in their territory and end up deteriorating into nonsentience and frailty, or their predations draw the attention of adventuring parties that will destroy them.

Agreed, it should be this way.

This deterioration can only be STALLED, not overcome, and it's why intelligent undead tend to form underground societies in urban locations, to facilitate their feeding needs with people that "no one will miss" and ensure their own personal comfort. This is also the role the Church of Urgathoa fulfills: acting as a middleman to the undead in procuring food and helping people who want to be undead become that. The logical endpoint of these systems is Geb, where the undead have reached critical mass and subjugated the living, making them into a slave and livestock class. But despite Geb's rosy language, it's a situation that happened largely without him, as the Blood Lords organized under him to keep their own gravy trains going while he moped over Nex. And the general impression one gets of Geb (the nation) is that it's very invested in maintaining its status quo (the whole point of the Blood Lords AP, as has been discussed) and regards both the possibility that Nex (the wizard) is returning and the increased enthusiasm this has stirred in Geb (the wizard) and in Nex (the nation) with kind of an "ohhhhhh s+&@..." vibe, because they understand the house of cards their nation is, and any disruption to the supply of Quick coming in to supply the hungers of the undead, and the supply of cheap food going out that makes their neighbors tolerate them could make the whole thing come crashing down.

The contrast between Geb and Tar-Baphon is striking. As a ghost and a lich, neither of them *personally* has any need for the living, at all, but Geb has surrounded himself with an aristocracy of undead like ghouls and vampires *who cannot survive without mortals to feed off of.*

Tar-Baphon also has some vampire followers, who are, one assumes, short sighted idiots or complete nutjobs who drank the kool-aid, because if the Whispering Way gets it's 'way' and all life is ended and only the undead remain, vampires are pretty much toast. (Reminding me of those dumb-but-pretty/cool vampires from the first Blade movie, who wanted to summon their 'Blood God' and turn everyone on the planet into vampires, leaving them... nothing to eat, and doomed to madness and death (as we saw happens with vampires who starve) within a matter of months...)

It would be the weirdest war front on all of Golarion, if Geb had to bring forces to bear against Tar-Baphon, because Geb (and his Blood Lord aristocracy) *doesn't want all life to end*, leaving the forces of good to say, 'Uh, who are we supposed to be rooting for again?'

"You realize they are just fighting on our behalf because they want to eat us later, right? They are ranchers, protecting their cattle, and we are the cattle..."

[caveat] This is not meant, *at all,* to be some sort of argument about whether or not a god has an appropriate alignment, whether or not alignment belongs in the game or not, blah, blah, blah, but, the internet, so, I'm probably saying nothing useful here. :) [/caveat]

I am intrigued by how the 'one step rule' for Clerics of various gods creates for some fairly distinctive sub-sects of their churches.

Norgorber seems the the most clear cut, and even then, it's not spelled out or even intuitive if his four facets lean towards one of the four alignment choices his clerics can follow. Father Skinsaw seems to lean towards CE, certainly (but has plenty of room for LE obsessive serial killer sorts, and NE folk who are less OCD about following procedure, but also less wanton and whacky about their killing than the crazy murderclown cult). The Reaper of Reputation seems a good fit for Neutral Evil. All about using language (slander and libel) to ruin the reputations of people, but even there, is a teensy bit of wiggle room for a Neutal (non-evil) destroyer of reputations, someone who has lost family or friends or loved ones to a beloved or popular figure that they know to be a villain, and who has dedicated their life to unmasking those villains who hide under a guise of being benevolent or beloved public figures. Assorted bits of modern fiction deal with heroes being forced to unmask the perfidy of a popular person who is secretly a terrible person and is themselves manipulating public opinion. (This would, obviously, be an outlier among the Reapers of Reputation's followers. I expect most of them are terrible people themselves. The politics of personal destruction rarely leave someone's hands unstained...) Either Blackfingers or the Gray Master could be the safest havens for the non-evil clergy (and worshippers) of Norgorber. Figures like Robin Hood, or movies like Ocean's Eleven, even glamorize 'gentleman thieves,' at times. And poison, particularly in our modern world, is *far* more commonly used to eliminate disease and famine-causing pests, or even eliminate tumors, than by power-mad Medici's trying to control Italian city-states (and not all alchemically minded Blackfingers folk are even guaranteed to be all that into poison, specifically, of their many class abilities, since it is, IMO, not as fun as chucking fiery explosions or 'hulking out' with a mutagen).

So many alignment based splinters kind of make sense to me.

A CN sect of Caydenites could be more about the drunken state itself, and perhaps a little less concerned with stuff that happens *while* they are drunk. A NG sect of Caydenites sometimes roll their eyes at the focus on 'getting drunk' and could be more focused on orphanages and abolitionism (and, yes, responsible use of intoxicants). The mainstream church perhaps regards the irresponsible CN'frat boys' as a good recruiting ground for those who can learn responsibility, while still being able to cut loose.

NG Pharasmins, which I'd love to see more of, could be all about midwifery, family planning advice, medicine (particularly of the very young, and very old), end of life care, and, yeah, funerals. NE Pharasmins could be actively fighting those who defy her will by extending their lives unnaturally, or trying to 'get around' death in various ways, not just undeath, such as abusing the reincarnation spell. The only branch I actually don't immediately see a niche for are the CN Pharasmins. (I'm sure someone has put more thought into this than I, and has an idea here!)

The only *god* of the big twenty who doesn't really 'speak' to me, in any of his alignment options, would be Rovagug. I could see why someone would follow the tenets (or at least *some* of the tenets) of just about everyone else. I could see how a LN priest of Zon-Kuthon could be all about cutting away weakness and strengthening the body and the mind, or a NE Nethyn could be an arcane supremacist, convinced that non-spellcasters should *never* command or rule over 'their betters,' anyone can cast spells, and have a complicated heirarchy of *which* spellcasters are 'superior' which might start with wizards (or sorcerers!), and end with clerics of any god other than Nethys, or those mediochre dabblers called Adepts that everyone pretends don't even exist. But clerics of Rovagug are a mystery to me. I do not get them at all. :)

There might be a CN faction of Lamashtans, with their own clerics, focused on providing nurturing communities for those that modern society calls 'neurodivergent' or 'differently-abled,' and teaches them to regard their differences (in appearance, 'acceptable' behavior, or both) as gifts and opportunities, not defects to be shunned, or hidden away, or surgically or magically 'corrected.' Being that the core faith is Chaotic EVIL, I could also see the more orthodox clerics stoking resentment in these folk, leading to frightening or even dangerous behaviors that 100% inflame the exact sort of prejudice that their flock already face, and perpetuating the cycle that keeps this faction flush with new potential recruits, as they encourage the afflicted to lash out at societies that shun them, 'proving' that society was 'right' to do so in the first place! (Telling those with socially unacceptable behaviors that their violent or disturbing traits are somehow 'gifts from the goddess' that shouldn't be restrained or managed could also lead to disruptions that 'prove' that they should be driven away, or killed! Which would serve the purposes of the greater CE church of Lamashtu.)

What might seem, to us in the modern day, an organization / support group for the 'differently abled' or neurodivergent, could have members who are all about that stated purpose, and an entirely sinister underbelly that is stoking resentment and fear both among their flock, and among the rest of society *against* their flock, given them nowhere else to go, but the safety of 'their own kind' against a world out to get them. Perfect cult or gang recruitment tactic. Give them nowhere else to go. Make them burn all their bridges, or perform acts that will result in a dire fate if leave, not from the cult itself, but from everyone else.

I like the idea of there being many kinds of elementals, not just air, earth, fire and water but also aether, crystal, ice, lightning, magma, metal, mud, radiance(light), sand, shadow, steam, time, void, wood, etc.

A) yes

Cause I am exactly that guy. :)

I like the idea of animate manifestations / amalgamations of crystal, magma, lightning, mist, etc., the 'quasi-elementals' or 'para-elementals' of old editions of D&D, but I'm not in love with the them being called elementals, which should, IMO, be limited to specific creatures of the elemental planes.

(Although I do love the 'elemental planes' being opened up to metal and wood, so even in the 'no' there's a little bit of 'yes.' Do I contradict myself? Then I contradict myself, for I am legion, and I contain multitudes!) :)

Calling them something like 'animates' or 'manifestations' would suit that fussy desire for 'mud elementals' to not be 'elementals' and there never, ever, not in a million years, be a 'para-elemental plane of mud,' which is a thing from earlier editions that appeals to me about as much as those fiddly penalties to hit different types of armor based on weapon type that, AFAIK, approximately *no one* ever actually used...

- It's environmentally bad, just on a cosmic scale rather than a local one. This is why Pharasma herself is against it. The other reasons are much more useful arguments for her church to make, because people don't even care too much about stuff that affects the planet they live on, let alone 'reality as a whole long after all life on the planet is long dead anyway'. I'm going to lump in "it's just wrong (Pharasma says so)" into here.

I feel like there's an actual reason other than 'Grey Lady dun like it', like all souls are kinda recycled, even if some ka or khaibit-like bit of them goes on to become a Petitioner or whatever, some other vital bit of them swirls down the big drain at the bottom of creation (the 'Negative' plane) and spat back out all shiny and new at the big spigot at the top of creation (the 'Positive' plane), and that there's a finite amount of 'soul' out there. Every bit of it siphoned off to form a shadow, spectre, wraith, or still inhabiting a fleshy undead like a vampire, ghoul or lich, is subtracting from the soul-river, and making either A) less people to be born, or B) just as many people to be born, but with *less soul*, making them hollow empty people...

I could see it as a faux cosmological version of the old sci-fi / fantasy trope about societies run by immortals (via body-swapping tech, or just vampires or whatever) being stagnant and having zero upward mobility because the 'old boy's club' in charge *never actually dies* and ends up clinging to power and the title of Prince being an eternal sentence, since the King will never pass on his crown.

Those who cling to existence aren't just metaphorically stealing from future generations (by hanging on to power, property, wealth, opportunities, rather than allow the next generations to ever have any), but if some element of souls are indeed recycled (and we do know that not *every* element of a person goes on to any new Petitioner existence, as at least some lose memories of life and, more or less, become entirely new faceless strangers anyway, often also changing entirely in appearance or form, to giant maggots, or fluffy bunnies, or whatever), then any sort of intelligent undead is 'stealing' from future generations quite literally, by reducing the quantity (or quality?) of newly arriving souls pouring down from the Positive plane.

I have no idea if anything like that has been written to be canon (or if I'm even stretching it terribly with the black hole drain / white hole faucet metaphor for the Negative and Positive planes), but it certainly feels compelling to me.

Set wrote:

*Stuff*

Funny, you'd think there would be stuff written in any of the numerous books about Pharasma holding contempt over all forms of created life...

Does the fact that it's considered life rather than unlife have anything to do with it?

I feel like there's an attempt at snark here, but a salient point, that I already made, was that bodies are being desecrated to make these flesh golems, which is itself a violation of her tenets, and yeah, it has been mentioned in books before that she doesn't like corpses to be desecrated.

(She probably cares a whole heck of a lot less about any living plants harvested to make the base forms of leshies, I'll admit. She may prioritize animal lives and deaths over plant lives and deaths.)

So, if that was intended as snark, and I'm not reading into it (and if so, I apologize for misreading your tone), it kind of misses the point entirely.

In theory, when alignment was part of the game, Phrasma should have been an opposing force to the party just as much percent of her appearances as Abadar, right? That is, if you took a random 30 appearances of each or their followers across the pre-remaster period, you would find them opposed to the party vs. aligned with the party at the same ratio? I doubt it. The only time I remember her opposing the party is at the beginning of Tyrant's Grasp.

There was an AP set in Ustalav where the party ended meeting an awakened flesh golem, and there was some assumption that they might not end up immediately attempting to destroy it or even talk to it, which was just, IMO, so far outside of anything the recommended 'cleric of Pharasma' for the AP would tolerate that it made me laugh. Here's some creature made of stitched together desecrated corpses (anathema!) that was never even born, but created by some nut (also seems like a huge no-no to the *goddess of birth* even if it gets zero mention, compared to her 'goddess of hating undead' label).

I really expected the church of Pharasma (particularly those Penitents) to straight up be adversaries at *several* points in that AP.

In 1e, she allowed NE clerics, but I'm absolutely confused about what they would do.

Pharasma is the most dogmatically lawful of the not-Lawful gods out there. :)

I can't even imagine what a *Chaotic* Neutral cleric of Pharasma would be like, but a NE one seems like they'd be a perfect assassin for the goddess. The NG Pharasmin might go after undead for defying her (even if many, if not most, of them, do not do so of their own volition), while the NE Pharasmin goes after the *living* who defy her will.

Creating 'unborn' life like leshies or ghoran? That's a stabbin.'

Attempting to live forever by bidding for the Sun Orchid Elixir? Stab.

Teach or just work at a place like the Academae that has an entire section dedicated to pumping out arcane necromancers? Stabby-foo!

Being resurrected, or, worse, using reincarnation to get around aging? Stab-stab-stab for you.

The less stabby might agitate for laws and traditions to forbid this sort of nonsense, and the less immediately powerful-enough-to-kill-Sun-Orchid-bidders might resort to undermining the Sun Orchid trade (by hunting and killing Sun Orchid hunters and guides in the deserts of Thuvia, or even by just stirring up resentment and envy in the lower classes against those who can afford to 'defy the gods with their blasphemy).

Plenty of stuff for the NE church of Pharasma to get up to.

She's not real big on attempts to nail down the workings of fate, for instance, so one priest might get a bug up his butt about Harrowers, and end up persecuting local fortune-tellers, whipping up public sentiment against them, 'prove' them to be charlatans, etc. (and, accidentally or not, generate some anti-Varisian sentiments, which could be doubly ironic if half of the local church are, in fact, Varisian...).

Anywho, any of these living folks who break her laws get stabbed and sent to Pharasma for premature judgement. The NE cleric even makes it clear that *they* are not judging the sinner, it's what Pharasma will do when the sinner arrives. They are just... expediting the meeting...

Maybe they are even *helping* the sinner, by stopping them from doing any more necromancy or fortune-telling or whatever it is that would increase the burden of sin for which they are about to be judged!

Shory items inspired by the Aeromantic Infandibulum (and not be too overly powerful!).

Shory Greatcloak (inspired by the Great Rudder)
This ornate high-collared 5 lb. blue and white silk cloak has many sail-like folds and streamers of cloth that billow majestically in the slightest breeze, snapping like canvas ship's sails, despite it's light silk composition. It occupies both the shoulder and cloak slots, and benefits the wearer in the following ways;

* the wearer gains Skill Focus (Fly) as a bonus feat,
* they are considered acclimated to high altitudes and have a +4 competence bonus to resist high altitude effects and altitude sickness,
* they are treated as 1 size class larger, or smaller, as they desire in the moment, versus wind effects,
* they treat wind speed as two steps lower for the effects on their ranged attacks,
* if Blown Away by strong winds, they can make a DC 15 Fly check to retain their footing and land on their feet, or a DC 25 Fly check to also alter their angle of travel to anywhere within a 90 degree arc of the direction of the wind that is blowing them back,
* they automatically reduce the distance of a fall by 10 ft. when calculating falling damage, even if unconscious, gain a +5 check to any Acrobatics check to willingly reduce falling damage by an additional 10 ft., and can make a Reflex save to land on their feet, even if they do take falling damage (DC 10 + damage taken).

Despite billowing widely when in use, the cloak folds itself obediently when not in motion, and takes up no more space than a normal mantled greatcloak.

Bag of Winds
This small silk bag is sealed with a cord, and bulges dramatically as if it contains some moving creature. When opened as a standard action, it releases a gust of wind in the direction the mouth of the bag is facing. This gust of wind is at CL 5, and can last for up to 5 rounds before it is spent and will not gust again until it has been sealed up and allowed to recover for at least 8 hours. It can be used for no more than five rounds in a 24 hour period, but these rounds do not need to be consecutive, and it can be tied off again as a free action by the wearer.

Infandibulum Key
This adjustable mithril band can be worn as a torc, headband or even a bracer (taking up the entire bracers slot), resizing itself and locking into place. It is linked to a floating disk, at CL 5, which can be summoned or dismissed at will, for up to 5 hours per day (which do not need to be used all at once, although each time it is summoned, it expends at least an hour of use, even if called forth for a lesser duration).

Additionally, you gain the Disk Rider ability of someone who has the Magic Trick feat specialized towards the floating disk spell, and can ride the disk created by the Infandibulum Key at a 30 ft. fly speed.

Rod of Rightful Rule
A lesser version of the staff of rightful rule, this 3 lb. mithril-rune coated hollow steel rod can be used as a sturdy +1 shock light mace, despite it's light construction, and allows the user unlimited use of feather fall (self only).

Additionally, if the user is an arcane spellcaster, and knows either Auran or Infernal, it allows them to prepare (or know) an additional cantrip each day, which must be chosen from light, mage hand or prestidigitation. The cantrip chosen can be changed each day when spells are refreshed, even if the wearer is a spontaneous spellcater.

The sound of air moving through the hollow central shaft, and whistling in and out of the many carved holes decorating it when it is swung about, also make it oddly musical, for a weapon or symbol of rule...

****************************************

Mithril and crystal wands that produce a single scorching ray that have been modified to inflict electrical, cold or even sonic damage are also not uncommon items of Shory manufacture, although most have few charges remaining, and are worth more as curios or items of research, than for their effective value.

A pair of gauntlets that can cast light (at touch range, only one effect maintained at a time) at will, or produce flame (CL 3) once per day, similarly modified to produce a ball of glowing electricity, instead of flame, also seems to have been popular.

Items related to flight, naturally, remain the most commonly seen, and rumors, often quite far-fetched, attribute the designs of boots, carpets, cloaks, armor, shields, helms or even broomsticks or mortars and pestles (clearly Irriseni inventions!) that grant flight capabilities to their bearers, abound. On the other hand, it is known that many such items (boots, cloaks and carpets, mostly) were in use by the Shory people, not all of whom had the spellcasting abilities to fly under their own power.

649. Cypherbeaks

Barnacles form on the bottom side of the cyphergate outside of Riddleport. Known to be nothing more than normal barnacles, altered by the magical leakage from the structure they adhere to, these 'spark barnacles' are stunted in size, rarely larger than a plump blueberry, and glow with a soft blue radiance if disturbed, for a few moments, a gentle warning to their danger. If damaged, and they have but a single hit point, if their hard shell is penetrated, they burst open and release a miniscule burst of electrical energy that does a single hit point of damage to their killer, and causes it to be staggered and sickened by disorientation. The damaged creature must also make a Fortitude save, DC 12, or be stunned for 1 round (and, if it is holding it's breath, immediately ceases to do so and begins drowning!). Each round, it can make another DC 12 Fortitude save to end the staggered + sickened conditions, but until it does so, it is easy prey for any surrounding threats, which in the waters surrounding Riddleport, are plentiful and include reefclaws, swamp barracuda, jigsaw sharks and even bunyips. (While no one not immediately touching the spark barnacle when it dies is damaged or debilitated, but the tingly shock can be felt many yards away through the salty waters of the bay, and some creatures, like reefclaws in particular, can sense such an electrical discharge much farther.)

But this wasn't supposed to be about spark barnacles. They are sought after for spell research by cyphermage apprentices, but are inedible, even mildly corrosive and resulting in unpleasant gastric distress, and, obviously, quite dangerous to harvest.

It was meant to be about cypherbeaks, a cold water relative of the parrotfish that feeds on spark barnacles (and other crustaceans, more commonly). With their powerful beak, able to sever a finger as easily as that of a snapping turtle, these lazy fish spend most of their time eating sea grass and tiny crustaceans off of the sea floor, but also eat at least one spark barnacle each day, trusting to their single point of electrical resistance to protect them from the consequences of this dangerous diet. They not only resist the damage, but absorb, internalize and store it, and for 24 hours after eating a spark barnacle, the cypherbeak can release as an immediate action an identical electrical burst as the death-burst of a spark barnacle, punishing any creature that bites it, or that it slaps with it's elongated eel-like tail (as a swift action) when turning to disengage from a predator. It can store only a single such burst, but can immediately return to the cyphergate to eat another spark barnacle and 'recharge.' Cypherbeaks, unlike spark barnacles, are edible, if somewhat tart, and said to be 'tingly on the tongue' and a popular dish for the adventurous diner.

They are not terribly common, and hard to catch without suffering a shock (which would normally not be a threat, but, again, these are dangerous waters in which to be stunned and flash out a 'dinner!' signal to surrounding predators), making a cypherbeak fillet a pricy dinner (and, not surprisingly, far more likely to be mundane fish with some bitter seasoning and unfamiliar coloring, for unsuspecting visiting gourmands). Genuine cypherbeak flesh is darker orange than salmon, and, best to say, piquant. Fake cypherbeak fillets, sold to unsuspecting tourists, is usually salmon marinated in cranberry pulp, to make it both darker and more tart to the taste.

Cypherbeak roe, extremely dangerous to harvest as the fish defend their nests in pairs, as they are quite tasty treats for reefclaws, are salty and tingly and sell for ridiculous amounts to the few that know of them, but few outside of Riddleport are even aware of this delicacy, and they do not transport well.

What the game is missing, is a Lore explanation for the discrepancy between adventurers without flight and "normal" members of the ancestry.

Something like "For unknown reasons, some get their flight only late into adulthood or never at all. As they have issues fitting into a society build around flying movement, many of them become adventurers".

And that could be kind of neat, leaning into mindsets of those who prioritize flight above all other things, and those who either cannot, or do not want to, devote years of their lives to strengthening their wings and take flight like their pre-sapient ancestors, and would rather focus on learning a craft, studying magic or leading their people.

There could be positive interpretations and groups that get along and value each others different contributions, and groups that do not understand or approve of each others choices, and see 'not able to fly' as some sort of disability or sign of failure (such as comparing flightless avians to some sort of 'degenerate' race like the flightless dire corbies of earlier editions, or conversely seeing avians who spend all their time on 'flying like birds' as trying to turn the clock back to the days before they had language and culture and society, when they were just animals).

There could even be more mechanical reasons for the different abilities, with one winged race not being naturally able to fly with any amount of training and exercise, but a series of magical transformations, or alchemical 'evolutions' (represented in-game by buying the appropriate feats!) could artificially give them this ability. And some might not want to embrace, or have access to, these transformations, leaving entire populations and communities of these winged folk, flightless, some by choice, some by circumstance.

168. Eye-on Stone. This cat's eye agate sphere looks like an actual cat's eye, thanks to it's diagonal inclusion like a cat's eye. When it is equipped, the bearer is staggered by the new perspective, as they can see through it like a living eye. Unfortunately, this is very disorienting, as it zips around the head like a typical ioun stone, fairly quickly, and is actively resistant to being seized and 'stowed away' (attempting to sneak free and resume orbiting), being as hard to grab for the wearer as if they were an unwelcome thief. As long as it is active, the wearer suffers the Sickened condition, from the disorientation, although they can make a Will save each round as a swift action to attempt to focus, and reduce the penalty to the Dazzled condition for that round.

If the stone can be seized, and stowed in a tightly sealed pouch or box, as long as the interior remains dark and the stone can't move around too much, the bearer suffers no penalties as the eye 'can't see' in the dark.

A remove curse will end the cursed sensory link normally, but if the stone is destroyed before the link is broken, the former bearer must make a Fortitude save or experience searing pain as if one of their eyes was just crushed, leaving them stunned for one round, and blind in one eye permanently (permanent Dazzled condition until cured with Cure Blindness, Regenerate or similar magic).

Seems like Shadow elementals could have been a thing too.

Shadow Elementals and 'Void Elementals' could occupy the same sort of space, and even perhaps have some ties to negative energy?

Then again, the concept of Void is not just empty space, but has some mental stillness / psyche overlap that could result in a Void Elemental being an incorporeal 'being of pure thought', more than a dark negative energy being.

Void / Ku is a pretty broad concept, and could have elements of both psyche and darkness, or the two could be split off to have 'Shadow Plane Elementals' (or Negative Energy creatures) be very different from the element of Void.

I love that we have Wood and Metal planes now, and wonder if a different interpretation of them could have had the 'elemental plane of wood' and the First World be more integrated, and the Plane of Shadow more tied to the stillness and lifelessness of a very different 'elemental plane of metal' (with plenty of space for the heavy theme of rust and decay, in the current iteration of the plane of metal).

It would even sort of justify the Avistani not really recognizing the elemental planes of wood and metal for so long, as they had already 'classified' them as the First World and Plane of Shadow, not realizing that they were *also* elemental planes of 'elements' that they had no recognized as such.

Thinking on how various fey would cross-pollinate into the elemental planes, with earth fey (pech, korreds?), water fey (nymphs, nixies) and wood/plant fey (dryads), it occurred to me that there weren't enough fire fey!

648. Grumbles 'Grumbles' is a slang term for a type of fey that do not appear to have, or want, any more accurate name for their people. Despite the nickname, grumbles are more capricious and whimsical by nature, more 'fey' and fickle and flighty, then grouchy or curmudgeonly (at least, for long, as their moods burn hot and are fast forgotten).

Diminutive to Tiny domestic hearth-fey that live in ovens, campfires or hearths (they don’t like forges or watchfires), grumbles enjoy the smells of cooking food, and fragrant woods or oils to burn, and mineral salts that cause their fires to burn in bright unexpected colors like green, blue and violet. Gifts of any of these things can earn their fickle favor, and they are easily distracted by such things, even when otherwise displeased, making them perhaps a bit predictable, and safer than one would expect for tiny pyromaniacs living in one's kitchen.

Grumbles sometimes cause fires, if unhappy, and do not like their fires to go out, which may cause them to sneak out (leaving sooty tiny footprints) to visit other hearths, where they canoodle with (or squabble with, or try to evict!) neighboring hearth fey. Naturally chaotic, if not generally good or evil, being both petulant and nurturing, as the whim takes them, grumbles are widely known to have no real attention span (known to everyone but themselves, it seems).

Relatively short lived, by fey standards, grumbles usually fade away (to reappear elsewhere, as 'death' does not mean the same thing to a fey) if their fire goes cold. When not dancing in the fires, they appear as twisted burned stick figures smaller and scrawnier than most gremlins, and utterly black and charred, leaving warm sooty prints wherever they go, and on anything they touch, when outside of their hearth.

They appreciate sung or spoken art, or people dancing around their fires, and some might be moved to dance or even sing along (in terrible speechy voices, they never seem to have any talent for these things). One thing they do not like near their fires are cats, sometimes tossing tiny sparks at them to discourage them from sleeping next to their hearth. (They do not seem to have a similar problem with dogs, oddly.) If caught outside of their protective fire, a cat might repay the favor by killing one, as a simple housecat is quite able to overpower the diminutive fey, and seem to share their disregard.

The only time grumbles are truly a menace is when a town is on fire, as they somewhat short-sightedly dance and celebrate the fires springing up everywhere, helping to spread them with their minute gift for generating sparks and fanning tinders, not really able to recognize that this will result in the families and bakers whose hearths they have lived in for years being cold forever in a few days...

Grumbles generally do not like the stink of forges, and are not tolerated 'infesting' dwarven forges, a mutual lack of appreciation for each other making them a rare sight in a dwarven forge (if somewhat less rare in a dwarven bakery).

A grumble living in a dwarven brewery is a disaster waiting to happen, as they have no head for alcohol, and dwarves remove them as expediently as feasible!

I can see Andoran not technically winning if Cheliax decides to go out with a bang and opens a hell portal on Egorian or something

The Worldwound closes to the abyss and a portal opens soon thereafter to the Hells? Yeesh, these planar boundaries need some fresh stitches!

'Lepidopterist' being inspired by Lepidstadt is hilarious and I love it.

Lepidstadt's contributions to the reclamation of Sarkoris.

One researcher has been working on a Stasian coil-empowered repeating heavy crossbow, that launches it's cold iron bolts with great force through a magnetic charge. This prototype is cumbersome, slow, awkward, requires specialized training, and does not seem more terribly more effective than a non-Stasian-coil empowered repeating heavy crossbow in the hands of a specialized user, perhaps. (+2 to hit, +4 to damage, so yes, somewhat better, but hardly worth all the time spent between firings winding up the Stasian coil to re-energize it.)

But, Lepidstadt, and she insists that surely the solution must be 'more Stasian coils!'

To point, another student is trying to find a way to 'untaint' demon-tainted life through the use of Stasian current. He has been forbidden to work with animals (or people!, not even volunteers!), and has so far only proven able to shock a few sad demon-tainted plants to death. He maintains that this is a partial success, as the resultant ashes show no sign of demon taint!

More usefully, a field researcher has begun modifying a technique that allows someone with the appropriate training (alchemists, rogues, investigators, rangers) to use a relevant Knowledge (planes, in the case of demons) or Heal check to temporarily show an ally how to strike a foe with bonuses similar to Favored Enemy, or with the effects of Sneak Attack. A technique usable by multiple roles, and not limited to spellcasters, shows some promise, although it is in it's initial stages. They insist that knowledge is the best weapon, and they seek to give those who have that knowledge, the ability to empower their allies appropriately.

The field of research is indeed something of a challenge for the faction from Lepidstadt, as their traditional areas of focus; fencing, the occult, homonculi, surgery and now, Stasian coils, are of limited use in either fighting demons, or removing demonic corruption from blighted flora and fauna.

Undoubtedly, there is a woefully misguided student out there convinced that the right kind of homonculus could make all the difference, if they can only stitch together the right combination of demon-tainted animal parts, and animate them with a charge from a Stasian coil.

What could possibly go wrong? :/

646. Sapra Vines In pre-demon-taint Sarkoris, the sapra vine was a minor nuisance, and sometimes selectively pruned, at other times encouraged to grow on otherwise unproductive (non-fruiting) trees. The slender parasitic vine drew nutrients from the ground, through it's roots, the tree it clung to, and even the small animals that would sometimes fall afoul of it's thin needle like thorns, more like the spines of a cactus, that would grow directly under each leaf. Under that spine, a single tart red berry would grow, and the locals enjoyed the flavor of them as a treat, or to ferment into a potent drink, although pickers would have to exercise care to avoid many painful pricks while harvesting enough of the small berries to be worthwhile. As the vine tended to weaken the trees it grew upon, such that fruiting trees in particular produced notably less of their own, far more significant, fruit (or nuts), than the vine itself, Sarkorians hacked away any vines that began to grow upon trees whose fruit was more useful to them, and only allowed, or even encouraged, the vine to grow on trees that were otherwise 'useless' to them as a food source.

Sapra vines also had the somewhat grim tendency to sprout tiny rootlets quickly around any small birds or animals that died at their base, often the victim of flying or springing into one or more of their spines, which sometimes gave them a sinister reputation, but this was merely opportunistic feeding on this brief rush of nutrients.

At least, before Sarkoris became the Worldwound.

The sapra vine was one of the few plants that adapted well to the demon-taint, and tainted sapra vines are more resistant to attempts to hack or burn them away, or use any sort of natural 'weed killer,' having weaker resistances common to demonkind, and having grown tougher stalks, like knotty wood. Their spines carry a weak toxin that causes itching and inflammation, little more than a painful irritant to a full grown person, but quite debilitating to a tiny bird or mammal (which is then quickly entangled in rootlets and stripped of resources). They cannot truly move, but can shake their leaves around, increasing the chance that their spines draw blood (and envenom those they strike), and their berries have become quite inedible to any creature not immune to that same toxin. (Demons find them quite tasty. A human might find their tongue itches and burns, swell up and they then die of asphyxiation. So, not good.) Tainted sapra vine burns fitfully, at best, and seems more resistant to most forces (acid, cold and fire resistance 2, electrical resistance 5), requiring cold iron sickles to slice through it's weak damage resistance (2), making it's removal a chore for those lacking more magical solutions.

Sarkorian reclaimers are kept busy trying to find ways to 'untaint' sapra vines, but, until they do, are left trying to tediously hack away the thick dangerous vines, and search for untainted specimens to reintroduce, at a later date. The search continues.

Finished Fonda Lee's Jade City, Jade War, Jade Legacy series, and wow, it's really good. Not really my traditional sci-fi or fantasy, but definitely set in a fantastic world, where a small group of people have access to something special that has defined their whole culture (and their relationship with the rest of the world).

They are thick books, and there are a lot of likable (and a few unlikable) characters in them, and the author does not seem to let a characters popularity or unpopularity determine their fate. Characterization is great, with some complexity that sometimes through me for a loop as I felt like I knew a character and then they'd do something that totally fit with their culture and upbringing, but seemed 100% antithetical to what *I* would have expected based on their previous choices, and I'd realize, oh yeah, that totally makes sense, *for them.*

I accidentally read them out of order, and thought, 'wow, there was some sort of time jump between books 1 and 2, and they keep referencing events that happened in the jump?' but no, I was reading book 3 (Jade Legacy) before book 2 (Jade War). Oops! So I went on to read Jade War last, and was like, 'Oh! This makes sense now!' and ended up reading Jade Legacy *again!* (Just to get it all in context this time. It was worth the reread two days later!)