TheTownsend's page

Maybe I'm just playing devil's advocate here, but I feel like the sheer fact that this many people were this invested in this particular cantrip exclusive to this subclass of this class -- to the point that it's completely dominated a forum ostensibly about a completely different book -- might just be a good indicator that it was dominating the meta and there was a good reason to knock it down a peg.

Seriously, were all of you actually playing this exact same build?

As time goes on, I'm increasingly curious about the writeup on post-AoA and post-WoI Hermea. It was pretty pointedly left out of the High Seas descriptions in Player Core and GM Core to not put a cannon ending on the AP right away, and War of Immortals only gives a brief update, namely that

A) The Godsrain messed with Mengkare's stuff to spontaneously generate what's probably one of the largest Dragonblood minorities of any nation in the world, in a population that probably had a fair degree of human chauvinism beforehand, given it was effectively one big eugenics program, and

B)

The Townsend: yeah, the validation would be nice, good to know I'm not the only person thinking in these terms, but I do disagree that all of these topics are disparate and separate things. They are intertwined. It doesn't make sense, and it parallels religious villanization (which also doesn't make sense) and it's often justified with political compartmentalization.

I would not say I'm thinking in the same terms as you, more that that was me trying to prompt you to look inward and seriously question if "Blindly fishing for someone to agree with me on an issue I haven't bothered to unpack my own thoughts on" is a healthy or even reasonable perpective on which to enter an Internet Forum full of Technically Minded Nerds.

I'm not going to continue debating you here, since -- seeing as you've cycled entirely back to querying the Watsonian justification that we've been trying to answer for three days -- you don't seem to actually be looking for answers to your questions.

I feel like you might not have the clearest idea of what you're trying to accomplish or what point you're trying to make with this thread. You started it with a fairly direct question of "How do capital-E Evil deities with significant followings make sense?" And as people have explored that question from various angles, it feels like you've danced around the dialogue we're engaging with to air more and more abstract Doylist concerns. "It parallels real world religious villainizaton… No, political compartmentalization."

None of us are unaware of the problematic history and potential of the tropes and ideas baked into this sort of game. We're all adults with at least some grasp of the genre. Yes, fiction and life reflect one another, but as adults we're able to distinguish between the two. No mentally healthy person is going to hear about Urgathoa and think, "Cool, so I can eat people in real life!" That's some Satanic Panic bullshit. Fiction, fantasy especially, is a way to explore abstract ideas in a concrete way; even a black and white depiction of good vs evil fundamentally prompts the question: What is Evil to you?

You're not "disrespecting" anyone, you're just being kind of stubborn and evasive in a way that's not actually conducive to dialogue. Is it possible that you're just reflexively uncomfortable with something and looking for someone to validate you in that beyond the "yeah, dude, you do you," that you're getting?

I don't think you're so much "making a mountain out of a molehill," as coming at this from the wrong angle. "I'm uncomfortable with this, so I'm not going to personally engage with it" is, again, not only a perfectly resonable course of action, it's the basis of a healthy relationship with fiction. "I'm uncomfortable with this, so I would like people to stop making or engaging with it" is just censorship. It's an understandable emotional reflex, but it's one we're all responsible for examining critically and curtailing in ourselves.

Yes, there are no real world nihilistic doomsday cultists. There are also no real world elves or centaurs or velstracs. Even if the trope were derived exclusively from Christian fearmongering (I would argue it's not that simple) it is not in and of itself morally suspect to look at that concept and ask, through fiction, "what would that actually look like?" or "what material conditions would result in this?" or even to just use it more-or-less unironically because this is a fighting game that requires a certain quantity of people worth stabbing.

Your Pathfinder game is not political praxis. Just as the multiple attack penalty is a very rough abstraction of how swordfighting works, the cosmology of a fantasy setting need not -- in fact cannot -- reflect the full diversity of real world morality.

I think it would be fair to define Undead less as "mortal life persisting past death" than as "being animated by Void energy which posesses an echo of the living" the last clause effectively to distinguish outright Void creatures like Sceaduinar and Sumbreiva. After all, a Ghost and a Skeleton are both undead but are completely separate parts of a once-living person, so there's no particular Piece of a Guy needed to make an Undead. If a ghost doesn't need any flesh, and a skeleton doesn't need any soul -- or even to be made all of pieces of the same person -- then all that's actually needed of a living thing to make an undead is a memory.

A lich's soul cage can reconstitute its body from nothing at all, so if you've got the quintessential part of a living thing that makes an undead -- which is nothing -- why can't you as a Necromancer bring into being a one hit point zombie?

I feel like we're talking past each other because a lot of people, myself included are going at this from a very Watsonian perspective (what is the in-universe explanation?) while you're trying to hone in on a very Doylist conversation (why was it written this way?). I think it's an entirely fair critique of Pathfinder's worlbuilding to call it eurocentric in many of its base assumptions -- those were established by Americans in 2007, set predominantly in and around the Fantasy Mediterranean, and building off tropes established by, again, a weird evangelical dweeb from the 70s.

But if you're expecting the folks at Paizo to up and rewrite the interconnected mythology they've been building on for almost twenty years, I'm sorry, but you're shouting into the void here. Even in the Remaster they did their damnest to preserve the spirit of the lore wherever possible, partly for their own ease and partly because that's the paradigm under which thousands of people have played games and lived adventures.

Yes, characters like Urgathoa evoke the demonization of foreign religions that occurred many times throughout history (not at all exclusive to Christianity or Europe; Journey to the West depicts a very specific interaction between Buddhism and Taoism)--hell, I think some demon lords explicity have the names of Mesopotamian or Semitic deities that were demonized as Judaism transitioned toward monotheism. But that's not a thing that's actually supposed to have happened to those characters. This is not a setting in which the gods are ephemeral social constructs subject to reinterpretation, not even in the Discworld "Gods Need Prayer Badly" sense (with a few exceptions). They're actual real sapient figures as much as kings and paupers and capable of expressing displeasure when their followers mischaracterize them.

I also disagree with your impication that a mythological trope or idea is invalid simply because it's not "Original," mainly because there IS NO Original; these ideas and characterizations were in constant flux for generations before the examples you're cherrypicking. Yeah, it's entirely possible the Eddas made up Loki, but at this point that character has existed in a fairly fixed form for almost a thousand years, longer than any aspect of that mythology was ever static previously! Egyptian religion varied massively across both the bredth of their empire and its duration--Osirus was probably adopted from a Lybian pantheon millenia before any Greek conquest; to consider the Last narrative shift alone flasehood is ultimately perposterous. The entire concept of the Fey comes from post-Christian bastardization of Celtic religion, how many tentpoles of this genre are we expected to dig up?

Now, the beauty of the TTRPG Medium is that you can build out your games to your liking! You are free to run your games in a homebrew setting or a version of Golarion free of any of these theological constructions that irritate you, you will get no judgement from me on that account. But by the same token, the people at Paizo are writing their own world, and there are no fundamnetally invalid fantasy tropes, just matters of execution.

The question of Undeath you've raised is interesting, because to look at it from the outside, it has a cyclical quality. Pharasma fundamentally values the cycle of life and death, the "water cycle" of the River of Souls. Is this an actual fundamental good, or simply one powerful individual's perspective? Pharasma is pointedly Neutral, to again evoke Premaster Alignment, pointedly disconcerned with "good" or "evil"--she is invested in the Status Quo she set up at the onset of this multiverse.

Urgathoa established a deviation from Pharasma's cycle--souls variously tucked away where the river can't reach them--evidently out of a refusal to let something as plain as Death stop a good party. Pharasma violently opposes this--again, is this an actual ontological good, or simply one person's conviction?

You cite the broadness of Pharasma's following as a validation of Urgathoa's villainization. One could easily argue the opposite--the greatest concentration of Pharasmins are in places under constant threat by undead. Urgathoa's gluttony and hedonism are reflected in the ravenousness of a plurality of beings who follow her path, and living people seek the god who offers the most stringent defense against that. But again we see that this characterization is personal, rather than cosmological or ontological--had Urgathoa shunned the river of souls out of an abiding sense of charity for those she'd left behind, or personal love, simply curiosity, would the broad temperment of the Undead be different? And then would worship of Pharasma--defined not by kindness or community or courage but by intangible balances--be so in-demand?

The Undead, in this sense, are condemmed not by pure abstract nature but by the predelections under which their clade was founded. Those who shirk Urgathoa's temperment remain--in the eyes of Pharasma--guilty by association.

This is why I've been hoping, ever since the Remaster started, for a ruleset, a blurb, a sidebar, anything, about alternate Sanctification systems. Even setting aside that Fiends and Undead (or, hell, fiends and other fiends) exist on entirely different axes of so-called "Unholiness", what if I want to create a setting with a little more moral nuance? Where sanctification merely refers to the untimately fallible divine backing of mortal factions?

"Evil" as a definable cosmological construction is a whole can of worms that the culture of D&D-and-similar-properties aren't really equipped to dissect. Gygax was an evangelical christian and a lot of the early seeds of worlbuilding we're still stuck with are reflective of that. Asmodeus worshippers in this sort of setting are not so much based on any cult of a polytheistic deity, but on modern american mythology of "Satanists" taken to its logical extreme, and other Evil deities follow the same lines.

On a cosmological sense you could argue that the unholy afterlives are not strictly meant as a punishment, just realms defined by a particular moral perspective--one of self-interest. Much of Abrahamic thought defines hell as sort of "the place of greatest distance from God," but Abbadon has gods down there to be very close to. Hell in this fantasy is not defined as a realm where sinners are tormented--that sinners go there and that they are tormented is largely incidental. Its core premise is the afterlife for people whose lives were defined by an ordered or legalistic perspective on their abiding self-interest; in which they (eventually) become devils and are able to exert that self-interest on a hierarchy of cosmological scale. To someone who genuinely deserves to go to the Outer Rifts, the Outer Rifts may well be a paradise of uninhibited violence and depravity--assuming they can grow out of the Larva stage. What goodly folk would define as "punishment" in these realms is not some god penalizing them, it's just the degree to which the damned experience the fruits of their own ethical outlook taken to an extreme and reflected back on them. Sartre was right in this case, the Hell of it is "other people."

Otherwise, many evil deities specifically promise rewards in the living Universe. To cite your own examples, Urgathoa's whole schtick is dodging the afterlife entirely; and Lamashtu for all her mayhem is fundamentally a social god, she promises community outside of the strictures of society that reject you. Norgorber is prayed to in the search for riches and power, Zon-Kuthon because the state will torture you if you don't.

None of this QUITE synchs up in an interally logical way, and the disconnect you're seeing is absolutely there, the product of a weird mismatch of evangelical bias, misunderstood polytheism, Michael Moorcock references, and fifty years of retcons. I just like figuring out justifications for things. Put me on the Lore team, Paizo!

I wonder what regions will get details. Obviously the shackles are one and I imagine Minata also will be there. would be interested in seeing some stuff about Arcadia and the Linorm kingdoms and Vudra.

Sorry to dissapoint, but "High Seas" is not broadly the oceanic regions of Golarion, but a specific meta-region of the Inner Sea Region. You can find a more bare-bones summary in World Guide, which descibes Hermea, Mediogatli Island, The Shackles, and the Mordant Spire, along with Azlanti Ruins, the Eye of Abendego, and various "Undersea Realms" all in and around the Inner Sea.

Still, a genuine question which will get the most detailed writeups in a full-book expansion, and how much detail will be put into relevant nearby areas like the Ironbound.

Everyone was hoping for the Necromancer to be a Leshy, and here I was picturing a world where Nyctessa from Hell's Vengeance makes a return and the Runesmith was a Leshy!

Little potato guy in scribbled-on armor, their undeniable cuteness the only thing that can break through the dhampir's ingrained evil.

Seconding the greater selection of ships and naval warfare rules. The cover art seems to show Ezren casting a magical boarding plank, which makes me pretty sure we'll get a few new spells if not a pirate-themed Arcane School!

Honestly, this is an unexpected instant buy for me, even though I'm perpetually without an actual group to play with (not that that's stopped me wasting my money before--hope springs eternal), since I've had a Pirate Campaign ticking away in my head for a couple years now. I want them Pirate Rules!

The book comes out in like eight months! Consider this a teaser trailer, same as that Marvel spot that was just Chris Evans holding a baby.

"Seltyiel will Return"

I'm hoping for a bestiary with some classic naval monsters. Scylla has a really cool design from 1e I'd love to see updated, Sirens, and Selkie that hopefully hew a little closer to the legends than in 1e (not sure why I specifically picked three female monsters that start with S, but I'm blaming sailors).

Now I'm looking at the mention of "240 Spells," because there were only 205 in Secrets of Magic, 178 if you don't count Focus spells!

Probably the Geb-themed spells from the Bloodlords AP will get updated--a couple need to be added to the Occult spell list so Necromancers can use them.

I'm wondering if that Runesmith is an Automoton per se. They're obviously some kind of construct, but their design is so radically different from the Jistkan ones from G&G and Monster Core 2. It's entirely possible they're just from a different origin, but could it be like in Battlecry! that one of the new iconics in this book is repping a New Ancestry described therein? Clockwork? Cogsfolk?

Love the Lizardfolk, with the pointy-hooded cloak and the bone armor, Iruxi Necromancer really fits the lore. Was I kinda hoping Hell's Vengeance's Nyctessa would make a comeback? A little, but maybe she'll be a sample build.

(Also that Sketch Edition is CHAOS)

"Tar Baphon, what is best in life?"
"To kill your enemies, to drive their corpses before you, to hear the lamentations of their ghosts."

Wait, does that make Aroden Thulsa Doom???

Noticed a couple things in the Errata that need to be erratad while going through my copy:

*The page listed for the "skittermander feat" All Hands On Deck in fact points to the Kasatha feat. Both ancestries have the relevant feat, this should be noted.
*The Envoy directive on 105 being corrected is not "Deadly Arms" it's Ready Arms!
*There is no "Vitality Shield" feat on 123, that's Network Shield, if the name is being changed, the errata does not reference that before correcting the description text.
*Weapon on 266 is assassin rifle, not "assassin's rifle" (I admit this one is pedantic as hell)

Altogether glad to see these corrections up, thanks to the whole team! (Especially for fixing the Phase Cutlass, while theorycrafting was fun that simplifies Space Pirate A LOT)

Manxome foes all around!

All I can think of is Bladebeak the axe-chicken from Quest for Camelot. WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT CAN NON-FATALLY DECAPITATE YOU?! Now I'm imagining a whole storyline based around "The Quest for the Wizard's Head", proding a deafblind torso around trying to coax it into fireballing in the right direction.

So Geb and Absalom are entering into diplomatic relations… *turns and looks at the Knights of Lastwall and Nex* that certainly won’t have any long standing effects in this period of time that is apparently going to be known as the Inner Sea War.

Now that I think of it, Geb has prepped itself pretty well for far reaching, purely practical alliances should they get pulled back into war, just given how much of the Inner Sea's food they produce. If you were one of the largest cities on the planet, who would you rather ally with, the shifty cagey Wizrd country you have no particular relationship with, or the somewhat shiftier zombie country who's keeping your populace from starving? And if the region can't afford the moral highground when that fight kicks off, can Lastwall afford to lose those alliances to such posturing?

Ooh, so Monster Core 1's divine dragons were linked to Heaven and Hell, and Monster Core 2's are to Creation's Forge and the Void. Here we were all thinking the Boneyard and Abaddon, but they're going for more direct Opposites.

Scrolling down…AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

There's a snack for you, big guy.

I had not pegged the Whisper Dragon as our first metallic remaster! From the art that's been posted around the brassy boys have been dieting!

So if I'm fighting a Rune Dragon, it will open its mouth, nothing will seem to come out, but a glowing symbol will appear on my body and then explode!? Like some Predator targetting laser?

How do you dodge that???

Can't wait for more of these previews!

Here I was citing the book and I didn't notice that! I Could see them turning up in either this or Tech Core alongside SROs.

Alien Core has another interesting mention of ** spoiler omitted **

Loving the Scrap Rats and Paradox 17 (very Magnus Archives), and GLaDOS! Dominion of the Black getting more stuff is also a real treat. This book is a treasure.

I mean, I guess from an editing standpoint it makes sense

There's so much open space where the character creation could intersect just waiting to be filled! Everything from a "Hacker" Rogue racket built around the Computers skill to an Exemplar Icon for area weapons. Spectra Eidolon, alien ranger companions, space-age Apparitions, zero-g Monk stances!

I have my copy if anyone has questions.

On a cursory flip through, do you have a favorite peice of art?

What categories of Fiends are described? Also if Asura show up are they all Spirits now like that one in the Myth-Speaker AP?

Are there new general adjustments or just the basic Elite/Weak?

So, on a whim, I scanned through my copy of Galaxy Guide for any specifically referenced Ancestries, and I found about 20. Could it be one-to-one? PROBABLY NOT but I'm out here with a corkboard and a ball of string NONETHELESS.

Aside from the hard confirmed (worlanisi, bartrid, novian) and soft-confirmed (izalguun, formian) to be in this book, mentioned are…

Ilthisarian, ethesk, ryphorian, copaxi, three Szandite Collective ancestries: phasorq, atraxid, and mecenaic; six Kazmurg's Absurdity ancestries: azhan, g'folian, invemian, madrosarai, seksaviaks, and voletti; urog, maraquoi, and nuar.

Less likely mentions include khulan and moyishuu (fey, though the latter had 1e stats), anacite (cannon souless automatons), kothama (size huge), jinsul, cardali (extinct except for one guy), hallajin (energy beings), and uplifted bear (arguably already has PF stats).

Okay that final cover is sick, that's a lot of fun. Very 80's gameshow which feels perfect for Zo!

Novian already?! They're really not messing around with that Cantina Feel. I look forward to playing a tiny ball of intsense light somehow holding a machine gun.
Gap-Touched versetile heritage is interesting. Do I have to be three hundred years old, or is it assumed I inherited my cosmic amnesia genes?

Sort of an odd idea that just occurred to me:

A Yaoguai or Tsukumogami Poppet that IS the legendary weapon (which also serves as their weapon Ikon).

The Spirit of Hei Feng's own sword, sent down to Golarion in the form of a mortal Tengu, their beak a Gleaming Blade, their Skin Hard as Iron, the rings set into their back Fetching Bangles.

Hell yeah.

I've been pondering the possibilities of playing an Exemplar in Starfinder, and while there are in-lore options--absorbed a bit of the Newborn's cosmic placenta (aucturnite chakram is solid for shadow sheath), offspring of an avatar of Weydan, Vesk descendant of a Battle Saint--the idea that really tickles me is just going for a full Jack Kirby New Gods vibe. Colorful geometric armor and a crazy pronged helmet.

Either of the ranged Icons works okay with lasers, Unfailing Bow I even thinks works well with an automatic weapon. (Nothing works with area weapons, unfortunately) And given the focus on ranged combat Gaze Sharp As Steel is a really solid pick. Could go human for an original Thor-as-a-regular-guy angle or Yaksha to be an outright spiritual being embodying nature and freedom.

For a slightly more setting agnostic concept, there's Frankensaint. As a once-noble church faces persecution from the war spreading across the land, brave nuns and priests escape into the night bearing the holy relics of long dead saints. At last cornered in a final standing monastery, the surviving faithful took stock, and realized they had enough saint bodyparts to make up a whole person.

So they did!

A frankensteinian amalgamation of gilded bones and pickled organs stitched together with silver wire and annointed with herbs, Frankensaint is the holy defender of the faith!

Created Fleshwarp, Sanctified Soul, Scar of the Survivor, choice of weapon.

I just finished watching Leverage and I think Christian Kane could work really well for Valeros. I don't know why but Valeros doesn't give the impression of being a really big dude, and Kane really sells being this hyper-competent combattant in that show.

Ooh, this is interesting! 49 troop statblocks in Battlecry!, four large pawns each, makes for a hefty box! The eight included Medium bases interest me… the image on the side implies the Followers will get pawns, but there are only five of those. Doubles? Maybe an Ulka? The archetypes?

Curious if we'll get to see anything like this for the other rulebook releases. One collection could probably cover the monsters from Book of the Dead, Howl of the Wild, Rage of Elements, and War of Immortals. The cover alone would be interesting to see!

Hell! Hell is for hell! Hell is for hell! Hell is for children!

Love a revolution arc, also glad to see that the shift to quarterly hardcovers isn't entirely doing away with the backmatter articles about the world.

This looks sick as… an apt comparison eludes me.

That's actually such a fun convergence of sci-fi and fantasy. Freaky many-limbed tentacle monster that grazes on the blue algae of a distant moon? It can think now because a druid in power armor fed it some enchanted berries, and it would like to weild a flamethrower.

I really enjoy the idea of putting the Captain archetype on an Awakened Animal, just for a reverse-familiar thing.

"Ah, a ruthless pirate and their pet parrot, a classic… what's that? The parrot is the one calling the shots? The parrot is in fact a master battle tactician? That adult woman with a falchion is in fact the parrot's sidekick? Totally lost without the parrot's guidance? Huh."

Ah, the busted DHD (Dial Home Device), classic Stargate plotline, fortunately Colonel Samantha Carter is here to…I'm sorry what's that? It's a rat? It's a little rat man with a mechanical turret? Is Teal'c at least there? Not even sure how you'd build him in this system?

I've just realized that, as written, the Shobhad Longrifle does not have the Analog or Tech traits, which means it's technically Not A Gun, and therefore doesn't apply to Operative's better proficiency, or the Sniper Shobhad's free arm-swap, which seems like the whole point of the latter. Easy typo to make, thing's got too many traits already.

SHOBHAAAAAAAAAAAAD! I HAVE AWAITED YOUUUUUUUUUU!
Man, you guys really weren't kidding about cramming ancestries into whatever possible.

"Chk Chk, were you in the audience the whole time?"
"Of course!"
"Why didn't you help?!"
"Help with what?"
"The fight!"
"Dae, I'm not an idiot, I'm not going to burst in on a choreographed openning act. Great special effects, by the way, it really felt like those Vesk were getting injured."

This does a great job of both illustrating what the deal might be with a Witchwarper, and exploring Zemir as a character. Still has the sweet tooth!

Sing, muse! Of my eagerness to find some folks to play this AP with! I didn't get into greek mythology as a kid because of Percy Jackson, I read Percy Jackson because I was already a mythology buff!

Good on those two adventurers for identifying Grimmyr as an ally and not judging him on his size. My first assumption definitely wasn't that they were the villains of this story and were trying to rope our Guardian into holding the town hostage. Nope, I trusted them immediately as I should have it turns out.

Awakened Animal's pretty all purpose are far as these things go. Hunter turned into a stag and attacked by his own hounds, assorted other therianthropic cruelties, weird animal a god sent to mess a guy up, magical steeds, and of course any of Typhon and Echidna's rugrats (though it's hard to mechanically represent having two or three heads, might have to leave that to rollplay).

For more obscure options there's an Empusa, shapechanging man-eating seductresses with one metallic leg--call that a Yaoguai or other shapechanging ancestry with Sterling Dynamo. Throw on Dhampir if you wanna lean into the vampiric angle.

The Kobaloi may be the etymological origin of the word Goblin, could be a local tribe.

The Myrmidons, Achilles' tribe from the Iliad, were said to have originated as ants, could be a fun basis for a Beastkin--actually a lot of options there, just say some hero god seduced your mom in the shape of X animal.

I've also just discovered the hippalectryon, sort of a reverse-hippocamp that's horse in the front and rooster in the back. Behold my mighty steed!

They HAVE a Bluesky account, I'm not sure why it's not listed as an option.

"Stop admiring me! Even though I rescued your supply lines from horrors beyond imagining last week. And you, currently. Stop it I said, that's an order!"

Sequence of events felt a little confused in the beginning, but this was a lovely little character study! I'm always intrigued by how the writers extrapolate and expand upon a piece of art.

There is a fresh unboxing video on YouTube. I watched it with sound off and many pauses, you get a clear view of most pawns this way.

I was surprised to see the Razzle Dazzler gnome as a Medium pawn in CosmicIronyMagnet's list, but the video shows it as well. Maybe the big ego warrants a larger-than-usual pawn.

Huh, all the art for Orcs is different from the book, wonder why?

Eleanor, Michael, I'm sorry these comments are such a mess. This is a perfectly good microfiction, a solid exploration of guilt, trauma, and cycles of violence in a limited wordcount.

It also doesn't strike me as overly drawn out or open ended in comparison to any of the other pointedly general iconic backgrounds. Y'all think Valeros is blessed with specific goals? Does Nhalmika's decades-long military history preclude her from being 1st level?

We're obviously setting up a "Grizzled and war-hardened vet (who's already interacting with the skirmish rules) is forced to soften up and find genuine companionship with a Gentle Giant" arc. Leaving room for character growth and exploration is the whole point of these, and personally I enjoy a character with some issues to work through.

See, I'm not so sure about this choice of art piece, because how am I supposed to focus on these interesting class revisions when there's a sick ass Solar(?) Dragon blasting in my face?!

Three-dimensionality seems like it's gonna be a weird recurring problem for this sort of design space, with the greater allowance for flying creatures and characters and, eventually, exploration of space environments.

Minibots sound fun! A robotic equivalent to pets/familiars to match Drones as robotic companions. I'm immediately envisioning a Minibot Master archetype, surrounded by a halo of tiny drones.