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And yes, to clarify, this is indeed me, and it's finally my first AP entry. :)
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i adore erum-hel and your article on him in undead unleashed. while i have my own ideas as to how i may or may not integrate him, i wanted to ask you, todd, what do you think erum-hel was up to during the events of tyrant's grasp? Given his power, utility, and previous faithful servitude to Tar-Baphon, it seems absolutely bizarre that the Whispering Tyrant didn't have him there when he sought to lay siege to Absalom. Clearly something is up. My absolutely non-canon answer here is that Erum-Hel, in the Whispering Tyrant's absence has become absolutely consumed by his desire for revenge on Iomedae: an obsession absolutely out of his reach. This was in Undead Unleashed, and I would posit that it has grown such that it actually superseded the Whispering Tyrant's call to renewed service. At the same thing, with the suggestion that Erum-Hel has been collecting objects and relics related to failed Starstone aspirants, you can absolutely bet that Erum-Hel was watching and following Tar-Barphon's progress and ultimately his failure, trying to learn for his own eventual potential attempt. Still, it's only a matter of time before Tar-Barphon learns that Erum-Hel is still extant and tries to take control over his former servitor.
There's a good bit out there, some of it involving reading between the lines. The Bound Prince has multiple titles. :)
Oinodaemon getting redesign(in this case I guess only a name change because we literally know nothing else about him) to be more Paizo original than D&D version where the name came from, The Bound Prince / The Father of the Forsaken / The First Daemon aka The Oinodaemon has had a uniquely Pathfinder origin story and nature since their first description in the 3.5 The Great Beyond. Everything since then has progressively built upon that uniqueness. The only thing that's legacy really is the Oinodaemon title. The handling here in the Windsong Testaments was lovely. :D
Holomog, Droon, Geb, Nex, be still my beating heart etc etc. Would love to see more of them.
All of the daemons began as mortal souls, and exist in their current state either directly descended from one mortal soul or more rarely an amalgamation. I would specifically call out the Oinodaemon, Trelmarixian, and Szuriel as having been noted in print as starting as a single mortal soul or having a prior mortal life called out.
I would -love- getting to write more about Ird or perhaps even more so Arzikal 'the city of hungry spires'.
Everything big has been covered by James already, but I'd add that if you're super invested in paraelemental planes, there are published references to inclusions of one elemental plane or another drifted beyond the standard mix you get from the order that the planes are arranged within. You could certainly use those to have any of the particular paraelemental mixes you could want. Even if those inclusions are small scale by comparison to the massive size of the elemental planes themselves, for adventure purposes the difference might be academic.
All of you are awesome and awesomely talented :)
Is that Sarkorian flag intentionally Haida-esque? It looks great! Really interested to learn more about Sarkorians! So far this book looks amazing. Can it be August already?Maybe just a teensy bit. I'm Tlingit and I liked the idea of seeing more of the PNW arts and cultures represented in Paizo's books, so I may have nudged the World Book devs with some suggestions I had for what the new Sarkoris Scar flag might look like as the Sarkorians and their gods gather together again. It's a unique look, though I'd always gotten a Slavic/Siberian shamanistic theme for Old Sarkoris.
These links to google docs should hopefully work The Architect: link The Dire Shepherd: link The Wanderer: link The Blind Clockmaker: link The Flesh Sculptor: link The Inquisitor: link The Chronicler: link The Lie Weaver: link The Proselytizer: link The Book Binder: link The remaining in-progress stories include The Dream Reaver, The Ineffable, and The Shackler
Looking through the various documents in that folder, and only including the storyhour proper and not all of the slew of side stories taking place in the background within the same timeline and universe of the storyhour, my quick wordcount: 805,320 Wow. Add in all the other stories and maybe even SH2 within the same universe and we're well over 1 million words. Imagine if I'd ever been paid for that. LOL.
It never sat well with me that only humans were special enough to have children of the planes. This was never the case in Golarion's cosmos. Any planar-scion / planetouched could be of any mortal heritage, be it human, demihuman, other humanoid, etc. PFS had some restrictions on this entirely related to concerns over size category due to non-medium-sized races, but this was purely an organized play restriction, not something otherwise in-universe for Golarion.
The Speakers of the Depths are full deities. It/They are given a divine stat block in Planar Adventures with a full set of domains. They just don't directly interact with mortals much, so there hasn't been much discussion of them outside of the Protean Ecology in LoF and the discussion of them in Planar Adventures. That said I'd love to write a -lot- more about them given the opportunity in the future to do so.
The Maelstrom is infinite and in so one reading of the published content says that in theory there are innumerable more protean lords, it's just that only a portion of them will have any presence within the local cosmological shallows of the Great Beyond. Only 5 are detailed in CoR, but I think you can safely assume that there are many, many more. Give it time and -ask Paizo for more protean lord details!- and you'll surely see more eventually. :) You might also conceivably consider the Watching 7 of Galisemni either as seven nascent protean lords or collectively acting as one, though there isn't an answer here in print. They're a unique situation. As for the Godmind, it is mentioned in print as godlike, and the wording could be read as possibly a full god formed collectively as an emergent consciousness from the axiomites as a whole, but at most times basically software running in the background on the entirety of the axiomite race, but with major sections of it present in the axiomite hierarchs (mentioned briefly in CoR).
New favorite deity/demigod. I'm so glad that you like them! I had lot of fun finally giving them more detail. Any feedback on their boons? :)
** spoiler omitted ** My next campaign is totally having a gaggle of voidworms or azuretzi (aka mockery wyrms) under a cloak, pretending to be an spoilers: ancient, terrible worm that walks. :D
For instance in Egyptian mythology one of the cosmogenesis myth involves a number of frog and snake deities in the primeval chaotic void... the frogs belong to That Other Game, so PF gots the snakeses. The Ogdoad of Hermopolis. That was a major inspiration for PF's proteans.
Finally, more proteans. Always found it weird they're supposed to be the most varied outsider and yet there's only a handful of them out of the 10 years of publication.I see this and I raise you an "I've always found it odd that these representations of pure chaos all seem to be very singular in form." Things to keep in mind here are that proteans as serpentine in form are both a callback to prior frog-like exemplars of chaos in another, previous game that aren't open IP, a nod to a wide number of real-world mythological motifs of serpents and primordial chaos, and that it's really hard to have artwork depict creatures with subtle and constantly evolving morphological changes on the outside, or insides that are basically perpetually-shifting goo, and still retain some coherence of appearance in type such that they're immediately recognized as proteans. :)
Awesome art, Todd! Oh no, I didn't do the artwork! I wrote up the critters in question. :)
That'd be the illureshi protean! I'm really happy that you like them. And yeah it might remind you a bit if the phasmadaemon as I made them both. Blame the crazy on me ;)
One of my favorite things about this book, and equally so about the prior books set around Tabris's in-world writings, is the use of excerpts written by Tabris. It opens up the lingering question of just how much do or even can you trust him, or perhaps trust his sources that fed him information. The use of an unreliable or biased narrator when juxtaposed with the particular elements when Tabris's in-world writing contradicts certain elements of planar prehistory (such as the nature of the Abyss, a pre-existant Maelstrom, the manasaputras, the positive and negative energy planes largely not mentioned, etc)rather than being a problem, just opens up a certain delightful element of mystery that I adore. The steps that you can take to resolve the apparent mutually exclusive bits of history written both in and out of game open up a lot of questions and plot hooks. I think folks have had a lot to work with for BotD, CotR, and now CoR to play around with in that regards! This book is a world-builder's dream, especially if you're a fan of Golarion's cosmology and a nerd about the lore therein. :D
While the underlying biology isn't subject to social influence, that multi-factorial biological underpinning of a given person's internal gender identity is a spectrum, rather than a binary male or female. Thus someone may identify as trans but not have enough underlying dysphoria, or not have dysphoria directed to their genitalia as opposed to other aspects of their body, such that they choose to go down the route of altering them by any means.
So hey, the book is out finally and it was a blast to work on and a pleasure to do so alongside my other fantastic co-authors. I did the protean and axiomite elements of the book, so any questions about that content I'll happily field within the bounds of what I can as a freelancer. Also yes, the illureshi protean in CoR was probably one of my favorite monsters to have ever created. :D
This is one of those points where I, as a freelancer, can't really speculate beyond the content that has appeared in print. I certainly have an answer for those points -within the scope of my home game where I'm using this same content- but I really can't get into that here because it runs the risk of creating a stratum of pseudo-canon. Was there a link (of some sort) alluded to between the Oinodaemon, the Withered Footsteps of the Dire Shepherd, the 'Dire Shepherd' that devourers will have rambling conversations with when alone (along with other entities), and Eternity's Doorstep (and the devourers who congregate there and pray to the 'Shepherd'): yes absolutely, among other things in print. But until I have the opportunity to explore that connection more (or someone else does of course) I won't be giving such answers as I'm not a Paizo employee, so any such answers would be speculation. Of course it -is- something that I'd like to explore more, so if you want to see me do so in print, by all means, please email Paizo or post on the boards that you want me to have that opportunity at some point in PF2! :D
Whether you're a GM or a freelancer, there's always a certain sublime joy when someone notices and connects hints that have been scattered through multiple episodes of a campaign or through multiple (not necessarily overtly connected) books. I could say more. Of course I could. But two things: 1) Given the sincere (and intentional) mystery and ambiguity here I don't wish to pin down a singular answer here because it would place restrictions on both myself in the future or other freelancers in the future if they touched on any of these topics and either weren't aware of my intent or desired to deviate from any unpublished intentions, which is always an option. 2) I could tell, but I won't, because that would be telling. ;)
I will gleefully refer to any protean-emulating CN champion as a 'Fauxtian' ;)
I had such fun contributing to this, and now that it's out in the wild everyone else gets to play around in this awesomeness!
AP set in Isger. Odds of the Wight Mother of Isger showing up? :)
I hope so. It IS someone you folks already know, after all. Mwa ha ha. I vote for an AP with a mad keketar or entire chorus behind it all, ala Song of Gentle Poison from 'Beyond the Vault of Souls'. ;)
Whoever made the rifti protean, I have to commend you wholeheartedly. They're an awesome addition to the infinite choruses, and I adore the way in which they emerge into existence. The art is sweet too. They look like goofy little baby hegessik proteans. :D
Jyoti and scaeduinar minis! OMG OMG OMG! :D
It's an astradaemon. See Bestiary 2 for more details. I'm still giddy, overjoyed, and delighted over that cover btw! :D
I'd love to see a planer AP. I'd love to -write- a planar AP!
Negative energy plane article? Nice :D Really looking forward to seeing what Patchen wrote for this! I finally got to write some for Planar Adventures (after begging for years) and I'm hyper keen to see this expand on things. :)
"Irresponsible illureshi protean sorcerers" :D
Thanks so much for the clarification James. I'll throw in a vote for more and expanded axiomite content in PF2 as well *since they're wholly owned by Paizo! *and proteans, and daemons, and by God more proteans ;)
Inevitables are on the outs—they're a concept that reality once needed but no longer really requires, and aeons are moving in to fill that vacancy. So the "official" conflict would then be that inevitables are an outdated race made obsolete by aeons, who are more efficient at the job, and are edging them out. Think of inevitables as 8-track cassettes and aeons as digital downloaded music, perhaps? James, was this a hypothetical answer for potential campaign use, or a statement regarding an official position about the status of aeons and inevitables moving forward in PF2? There's been some chatter in the 'Concordance of Rivals' product page where some folks took your statement to mean the latter.
As Trelmarixian's creator, here are my thoughts: Feeling hunger pangs is a religious devotion to Trelmarixian's faithful, however it tends to serve the Four better if their mortal cultists don't kill themselves off by virtue of their devotions. Starve yourself ritualistically, but don't die from it, because you're needed to cause famine and starve other mortals in the grand scheme of things. Also consider that since Trelmarixian embraces "Famine" as more than starvation, but inclusive of every form of wasting, that his cults might have a myriad of aspects. Consider addictions, cancer, spiritual decay, etc.
My bad! Aeons will be replacing Inevitables, but fear not, Psychopomps are here to stay. This message was brought to you by the "Paizo is moving away from WotC OGL property" movement. Aeons are TN though, they couldn't replace an LN race. Though giving axiomites more play would certainly move away from WotC IP. I have no insight into any such hypotheticals however.
In printed content, both in The Great Beyond, and in subsequent books, only the Maelstrom and the Abyss are described as being actually infinite.
Nice! :D
Keep in mind that Charon actually will reward mortals with certain means of immortality such as lichdom (while brutally suppressing other forms). He's patient and he recognizes that granting a mortal immortality via undeath is going to create more mortal deaths in the long-run, and eventually that undead mortal will be destroyed. Charon and the other daemons will play a long game if they must. There's going to be less friction between cults of Urgathoa and those of the Four or the various harbingers than you might think.
Only in PFS play, which made a specific restriction. Otherwise if they derive from a non-medium size mortal race, they retain that size class.
My exception was the meladaemon Inusalia (as featured in Planar Adventures in Malikar's Keep in Negative Energy) who was exceptionally talkative and beguiling in her station and role, partially due to that position of power, partially her nature as basically a drug addict in need of specific souls, and partially bleedover from my tendency to play arcanaloths (who partially inspired meladaemons) as "chattyloths" as I've been accused of. ;)
Keep in mind that while I did write a very large amount of early planar content for Pathfinder, and a substantial amount afterwards, this isn't a one person thing and a whole lot of folks have contributed and refined/elaborated on various things along the way up to now, and all of them have added some amazing stuff. :) For starters though, how would you define the idea of PF's afterlife being "a kind of cosmic horror"? You can answer that for me and I'll talk more, but let me just ramble about the general topic of PF's afterlives for a bit and see if that clarifies anything on its own. Just keep in mind that they went to the person who'd written over 2k pages of fanfic about D&D yugoloths and often yugoloth influenced Planescape published stuff for D&D, and asked me to write the cosmology up and then expand on the cosmology in a book of its own. You certainly get what you paid for, knowing what my thematic playground was (and continues to be I suppose - though I've made a bigger impact on PF's Chaotic Neutral outsiders and the Maelstrom I think). A number of different influences came into play with the nature of the afterlife and how various petitioners are handled. The baseline desire I think was to keep things generally familiar to anyone who played 3.5 D&D, so a lot of assumptions and tropes from the Great Wheel cosmology were there running the background. I know that I incorporated a -ton- of inspiration from classic 2e Planescape, with the outer planes reflecting the nature of the souls drawn to them, and what you experience therein reflects your alignment and resultantly your actions in life. Of course PF's planes deviate from Planescape in that PS's "belief shapes reality" isn't an overt thing, among other tweaks. But yeah, when I worked on content there's a ton of Planescape influence, but oftentimes it's my own perhaps idiosyncratic take on Planescape, which my own players once described as "using D&D rules to run a game of Call of Cthulhu". So about that whole cosmic horror thing you know...? XD I do try to play up the planes as places of extremes of manifest beauty, horror, wonder, and terror, and above all they can be genuinely alien to mortals. This is probably most typified by Abaddon, the Maelstrom, and the Positive and Negative Energy Planes (since I've gotten to write the majority of the content for both of them over the years and have had a truly wonderful experience doing so that I'm thankful for). Abaddon is a black furnace of oblivion where those selfish souls consigned there are mostly devoured except for the fraction of them that turn upon their horrified fellow hunted and in doing so becomes daemons themselves. In two polar opposites, prey and predator, they are their own alignment and what it preys upon. Hell of course (in gorgeous detail that Wes Schneider provided in BotD Vol 1) is modeled after Hell/Baator from D&D but has its own spin on things. The punishment and punishers motif from D&D and its own source material in the Divine Comedy and others is preserved and built upon. Every LE soul thinks itself fit to rule, but in the end Hell has only limited seats from which to rule above the suffering masses, and the most terrible rise to the top. The Abyss in PF is very similar to the Planescape Abyss, being a "Darwinian Nightmare" of every soul sent there violently seeking to empower itself at the expense of all others, at the expense of all rules, and even at the expense of itself. Then you've got things like the kytons/velstracs who are a beautiful re-imagining of the D&D chain devils with an absolutely overt inspiration from the cenobites of Hellraiser. One might from the outside think the souls sent to their "care" are in a hell of a different variety, tortured for all eternity by beings seeking to help them ever more expand their sensations and beautifully debase themselves beyond rational comprehension. Those same souls who willingly embrace that end might want precisely that and they might enter that bargain with wide open eyes, mouths watering, begging please, and understanding that it never ends and there is no safe word. Each of the various planes have their own conceptions of the afterlife and what it should be, each with their own different sources of inspiration building upon a general basic background of 3.5 D&D.
Didn't a daemon create the first demons in Golarion lore?Yes indeed. For which they paid a hideous price when those demons basically rewrote the substance of the Abyss, multiplied beyond reason, and in time assaulted Abaddon (during which assault Lamashtu slew two members of the Four). Compounded of course by the fact that much planar prehistory is presented (intentionally so!) via unreliable and potentially biased sources. About the only sure thing is that near to the start of it all you had proteans and qlippoths fighting each other for eons after their very antithetical to one another realities came into contact, and then at some point both of them noticed the gods and other outsiders and both were like, "Where you heck did all you dumb kids come from? Get off our lawns!" XD
Didn't a daemon create the first demons in Golarion lore? Yes indeed. For which they paid a hideous price when those demons basically rewrote the substance of the Abyss, multiplied beyond reason, and in time assaulted Abaddon (during which assault Lamashtu slew two members of the Four).
One word: Telepathy. But, having said that... I could personally support them having their own language in PF2. I give them their own language in my home game (but my home game deviates in some ways from canon). But at the same time, their thing in print is their propensity to be observed as being deathly -silent- to observers. They have telepathy and that's the bulk of their communication between one another, which of course most others' can't hear. Oblivion and silence is their thing and in a way that works in poetic fashion, even if to a minor extent it's an after the fact rationalization. I'm not sure if there was intentional design work for PF that had them without their own language, or just a carry over of legacy from 3.5 that didn't give NE fiends their own language. But again I could support giving them their own language as it significantly fits them more to have their own in PF (as compared to yugoloths in D&D, which they've significantly deviated from to be their own, richly fleshed out, stand-alone creature type that I'm truly proud of, both with my own work on them, and with everyone else that has contributed to telling their story) |