Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber. Organized Play Member. 529 posts (530 including aliases). No reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 2 Organized Play characters.
The Pathfinder 2E sub-reddit has some VERY eye-opening spoilers about this AP.
I gotta say, having my pdf today, I'm sort of... Underwhelmed? The ending feels very much like a copout and anticlimactic.
Edited due to feeling too critical. Need time to stew on it.
Because ** spoiler omitted ** or for other reasons?
spoiler:
A high level campaign about hell and Cheliax as far as I know not even featuring Abrogail as an on-screen character is insane. Kaltessa shows up briefly which was cool, we take out the head of Asmodeus Church in Cheliax with sort of minor fanfare, and the final battle being against Gorthoklek is kinda eh. We don't even get a chance to meaningfully interact with the main antagonist and at the end, Andoran's own Harvey Birdman running through the portal, giving us a 'knowing nod' and then pushing us back through to safety is corny as hell especially since it assumes he's alive despite earlier in the book giving alternative descriptions for if he's dead. He somehow managed to escape Abrogail and Asmodeus both? A minor deity? With zero explanation?
There's just a lot of missed opportunities and weird direction throughout that feel sort of like a 'oh ok, I guess that's cool'.
It's like they had an end goal in mind but needed a sort of way they could make the players feel like they had agency without stopping the change so they make it seem like a sort of victory is a major one. We have no real agency in changing things as the end result of this AP is IMMEDIATELY canonized in the next lore book.
Rise of the Runelords climaxes at the Pinnacle of Avarice (mostly), and yes, it's a "nice place to adventure in" if you enjoy all out war and the GM utilizes all the resources and reinforcements with the adversaries responding with tactical retreats, ambushes, etc. Quite dynamic, and built for veteran players. Double points if you challenge it without accumulating all the macguffins earlier in the AP that help conquer it.
I don't know which AP or whatnot leads to the Spire of Nex. I don't know what to make of a mile-high building. Even if it only has a floor every 100', that's...a bit much. Seems impossible to defend from highest-level penetration w/o a contrived amount of gold/etc. And then there's toppling.
none of the APs go to the Spire of Nex.
I think the original poster meant that there's a good AP going to the Pinnacle of Avarice.
None of the published APs go to Nex so far as I am aware.
I did mean that! I think I may have misread the OP I replied to lol. Oopsie!
Much though I have enjoyed OwlCat's kingmaker, it's also clear to me that there are a few places where their approach to Golarion's lore has leaned more toward relying on first assumptions rather than the actual meat of Golarion lore. Most offensive to me was depicting Shelyn (or at least her followers in good standing) as petty and shallow and more than a little bloody-minded.
Calling Desna a moon goddess is not as flagrant an oversight as that, but I still consider it largely an error that slipped in while glossing over the richness and nuance of the lore (excepting of course in the case of those cultures where Desna is treated as a designated lunar deity)
I am certain they just were aware of it from their work with Varnhold.
God the way they treated Shelyn made me wanna go on a crusade FOR Shelyn. It was weirdly spiteful of a goddess who is one of the most benevolent and kind deities in the canon. Huge misread of her character.
Yeah she has the Moon domain probably because Stars didn't exist when 2e came out. It was added in Divine Mysteries and they just didn't change it in the remaster, perhaps due to oversight or it not being that important.
Like the fact Nocticula calls her 'that hag the moon' in the game and this is supposed to be widely understandable to be Desna is, I think, a huge bit of confusion.
My theory was that Owlcat, who had just made Kingmaker, saw the bit in Varnhold Vanishing about the centaurs, didn't investigate beyond that, and assumed her being a personification of the moon was like a wider Golarion thing. The fact it shows up in Varnhold Vanishing and the Owlcat game ONLY makes me assume this has to be the case.
I think if Paizo wanted her to be a Moon God they'd have used her in place of Tsukiyo in that pantheon, as he is very much more localized. The fact its Sarenrae for Sun, Tsukiyo for Moon, and Desna for Stars is pretty blatant IMO that she is not meant to be specifically a Moon God even though she has a connection via the Night Sky.
Being called 'The Moon' isn't something I'd ever have assumed meant 'Desna'.
So, got a little heated on the old Reddit and was curious about how wrong I was.
Commented on a reddit thread and got downvoted into oblivion for saying that Desna, while she has the Moon domain (as Star didn't exist until later) she is not a Moon God.
The conversation was due to Nocticula called her 'that hag the moon' in WotR, the game. I argued that she was, outside of the centaur tribe referenced in The Varnhold Vanishing, not nearly associated enough with the moon to be referred to AS the moon.
Is this wrong? Is Desna an iconic Moon Goddess of Golarion in some writing I'm not familiar with? Is she somehow linked to BEING the moon in a way that Nocticula's comment would make sense?
Tsukiyo, or even Groetus, would be in my mind gods closely enough linked to the Moon to the called it. Even Ketephys is closer.
And adding to the list of big baddies I have personally introduced into the setting and haven't done much with yet and would love to explore more at some point in the future, let's add...
** spoiler omitted **
I'm not worried about running out of villains, at least for the Adventure Paths and standalone adventures I'm eager to build over the next several years.
If you do something with
Spoiler:
Queen Illeosa
, I will spend as much money as exists to buy whatever she appears in.
Pretty important thing that I think deserves mentioning that really does remove some of the 'its like the real world' discussion: in Golarion, the gods are actual physical/metaphysical, provable, existing entities. They aren't things people believe are real but have no actual day to day presence. You can actually pray to Lamashtu and she will actually answer them.
It's not like someone in the real world calling out to some god and interpreting something as their will. It's like if an IRL Catholic priest called out to the Saints to smite some perceived Satanist and an actual real beam of light shone down and obliterated them. Or the Satanist conjured forth actual hellfire and burned down a cathedral.
Like we do need to approach this from that viewpoint. Of course someone who watches a priest of Zon-Kuthon summon shadows and sexy pain fiends to engage in their wild fantasies would be like 'oh okay that's kinda exciting'. A suffering person dying from a disease who longs for the taste of their favorite meal and another chance at life may call out to Urgathoa and actually be given just that. It's not wishing; it's measurable effect.
It's not just abstract philosophy in Golarion. It's real, actual, observable power.
Following an 'evil' god makes a lot more sense when you can see the actual benefit first-hand.
Am I just blind? I have two upcoming sub shipments (the Season of Ghosts and the Remastered DA) and I'd love to apply the gold $20 off to them but I can't seem to find out how.
Is this possible? Am I dumb? This shop is so needlessly complicated it's making me mad lol
Just as an addition as a Forever GM, I'd argue that 'No one in my party in the campaign about legendary wizards of immense power has a good idea what Arcana is' was perhaps not a great starting point.
It would be like running Blood Lords with a party completely oblivious to the undead. At some point, you really do need to take responsibility for helping tailor your party to the campaign and vice-versa. It's our job as GMs to take the framework and adjust it for our groups. Not everything runs exactly as we need right out of the box.
I see you mentioned you came into this from another AP; probably would have been a good idea on your part to read the player's guide and read through the AP to prepare for this. A cursory glance of the hazards would have queued you into this early and with your entire campaigns' worth of knowledge of your party already perhaps you could have changed the skill requirements before running the hazard? Respectfully, of course.
Red Dead Redemption of the Runelords, starring Dutch Xan der Ghul and the Xan der Ghul Gang; introducing Sorshie Adler, the spunky runeslinger with a heart of gold and vengeance in her soul!
Takes place in Alkenstar. Coming to a game store near you in 2026.
I own the original PDFs. I own the original foundry modules. I own the REMASTER hardcover and pdf.
Why in the world am I required to purchase the Foundry Module for the Remastered version? I simply do not understand the logic here; I want to finish running this for my group. They'd love to finish. We held off on book 3 til the remaster came out and we're ready to get back in now but like... I don't wanna spend 60 bucks for ONE book when I already own it.
Why couldn't the existing modules be updated? This feels very anti-consumer and un-Paizo. Kinda putting me off even finishing running it tbh and we were all very excited to segway it into Stolen Fates.
Is buying the whole remaster module full price really the ONLY way to get this (which I already own for Foundry) to update to the remaster on Foundry?
Good to see stormcrown dragons finally getting out there!
While blue dragons were traditionally my favorite of the OGL Ten (especially in the 3e Todd Lockwood interpretation), I really tried to come at the stormcrown dragon from first principles. What does it mean to be a primal dragon? A dragon of storms and lightning? (Blue dragons, at least to my mind, were really desert dragons—destroying potable liquids, creating mirages and illusions—that happened to breathe lightning.)
I'm not certain they'll always slot neatly into the niche blue dragons occupied—I suspect that the average stormcrown dragon would drive a lawful evil creature up the wall, although they do share a certain love of machination with their forebears—but I do hope people will find them both interesting and useful nonetheless. ^_^
Super excited to get a look at them, they sound amazing.
My longest running and very first DnD3e -> PF 1 and 2 PC was a blue dragon sorcerer extremely connected to the arcane. This is absolutely going to be a major change for my boy but I'm very excited to workshop him into being a primal caster now. Going to take some significant retooling of his lore I think, though I'm glad their love for machinations remained. He always was a schemer.
Still no gold, nothing in my library, and no updates. :/ At this point, I'd rather just have the old shop back lol. Was really looking forward to those pdfs and missing the ease-of-use, been a long week.
The store just tried to charge me for a second copy of my subscription. Luckily I'm broke so it didn't go through but what is going on here? I emailed CS about it but this is wild.
Got billed, nothing in either library; would be nice if the TOTAL it shows in our pending subs included tax and shipping. Still not sure if a discount applied or if I got 'gold'.
Hate to be so negative but aside from 'looking' pretty, this new rollout seems absolutely busted and way more complicated than it needs to be. Isn't the goal of a new store to make buying your items -easier- for the consumer, especially long-term subscribers?
Update: I do not have any gold. From this purchase or any.
Still no gold; CS told me it would be added eventually.
My sub skipped the 17th and is now coming next month.
I can't get discounts for Foundry Modules for things I already own in PDF.
I am paying more for less, am getting confusing 'gold' which really is not ideal (nobody likes gameification of discounts), and I'm not actually even sure if my subs are even still correctly applied.
So I am subscribed to Adventures, Adventure Paths, Lost Omens and Rulebooks.
Right now for Revenge of the Runelords: Into the Apocalypse Archive and the Draconic Codex, I am only seeing options for either add to pre-order now or add to my January 1st subscription.
How do I get these Now?
Or when will the December Subscription orders be submitted?
You'll receive your notification of the pending December subscription products on Wednesday. If you're subscribed to the lines you are expecting, there is nothing more that you need to do. If you're completely missing a subscription, please add it back to your account through the subscription pages.
-Jim
So even though it shows no pending price or cost, I will be charged for the upcoming Draconic Codex today via the Lost Omens Subscription?
If the concept of mythic HAD never re-emerged into 2e, what was the plan to 'power-scale' the formerly mythic NPCs? Just make levels beyond the normal limit perhaps?
On that note, Revenge looks amazing overall. Got my second book in recently and I cannot wait for a chance to run it.
That being the case, I am really happy to see the push towards more cultural sensitivity. I think Paizo really is at the forefront as the most progressive space in the 'biggest entity that isn't the Other Game Company' section of the ttrpg world and it always makes me proud to be able to tell people about the efforts you guys do to be respectful and inclusive.
Personally, I feel the Shoanti haven't gotten much love in 2E, so I would definitely appreciate them getting more than just a few lines of description.
They got quite a bit of love in the second book of triumph of the tusk. including backmatter! :)
My... not concern, but interest, in the Shoanti as depicted in that book (specifically in art) was that they were very much depicted as Real Life Native Americans. Shoanti had always been a sort of unique to Golarion indigenous people of the region, and Arcadia exists to tell the stories of Native Americans and First Nations peoples, so making Shoanti ALSO that seems a bit confusing. You shouldn't just slap a real-life aesthetic onto people so I wonder if there's some in-universe lore for that? Perhaps a connection to Arcadia?
A background called Local Savior. Which is... My wife's online name and yet her PC is better suited for the one where you're the child of a previous runelords adventurer. A cruel choice by the gods!
This AP looks amazing.
'Back in my day, we had to scale a mountain uphill both ways in the snow to beat our Runelords! And we weren't even mythic!'
"And don't even mention that clock tower in Magnimar... Or the other mountains (one in particular)... Or that wendigo, before even finding Xin-Shalast..."
Our cleric fell off that clocktower lmao. She survived with like... 2 hp? Something wild. It was painful.
No, no, Prince Maleus, I think your excitement is warranted. I have been looking forward to this for so long, plus my home campaign is just about to reach Xin-Shalast to visit Sorshen (canonically about a month before this AP starts) so this gives me perfect time to flesh her out and subconsciously influence them to let me run Revenge for them.
Look, I'll be honest. The rationale could be 'because funny' and I'd still buy it. I LOVE Thassilon content, and this book comes out at exactly the cosmically perfect time for me (I swear Paizo publishes around my own personal campaign schedule).
I really do hope it's something to do with a complete random chance slice of Gorum just clipping his soul on the way through the planes. I love the idea of such a large threat being a big statistical 'oops'.
If somehow Karzoug comes back too I may have to bring my old Rise party out of retirement somehow just to have them directly train the new generation.
'Back in my day, we had to scale a mountain uphill both ways in the snow to beat our Runelords! And we weren't even mythic!'
IDK if this was mentioned yet, but in the Lost Omens: Shining Kingdoms book, there is a picture of Stavian III in the Taldor section labeled as Stavian II.
Minor issue, unless Stavian III was a direct clone of his father.
Hey!
Looking into running an infiltration; I've done one before but the module to track it in Foundry doesn't seem to be updated.
Is there any online builder (the pf2 tools one seems to not load for me) or other module people like using? I can absolutely do it the old fashioned way but if there's a faster/more convenient method I'd love to know.
I have often wondered this too. The existing images of Xin-Shalast evoke a sort of 'Tibetan monastary hidden in the mountains Shangri-La' sort of vibe.
I haven't looked at the art in Shattered Star in a bit for the city of Xin; does it look similar?
This is sort of tangentially related; in at least Shattered Star there was a significant amount of Thassilonian clockwork (at least in the last book, if I remember correctly). How does this differ from the style used in Alkenstar? Are there any aesthetic differences or unique looks that would identify a Thassilonian clockwork from an Alkenstar type? On that note, how common were they in the day to day? Would it be likely that Sorshen may have some salvaged/rebuilt in this day and age or have they likely moved on from that whole thing?
I gotta say a big thank you to James for what you said may have been getting your own wires crossed; in planning more of my campaign I sort of off-the-cuff decided a level 10 strigoi vampire would be sealed up in an old, forgotten little outpost of Sorshen's near the base of Xin-Shalast (perhaps she had it built in ancient times as a way to keep an eye on the surrounding Runelords, as one does). I reasoned that this vampire would likely have been bound to her service around the time of the Age of Darkness.
I had 100% forgotten about the fact that literally exactly that (Strigoi who served Sorshen specifically during the Age of Darkness) was already canon in the lore and when I re-read those bits in Shadows at Sundown I felt briefly like an oracle.
Long story short, I love your work with the Runelords and Varisia and when my party finally gets to going far away for their adventures I'm gonna miss having Thassilonian messes to have them stumble over.
Being a Runelord entailed a lot of mass murder and enslavement as a matter of course. Sorshen decided to avoid starting up with that again not out of any realization that her actions were wrong but largely out of fear of the sticky ends her fellows met. And she was spectacularly successful in avoiding that outcome for herself, going above and beyond evading any negative consequences for her past deeds (not having to give anything up in reparation or as an earnest of her good faith) to maintaining or increasing her lavish lifestyle, personal and political power, and status. It comes across, at least to me, as a blatant exercise in narrative favor.
Consider this: Sorshen bought favor back by helping defeat the other Runelords. Also, it is boring if all the Runelords die. It makes for a more interesting setting if ancient rulers from a lost empire return changed.
I don't know about you, but thousands of years of the same thing, even the hedonistic excess that Sorshen no doubt engaged in, would get boring. Gods forbid a girl try new things.
Hellknight PCs will put Sorshen to justice sooner or later!
Hellknights removing the lawful and enduring ruler of a sovereign nation on her own soil?
On someone else's soil. Sorshen's soil is about 500 miles south of the realm she's currently ruling. Which she is doing by right of conquest.
Not conquest. Xin-Shalast was long-abandoned by the time she got there, thanks to the Sihedron Heroes. She is at worst moving into a derelict and refurbishing it.
If she WANTED to, she could try and move into Korvosa but I'm pretty sure she canonically decided it would be too much trouble. Plus the heroes of Korvosa would likely have something to say about that, and dealing with a party of 4 at least level 18 people who have already slain one queen using the Everdawn Pool may be a little bit complicated.
4th level characters who get this thing and think about asking nicely the nice Runelord for wise advice about it would raise Sorshen's interest IMO. They can then, when the actual audience happens, strike her as potential reliable and efficient agents/allies.
To test them a bit, she might ask them, as a favor, to go check on Sandpoint's latest troubles. After all, things there do tend to have links to Thassilon's legacy.
And then you get the PCs to play Seven Dooms of Sandpoint.
And they should be in a perfect position to tackle Revenge after that.
My PCs actually will be level 10 by the time they get there; we have plans to run Seven Dooms with a different group of PCs tied to some of our Rise/Return heroes so we actually DID visit Sandpoint where everyone was very vague about the 'More Recent Unpleasantness' lol.
Essentially, the plan is for Godsrain to happen during an audience with Sorshen on the mountain top, the recurring antagonist to get a bit of the ol' Gorum Juice before the Lady of the House summarily removes him for the moment; the party gets the go-ahead from Sorshen to help collect some Warshards, get a little bit of their own mythic power, and then proceed to travel the world and the planes to gather the requirements to destroy the Item in Question.
My party got way too attached to the Rust-eze lol.
If you're planning on doing Revenge later with different PCs, then yeah, not as big a deal... but keep in mind that...
** spoiler omitted **
Spoiler:
Absolutely planning on it. Whole party is sort of aware of her on various levels (one of them was in my Return party) and so they're very excited to meet her/meet her again.
The sort of 'cloaking' effects of Leng would no longer be in effect right? Assuming the PCs in Rise dealt with the device? It's been years since then and I actually can't remember.
I did post something to that effect but the forums ate it.
But yes. The first volume of Revenge of the Runelords, which should be out in October, has this in it.
** spoiler omitted **
Spoiler:
Oh definitely not killing her! They've been working at this since the end of our Rusthenge campaign and decided that 'to destroy this Relic we found here in Old Thassilon let's go ask the other Thassilonian Ruler who used to deal with demon lords how to best go about destroying the last remnant of one since nobody here trusts Belimarius as far as they can throw her.
Maybe I can drag out the journey across the rest of the plateau and up the mountain until October, haha. I have it set for them to show up probably right before Godsrain and witness it from atop the mountain, so Revenge won't happen for a little while in our timeline.
Obviously this is all going to be theoretical since I don't think there's a lot of official public information but let's say travelers made their way to New Thassilon and trekked up to Sorshen's new capital. What do you think it would take to get an audience with the Runelord?
Is it a process full of red tape and long waiting? Is it a more free-form process, designed to take advantage of the new era of Thassilon and a removal of the old traditions?
Does she hold parades or would she think that's too vain and prideful?
I'm curious as to how people view what life under Sorshen's rule would be like. My party is about to visit her capital and I'm brainstorming how I want it all to play out. Do we think there is an Undercity of dissidents? Do they have legitimate complaints about her rule?
So let me get this straight: I bought Gatewalkers when it came out. I bought the original FoundryVTT modules too. I ALSO bought the remaster.
And I have to pay FOURTY DOLLARS for the remastered FoundryVTT version AS WELL? When the changes are, let's be honest, minimal at best? That's not great, Paizo. :/ Love you guys but that sucks.
Just going to manually update the book3 stuff in Foundry myself.
On the other hand, subtly inserting a 'Lady Insert Chelaxian Name Here Darklight, Noted Socialite' into a sidebar in an Old Cheliax setting book would be a very cool little treat.
Although, they're Korvosan not Chelaxian if I'm reading it right. Perhaps holdovers from when Korvosa was part of Cheliax?
Reading that the Pathfinders know almost nothing about them because they're sort of irrelevant gives me an amazing image of a bunch of 'trying too hard to be mysterious Team Rocket type girlfails' who simply are not effective but maybe stumble into some success on accident.
