... Failure Any emotion effects that would affect the creature are suppressed and the creature can't use...

And the "Calm" spell has the Emotion tag. Obviously not RAI, but RAW? If a target fails, it looks like it triggers a paradox in the vein of "this statement is false".

Hello folks,
Feel free to link or redirect if this has already been answered, I failed to perceive it during my first round:

Is a demon damaged by the vulnerability if it can't sense the source? A few explicitly say "that it sees", which implies not by exception, but I'm also thinking it might be a case of incomplete rules templating.

Say a shape-changed toad demon is walking through a busy market, can't hear or see everything going on and someone casts purify food and drink on a bin of fruit within 30' of the creature, would the demon be hurt by the spell?

At the opposite end you have a situation with a blood demon hitting a Barzahkite cleric with grievous strike*, and the cleric immediately teleporting away to a different continent and casting heal... does the blood demon still get a headache?

Best Wishes,
Zachary

* Insert "A fine addition to my collection" gif here

So I was running an adventure where the baddies demand human(oid) sacrifice. Much to my surprise (because DMs really should expect the unexpected by now), one of the heroes volunteered as tribute. A Samsaran Druid, in this case.

I'm not sure off-the-top if there's any published material about sacrifice specifics (probably for the best), but my impression was that demons get to keep the souls sacrificed to them. Or maybe they just delight in the act of murder?

I'm still planning to let the druid come back, since I feel like it would be punishing a very interesting choice, both narratively and tactically. But I think some kind of DOOM is going to follow the character for the rest of the campaign.

References? Suggestions? Thoughts?

Had a weird realization about the Apocrisiarius Kyton ("Turn of the Torrent") - as a consequence of their inability to speak something untrue, they can indirectly answer any question in the universe. Given a dedicated logician (or organization thereof), they can find out all kinds of things - the nature of the Dark Tapestry, Aroden's cause of death, the geography of Sarusan, James Jacob's address, and so on.

There is, of course, the "out" of the creature possibly deciding not to answer a question, but there are still two ways around that - if the creature itself is dedicated to finding the answer to the impossible questions, or if someone summoning such has enchanted it in such a way as to compel it to help find the answer.

You spend 1d4 hours gathering information, but what do you find out?
I've come up with a rough framework for how the rumor mill works... I'm open to suggestions.

You can improve the diplomacy modifier by +1 per 5 gp spent in favors (drinks, delivering a letter, watching a horse) (adjusted for local economy; costs less for poor areas, and more for rich), to a maximum of +10.
You can also get a +5 bonus if specifically talking to helpful groups or individuals, or +10 for helpful. (Or -5 for unfriendly; hostile is a lost cause, either not talking or even intentionally giving false information, although the party doesn't need to know that...)

Why does the party care? Roll 1d20:
1-7: Directly related to the adventure. (Could be a subsystem for figuring out past/current/foreshadowing?)
8-13: Relates to one of the character's personal stories; I'd suggest a "distributed randomness" for this and give each character close to even spotlight time (although it doesn't have to be exactly even).
14-18: Something in which the characters are interested, even if it doesn't relate to your current plot(s) (although it could be one tomorrow...). Examples include a party friend, that secret society you know they like, a death in a far-off kingdom...
19-20: Something new. Doesn't relate to any of the previous categories, although if they show interest, you could start to weave it in...

What's the topic?
I found the Knowledge skills to be helpful in this regard. Roll 1d10 and consult the following (and reroll if it doesn't fit the "why does the party care" or the people to whom they're talking; I'm guessing the "Planes" might not come up much).:
1: Arcana (ancient mysteries, magic traditions, arcane symbols, constructs, dragons, magical beasts)
2: Architecture (buildings, aqueducts, bridges, fortifications)
3: Dungeoneering (aberrations, caverns, oozes, spelunking)
4: Geography (lands, terrain, climate, people)
5: History (wars, colonies, migrations, founding of cities)
6: Local (legends, personalities, inhabitants, laws, customs, traditions, humanoids)
7: Nature (animals, fey, monstrous humanoids, plants, seasons and cycles, weather, vermin)
8: Nobility (lineages, heraldry, personalities, royalty)
9: Religion (gods and goddesses, mythic history, ecclesiastic tradition, holy symbols, undead)
10: The Planes (the Inner Planes, the Outer Planes, the Astral Plane, the Ethereal Plane, outsiders, planar magic)

How much do they find out?
They get 1 sentence per 5 rolled, with an increasing level of detail, and each sentence has a ¼ chance of being false (possibly 1/8 if talking to a group with excellent research or a history of honesty, or 1/2 if talking to fickle and/or ignorant groups).

Example:
Diplomacy: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (12) + 5 = 17
Relevance: 1d20 ⇒ 1
Topic: 1d10 ⇒ 2
Veracity: 1d4 ⇒ 11d4 ⇒ 11d4 ⇒ 21d4 ⇒ 11d4 ⇒ 1(just rolling ahead of time in case I get a 25)

I'll start at the beginning:

Rise of the Runelords: A greedy wizard gets his greedy minions to kill a bunch of greedy people to release him from the palace of greed in the capital of greed in the forgotten empire of greed, but then he's killed by greedy adventurers.

(I'm not sure if an adjective has been created yet, I'm using "Golarian" to mean "from Golarion".)
Reading through "Hell's Rebels" got me thinking about how the Dottari would salute each other (and how the heroes would act if trying to infiltrate). I'm thinking since the rise of Thrune the Chelish military cross their arms over their head, symbolic of being in thrall to their superiors. As an added game rule it could detect as a minor evil act when done in the presence of a diabolic aura: A devil, a bishop of Asmodeus, an infernal shrine, and so on. Nothing horrible, but a death of a thousand needles if done over a dozen years.
Despite the chaining, I see Nidal as completely different: Maybe they bare their throat or chest, speaking to both their primitive forebears and the Prince in Chains.
Any other ideas for military salutes?

Not-Asia and not-Vikings could very well use their analogs for greetings, and we have snippets here and there about what's said, but what do they physically do to greet each other? Spit on the ground? Kiss both cheeks? Bodyslam?
If there are specific references, I'd love to see source material as well. As JJ keeps mentioning, there's a LOT to keep in one's head.

Hello imaginary friends,
Golembane scarabs say (X bonuses vs. golems, detect golems).
Aluum stat block doesn't have golem subtype - but such doesn't exist; clay/flesh/iron/stone golems don't have golem subtype either. Stat block does include "Invulnerability to Magic".
Flavor text in "Dark Markets" mentions golems indirectly.

Would you rule that Golembane "pings" on and works against Aluum? I'm leaning towards "yes" due to species similarity, but I'm interested in reading alternate views.
Thanks,

"You have two spirits, boy." Zaalok suddenly looks up from his cup at the familiar voice. He realizes he is sitting at a campfire. Gleaming eyes pierce the smoke across from him, and he can't quite make out the form of his grandmother. "Ama? But you're... and just now I was..."
"They draw strength from that one. If the enslaver falls, the rest have no incentive." Zaalok shifted back in his saddle. The griffin understood, and bore upwards. Zaalok braced his lance to strike.
Zaalok blinks away stinging tears and memory, and wipes the ash from his face. The figure is standing in the fire now, and he can see it is a tall, radiant figure with burning eyes. "You must continue his legacy. You must join them. The beauty of flight and the ferocity of valor."
"I was just there. And that's what I was doing!" Zaalok stands.
Zaalok stood in the stirrups to lend all his might to the blow. A sword like a ship's mast caught and peeled away his shoulder. He grimaced and grinned at the same time. Such a swing cost the giant in momentum, and now Zaalok could exploit it. The giant's eyes widened in surprise as the lance - but an iron poker by comparison - pierced its side and drove it down. It fell to the ground to be butchered by a magical cloud of whirling blades.
"Are you strong enough to carry two spirits?" Before Zaalok can answer, the fire explodes in blinding light, searing his eyes. "Show me." Nothing is left but a firepelt, which leaps away to his left, and a giant eagle, which takes wing to his right. Seeing them go so far so fast, opposite ways, the Shoanti warrior feels despair shatter his chest and he sinks to the ground.
Seeing the army scatter at the fall of their general, Zaalok sighed. His tactics worked. He wheeled the griffin around on large wings to rejoin his comrades and get ready for the next
THUNK
Zaalok stared at the blade protruding from his chest. He was dimly aware of the griffin slumped lifeless beneath him, and the distant scream of anguish of his elven friend. He barely had enough life left to follow the line of cruel steel down to the gargantuan hand raised from the battlefield in defiance of all that was good. The titan stood once more, dozens of wounds weeping sparks and ichor. It shook the two corpses free of its blade and continued to advance on the anguished heroes.
"How can I achieve the impossible without my totems? I need totems to catch them both. Or perhaps I need them to be the same." At this statement from Zaalok, he briefly feels the wind smile, and hears the sea laugh. He spreads his hands and grabs the wild paths. Using all his might, he bends and blends the trails until they both appear on a united path before him, eyes glowing, and he begins to run. He sings a song of his ancestors, and in the distance hears the faerie's voice singing in harmony. Somehow it brings swiftness to his steps, drawing him close until he is running with the animals, different but the same.
Ahead is a whirling storm of prismatic light. The wind picks them up and they are all running through the air. The totems become a griffin and the human is somehow riding it again, pinned together by the steel through their chests. Zaalok is dimly aware of the grief-stricken chanting of his elven friend far away, but the glorious song of the fey is pulling at his chest. With a painful burst, they are torn free of each other and the steel is gone. His mount spirals down to a safe haven in the eye of the storm. Zaalok is floating through a rainbow cloud, and reaches up to feeling dewy mist on his face.

He rubs his eyes and sees the fairie crying over him.

----------
Zaalok is a Shoanti cavalier (knight from D&D PHB2). He and the griffin he was riding both died in the same round, when the giant took a full-round attack. The griffin is the companion familiar of an elven arcane heirophant (D&D Races of the Wild), and the party's cleric is a fey (3rd party book, can't remember the title). They're kind of all over the taxonomical chart, honestly.
Anyhow, this is what I imagine the afterlife to look like in Zaalok's mind's eye; the arcane heirophant (worshipper of Gozreh) casting "Raise Animal Companion" at the same time the cleric (worshipper of Shelyn) casts "Resurrection".

I've actually been writing these for the whole "Rise of the Runelords" campaign for my players and sending them out almost every week; I just didn't think about making them public until now.
While it isn't necessarily exactly what was said or how the dice landed, I feel my re-working forms a more coherent narrative. It could be a retelling of what happened in-game (especially to catch up people who weren't there) (I also have a handful of former players who left town but still like reading about the campaign), or a cutscene of things happening in other parts of the world (in a TV series, the audience seeing the badguys doing stuff without being entirely sure what's happening, or a piece of the life of a minor character we haven't seen in a while), or filling in the gaps of parts we fast-forwarded through in game (travel, profession checks, etc.).

Gozreh is a fickle deity.

An Animal Companion/Familiar (player has an Arcane Heirophant) was laid low by a Rune Giant's blade.
The character, a worshipper of Gozreh, dearly loves his griffin and wants to bring him back. The question is... will Gozreh listen? It was, to some extent, a natural death.

I'm thinking either a flat percentage or a skill check that the griffin returns. If the spell fails, I'm not completely wasting their diamond dust; another random creature from the surrounding terrain (currently on the North shore of the Storval Deep, heading for the Kodars) will make itself known in the near future.

So: What would you do? And why?

(On a sideline: I'm thinking there must be a material supply problem with something like diamond dust vanishing from existence; is there any supernatural method restoring diamonds to Golarion or the various other magical roleplaying worlds?)

Hello imaginary friends,

What's the name of the river that passes through Lurkwood and then feeds into the Velashu River? Is it also the Velashu River, or does it have a different name (such as the ever-so-clever title, "Lurkwood River")? And if there is already a name somewhere, could you cite the source material as well?

Thanks much,
Zachary

So here’s my second attempt at a Harrow-based character creation method.

One: Have the player shuffle the Harrow deck.
Two: Ask if there are any information the player wants to have set out beforehand. Age, nationality, race, class, religion, orphan, military, whathaveyou.
Three: Have the player ask at least eighteen questions about the character. As an answer to each question, draw a card from the Harrow deck and lay it on a two-deep three-by-three grid, and then you and the player come up with an answer inspired by the card (and the details already sketched out beforehand). The placement of the card should be inspired by the question as follows: Top row = the world at large, middle row = community or family, bottom row = personal; left column = distant past, center column = immediate past or current, right column = future or plans; if one question is related to another, put one of those on top of the other. However, since there are only two spots in each grid, you’ll have to put some in random slots instead of matching exactly, unless the player is very conscientious about asking exactly one question and then one followup question about the family’s distant past (for example).
Four: A major concordance (card icon matches the location it’s placed) is worth six points in the indicated ability score, and should include an epic about how that situation greatly improved that ability score.
A minor concordance (card icon matches the row but not the column, or column but not the row) is worth five points, and should include a detail about how the character is good at the indicated ability score.
A neutral card (neither same nor opposite rows nor columns) is worth four points. The reader can use this as a place to include a peccadillo or interesting trait about the character.
A concordant discordance (same column opposite row, or opposite column same row) is worth three points and should be used to describe a paradigm shift in the character’s life or outlook.
A minor discordance (card icon has the opposite column or row from the card’s location) is worth two points, and should include a detail about how the character is hindered in the indicated ability score.
A major discordance (card icon is at the opposite column and row) is worth a single point, and should describe a tragedy about what debilitated the character in that ability.

So after killing another character (I've started getting a reputation as a killer DM... even though I haven't had any TPKs yet!), I decided to try to cobble together a system that uses the Harrow Deck to create characters.

Shuffle the deck (or, if you want the personalization, have them shuffle it). If you want there to be a general role or theme for the character, or any other background decisions like nationality or race, discuss that with your player now; it will affect how the following questions are answered.
Lay 9 cards out in a 3x3 grid.
Tell the player to ask a question. Directing the in the order of such (there is a certain cadence for past-to-future) gives a more focused narrative, but it could be in any order. Also, you might want to align the cards so you can read them and reveal them for the player, or align them so they reveal themselves to the player.
The cards in the leftmost column are past, the cards in the center column are the present, and cards in the right column are the future. The top row is good, external circumstances, and/or community, the middle row is personal and immediate, and the bottom row is evil, internal, and/or spiritual. If the player is having problems thinking of questions, use these as guidelines.
Decide which position best represents the player’s question, reveal the card in that position, and answer it as per the Harrow interpretation. Cards with a concordance (card position with the same row or column as the icon on the card) should be read as more significant, and cards with major concordance (same row and column; e.g. in icon in the center of the card in the center of the reading) should be a defining characteristic for the character. Similarly, cards with a discordance (icon position in the card in the opposite column or row as the card’s position in the reading) should be read as the “inverted” definition given in the Harrow interpretation, and a major discordance (both opposite row and column) would also represent a paradigm shift for the character (e.g. a soldier facing death on the field for the first time).
It is worth mentioning that because “opposite” only applies to top vs. bottom and left vs. right, there will be fewer discordances than concordances. Also, major discordances can only happen at the corners.
Cards with both a concordance and a discordance (e.g. icon top right, card bottom right) should also show up as “quirks” for the character: A favorite game, allergy, an appreciation for fine weaving, and so on.
Next, instruct the player ask another question to help clarify this place on the reading, draw a card, and lay it across the first. The same rules as above about the significance of the card’s position and the potency of the answer apply.
Repeat this process for the next eight positions on the board, and you have a character history! Next up, stats:
Find all of the “strength” cards. For each concordance, they get +2 (and hence +4 for a major concordance). For each discordance, they get -2 (and hence -4 for a major concordance, and +/- 0 for a concordant discordance). For each “strength” card that is neither concordant nor discordant, they get +1. Add these results together, and add 10. This is the character’s strength score. Repeat for each other ability score.
It is unlikely but still possible to get characters with scores above 18 or well below average. If that happens, you’ll need to take some time to balance numbers at this point:
- For the most common possibility, one or more scores above 18 and others below 8, subtract a few from the high number and add the same amount to the low number until all scores are within a reasonable range.
- If some scores are above 18 and all scores are above 12, subtract one from every score until all of them are below 19.
o This is where you get to add a balancing factor: If, in your opinion, the character’s stats are still beyond exceptional (e.g. nothing below 15), I think it would be fun to give them a curse or three. The simplest would be to grab a flaws out of Unearthed Arcana, but creative GMs can find all kinds of interesting ways to challenge this person. The best option would be to find a way to tie them into the major discordances from the reading. Or one could let them go up to 20, but at that point they’re a reborn Azlanti and Aboleths, Tar-Baphon, and every other big bad on the planet is looking for them…
- If all scores are below 12, add one to every score until at least one score is a 12.
o Again with the balancing factor: To represent the fact that this character has some kind of heroic destiny, you could let them have an additional +2 to a score, or a free special ability like Evasion or a luck reroll once per day or automatic stabilization or a spare feat, or more creative ideas. Again, whatever it is, it would best be represented by one of the major concordances. If you’re an older-school GM who says heroes are made, not born, you could also run with a below-average character; since it is entirely possible that they become heroes simply by surviving the odds. But the corollary there is that the odds are not in their favor.
You can also count concordances and discordances to determine alignment, or just whichever position shows up the most often, or let them choose. Similarly, I think most players tend to play their own gender, but if they want it to be randomly determined you can either assign stats to gender and use whichever comes up the most, or if you want a slight male bias decide the four polar alignments (CE, CG, LE, LG) as well as true neutral represent male while the other four (CN, LN, NE, NG) represent female. Or you could just flip a coin. Tweak for your campaign, YMMV, caveat emptor, I am not a professional dungeon master but I play one on TV, this is not intended as legal advice and may not be used to diagnose or treat any medical conditions and all that jazz.