keftiu's page

There's the four Traditions of magic. I don't expect more than that.

HARDCASE is my solo RPG about trying to survive the gig economy in a hyper-capitalist space future, and after Itchfunding earlier this year, its first expansion, HARDCASE: TRUTHSEEKER, is now out in full!

It's a buffet of new content for the game's Online layer (Doomscroll the News, have fun E-Dating or Online Shopping, collect all the Virtual Pets, explore new Servers and CONQUEROR Islands, rediscover Lost Media for Cash or nerd cred...), along with 5 scenarios for an optional new Carved from Brindlewood-inspired Mysteries subsystem. TRUTHSEEKER more than doubles the game's length, and is full of some of my proudest work yet, along with great art and layout from Ida Ailes.

I'd be honored if you checked it out <3

Yeah that's pretty much the long and short of it. Cheliax doesn't exist. The Nazis did (or do, sadly.)

Yeah, the ongoing harm angle is worth saying, too - there are still hateful bigots using Nazi symbols and ideology today, doing very real violence to real marginalized people.

moosher12 wrote:

But travel to Earth is intergalactic,

Do you happen to have a citation for Earth being in a different galaxy? I don't remember that from playing Rasputin

Starfinder's setting is the Desna's Path Galaxy, as of Ports of Call.

moosher12 wrote:

Actually, you don't need time travel at all. All you need is sufficiently strong teleportation. I think there is a way, especially with the wake of the Godsrain. The thing is, on Lost Omens Earth, the current year is 1930, and there is a small amount of people that know that Earth exists and is theoretically accessible with enough power.

I haven't kept up with PF2e lore since before Remaster, had no idea there was a 1930s Earth equivalent planet in PF2e, is it actually called Earth, or does it have another name? I wonder what happens to that Earth in SF2e if it even survives.

Thanks for the information, that's really interesting. I can't imagine Paizo coming up with something like that and not eventually using it. It should be interesting to see what happens.

So what else has Paizo done outside the Golarion star system in PF2e or PF1e?

PF1e had an Adventure Path, Reign of Winter, that culminated in a jaunt to Russia in 1918.

With Starfinder 2e's release now imminent, I can't help but want to necro this thread and see if any brilliant ideas have occured to folks in the intervening years.

With Starfinder 2e now in the hands of some people, I figure it's time to bring back the pom-poms and cheers for PF2 Numeria content :3

Golarion as a setting already resembles the 'zoo' folks are complaining about, though. It's never really been a low-fantasy "humans and one dwarf" kinda world, especially now that Orcs and Leshies are Common.

I mean, Mzali's army and an avatar of Walkena got spanked once already by the Magaambya in Strength of Thousands. He might be a god... but he's opposed by several other gods, and mostly remains a local threat so far.

Battlecry! has a small section on tensions in Xopatl around the raising of a new army and sightings of Cuetzmonqualli that are either omens of a new Army of Fire's return (something that's been repeatedly foreshadowed elsewhere) or else a manipulative hoax meant to gather military power.

vyshan wrote:

I wonder does Battlecry have anything on Geb v Nex or Taldor v Qadira?

** spoiler omitted **

I'd be very surprised to see Senghor not taking Mzali seriously as a threat, given that Walkena's unlikely to treat a bunch of Arcadian-descended Caldaru as being native Mwangi! Here's hoping they get to come up a little whenever that hypothetical Bright Lions AP comes around.

keftiu wrote:

zimmerwald1915 wrote:

keftiu wrote:

but they also haven't done one about the revolutionaries in Katapesh, either, and I don't interpret that as any kind of condemnation.

I do! :D

I feel we're overdue a Lost Omens: Golden Road, at the very least... but I don't feel wronged by its absence!

No, you feel wronged by the absence of Lost Omens: Arcadia :P

(I'm just kidding, if the emoticons weren't clear.)

That emotion is more aptly described as "rabid" >:3

keftiu wrote:

but they also haven't done one about the revolutionaries in Katapesh, either, and I don't interpret that as any kind of condemnation.

I do! :D

I feel we're overdue a Lost Omens: Golden Road, at the very least... but I don't feel wronged by its absence!

keftiu wrote:

I'd still love to know what "worldview the writer is forcing on us" by not depicting Cheliax's POV, Arkat. It's been three days and I still think that's kind of an unreal thing to post.

I was trying to avoid answering this, but since you called me out directly, here you go:

That it's THEIR world and that we have to play how Paizo wants us to play.

One of their employees made that quite clear in an X post some months ago.

Are you satisfied?

I'm confused, mostly. There's all the lore you need to play as Chelish PCs or run a Cheliax-centered campaign, there's a number of "Evil" mechanical options for your players to enjoy across several Classes and Archetypes, and Archives of Nethys shows me 30+ Celestial creatures to get into fights to if you want them. Paizo has filled a toybox with things that exist to let you play as the baddies, if you want; those rules wouldn't exist if they hated you for touching them.

Sure, they probably won't make an AP about embodying the Chelish military... but they also haven't done one about the revolutionaries in Katapesh, either, and I don't interpret that as any kind of condemnation. There's hundreds of possible Golarion storylines that haven't been written for us, y'know?

Blood Lords got made. Prey for Death got made. PF2 does not have some kind of line in the sand drawn about always playing squeaky-clean sympathetic goodies.

Holomog's chapter in Distant Shores and backmatter article in Blood Lords are still more than most other places outside the Inner Sea have enjoyed :)

I'd still love to know what "worldview the writer is forcing on us" by not depicting Cheliax's POV, Arkat. It's been three days and I still think that's kind of an unreal thing to post.

I've been waiting for SF2 for years, because I wanted PF2 rules for Lashunta (telepathic aliens) and Solarians (a class of Jedi-inspired STAR and black hole-themed mystical warriors). That's plenty STAR for me in the corebook, along with all that lore you don't value!

I think you'll have a great time with a generic sci-fi toolbox like Stars Without Number or the 2400 - certainly more fun than raging about a version of this game that was never going to exist.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Like what really changes about Cheliax in terms of its role in the setting if it falls back into civil war where one of the competing factions is explicitly diabolist? There's a story to tell inside of Cheliax about how the Nobility has not done well under Thrune, and neither has the middle class, and both would probably like this to change. I mean, Hell is certainly not popular with everybody in Cheliax, and perhaps not even with the majority.

The ability to project power outward against literally any of its neighbors and pose even a semblance of a unified front against anything that might threaten it, up to an including foreign influences that want to tip the scales in favor of one faction or another?

Its status as a major regional power within the Inner Sea, much less whatever might remain of its colonial ambitions?

Cheliax spent 1e doing things like losing much of its navy to fighting with Shackles pirates, losing a whole province (Ravounel) to secession and revolution, and barely keeping a lid on another revolt within the empire's remaining borders. They possess one small colony in Arcadia, one severely limited in power by the Segada Protocol enforced upon it by the indigenous Mahwek; their other Arcadian colony was overrun by undead and failed. Nidal has always been presented as something of an aloof ally, certain they will outlast their 'partners' eventually, and we're about to get an AP about Isger's struggle for freedom from the Chelish yoke. At least one 2e book has said that they've lost the city of Khari to Rahadoum, which would deprive Cheliax of their toehold in Garund.

I don't see the strong, sturdy Cheliax you want on the page very often.

I guess Paizo got burnt with Agents of Edgewatch so that now they need APs where PCs are very clearly on the side of good, especially when the themes come close to RL.

This gives us an utterly unrealistic vision of war, which will be closer to movies like Indiana Jones, with utterly evil and incompetent enemies, and nothing too close to the realities of war such as innocent civilian victims of the "good" side, exactions from the soldiers of said "good" side, politics, compromise ...

Zero morally grey, which sadly ends up in a glorification of war, where the "good" guys are clearly in the moral right and can do no wrong.

It might even end up as decried as AoE was.

I mean, AoE's problem was that it tried to have its cake and eat it, too - trying to both be a Good-aligned cop story where the heroes never ever kill while also doing things like volume 1's "get paid under the table to drag mistreated workers off to be executed for striking."

I can definitely imagine an AP where you're Andoren or Isgeri commandos who occasionally have to make hard choices. The AoE-like thing to do would spend the entire Player's Guide emphatically explaining that your commandos should be squeaky-clean morally, with mechanics to enforce it... and then having you fill a mass grave with Chelish civilians in the second chapter of play. That's not a mistake I see Paizo making again.

tl;dr the issue wasn't trying to present nuanced morality, it was a close to the opposite - a massive premise/execution mismatch that presented deeply corrupt institutions as an objectively uncomplicated Good.

I was definitely a little sad to not see any sort of names/terms for the regional Kholo in the Impossible Lands book.

What did you like about Starfinder 1e?

EDIT: This is certainly an interesting choice for a first post on the forums!

In case you are genuinely new here and unfamiliar - Starfinder has always been "Pathfinder, but in the science-fantasy space future," deliberately building on the bones of things like Pathfinder 1e's very sword-and-planet Distant Worlds. The core mechanical pitch of SF2e from the start has been PF2 compatibility; it's never intended to be an all-purposes sci-fi toolbox like you seem to be looking for and furious to have not found here.

It's a little frustrating that you don't seem to think the setting/lore or the rules to create people from it in the book are worth anything. You're not going to get floating alien gas bags or a Versatile Heritage from the FTL dimension of the techno-god in Pathfinder, y'know?

zimmerwald1915 wrote:

What tabletop settings (that lean into good and evil being meaningful things) do not have at least one evil-led country? Why do New Edasseril, the Whispering Tyrant's realm, Mzali, Geb, Nidal, and a half-dozen other examples not count as evil-led countries? What's so special and worth preserving about House Throne specifically as a setting element?

Their patron.

Asmodeus is, by far, more powerful than any other evil country's patron.

There are plenty of evil theocracies with real deities behind them in fantasy fiction, I assure you! Hell, Nidal is right next door and has been tighter with their patron Core 20 god for thousands of years longer than Cheliax has existed, but nobody's demanding that we're owed a pro-Nidal AP where we go flay innocents. Zon-Kuthon lords over an entire plane of existence and an entire breed of fiend, and was also part of Rovagug's binding, so I'm not sure that I buy the idea Asmodeus blows him out of the water.

The 4e Forgotten Realms had a Cheliax-like deal linking Thay to the conquering god Bane, who was a similar-but-more-militant Lawful Evil-style deity. Warhammer 40,000 is all about galaxy-spanning feuds between mortal proxies of hyper-powerful divinities. This feels a bit like demanding to hear out both sides between the Hobbits and the Nazgul, y'know?

keftiu wrote:

Cheliax is a brutal dystopia in thrall to the literal Devil, where widespread censorship, racism, and torture go unchecked. What kind of 'worldview' from their perspective do you feel is owed?

Thankfully, the racism that was a definite part of Cheliax seems to being going away (no more enslaving halflings or tieflings). That was an unnecessary part of a devil-affiliated country.

Leaving the devil-worshiping piece in place IS necessary for an antagonist like Abrogail II. Without it, all you have left is yet another despot-led, but soon to fall kingdom/queendom.

There's got to be a place in Golarion for an evil-led country. Otherwise, Golarion is just like any other fantasy world.

Necessary as antagonists, sure. Necessary as a playable option catered to with multiple AP volumes of writing, editing, art, and layout? That's what I was looking to see justified, because I don't see it.

Also: the idea that having an evil empire is a trait unique to Golarion among fantasy worlds is... well, absurd!

keftiu wrote:

This feels really wild to say when we know Cheliax's armies have recently been swelled by legions of freedmen-turned-conscripts who got pushed into contracts they didn't fully understand. I don't think Lost Omens: Firebrands would've gone there if it wasn't going to be paid off when the writers have now sent that army off to war against the "good guys".

Firebrands was infamously rushed and off-kilter, so I wouldn't read much intent into it. And if Battlecry! is anything to go by, the payoff is far more likely to be "kill the taken-advantage of conscripts unquestioningly, you're on the right side of history" than, say, "fraternize with the enemy and conspire to turn your respective weapons on your respective generals."

Back to claiming that the lore in 2e books can't be trusted again?

I guess Paizo got burnt with Agents of Edgewatch so that now they need APs where PCs are very clearly on the side of good, especially when the themes come close to RL.

This gives us an utterly unrealistic vision of war, which will be closer to movies like Indiana Jones, with utterly evil and incompetent enemies, and nothing too close to the realities of war such as innocent civilian victims of the "good" side, exactions from the soldiers of said "good" side, politics, compromise ...

Zero morally grey, which sadly ends up in a glorification of war, where the "good" guys are clearly in the moral right and can do no wrong.

It might even end up as decried as AoE was.

This feels really wild to say when we know Cheliax's armies have recently been swelled by legions of freedmen-turned-conscripts who got pushed into contracts they didn't fully understand. I don't think Lost Omens: Firebrands would've gone there if it wasn't going to be paid off when the writers have now sent that army off to war against the "good guys".

zimmerwald1915 wrote:

** spoiler omitted **

I’d prefer a world where things are less black & white.

Playing APs where the PCs are always “good” or at least on the side against “evil” feels like the writer of the AP is trying to force their worldview on us.

Sure, playing the paladin in WotR was fun, but ALWAYS being the Paladin/Champion can be boring after a while.

Cheliax is a brutal dystopia in thrall to the literal Devil, where widespread censorship, racism, and torture go unchecked. What kind of 'worldview' from their perspective do you feel is owed?

More importantly: would enough groups have fun embodying it for months at a time for it to make financial sense to make? I doubt it.

It's worth saying out loud: the mahajanapadas of Vudra are colloquially known as the Impossible Kingdoms.

While there seemed to be a lot of momentum building towards an Arcadia book for a while, it honestly now seems like there's been a surprising amount of momentum towards Casmaron instead (which would do some nice work linking the Inner Sea with Tian Xia, both already featured in PF2) with things like Howl of the Wild's Ancestries and the Myth-Speaker AP being set in Iblydos.

Of course, it's almost certainly about the Impossible Lands instead, what with Nex's overdue return and a certain ghost king wanting to necromancer it up on the battlefield again... but I wouldn't be shocked if we learned more Casmaron stuff in this, despite it being a rulebook.

Translation errors and not correcting mistakes are indeed serious problems, but I'm not sure there's anything wrong with tying a print run to a pre-order goal - the odds are very good that they need a minimum of that many books for the order to make financial sense for them.

I'm not sure about the printing situation in Spain, but I know that for many TTRPG people in America, printing costs went up as much as 8x during COVID and never came back down. A situation where Devir pays for a bulk order of Starfinder books that might not actually sell to the relatively niche market they cater to could be disastrous; the pre-orders help them be sure demand is actually there.

I've loved Iblydos since Distant Shores. Can't wait to finally see it!

Hellknights have always had a fashy edge, even when efforts have been made to try and present them with some degree of nuance, but it's interesting that they seem to be committing harder to outright being evil scumbags in recent PF2 books and SF2 as well.

I wonder what ancestry is best for the Satyr?

Gnomes, maybe?

It seems like they're set up to be opposed to couatl for Arcadian stories, but we haven't really gotten to enjoy that yet.

They've said that the Godsrain/Hellfire Crisis is a multi-year affair, so Impossible looping some of Garund into the wartime spirit (with Geb's return to active rule and Nex's seemingly-imminent return) makes good sense to me. Being a book about magical conflict across Golarion could tie the Runesmith into potential hostilities between Runelords in New Thassilon, too.

I'm really hoping we can hear about Heyopan, in Arcadia, in this book - it seems to be a similarly high magic place, and I love the teases we got in Guns & Gears.

I'm sure we can help if there's specifics you can name! Faux-Greek stuff shouldn't be too hard to puzzle out.

WAIT there was Playtest ERRATA!?

Went up May 2nd and is still stickied!

ElementalofCuteness wrote:

So will Technomancers keep their unique Spellshape features? It to me is what makes them different then all other casters current in their extreme focus upon them. Removing them would make it feel like a Technological Wizard instead of a Technomancer to me personally.

I personally feel the opposite way: the current Technomancer's excessive focus on spellshapes is what made them feel too close to a spellshaping Wizard to me, especially as their more interesting components were being sidelined. I'd still like to see their spellshape feats kept, but I hope the playtest summary's statement of shifting them away from spellshapes means those spellshapes become fully optional, and the Technomancer's new focus will be on abilities that are markedly different from the Wizard's.

Yeah, I agree with this! The playtest Technomancer was a class with some really interesting features (and some quite broken ones!)... that ultimately felt like it should've been called "Spellhacker". There was a real gulf between the class fantasy in name and theme versus what its mechanics actually touched.

Daggerheart is a lighter game than D&D 5e, while PF2 is a meatier one. I think more groups are looking for the former than the latter these days.

Also, PF2 is 6 years old and Daggerheart is new - I can't blame them for being more fired up about a recent release!

It's been happening for years. They crop up when Paizo staff take off for the weekend.

Osirion, 1000%. It's theme park Egypt, complete with the Mummy's Mask AP from 1e.

The Starfinder 2e playtest draft has been available for a while now, and does indeed use the same Ancestry system as PF2 - in fact, it uses *all* the same systems as PF2! You can make a Halfling Mystic just as easily as you can make a Lashunta Mystic.

The post-playtest blog is up, and Technomancer is getting "significant changes," including "more class features they can use with technology."

Significant changes to Technomancer is music to my ears. The class is SO important for selling that melding of magic and sci-fi at the heart of Starfinder's identity, but the playtest draft was deeply troubled.

Excited to see the final result!

I'm curious: why'd you cut Meyanda out?

WotC's parent company is worth about 8 billion dollars, last I checked; Paizo is not. Temper your expectations accordingly.

There's two lovely PF1 games from Owlcat.

Awakened Animal (Lion) Cleric of Drokalion with the Beast Seeker Background - you're a devotee of the greater lion, and hope to be divine like him someday yourself.

are those gauntlet made of crab shell

need more crustacean shell armor

His father presented him with a pair of sturdy gauntlets made of molted iivlar shell to keep him safe, and his mother said a brief prayer to Skode, the giant goddess of heroism.

Ezekieru wrote:

It won't be in Iblydos, however. It deals with the Saga Lands and New Thassilon instead.

So no becoming a Hero God in Iblydos by the end of the 1-10 AP.

So disappointed.

You can be a hero-god right from level 1; that's what mythic power means. Chinostes was only level 12 in 1e, and Iapholi just had 4 Oracle levels. Ongalte was level 10. If Drokalion is a typical dire lion like he seems to be, he was only ever CR 5.

Iblydan hero-gods have almost never been super duper high level. That's their whole thing: a little bit of mythic power in a mortal hero.

Okay, I'm much more sold on the Jotunborn after this glimpse of them - they seem really interesting!

Chinostes, Drokalion, Iapholi - my old friends, it's so wonderful to see you again! I've waited many years for this.

I make a lot of noise about my hopes for Arcadia, but our first glimpse of Iblydos in Distant Shores alongside it was just as exciting - and that Tyrant's Grasp backmatter mini-article on hero-gods is an obscure favorite of mine. Here's to Myth-Speaker!

EDIT: Whoever plays an Awakened Animal (Lion) Cleric of Drokalion first, know that you are the coolest PF2 player.