ornathopter's page

Soralyon's edicts include

craft golems and artwork from stone

Even though 'golem' is no longer used for constructs in Paizo content.

Do SPaG errors get reported here too? In the introduction on page 6, it says

"Why is that some mortals worship other gods when the faiths of this “core” selection is so prominent?"

"Why is it that some mortals worship other gods when the faiths of this "core" selection are so prominent?"

ornathopter wrote:

Is it possible to be a mortal herald of a covenant? It could be fun to play that, maybe combined with the godling mythic destiny...

Nope, I’m afraid not. The Prerequisite states, “worshipper of a specific deity, master in Religion or your deity’s divine skill”.

Well, that's disappointing. Being the mortal agent of the concept of alchemy, or community solidarity, or sneaky manipulation, unconcerned with any one god but the idea as a whole, seems like a really fun concept. But it doesn't look like there anything that breaks if you ask your GM to make an exception, so maybe it'll work for home games.

Yeah, that could be fun! The craft sequence gargoyles can also shift from a gargoyle mode to a human passing one, so a yaoguai-type shape changing power like that could be fun, or just giving them an innate spell for an ancestry feat. And I'd love it if they got some sort of ability to ward off spirits or curses or so on.

Also, to be clear, the 'pretending to be a stone statue' thing is from the Battlezoo gargoyles, so I've been bringing it up as a reason why I'd like to see Paizo's version; because the one that exists has mechanics that don't fit the vibe I was hoping for for PCs.

Giving them some sort of ability to attune to a place could be really fun - going 'this is MY turf now' can be fun mechanically and as a character beat, and the Paizo gargoyles do slowly change to match surroundings; that could be a way to mechanically reflect that for PCs.

Is it possible to be a mortal herald of a covenant? It could be fun to play that, maybe combined with the godling mythic destiny...

I hope we get a few more Champion causes in this one - I'd really like to see a nature-focused champion (if Vindicator is a ranger but religion, why not a champion but nature?) Something about protecting the wilds, or guarding growth. Or maybe an archival Champion or one focused on banishing the undead - this seems like a great book to just put a few more in.

Wow, I'm excited! And as a Jewish fan I'm glad the inquisitor's name was changed. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on this!

Technomancer and Mechanist will be playtested early in 2025.

I'm kind of expecting to get those in an Ancestry Core book (well, maybe not under that name, if it's a lot of uncommon and rare options, but you get it.) Some of them could definitely use polishing and integrating errata, and it's not as though Paizo has run out of entirely new options people want to see as full ancestries.

ornathopter wrote:

I also don't get why someone's fan AP, if they're not charging any money, isn't protected as a transformative work even if it does use Golarion proper nouns. What would happen if someone posted their homebrew Numeria content to AO3?

Generally speaking, transformative uses are, to quote the US Copyright Office, "those that add something new, with a further purpose or different character, and do not substitute for the original use of the work." (emphasis mine) Fan APs actually DO "substitute for the original use of the work," which is why you can't use "Golarion proper nouns" without a license to do so. You can make fan APs because the rules qua the rules are not copyrightable - i.e. the common observation that you can't copyright game mechanics, only a particular expression of them.

Copyright law sucks and is a huge headache for everybody.

Do they actually substitute? Someone's novel-length fanfiction about Harriet Potter's adventures at Hogwarts after using magic to transition could be said to be substituting the original books - someone might be reading those instead of reading the original - but they are certainly transformative. If someone wants to make an AP that's Iron Gods 2 "What if here Kul-Inkit has taken the throne and you're her inner circle of warriors who must thwart an invasion by out-of-work crusaders from the Worldwound", then that's using Golarion proper nouns, but it's fairly transformative, and doesn't substitute as an official Paizo AP (because it's based on a worldstate or situation they're probably not going to write).

Though, I'm also not a copyright lawyer of any kind, and my understanding is that even the judges who rule on these sorts of cases tend to use pretty arbitrary definitions of what's transformative enough.

I also don't get why someone's fan AP, if they're not charging any money, isn't protected as a transformative work even if it does use Golarion proper nouns. What would happen if someone posted their homebrew Numeria content to AO3?

It sounds like the Dragonblooded get full flight at Level 9 - faster than any of the other versatile heritages. I hope that the sylph at least will get errata'd to match that pace - as spirits of the air they seem like they have the best justification out of anyone.

Wow, it's pretty awful for the people running a rehab service insist that their disabled clients do things in a worse, more tiring way for the convenience of the abled people getting paid to help them. "You have to practice not being disabled anymore before we deign to do our jobs of helping you manage your disability"?

There are groups like ASAN (the autistic self advocacy network) who consult on representing autistic characters in the media, in addition to their other activism. That's most likely a better place for Paizo to get writers or consultants than any one of us random forumgoers or a social media hashtag. It would be nice to have such an iconic, though, or significant NPCs (although hopefully with many notes for the GMs roleplaying as those NPCs to do so without falling into stereotypes.)

A desert is an important kind of ecosystem, but desertification of other ecosystems due to water loss, erosion, etc is still very bad environmentally. I think doing a fantasy version of the environmental restoration efforts underway now could be very fun. And it could be interesting to have a bit of the setting show off the many different kinds of arid ecosystems and drylands that exist, since people tend to assume they're all endless barren sand dunes.

Yes, there are new weapons, armors, and equipment. There's also some new bottled monstrosities, poisons, beast guns, and siege weapons.

It sounds like the Mortal Herald is both an archetype that can be taken at Level 12, AND a Mythic Destiny.

ornathopter wrote:

Does anyone know if the psychopomp ushers would be in this? I started reading about them and I'd like to see them updated. Plus if they're in this book we could get Yivali's commentary on them as psychopomps, which would be neat.

They're confirmed to be in it yup

Excellent! I've been hoping for them to get more love - and it'd be nice if Vavaalrav got a new symbol that wasn't just a Celtic cross. I'd just thought it was very unlikely that'd be touched on again.

(I've been pondering using the Ruins of Nebrindae, the psychopomp temple in the plane of Air, for something, since it seemed like a great little plot hook, but decoupling it from real world religious iconography would be pretty important to me. So the cross and circle symbol would be a problem.)

That's what I figured - it's one thing for someone to get a level 9 flight in an ancestry, it's another for someone to be able to stick flight on any ancestry at all. Although it is odd that, in that case, Sylph wasn't moved to level 13 as well. Maybe it's just something they missed?

Captain Morgan wrote:

You don't have the book yet, so stop arguing about it.

I imagine other people who have posted in this thread likewise don't have the book yet, and I am also not the only one to have made the conclusions I have made, so enough with the petty gatekeeping.

But people in this thread DO have the book. They have the PDFs that subscribers receive when their books ship. That's how we have an AMA thread where many of the same people here are taking questions from people about what's in the book. So people aren't all going off of word of mouth and rumor, some of them are just looking at what it says in their HOTW copies.

Generic monsters are different from versatile PC options - and so are deities. Sarenrae has a very specific personality, and that's great, but someone in a homebrew setting would have no issues using cleric domains to make their own completely different sun worshipper if that's what they wanted, because those mechanics work whether you're on Golarion or not. And people can enjoy Sarenrae a lot, but I have a feeling people would like her a lot less if she was one of the only 9 options you could ever play.

I agree that I'm not the biggest fan of the new mythic destinies either, I liked way more when mythic paths were "the thing you are right now, but mythic". It made those characters feel like they themselves were some larger than life heroes that with their mere pressence could shake the battlefield. The new implementation seems more like "your character is taking traits from X" which is not bad by itself, but removes that individuality that made your character unique because YOU were the source of your powers, right now it seems you take them from somewhere else.

To be fair, this is all speculation at the moment. We have no idea what implementation is happening, we just know that one of the titles is a title another character has. We won't know how it's actually going to play out for months, certainly not specifically enough to say 'one of these is definitely you being mini-Szuriel.'

Personally I hope Apocalypse Rider is the mythic destiny for having a very, very metal steed that you can ride out on and inspire awe and terror in all who behold you. Especially if you also get to customize a mount so someone could have a Mad Max esque car or a dragon or whatever.

Personally, I'd rather have mythic destinies that could be used without referring to much to the setting. I like Golarion a lot - more than a lot of default RPG settings - but I do still like to play in a completely homebrew setting, or use the engine for another fictional setting. And I'd like to be able to use mythic rules in games like that without having to file too many serial numbers off. It's one thing for archetypes to be closely tied in with different aspects, since there's tons and tons of them, but when we're only getting a few of a certain thing, I'd like them to be easy to transplant. That's just me, though.

Yep, we were only getting 10 all together. That said, there'll be an ebook collecting them all which will have some sort of bonus content!

I'm also assuming the guardian will be the defensive martial with no divine baggage, but I would also not say no to the more defensive, tanky primal character some folks have thrown around.

Also, am I wrong in thinking these class playtests all but confirm we are getting the combat-heavy, martial-focused release we've all been hoping for?

Actually, now that you mention it, having them be guardians of NATURE could make a lot of sense... or at least it's a good name for a primal tank.

Cole Deschain wrote:

Gisher wrote:

ornathopter wrote:

The Dragon-Eagle is going to die protecting people from a shard of REDACTED in the Worldwound only to be attacked by the Rider of War taking a cheap shot. REDACTEDs will also be falling over the world in addition to Gorum's blood.

What is a dragon-eagle?

Sturovenen

That helped my searches. Thanks!

Yeah sorry, I didn't know how to spell his name. Didn't mean to be confusing! And he sounds like a cool god, I'm sorry to lose him. But at least he went out saving people?

I think the idea was only one of the core 20 would die, but others could be on the chopping block, from other pantheons.

I think it's best to avoid that anyways, I don't know that I've ever seen a fantasy city population number that didn't have people doing math about how it couldn't possibly be that number and result in the city functioning. What's that writing advice about never giving a solid number if you don't have to?

The Dokkaebi info will probably be in the Character Guide, not the World Guide.

Oddly, in the first Zoetrope Log story, they mention "Signs of stony bat spit, similar to those of other gorgon subspecies". So maybe Howl of the Wild is going to make 'gorgon' the generic name for creatures with certain petrification abilities and introduce a few new ones.

First off, we know how the Core 20 dies: torn in half above Golarion, their blood raining down on the world.

We don't actually know that: what you're thinking of is that the Iconic Exemplar is empowered when he is "hit by a gobbet of godstuff that falls out of the sky when a god is ripped in half". Given that this is a WAR of immortals, it's pretty likely many gods will be fighting and killing each other even if the Core 20 member who dies keels over from poison in a cave or something. Divine blood from the sky probably won't be in short supply, so we don't know for sure that that's how the war kicks off.

I'm not sure that 'rovagug is an unfitting source for Exemplar powers so he can't die' works - my impression was that the Iconic Exemplar got hit by some god blood, but that that was a god who'd just died in the fighting, some random divinity fighting some other divinity, not the one that started the war. And that that was only that character's origin, and that other exemplars could be demigods or drink from a sacred spring or any sort of thing.

I was under the impression that dealing with the dark tapestry was more Black Butterfly's job than Desna's.

Kinda sad we don't get a glimpse of Black Butterfly's reaction to Desna's death.

Personally, I'm a little surprised we didn't see her in this - as someone made of the patterns between stars, it seems like this monster should directly affect her too. Or maybe when it ate Cynosure it got her too?

I don't know if this is actually canon, but one thing I'd heard was that Abadar was the Watsonian explanation for item pricing being consistent across regions so that GMs don't have to worry about that math, or currency exchange, or any of that. He/his institutions prevent price gouging in most areas, and that sort of thing. If that is in the actual lore, he might be safe just because he's a helpful handwave for a gameplay abstraction.

Okay, that's a brilliant spin, because Shelyn does it, only to discover she can't just undo millennia of self-inflicted suffering - Dou-Bral is still the god of despair, just of a different kind than Zon-Kuthon.

This comes off as the writer going up to her and shouting in her face to stop living in the past - let go, and begin again.

Though Arzani is likely most pleased to have someone join the Divine PTSD club to trauma dump at each other.

I don't really read it that way - no matter what, Zon-Kuthon was holding Dou-Bral as a prisoner in his own body, and causing harm to many through it. He still has trauma to work through, but that doesn't mean he should have stayed trapped forever. Now, he can actually choose to travel, to figure himself out, and try to find a way to move forward - and perhaps to reconcile with Shelyn, who I don't think was expecting him to be exactly as he was, but maybe had been hoping he'd at least let her help. And, because of that, Zon-Kuthon isn't torturing people anymore - and yeah, other people started fighting over the hole he left, but they all chose to do that on their own.

Apocalypse Riders sounds like a Mad Max gang, which is fun, and it leaves open the possibility of riding stuff besides horses. I don't see the issue.

Another thing that resembles Igroon is Luis Loza's "funny little picture" posted in response to his art request. Igroon is described as having lots of eyes and a jagged underbelly maw, and so does Luis's cute little guy!

Can I just say: it's adorable that 'Yivali' puts a little mask face doodle next to her name. I hope that's a detail that shows up in the actual Lost Omens book she's 'authoring.'

I'm hopeful the gargoyles will benefit from the 'match the mythology' rewrites - they're a less touchy subject than quite a lot of others, so I know they'll probably be about the same, but it'd be really cool to have them involve the folklore about gargoyles watching over towns and scaring away demons, or mocking the high and mighty.

The second one is an explorer, a cartographer or something like that.

"Mapmaker" would fit the three syllables three vowels rule.

I still want to know if there'll be a feat or anything to add elemental damage to your unarmed/weapons attacks. Even if it's not the most optimized option, I'd still like to be able to set my character's sword or claws on fire, for the drama if nothing else.

Considering real people with hearing aids will switch them off to avoid hearing unpleasant sounds (or just when someone's being annoying) I don't see why a player character with hearing aids shouldn't switch them off to avoid an auditory effect. That just seems like a sensible in character decision - from the other way around, why would someone with the ability to just turn off most sounds for themselves opt to listen to someone trying to hypnotize them?

I'd really love a Gargoyles ancestry - I'm fond of the 90s show, and (ignoring the 'they're inherently all vicious and monstrous' stuff, which'd probably happen anyways if they were written up to he PCs) the bit in the creature description about how gargoyles get super into their collections or their niche academic or artistic styles sounds like an interesting base to build a culture off of. Maybe something that played with the idea of gargoyles as protectors and watchers, instead of big dumb tough brutes?