sylvansteel's page

Passing the tests requires passing some DC Knowledge checks, that might or might not be successful. Once you pass them, you can get the information you need to form a suitable reply.

Or you can deviate from the mechanics, wing it, and get a satisfactory reply.

I didn't say the encounter couldn't be PASSED. Surely, if you've a paladin of Iomadae in the party, or any cleric with Knowledge Religion, you should be fine.

But, mechanically, as written, it basically punishes people who don't know much about the goddess or her beliefs.

Oh, and Good does not mean 'nice'. Tough love is a thing. Ants should be respectful even to nice people, lest they be stepped on.

==Aelryinth

Actually you are only punished when no one knows the answer AND no one appears humble or confident.

The reward for this question is the Chalice of Ozem, which is pretty much as important for Iomedans as the Cross Christ died on or Thor's hammer. Iomeda is testing the heroes worthiness for such an artefact.

Plus the question about the morgh lord is directly linked to the Chalice. Maybe Iomeda wants the heroes to understand the significance of the artefact she is about to bestow upon them.

Personally I say: Knowledge check, by sucess Major artefact, by failure sonic damage you can easily survive at your level.

Seems like a fair deal to me.

Okay I looked again, and I realize I made a mistake. The dwarfen city of Clash of Kingslayers is canon.

About the prison realm thing: Torag uses giants infused by Rovagugs influence to give his dead priestess a tool of revenge. They were not in imprisoned with the Mad Beast, but in an own prison realm called Myrkos.

Is that Lawful good? Not really.

But... the dwarfen king the priestess wants to destroy has betrayed ancient tradition in heinous ways, rules like a tyrant, and has basically given control of his realm to a cult of Lamashtu-Worshippers. Basically all the excuses a Lawful deity needs to smite and smite hard.

Again the adventure was published before certain things became canon, so inconsistencies are to be expected.

If you give specific examples please reference the source, so the rest of us can read what you mean. Otherwise its hard to follow your logic.

Anyway:

1. I assume you mean Clash of Kingslayer. This adventure was pre-3.5, meaning that there are gonna be inconsistencies with the current world setting (for example a dwarfen city thats never mentioned again).

2. I assume you mean Wrath of the Rightious, Herald of the ivory Labyrinth. Iomeda is testing the good in the heroes hearts, preparing them for the trials to come. It is also noted that she revives any heroes, that died without any level-loss.

3. Tabris realized that he could never finish the Book of the damned in a conventional way, as evil always evolves. But instead of admitting this, he corrupted a piece of his own essence, which became the Voice of the Damned, to keep the BotD always up to date (Hell Unleashed, for reference). This was his unforgivable sin.

Also, the celestial host gave him the chance to repent. He refused and was banished. It was never noted that the angels tried to kill him.

4. I assume you mean The Redemption Engine. It was noted that both angels were actually fallen, though no-one had realized it to that point. All other angels (who were not created by the machine), were appalled by their deeds, and the redeemed devil was released of another chain from his past as he executed them, meaning that heaven itself was rejecting them.

New question with the same theme:

What about when you summon a specific evil outsider to ask questions, only he/she/it knows the answer to?

Like summoning a devil to ask about certain souls and contracts? Or a demon about events it was present? Or the plans of a demon-lord it dislikes?

Is this kind of interaction also evil? I mean, you pretty much only talk to them. Maybe bribe them with a few trinkets (it doesn't have to be virgin maidens). If the answer is yes, wouldn't that make interacting with any kind of evil creature an evil act?

Ok, first up we have Iomeda and Cayden Cailan, now both gods.

Than there Sirian Aldori, founder of the Aldori-swordlords. Belkzen.

Sorry just a few more legendary examples.

What do you mean when you say that you want a living breathing swordmaster? What do you mean with all the historic love and significance for that role? I own many Golarion books. None of them state, that meele weapons, especially swords, are more significant than magic.

Why do Pathfinder Tales have to less weapons? In most of them the protagonist is usually swinging some kind of meele weapon, sometimes bolstered with magic. Adventure Paths? Why? There is a broad variety of enemies and NPCs with different fighting styles in every path. Are there not enough BBEGs who relly solely on weapons? Skull and Shackles, Jade Regent and Giant Slayer have them.

I don't get what your complaining about. Maybe you could elaborate a little more.

If you want a list of famous fighters in the inner sea region: Inner Sea Combat has a list of them.

Rysky wrote:

Um no, different Hellknight orders come into conflict all the time because they have different beliefs, they're not a hive minded conglomerate. That doesn't make them chaotic.
Hell, Paladins of Iomedae and Abadar have conflicting views and probably go at it a lot too.
INfighting among Hellknight Orders is exactly the same as infighting between different states. It's a chaotic act. The fact it's a result of discrepancies in codes doesn't make it any different then peasants rebelling against unjust laws of other kinds. Hellknight Orders thinking the laws, methods, means and whatnot of the other side being 'not right' is no different then peasants thinking the same.

Chaos descends.

paladins of Iomadae and Adabar have their differences, and probably have very lively debates about it, paladins having diplomacy for a reason. Violence would be incredibly rare...they'd find common ground and different duties to perform within their codes. Paladins being like that, you know.

==Aelryinth

Only that there was and IS infighting.

In Cheliax, The Infernal Empire, describes, that at one time, the Order of the Pyre besieged the citadel of the Order of the Thorn. They killed more than half of the Thorn-Hellknights, and when forces of the Chain and Scourge moved in to intercept, the Pyre-Helllknights burned the fortress down, killing most of the Thorn Knights.

Hellknight orders are different factions, with different values. The all uphold order as the highest principale, but have different approaches.

I was playing in a homebrew-anime style RPG. Our characters were Japanese highschoolers, who discovered the existance of demons youkai. I was playing the cliche Class Repressentative, who enforced the rules with an iron fist.

Another student brought a possessed doll to another PC, who was playing a Taoistic priestess exchange student. My character saw the doll moving.

Demon Class Rep from hell: Pets are not allowed at school!
Taostic priestess: It's a demon, it doesn't really exist.
DCRfh: Non-Existance is no excuse!

Getting a recommendation from another diety always helps. Worked for Kurgess and Milani. Though ultimately coming to embody a precept, basically becoming a paragon of such is the major way. Naderi witnessed many tragic romances and had gained divinity upon watching 2 of them kill themselves, rather than be apart; Zyphus felt true rage at the tragedy of his death, decrying how unfair it was, vowing to fill the world with tragic deaths to usurp Pharasma as God of Death.

Naderi was no mortal, but an Empyrial lord in the service of Shelyn, tasked with proctecting forbidden romance. When one of her charges choose suicide before separation, it triggered her ascension into a true deity.

Plus Hellknights must kill a devil to become full initiates.

Pretty sure that means that they are NOT alligned with hell.

In the 'Inner Sea Monster Codex' an agent from Hermea describes several races and their compatibility to humans. The strix-passage includes the following sentence:

"Even if they were reproductively compatiple with humans, hundreds of years of Chelish aggression has imparted a burning distrust of outsiders;"

Well, there is the Starstone. Who wouldn't want control of a stone that can make you a god. Absalom is also one of the most important Trade-cities in Golarion, so if they want to spread technology, that would be a good place to start.

As for why the society wants to enter: An important, historical artefact is the price. That should gain their attention.

In my group, one of the players was a Cleric of Shelyn, tutored by Nualia's real mother. She had to give up the babe to protect her from certain demonic influences with connections to Karzoug (she was a guardian against the Runelords herself, long story).

After defeating her, the cleric convinced Nualia, that her real mother had still loved her, and that she was serving the very enemy her mother sought to keep at bay (though he thought that it was some ancient demon, his master died before she could reveal the secrets of the Runelords to him).

Nualia herself formed a small group of her own, trying to sabotage Karzoug however possible, and even defended Sandpoint during the raid. The group included several other villains redeemed by the PCs, among them Orik, a stone giant, a lamia and a skinsaw cultist.

After the defeat of Karzoug, Nualia lived as a hermit, before joining the caravan in Jade Regent, trying to make amends with Ameiko for luring her brother down a dark path. She was partly responsible for

In the end she joined a samurai order, at the command of the new empress of Minkai.

The novel "The Redemption Engine" actually covers this question.

As for disatvantage in the war: The war between heaven and hell is a war of Philosophy. Heaven belives in Law through rightousness, hell in Law through oppression. If the forces of heaven would employ hell´s tactics of recruitment, wouldn´t they admit that hell is right, making the whole war pointless?

Heavens method of recruitment of the other side is called redemption.

I made it easier for monsters to integrate into society. The majority are still evil, and secluded villages might still attack on sight, but most major cities accept non-humanoid creatures, as long as they behave.
I did included this because of the RotRL campaign

Andoran is still a slavery-hating Democracy, but it didn´t completly abolished nobility. The democratic system is more like Victorian England, with many chances for common houses to ascend.

Cheliax description states, that it maintains a strong standing army. It´s not unrealitic to assume, that this means, that about 1% of the population is permanently working for Cheliax martial forces (note: martial forces, not army. More on this later).

Since the books never mention the total population of a country we have to run some numbers. Most of Cheliax cities described in the ISWG have a population between 1.000 and 20.000, simelar to Germany during the 15.Century, so I assume the population is divided between city and country as it was at this time (about 12% living in cities). Germanies biggest city at this time was Cologne with 40.000 people. Since Westcrown has 114.700 inhabitants, it would be easy to assume Cheliax has three times Germanies population of this time, but since beside Egorian most Chelish cities have less than 20.000 inhabitants, so I assume Cheliax has 2.5 times the inhabitants of Germany at 1400 (which was also the time Europe started to recover from the plague). This would be 35.000.000 people.

As I said before, about 1% percent (350.000) are in martial forces, however this includes town-guards. Unless there is an extreme danger elsewhere, these guards will most likely only defend the city they are stationed at. I am going to assume, that cities have all 1% in guard duty. This would mean, that 42.000 Chelixians are town-guards.
In a worst case scenario the militia can be rallied, which is 5% of the towns population.

As for Hellknights, this is a little bit trickier. Knights were part of nobility, and the Hellknights traditions makes it a little hard to assume anything. For sanity reasons I assume all knights (Hellknights and others) are noble, and hope the numbers will add up anyway. Nobility was also about 1% of the population. However a large part of Cheliax nobility includes schemers and spellcasters. I am going to assume that a fifth of nobility pursues military carrers and knighthood in orders supporting Cheliax, and two thirds of these people joining the Hellknights. That means 7.000 commanders and Hellknights.

Now Spellcasters. Again all official ones noble, again about a fifth able to cast spells. Of this 7.000 I would say 10% joins (or at least helps reguarly) the military. 700 Wizards for Cheliax army.

Asmodeus clergy is warlike, and his priests and monks will support Cheliaxs war-machine. With monk cloister and battlefield clerics it´s safe to assume that about 5.000 men from Asmodeus church support military efforts (to few real world comparisons to be more exact).
Clerics of other gods may heal the wounded.

So Cheliax has:
308.000 common soldiers
42.000 town guards and policemen
7.000 nobles (which includes many Hellknights)
700 Wizards
5.000 Monks and Clerics of Asmodeus (plus several healers)
An unknown number of devils, summoned as needed

If you want to know the numbers of sailors in the navy, you will have to look up different material, since Germany pretty much didn´t have any warships at that time.

Note that the numbers will rise if Cheliax is preparing for war

Revenge is a dish best served cold
Kill a hated enemy with cold-damage

He only wants to play
Have an animalcompanion/mount/tamed pet, which is at least 2 SizeCategories larger than you

I catch a grenade for you
Help someone to avoid damage by taking it yourself

Bluff, bluff, bluff the stupid ogre
Eliminate a succesful bluff check of an ally

There is a cultural reason I am holding this lead plate near my head
Avoid the detection of your aligment (Character must be a least Lvl5)

I´m chaotic neutral
Do something clearly evil without having an evil aligment

I am your father
GM uses NPC from your backstory or one of your former characters as BBEG

I´ll be back
Do something suicidall, while trusting to be resurrected afterwarts

On page twenty my trip to...
Justify something through excessive backstory

YOU NEVER SPLIT THE PARTY
Die while the party is split

These aren´t the druids you are looking for
Charm/Dominate a lawenforcement figure
(Druids is the correct spelling in this case, it was a very funny session in Rahadoum)

Munchkin
Use at least 3 alternative rules from other sources than the Core Books

Why should magic not be ubiquitous? Look through the official APs. Nearly every NPC with a longer stat-block carries a Healing-potion with him, even the goblin commandos and warchanters in Burnt Offerings. The doctor in The Skinsaw Murders has a +1 armor. The ogres of The Hookmountain Massacre have magical ogrehooks for big humanoids.
If creatures like these carry magic weapons, I wouldn´t call magic ubiquitous.

Abadon is an angel of death, not sure if that counts
Ahriman was a synonym for destruction in Persia
Mephistopheles was the antagonist in the german folktale Faust
Dispater was a roman underworld god
Mammon means money. In the bible Jesus mentioned, that people souldn´t serve the Mammon.
Abraxas is an mystic word, used by gnostic sects
Charon was the Boatsman in greece
Baalzebub is a christian version of the name of the heathen god Baal
Baphomet was the demon, the knight templars were accused of worshipping
Kostchtchie was a figure in russian folklore
Haagenti is mentioned in demonology
Dolores spanish, the short form of Our lady in sorrow. Doloras has the nickname Our lady in pain.
Mahathallah is based on a demon in jewish folklore.

Those are the ones I know. At PathfinderWiki there a sometimes links to the inspiration.

In Sargava The lost Colony it´s noted, that Mwawangi often depict the gods brought by the colonists as Mwangi, for example iomeda as a tribeswoman, and in Dragon empires Primer several of the main gods are said to be depicted as Tien.
Every culture has an own depiction of the gods, Gods of the inner Sea just shows how they are mainly depicted in central Avistan.