witch-hazel's page

I admittedly never played a real session with either the 1E mythic rules or the D&D 3E epic rules, so my main experience with them is through their respective CRPG adaptations. That said, the thing I liked about the mythic paths in WotR was the opportunity to get a little silly with it.

The myths of our world about beings who acquire these levels of power get pretty ridiculous - wrestling suns, moons, and various other celestial objects, doing everything in your power to prevent your parents (the sky and earth) from making more babies, changing the very terrain of the earth through seemingly mundane actions, etc. So being able to do stuff like going

There's a place for very grave and serious mythic campaigns and shorter stories of course, but I think acknowledging the silliness of the source material is valuable, too. When players have spent a long time building up to this point in the first place in anticipation of being able to make big, cosmic changes, sometimes it's nice to just let them. You've earned the power fantasy, have at 'em.

+1 for Darklands, what relatively little we do know is really interesting, and I'd be intrigued to know more. Anything that increases our chances of seeing more of our friends the aboleths (or other, more eldritch aberrations) is a good idea by me.

witch-hazel wrote:

Slightly off-topic but the horror potential of sahkils for an Arcadian adventure is really strong. At the same time, though, I suppose any Lost Omens book in the setting is necessarily going to have to find a way to balance going into detail about these creatures of fear with remaining appropriate for a general audience. I'm not very well read about the in-universe history of the creatures (though I love their bestiary entries), but am I right in getting the impression that there's been some need to tread carefully around stories involving them in the past? I'm half-remembering seeing conversations about the appropriate use of content warnings and such. Obviously Paizo know how to write about fiends without rewriting the Book of Vile Darkness, but I think with sahkils in particular there's a finer balance between portraying them with the necessary gravity and avoiding doing their work for them.

There's definitely ways to do a Sahkil story that aren't merely just a firehose of triggering content! While you can certainly dial them up, they're closer to Demons than Velstracs in terms of how much control you get with intensity.

Quite a few seek to undermine mortal confidence, especially that of those in power - a small kingdom where the ruler has been pushed into paranoid violence by a disguised Sahkil whispering in their ear could be a lot of fun, with their influence being more subtly felt throughout. There's varieties of the fiends for fear of insects, parasites, and plague - definitely uncomfortable threats, but hardly new to heroic fantasy. Hataam's cult "just" wants to drown people!

Oh FWIW I do agree with you, and I don't expect that they'd screw it up, I'm just interested to see the specifics. For myself, if they were able to find a way to dial the horror up enough to emphasise that these are terrifying beings - but obviously, with the couatls around, there's plenty of hope, too - without going into any squick, that'd be ideal. The demons and devils in-setting often don't feel all that threatening, something closer to the daemons in tone could be pretty compelling.

Not here to say yes or no to anything, other than to say I've been very very excited and eager and impatient to start talking bout an AP I'm working on for next year that hasn't been announced yet, since it's the most excited I've personally been about an AP since Return of the Runelords. (And the one AFTER that one is perhaps the most excited I've been about an AP since... well... maybe Rise of the Runelords, for personal reasons.)

Well colour me intrigued.

Slightly off-topic but the horror potential of sahkils for an Arcadian adventure is really strong. At the same time, though, I suppose any Lost Omens book in the setting is necessarily going to have to find a way to balance going into detail about these creatures of fear with remaining appropriate for a general audience. I'm not very well read about the in-universe history of the creatures (though I love their bestiary entries), but am I right in getting the impression that there's been some need to tread carefully around stories involving them in the past? I'm half-remembering seeing conversations about the appropriate use of content warnings and such. Obviously Paizo know how to write about fiends without rewriting the Book of Vile Darkness, but I think with sahkils in particular there's a finer balance between portraying them with the necessary gravity and avoiding doing their work for them.

I always liked the DC comics character Deadman, so a character who interacts with the material plane primarily indirectly is a fun character concept I'd like to be able to explore, almost like a reverse spiritualist. You wouldn't have to be literally undead like the comic book character or even difficult to kill; maybe you're based in the astral or ethereal plane but with a limited ability to manifest in the material and such manifestations draw on your own life force with their destruction carrying mortal consequences, maybe you're stuck between worlds or some kind of thoughtform or disembodied being primarily of energy.

Johann Krauss from the Hellboy/BPRD comics is another character in a similar vein. I just think the idea of a character who's not entirely physical but who uses possession and animation of objects and creatures to interact with the material world sounds really fun. Krauss, unlike Deadman, is actually pretty vulnerable to worldly threats, so while I think some thought would need to go into balancing something like this that it's not impossible.

The changes happening at the moment in the inner planes could make for an interesting adventure seed, especially with Tian Xia's connection to the elemental planes of wood and metal. Perhaps a plane-hopping diplomatic mission is in order.

I still think it's a little bit of a shame that we didn't get ancestry entries for any of the aliens re-introduced in our recent visit to Akiton, though I suppose it makes sense that one would be unlikely to see many alien adventurers on Golarion. That said (though I see there was some discussion of this already), seeing *some* alien ancestries return from PF/Starfinder would be cool, particularly lashunta or possibly kasatha. Other than that, some kind of ooze-adjacent ancestry would be neat, and maybe something draconic like wyvarans or dragonkin.

I admit this one is based mostly on vibes rather than any particularly broad reading on either area, but I'd be interested to learn what connection (if any) there is between the Mesoamerican flavoured parts of Arcadia (Razatlan, Xopatl) and Mzali, and whether there might've been some kind of cultural exchange in the past that we haven't been told about.

After reading the Mwangi Expanse Lost Omens book, I'd be really interested to see someone (whether it be Paizo or a third party publisher) do a similarly culturally respectful and well written take on the Pacific Islands and Pasifika mythology with involvement from writers and artists from the area.

I would love something like the Advanced Bestiary which Green Ronin put out for 1E but for this edition, a whole book of templates sounds boring on paper but the flexibility it gave to the existing bestiary books was really invaluable.

I wonder if this book will do anything to smooth over the canon conflicts some have mentioned in relation to Outlaws of Alkenstar.

Ghorans are back! Love the new art, and I look forward to exploring the region. :)

A treatment of the mesmerist similar to how the thaumaturge reskins the previously released occultist - ie more focus on their unique shtick and without the spells - could make for an interesting way of doing a non-magical, non-martial support class.

Thank you for asking!

The permission listed in the FAQ is for one copy of any Paizo pdf. This would include text, images, maps, and other assets contained in the file.

If you think there will be an issue with your printer, you can take a copy of the FAQ with you as well. I have heard of this method being used in some places where printers are concerned about copyright issues.

Does the permission being for only one copy preclude me printing double sided or printing multiple pawns for enemies that appear in groups but only have one piece of art?

Given the recent(ish) changes to pawn availability, I was wondering if there was an official word on whether the permission given in the FAQ to print a copy of pdf materials we own extended to printing extracted images? Particularly, as someone without a printer of my own, I'd like to take the creature images from my copy of Strength of Thousands and get them commercially printed (albeit for personal use) so I can glue them to some card and use them as pawns in my campaign, is this something I'm allowed to do? I'm sorry if this is something that's been covered before, I did search but couldn't find anything addressing this specific use-case.

And your solution would be?

For the pawns? If it's truly an issue with the cost of the physical media, offer a digital alternative, whether that be new pawn pdfs, tokens, or simply committing to including art of all new creatures in the APs that feature them so we can make our own.

For shipping? This I will admit is hearsay, but according to those retailers I have spoken to, Paizo have been approached with on multiple occasions by stores and distributors outside the US and the reply has remained the same: that alternative options like bundling orders and subscriptions, con pick-ups and such are something they are only willing to do in the contiguous US.

That said, these things are obviously more complex than any of us in the hobby but outside the industry can possibly know (the art itself isn't free, etc), but also it's not our job as consumers to brainstorm these things. I'm not really interested in having that discussion, only in adding to the chorus of voices expressing discontent and explaining the reason for my own on the off chance someone with more control over these things sees people buying less of something and stops to ask why.

The long and short of it for me is that not having to make everything from scratch is the point of buying an AP; I'm perfectly capable of making my own tokens or miniatures and sourcing art but if I'm doing so anyway I'm more inclined to also write my own adventure.

Personally as a new GM to 2E but long-time player the discontinuation of the pawns line has seriously impacted my confidence in Paizo as a brand and my willingness to put money into the game in general. I have a full bookshelf of Pathfinder books already, but knowing not to expect supporting materials on top of Paizo's continued unwillingness to partner with FLGS or regional suppliers in any way to mitigate the ridiculous international shipping costs of subscriptions is really disheartening. Yes, the primary audience of the game is in the US, but Paizo is also actively making the choice to keep it that way.