zezia's page

And now, over a decade later, we know for sure Golarion is high magic, with 1 in 5 people having a Cantrip and 1 in 20 people being able to cast at least 1st rank magic.

Where is this from?

Damn that is a beefy book

One other thought I had is that it might be worth looking at the exceptions to the commonalities.

One consistent theme is that the death of a god is a calamitous affair, the fallout can be disastrous even when an evil god bites it.

Except... Asmodeus.

I'm not sure what the implication is, but it seems very notable that our in-universe author wrote sometimes grotesque fanfiction about the horrible consequences for the death of the gods and then for Asmodeus' story presents his death as an almost unconditional win for literally everyone else.

Here is the thing though. All of those other Prophecies had the gods dying and no to really take their place. Asmodeus's brother filling the role helped keep things in check.

Just wondering something about Nethys. If we take the prophecy as fact that Nethys could in fact be able to affect magic on such a scale the question is how come? He is just a god that came from Golarion how come he was able to ascend to such a state where he has that kind of control over magic? Wouldn't there be other gods of magic far older than him?

Is anyone noticing a pattern here? Most of the prophecies seem to paint worshippers and allies of the gods in a bad light. Making them surprisingly useless Psychopomps just becoming bystanders, Cayden's followers disowning him over a technicality and much of Golarion abandoning the gods because they ran away. Is the entity making these prophecies have bit of bone to pick with the gods?

Gotta wonder if Iomedae will be the one to kick the bucket. Both Iomedae and Arazni have a history so Arazni taking over Iomedae spot would be fitting. Still hope it's not Sarenrae though.

I feel really bad for Anastasia. Aside from a handful of other people from Earth that came along she is all alone in a world very alien to the one she came from. Having to deal with the trauma of herself and her family being executed and now ruling over a nation of evil witches. I would love to her a novel about her experiences.

I do hope they slightly retcon the Taldor expedition and how it ended up on the other side of the world. It never made sense how a fleet ended up on the other side of the world.

Fun little fact regarding calenders in Golarion.

Queen Anastasia introduced Earth's calender to Irrisen.

"A more recent invention is Irrisen’s new Stasian
calendar, which sets itself 2,700 years behind Absalom
Reckoning for reasons that, though still unknown, may
be tied to Queen Anastasia’s mysterious origins."

I don't even play the tabletop game but I still buy the books because I love the lore.

To be fair though the end might still be billions of trillions years away(gap length kinda ambiguous but still) even if in god scale its "less than half of entire cycle left" or something like that :p Then again with how things are borked maybe end is coming faster than its supposed to

Anyway always thought that Hei Feng was god of benders and hangovers, so kinda weird to hear Cayden went through deterioration with his responsible drinking, then again I guess it is more of gods reflecting starfinder's more modern era

Maybe what caused the Gap is the reason for Pharasma's appearance. Maybe she did something to cause the Gap which greatly weakened her.

I don't even play Pathfinder but I am still looking forward to this book as I adore the lore of Golarion.

Hilary Moon Murphy wrote:

I think the forums will get better again.

I don't think they will. We've hit the point where people are saying and hearing completely different things to each other. Conversation is VERY difficult with that level of miscommunication. But it's neigh impossible when people don't recognize that it's happening, and beyond impossible when one method of communication is itself seen as synonymous with virtue.

People will either separate into different forums operating under their same conversational paradigm or just spam ignore the heck out of each other at the first sign of someone being in the other camp.

To be fair a lot of things happened on these forums within a few months. It's really hard to keep track of all the crap that has occurred it's mind-bogglingly on how these forums have been racked with constant surprise. It has not been enough time for things to settle on this site. Right now the best solution for nothing else to happen and let things cool down.

Edit: So yeah no doubt tensions are running high on this site but that's because of circumstance beyond's anyone control.

Hilary Moon Murphy wrote:

Feros wrote:

The boards have been shot ever since Sara Marie and Diego left and while HMM and some others (KC included) have tried to help guide the threads away from the abyss, those attempts seem to have been in vain.

I think the forums will get better again. Things got better with the permanent suspension ban hammer, but Erik Mona's public statement brought a whole new set of angry posters at a time when many Paizo Staffers go on very well deserved holiday breaks.

I feel like there should be a filk based on Maxwell's Silver Hammer and the banning process, but maybe that would be a bit tasteless.

Aside to Aaron: I am glad that you guys are looking into ways to improve forum moderation. Also, hugs to James Jacobs just for being James Jacobs.

Hmm

I hope you're right, Hilary. Lately there have been days I almost don't want to look through the threads as I know it will be a sad slog.

Why not take a break then? Give yourself a week or two and then come back.

Funnily enough, that's exactly why Anastasia isn't queen in my table's version of Golarion. :-) They asked her what she'd prefer to do, and she was like "actually, I'd like to just kinda be a person without having to rule anything." So per the end of our RoW game, she was hanging out with her time-shifted twin sister (hey, what's one more historical liberty?), Baba Yaga's been replaced by "Mama Odette" (one of the PCs) and another PC and his Jadwiga boyfriend are ruling Irrisen.

Now I'm thinking "Stasian tech" in our Golarion is because she's become a scientist and is working to popularize it. :-)

That makes sense. Anastasia not wanting to rule over some foreign nation after what she been through? She remembers being executed with the rest of her family and then being resurrected (how is she going reconcile that with her beliefs), and learning that other gods and magic are real. One would think she might be a tad overwhelmed with everything.

The post-campaign material at the end of book 6 also has the player characters make Baba Yaga promise not to do that to Anastasia if she becomes queen. Presumably Dear Grandmother might look in to alternative methods to get extra juice during the intervening times.

I believe that is only through a certain boon. Even then if you were Anastasia would you want to take that risk?

I just realized something. Won't Anastasia and her children suffer the same fate as the previous queens? As we learn from the Adventure Path Baba Yaga slaughtered the children first and then use the queen as a battery for her own life force. Why would Anastasia ever agree to become Queen? The adventures learn of this during the Adventure Path and I would think to tell her.

I think it's currently 1926 - time has moved forward!

And fortunately for you, the only real feasible way of getting to Earth is to take Baba Yaga's Hut... and she's definitely not going to make using THAT easy. There are some bits and pieces of Earth in Strange Aeons as well, but mostly "the Necronomicon contains a copy of the real Arabian Desert" and a certain other spoiler.

There is a settlement of Russians living in Irrisen (2e PFS Scenario "A Frosty Mug"), allowed to reside there by Baba Yaga after they were rescued from the place on Earth the Reign of Winter party went to, and they are eager to help provide their scientific knowledge (and teach Pathfinders ice hockey).

I'm just imagining the funny conversation that followed that the adventures had with the Russians to try to convince them to enter some walking house with chicken legs.

zezia wrote:

She is damn near all alone in a country filled with evil witches that hate her and the commoners that don't know what to make of her.

Its really messed up that the adventures who saved her made her Queen.

I think it was honestly the best choice for her - if she had stayed in Russia and somehow become Tsarina, she would have.... Been a young girl traumatized from her execution, ruling over a technically not foreign, but actually very foreign to her (stepping out of a tsarist palace into the real russia would have been like visiting a different planet) nation with a completely different culture to the one she was raised in (again, the palace vs real russia thing), filled with revolutionaries who hate her and commoners who don't know what to make of her.

Don't get me wrong her options on Earth were limited to say the least so her going to Golarion was the best choice of a s##*ty situation. Its just in the adventure path its never really mention on how Anastasia feels over the idea.

You know I been thinking about Queen Anastasia Romanov and how messed up it was for her to take the throne of Irrisen. Here we have a young girl traumatized from her execution and the rest of her family taken to a alien world where magic, gods, and demons exist and she is excepted to rule over a foreign nation with a completely different culture, religion, and tongue. She is damn near all alone in a country filled with evil witches that hate her and the commoners that don't know what to make of her.

Its really messed up that the adventures who saved her made her Queen.

Honestly the idea that most elves would have remembered someone from pre-Gap contradicts with previously established lore. I would have framed it as the majority of elves are still alive that remember the traumatic time of the post Gap years. I think this would have worked better.

Was Soul hidey place taken?

The practice of things that could be called a phylactery are incredibly common across religions.

The ta'wiz, tawiz (Urdu: تعویز‎, Hindi: तावीज़),[1] muska (Turkish) or taʿwīdh (Arabic: تعويذ‎) for Islam,

japamala, jaap maala, or simply mala for Indian religions

Omamori for shinto...

(copying from a few different wiki articles)

The jewish specific phylactery would be Tefillin

Ascribing it to Judaism is like saying there's an antisemetic connotation to the world altar. (honestly whens the last time an adventurer dealt with an altar that didn't have more black obsidian, blood,skulls, demon horns and sacrifice victims on it than a heavy metal album cover?)

Soul cage sounds boring. If they could have cut jk rowling a check for horcrux that might have worked.

Cut jk a check? Uhh, that doesn't sound like the greatest of ideas considering that JK is far as I am aware transphobic, and given the recent going ons at Paizo that might not look good.

Sent my email. Also why all the endless complaining about one former employee. She doesn't work there now we just focus on supporting the workers of Paizo.

Huh? So that happened. Best of luck to them!

I love the paragraph detailing how orcs teamed up with dwarves to help with their Quest for Sky. To the current day it's mentioned, they remain good allies. I hope we see more of these groups.

I will be waiting until the dust settles before making a judgement. I've seen too many times of allegations being put forth and people utterly going after the accused like a pack of rapid dogs and it turns out that the allegations were no where near as bad or untrue. If there is truth to some allegations I hope the company can do better and I also do believe that they can make it happen.

I am in love with the Matanji and the Mbe’ke (their origin story is hilarious)

Quote:

I don't know. The fact that the Free Captains has maintained its headquarters in the same location for centuries does not speak well for the Pact Worlds or groups like the Stewards or Hellknights. I'm not opposed to the existence of the Free Captains the real issue that I have is that somehow their main base had gone unnoticed for literal centuries breaks my suspension of disbelief.

And there is the subjective reality at the center of this lively discussion. I suspect that no one will discover a single resolution to the issues and ideas expressed here because each of us has our own threshold for breaking our suspension of disbelief. Beyond this, each of us has our own threshold for even caring if that suspension is broken in the first place.

That said, I have enjoyed reading the majority of posts. I enjoy the creative challenge of wrestling with these sorts of what-ifs, exploring them from multiple angles. If there has been any controversy or contention here at all, it seems to me that it comes from a subtext of either criticizing or defending the game designers' decision on this particular point. It is far easier for me to imagine space pirates skirting and flirting with interplanetary law than it is for me to truly imagine the challenges and pressures of creating, writing, editing and ultimately publishing a book of this scale. With twenty-three authors and developers all working together and individually to meet deadlines and coordinate efforts to produce 208 pages of creative writing, aimed at an audience ages 13 (or so) and up, the likelihood of certain details not passing the test of suspending disbelief for some readers seems incredibly high to me.

I came to a similar conclusion that zezia did quite a few posts back that I need to simply take what's written as a starting point and then adjust it to make it mine. I think zezia's solution to the problem is brilliant -- as are many of the other suggestions people came up with. The Starfinder setting broke my suspension of...

Well Said.

I dunno, the general reasoning of "Due to the current stellar-political climate and activity of other more existential threats, the amount of hardware and manpower needed/would be lost dispersing a bunch of pirates is not worth it compared to largely tolerating the current state of affairs where they just rob/racketeer a bunch of merchant ships" fits fine as far as I can see.

There's a whole host of bigger threats than some pirate yokels lurking around and the various heavy hitters either have to deal with those or can't afford to gut their fleets clearing some relative small frys preying on shipping due to opportunistic "allies" or those same threats.

I don't know. The fact that the Free Captains has maintained its headquarters in the same location for centuries does not speak well for the Pact Worlds or groups like the Stewards or Hellknights. I'm not opposed to the existence of the Free Captains the real issue that I have is that somehow their main base had gone unnoticed for literal centuries breaks my suspension of disbelief.

Edit: If I were in charge during the war with the Vesk I would not want this group of pirates in my backyard attacking my trade routes. What if the Vesk were to supply them with weapons or pay them to increase their attacks on supply lines. They would be too much of a security threat.

zezia wrote:

That's why I said the base would constantly be on the move so that even if a defector or captive gave the current location it would be useless in a matter of days if not hours. Though that doesn't change fact that if the base was infiltrated by a spy who could just leak the information. Perhaps through some unknown means (gotta have some mystery) can be trusted Free Captains would be able to find the base. Something akin to Alluvion.

While starship crews occasionally wander through the Drift
looking for valuable scrap or hidden treasures, trying to
locate a particular location within the Drift, such as a known
site, is exceptionally difficult, requiring a successful DC 30
(or higher) Piloting check. Most Pact Worlds residents know
how tricky it is to return to the same place again and again,
though stories exist of exceptions that result from magic
items, divine fiat, or mysterious “beacon codes” provided by
the Church of Triune. This is especially true of Alluvion, the
Drift’s de facto capital city, which Triune has publicly claimed
as its divine realm. Travelers can accidentally end up in the
city during the course of their regular jumps, but reaching the
city on purpose requires divine coordinate codes granted by
the church, often encoded on limited-use items that interface
directly with a ship’s Drift engine systems

Dead Suns - 4 - The Ruined Cloud Pg 47

And how do the captains find the base themselves? For the base to have any worth the captains must have information how to get there and that information can be extracted. And if one thing is sure to draw attention then it is a irregularly moving asteroid/small planetoid.

Even when the captains do not know the precise location of the base and just fly to a location, transmit a signal and let the autopilot take them there with no record where they were going, it still would give enough of a hint where to search for the base to be found quickly.

That's why I mention that through unknown means only Free Captains can find their way to the base in the Drift.

Perhaps through some form of magitech implant that is exclusive to a Free Captain allows the safe navigation to the base. So whenever someone tries to access the implant it self-destructs. Also, while an irregularly moving asteroid/small planetoid would attract attention in the Material Plane it would not in the Drift as it stated that "trying to locate a particular location within the Drift, such as a known site, is exceptionally difficult". Remember this version of Broken Rock is constantly on the move.

I am not trying to come up with an idea that is completely foolproof and has no plot holes because at the end of the day Starfinder is still Science Fanasty. I am just trying to come up with alternate ideas that preserve the setting and being able to withstand scrutiny for more than a few seconds.

Master Han Del of the Web wrote:

In all honesty, it is likely a mix of organized pirates being far more preferable to disorganized ones, and those with wealth and power not caring enough to root them out so long as their interests in the area are protected. Remember, an organized group is something you can deal and negotiate with.

That wouldn't stop Hellknights.

Xenocrat wrote:

It must be really frustrating to spend half a day reducing the defenses of Broken Rock to rubble, losing several ships in the process, and sending in the landing forces only to discover all the remaining gunners had piled into a few shielded ships and escaped into the drift or crammed into some null space chambers and teleported away to leave an empty husk.

One can safely assume, of course, that everyone but the stay behind gunners escaped via regular ships fleeing into the drift as soon as strong enough forces approached.

It still means that pirates lose one of their only safe ports which severly limits their ability to maintain their ships and sell their loot.

Also, when it is so easy to escape through the drift then piracy becomes impossible.

zezia wrote:

I guess I will just resort to headcanon. The asteroid base is "officially" a freeport that "totally" doesn't provide a stopping off point for pirates. In reality the true base of the free captains it's somewhere drifting in the drift always constantly on the move which makes it near impossible to find as whenever groups like the Hell Knights or Stewards get intel on the whereabouts of the base it would already be long gone.

And how do the free captains find their base?

No matter how well you hide it. One defector or captive and the liberal use of Mind Probe will reveal its location. Even Speak with Dead can give you enough information so that you at least know where to look

That's why I said the base would constantly be on the move so that even if a defector or captive gave the current location it would be useless in a matter of days if not hours. Though that doesn't change fact that if the base was infiltrated by a spy who could just leak the information. Perhaps through some unknown means (gotta have some mystery) can be trusted Free Captains would be able to find the base. Something akin to Alluvion.

While starship crews occasionally wander through the Drift
looking for valuable scrap or hidden treasures, trying to
locate a particular location within the Drift, such as a known
site, is exceptionally difficult, requiring a successful DC 30
(or higher) Piloting check. Most Pact Worlds residents know
how tricky it is to return to the same place again and again,
though stories exist of exceptions that result from magic
items, divine fiat, or mysterious “beacon codes” provided by
the Church of Triune. This is especially true of Alluvion, the
Drift’s de facto capital city, which Triune has publicly claimed
as its divine realm. Travelers can accidentally end up in the
city during the course of their regular jumps, but reaching the
city on purpose requires divine coordinate codes granted by
the church, often encoded on limited-use items that interface
directly with a ship’s Drift engine systems

Dead Suns - 4 - The Ruined Cloud Pg 47

zezia wrote:

Brother Willi wrote:

The Vesk and the Swarm are existential threats to the Pact Worlds. The Free Captains are not.

Sending Citadel Ships to hunt down a small asteroid in the Diaspora is a terrible waste of resources, and potentially makes them vulnerable to other opponents.

If you want to set up your campaign to have pirates being hunted down unmerciful, by all means do so. If your issue is how can pirates survive in the face of the other factions of the Pact Worlds, there are many explanations available.

Oh I have no doubt that they would be pirates in the Pact Worlds system. It just seemed odd to me that none of the factions within said system seem to muster the resources just to track the base down. Also the asteroid is by no means small it's over 450 miles wide which I believe makes it near the size of Ceres.

When I talked about the Citadel ships I meant the Hell Knights were able to afford and man these ships they should have had the resources needed to take down a base of pirates.

I guess I will just resort to headcanon. The asteroid base is "officially" a freeport that "totally" doesn't provide a stopping off point for pirates. In reality the true base of the free captains it's somewhere drifting in the drift always constantly on the move which makes it near impossible to find as whenever groups like the Hell Knights or Stewards get intel on the whereabouts of the base it would already be long gone.

As a couple others have said, it's entirely possible that they have tracked the base down, lost some ships to it's defenses, then found it abandoned, because it's pretty damn hard to mount an attack totally by surprise, and drift engines are really good at getting away with a few minutes notice.

Then the pirates made a new base, in a new asteroid, called it broken rock and pretended the authorities never found the 'real' one in the first place.

Doesn't seem that way. In the Pact Worlds book it states that the Free Captains headquarters has been inhabited by said group for centuries. Also it never states that any faction had found the location of the base.

The Vesk and the Swarm are existential threats to the Pact Worlds. The Free Captains are not.

Sending Citadel Ships to hunt down a small asteroid in the Diaspora is a terrible waste of resources, and potentially makes them vulnerable to other opponents.

If you want to set up your campaign to have pirates being hunted down unmerciful, by all means do so. If your issue is how can pirates survive in the face of the other factions of the Pact Worlds, there are many explanations available.

Oh I have no doubt that they would be pirates in the Pact Worlds system. It just seemed odd to me that none of the factions within said system seem to muster the resources just to track the base down. Also the asteroid is by no means small it's over 450 miles wide which I believe makes it near the size of Ceres.

When I talked about the Citadel ships I meant the Hell Knights were able to afford and man these ships they should have had the resources needed to take down a base of pirates.

I guess I will just resort to headcanon. The asteroid base is "officially" a freeport that "totally" doesn't provide a stopping off point for pirates. In reality the true base of the free captains it's somewhere drifting in the drift always constantly on the move which makes it near impossible to find as whenever groups like the Hell Knights or Stewards get intel on the whereabouts of the base it would already be long gone.

Think too on the amount of resources it would take to muster up a fleet capable of doing this. Military actions take time and effort, and the factions you list would have to expend capital to do so. The benefit of eliminating the Free Captains may not be worth that expense - for now.

I also suspect the Free Captains are the sorts where - if Broken Rock were attacked - they would scatter and reconvene elsewhere. Broken Rock would inflict some casualties on the enemy, and some Free Captains would die. But the faction would not be eliminated and the problem would not be solved.

The Pact Worlds could ostensibly eliminate piracy the way the British did: Warships in every corner of the system, hunting them down. But unlike the Age of Sail British, the Pact Worlds are a fractious confederacy that lacks the political will and unified fleet necessary to do this.

The factions I listed would have had centuries to build up a fleet to take out a single base. Reading the books it shows the Hell knights having massive mobile citadels that are armed to the teeth or how about the Knights of Golorion with their cathedralships and cruisers I feel that if both these factions pool their resources together they could eliminate a single astroid. If the pact worlds are so fractious how the hell were they able to fight against the Vesk for 200 years and then fight the Swarm and win.

I am aware destroying the headquarters of the free captains would not result in their complete destruction it would still deny them a very valuable port and see them scattered. If none of these factions can do this one task that they're meant to do then they are beyond incompetent.

There are also a wide variety of criminal elements with a vested interest in the Free Captains as an asset they can point at their rivals: The Aspis Consortium, the Golden League, unscrupulous corporations, possibly even the Veskarium, to name just a few. Such groups would happily funnel lawyers, guns and money to keep the more Lawful factions off the Captains' back.

I feel that wouldn't stop groups like the Knights of Golorion.

Yet unlike the Stewards, the Knights feel no need to honor local laws they consider unjust—theirs is the law of Heaven, and mortal
structures that violate it deserve to be broken.

Starfinder Core PG 478

Its seems that the Free Captains have been operating out of Broken Rock for centuries so that would include during the Silent War so I would imagine that the Pact would not tolerate a major outlaw group attacking supply lines. Honestly, it's the issue that somehow the Free Captains are able to hide the location of their headquarters even though its smack dap in the middle of the Pact Worlds system. It wouldn't take much for a group like the Hellknights to capture someone who would know the location and just use magic to forcibly extract the information. Or even just using scrying.

One solution would be to move the location of the Free Captains' main base to the Drift. That way it cannot be found by tracking ships or scrying. Groups might know its in the Drift somehow but they do not know how to determine the exact location due to the weirdness that is the Drift.

I have been reading the Pact Worlds book and it came to attention that the Free Captains have their headquarters based in the Pact Worlds system which is home to various factions that would like to see them dead. Their headquarters know as the Broken Rock is a 450-mile-wide asteroid (similar to Ceres) so it's not exactly hard to notice. The only explanation as to why this asteroid has not been atomized is:

To keep law-enforcement organizations such
as the Hellknights and the Stewards off these ne’er-do-wells’
backs, only Free Captains and those they vouch for know the
exact location of Broken Rock. In the event of an attack, an
array of automated capital laser weapons known collectively
as the Broadsides defends the asteroid.

Pact Worlds pg 82

You would think factions like AbadarCorp, Stewards, Hellknights, Knights of Golorion, and the various militaries of the Pact Worlds would have the resources to track down this one base that has been used for centuries.

I have been reading Distant Worlds and it describes in great detail that Verces is quite advanced both magically and technologically (built freaking space elevators) it would be more than capable of reaching Golarion. Vercites already trades with Akiton why not Golarion?