Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Chronicle of the Righteous (PFRPG)

Yep! They're rocking the elk antlers pretty hard too!

You guys are killing me. I'm probably not going to see this until next Wednesday, tops. (and perhaps not until next weekend)

It sounds glorious!

Relevant to your interests perhaps: There is an ibis-headed Empyreal. Not specifically Osirioni in flavor, but she would easily fit in there.

Also, the dazed and confused Empyreal is rocking a very Egyptian looking holy symbol. ;)

Mikaze, did you catch the part where she is actually semi-responsible for Zon-Kuthon's return?

Oh yeah. That adds a lot of new angles to one of my favorite god drama focal points. :)

Shelyn: I miss my brother...

Black Butterfly: :(

millenia later

Black Butterfly: Hey...I found your brother.....:)

Shelyn: :D

Shelyn: :)

Shelyn: :|

Shelyn: D:

Shelyn: ;_;

Black Butterfly: :(

I'm curious about this one and thinking of buying it, since roughly half of my character designs tend toward 'divine affiliated' themes. It sounds like the fluff aspects are spot-on and very interesting, so I might buy it for that reason alone, but I have a question I hope some of you can answer.

Specifically, what sort of game materials are present for PCs to use? In various campaigns, I currently have a Celestial Sorc (who values Good-aligned summoning, plus Good or at least non-Evil blasting, controls such as Grease/Glitterdust, defense they can share with others, and so on), a Desnan Bard that enjoys confusing the hell out of enemies in addition to the usual 'help your allies' schtick the class does, and a pair of religious-themed Fighters (melee with high speed/light armor types). Anything they'd care about?

There's a lot of player oriented material to be found, not just in the new spells, items, and PrC but also in all the Obediences and Boons listed for each Empyreal. Without the PrC though, the flashier boons take quite a bit longer to attain(up to 12th level IIRC). The more subtle benefits from the Obediences can be gained much earlier though.

can't really answer the character-specific questions for sure without the book in front of me though...

Well, that's more detail than the product write-up was offering. Thanks, Mikaze!

Irnk, Dead-Eye's Prodigal wrote:

Mikaze, did you catch the part where she is actually semi-responsible for Zon-Kuthon's return?

Oh yeah. That adds a lot of new angles to one of my favorite god drama focal points. :)

Shelyn: I miss my brother...

Black Butterfly: :(

millenia later

Black Butterfly: Hey...I found your brother.....:)

Shelyn: :D

Shelyn: :)

Shelyn: :|

Shelyn: D:

Shelyn: ;_;

Black Butterfly: :(

Thinking about it, this brings up another question; Black Butterfly went out there & found Zon Kuthon...

Does this mean she was stronger/better adapted, or does this mean where she found him was not ?where? he was broken, or possibly it means he was doomed/destined from the start...

Or...
If we want to get really evil...
Maybe it means Zon Kuthon isn't really Dou Bral after all...

Deer/Elk, yes.

Moosathel!

Irnk, Dead-Eye's Prodigal wrote:

Mikaze, did you catch the part where she is actually semi-responsible for Zon-Kuthon's return?

Oh yeah. That adds a lot of new angles to one of my favorite god drama focal points. :)

Shelyn: I miss my brother...

Black Butterfly: :(

millenia later

Black Butterfly: Hey...I found your brother.....:)

Shelyn: :D

Shelyn: :)

Shelyn: :|

Shelyn: D:

Shelyn: ;_;

Black Butterfly: :(

And now I'm basically wishing I had the money to fly over to Seattle and pick up the darn thing myself...

Thinking about it, this brings up another question; Black Butterfly went out there & found Zon Kuthon...

and was not broken in the process.

Could just mean that Black Butterfly was *sneaky,* and got in, grabbed Zon-zon, and bugged out before getting caught.

Irnk, Dead-Eye's Prodigal wrote:

Thinking about it, this brings up another question; Black Butterfly went out there & found Zon Kuthon...

and was not broken in the process.

Could just mean that Black Butterfly was *sneaky,* and got in, grabbed Zon-zon, and bugged out before getting caught.

Ha, and if anyone would know anything about being quiet and stealthy it would probably be her.

I like the idea of the Black Butterfly's nature making her immune to Eldritch Abomination mindbreakage too. There's also the possibility that Dou-Bral had a certain flaw that made him vulnerable(or a welcoming target) to whatever changed him.

To be honest though, I just figured she found the wreckage of Dou-Bral wandering aimlessly on the edges of the Golarionverse's reality before leading him back and that her inherent alien nature gave her a "Hey, I found your dog! Also what is rabies?" mindset. ;)

Would it be alright to ask for more detail on two item summaries from the product description?

"Methods to bolster mortal spellcasters’ efforts while summoning all the different types of celestials."

Is this an expansion of Summoning in some way? If so, broadly how?

"New spells for spellcasters to hurl at their wicked foes and new magic items to aid adventurers in their battles against evil."

Any particular 'blast' type spells in the Sor/Wiz 1-5 range?

No need to go into excessive detail such that the mods might frown on it, but a little more detail on these points would be really nice and help my purchasing decision.

I am super excited about the Black Butterfly. After drifting between Desna and Calistria, my chaotic good shadowdancer finally has a patron that is perfect :-)

Set wrote:

Irnk, Dead-Eye's Prodigal wrote:

Thinking about it, this brings up another question; Black Butterfly went out there & found Zon Kuthon...

and was not broken in the process.

Could just mean that Black Butterfly was *sneaky,* and got in, grabbed Zon-zon, and bugged out before getting caught.

Ha, and if anyone would know anything about being quiet and stealthy it would probably be her.

I like the idea of the Black Butterfly's nature making her immune to Eldritch Abomination mindbreakage too. There's also the possibility that Dou-Bral had a certain flaw that made him vulnerable(or a welcoming target) to whatever changed him.

To be honest though, I just figured she found the wreckage of Dou-Bral wandering aimlessly on the edges of the Golarionverse's reality before leading him back and that her inherent alien nature gave her a "Hey, I found your dog! Also what is rabies?" mindset. ;)

Before I begin my response WOOOO IN MY DOWNLOADS! God I'm liking this better then ultimate campaign.

Okay response,
Yeah I feel like part of the reason black butterfly was unaffected is because the void is literally a part of her as well as her relationship to Desna. To me I picture as this metaphysical representation of good in the dark tapestry, a great force rendered small & mostly silent by the vast and truly alien landscape that most of the universe actually is and just trying to do what little she can to help the little races stay safe in this hostile and fearful universe.

Does each of the Emperayal Lords have a PRC in this book or is the PRC general in terms of prereqs and specific in terms of abilities?

Does each of the Emperayal Lords have a PRC in this book or is the PRC general in terms of prereqs and specific in terms of abilities?

Considering the size of the book (64 pages) and the number of Empyreal Lords covered by the book, my guess is it's a single prestige class to represent the concept of Empyreal cultists. As was the case with the three Books of the Damned. As I don't have my copy of the PDF, this is just a guess.

Best to start with one book, I suppose. As opposed to the bajillions of demon lords the game has seen come and go, and the more than a dozen 'nine archdevils,' along with the various other uber-fiends (like Anthraxus), the concept of 'Angel Lords' is pretty shiny and new, and while we've had dozens of articles going on in depth about this demon lord or that infernal heirarch, including the 3.5 Books of Fiends, and entire adventure series dealing with figures like Orcus and Lolth, we've really had little more than a couple of *sentences* about 'arch-angels' or Ragathiel or whomever.

They are pretty much starting from scratch, compared to entire articles worth of text on nobodies like Zuggtmoy, so it's probably for the best that they start small, and grow the notion more organically, than just pump out a bunch of stuff on Agathion or Azata, for instance, about which we know shockingly little, or Garuda and Peri, about which we know even less!

With names like 'planeter' and 'solar,' it leaves me wondering if there are angels named after other celestial bodies, like size and shape-changing Lunars or vast quasi-corporeal Nebulars or portentous doom-heralding fiery-trailing Cometars, or, Kirby forfend, purple-armored planet-cleansing Galactars. Are armies of angels called 'constellations,' and can they array themselves precisely to form vast glyph-like forms mimicing astrological formations that enact mythic ritual effects, so long as they remain 'in formation,' becoming 'constellations' not only in name, but in fact?

I do hope that some of the evocative names from the Bestiary (p. 18 and p. 23) get a callback. Cocidius the Hawk-Keeper, Ogoun of Fire and Iron, Cernunnos the Stag Lord and Muyingwa the Seed Thrower (a Mwangi angel? Woo!) all sound super cool.

Dude...sounds like you need to write a 3rd party product because that whole thing was just too cool. I want exactly what you just described.

Thanks Mikaze and Dead-eye! I can lay that ghost to rest xD

Also, one more indulgence - do they go into some detail how the heavenly hosts (or Elysium/Nirvana) go about hierarchies or (lack-there-of), and how the various lords interact with one another?

Reading these comments has pretty much made my month. Possibly year. So glad everyone is enjoying the book!

YESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYES

This one and Champions of Purity are definitely for you Mikaze, and all your "More good stuff for good guys" advocating. Enjoy! :)

HOLY @#$% VILDEIS :O

Easily one of my favorites too. I wanted to make sure from the beginning--from the Empyreal Lords' first mention in Pathfinder #2--that these guys were hardcore. Demon lords for good guys, was always the core idea, so variation (especially beyond the classic radiant warrior with wings) has been central to these characters.

Also, the idea of good guys that are still terrifying to mortals shows up again and again in myths and religion (when aren't prophets shuttering in fear?), so I wanted to make sure that came across in a big way. ;)

Glad you're digging it!

Now the question is does he grant domains?

Tabris is not an empyreal lord any more--he's something... else, now. So details on him are a bit outside this book's purview.

Arshea hit that perfect "in-between" area in his/her art.

Yay! Thank you for noticing! We had a lot of back and forth with Arshea, making sure she felt androgynous and realistically attractive. She's very much about exploring gender roles and making sure her followers find the gender and sexuality that work for them, so we wanted that idea at least touched on with her art. And it's one of those great pieces where you see it, don't think anything of it, and then read the text and go "oh!". :)

doc the grey wrote:

Now the question is does he grant domains?

Tabris is not an empyreal lord any more--he's something... else, now. So details on him are a bit outside this book's purview.

Will we be hearing more about Tabris in the future?

F. Wesley Schneider wrote:

doc the grey wrote:

Now the question is does he grant domains?

Tabris is not an empyreal lord any more--he's something... else, now. So details on him are a bit outside this book's purview.

Will we be hearing more about Tabris in the future?

+1

I really, really LIKE this book. I was so fearful that it's going to be yet another one-dimensional Catalog of TurboGood book where every page tries to be MORE GOOD than the on before.

Instead, it's full of interesting and often provocative ideas. Grim, shadowy, revolting and sometimes downright controversial concepts that fly in the face of "our idea of good is basically Christianity with flaming swords riding on dragons" trope that plagued D&D since day one. Empyreal lord that looks after prostitutes? Shady infiltrator celestials? Freakin' Arshea? Mortification rituals? Empyreals with domains such as Death, Madness, Void or Darkness?

Great work, Amber and FWS!

Yay! Thank ya, thank ya!

Something very important to me about this project (and which Amber fulfilled on exquisitely) is that it not feel distinctly Christian. Aside from the fact that that's not a religion that exists in Golarion, I feel like Christianity is too often the lens through which the celestial realms gets viewed. Without getting too into real world religion and mythology, I also think this is part of the reason why Hell, the Abyss, and certainly the demon lords are so much more interesting than Heaven and its rulers. With any dogma that says "What's right is THIS, and what isn't this is wrong" it's self limiting. One thing will always be one thing and if you don't like it, you don't like it. Everything else, on the other hand... well, there's infinite more potential there.

That's what I wanted with the empyreal lords: a thousand flavors of goodness, in the same way that with demon lords, archdevils, etc, we get a thousand flavors of evil. This one doesn't work for you? Pick another, it's still good and might better mesh with what turns you on. There's a whole spectrum of white on the way to gray and black, lets see what that means.

Glad folks are digging it! :)

(And again: HUGE THANKS TO AMBER FOR BEING BEYOND AWESOME!!!)

I went ahead and ordered it from Paizo even though I have it preordered somewhere else.

*Salutes*

F. Wesley Schneider wrote:

doc the grey wrote:

Now the question is does he grant domains?

Tabris is not an empyreal lord any more--he's something... else, now. So details on him are a bit outside this book's purview.

Will we be hearing more about Tabris in the future?

Yup! He's one of my pet characters. You can bet you will. ;)

Also, the dazed and confused Empyreal is rocking a very Egyptian looking holy symbol. ;)

LOL. Explain!

Could just mean that Black Butterfly was *sneaky,* and got in, grabbed Zon-zon, and bugged out before getting caught.

She also found him drifting. Perhaps similar to how a ship struck by a tsunami might be found somewhere other than where it was struck.

I am super excited about the Black Butterfly. After drifting between Desna and Calistria, my chaotic good shadowdancer finally has a patron that is perfect :-)

Ha! Nice. Yeah. This is going to be right up your alley. :)

Shalafi2412 wrote:

Does each of the Emperayal Lords have a PRC in this book or is the PRC general in terms of prereqs and specific in terms of abilities?

Considering the size of the book (64 pages) and the number of Empyreal Lords covered by the book, my guess is it's a single prestige class to represent the concept of Empyreal cultists. As was the case with the three Books of the Damned. As I don't have my copy of the PDF, this is just a guess.

This. H.S.'s guess is spot on.

They are pretty much starting from scratch, compared to entire articles worth of text on nobodies like Zuggtmoy, so it's probably for the best that they start small, and grow the notion more organically, than just pump out a bunch of stuff on Agathion or Azata, for instance, about which we know shockingly little, or Garuda and Peri, about which we know even less!

Cheese it, they're on to us! ;)

Also, one more indulgence - do they go into some detail how the heavenly hosts (or Elysium/Nirvana) go about hierarchies or (lack-there-of), and how the various lords interact with one another?

They do! There's not a ton of space spent on it, but there's a whole section on an assembly called "Concordance."

I can't help but feel that what the Empyreals did to Tabris was so vastly hypocritical that some of them should have Fallen on the spot. Honestly, I find it almost unbelievable that events could have gone down as written, and I'm wondering if you've really given us the whole story...

Wow. I can tell that crunch time is over: I think that is the most Wes has posted in a very long time!

Somebody move Wes away from the coffee machine, please ;)

Kevin Mack wrote:

F. Wesley Schneider wrote:

doc the grey wrote:

Now the question is does he grant domains?

Tabris is not an empyreal lord any more--he's something... else, now. So details on him are a bit outside this book's purview.

Will we be hearing more about Tabris in the future?

Yup! He's one of my pet characters. You can bet you will. ;)

Awesome! :D :D :D

Tabris is actually going to play a role in my new home campaign that I'll be starting in a few weeks.

I can't help but feel that what the Empyreals did to Tabris was so vastly hypocritical that some of them should have Fallen on the spot. Honestly, I find it almost unbelievable that events could have gone down as written, and I'm wondering if you've really given us the whole story...

History is being written, in this case, by what I suspect is a more unreliable narrator than most.

Reading these comments has pretty much made my month. Possibly year. So glad everyone is enjoying the book!

This one and Champions of Purity are definitely for you Mikaze, and all your "More good stuff for good guys" advocating. Enjoy! :)

Seriously, y'all rocked out something fierce here. Thankyou thankyou for this book. :D

Easily one of my favorites too. I wanted to make sure from the beginning--from the Empyreal Lords' first mention in Pathfinder #2--that these guys were hardcore. Demon lords for good guys, was always the core idea, so variation (especially beyond the classic radiant warrior with wings) has been central to these characters.

Also, the idea of good guys that are still terrifying to mortals shows up again and again in myths and religion (when aren't prophets shuttering in fear?), so I wanted to make sure that came across in a big way. ;)

A number of these folks definitely did hit that "dark and/or scary" note, both the ones that are meant to be grimdark(particularly Damerrich and Vildeis) and those that really aren't(the Black Butterfly and, to a point, Irez). Was grinning ear to ear seeing those folks! :D

Yay! Thank you for noticing! We had a lot of back and forth with Arshea, making sure she felt androgynous and realistically attractive. She's very much about exploring gender roles and making sure her followers find the gender and sexuality that work for them, so we wanted that idea at least touched on with her art. And it's one of those great pieces where you see it, don't think anything of it, and then read the text and go "oh!". :)

It definitely paid off! One of the best things about it is that anyone could look at it and interpret him/her either way they want.

I think some folks here on the forum are going to want to be pointed towards that entry. Doing that in just a bit!

Mikaze wrote:

Also, the dazed and confused Empyreal is rocking a very Egyptian looking holy symbol. ;)

LOL. Explain!

I didn't have the book with me at the moment, but I was thinking of Chucaro. Her symbol has a bit of Eye of Ra going on. :)

One of the early things I did was bounce all over the new Empyreals looking for examples that would have been perfect fits for certain cultures, Osirion among them. Speaking of which: Arshea's flail design seems to have a bit of that aesthetic too!

Evil Midnight Lurker wrote:

I can't help but feel that what the Empyreals did to Tabris was so vastly hypocritical that some of them should have Fallen on the spot. Honestly, I find it almost unbelievable that events could have gone down as written, and I'm wondering if you've really given us the whole story...

History is being written, in this case, by what I suspect is a more unreliable narrator than most.

Yeah, I'll admit when I first started reading that section my reaction was "well setting up all Good to be based on lies is a pretty bleak way to start the book for Good, but it does completely flipped turned upside down by the curator's note which reminds the reader of the lens that event is being viewed through. :) That and we've been warned to take the "cursive" portions of the Book Of's with a grain of salt anyway. (we still don't know the whole truth about Ihys and Asmodeus for certain for example!)

Gah, putting together rambly review...

edit-I love the origins of the Balisse. :)

edit2-Peri followers of Vildeis

edit3-Zohls has an awesome "anti-succubus" look going there. (and I can't stop myself from imagning her as a more collected Patricia Tannis at the moment)

Something extra to whet the appetites of those that haven't gotten their books yet:

Ragathiel is not the only Empyreal Lord with origins in Hell.

Imagine entangle on steroids. Now imagine that it's modular.

Avatar fans will get to see what Azula would look like if she turned her life around. ;)

Any particular 'blast' type spells in the Sor/Wiz 1-5 range?.

Sorry, missed this but there's one spell just outside that range(6) that literally does all of the elemental energy damage. :)

Some of the Boons can be pretty blasty, but they're pretty high up there.

Thanks for the info, Mikaze. That matches some impressions I'd heard from others, and is a big help in making my purchasing decisions. I'm also hearing about 95% of the aforementioned summoning is tied to the new prestige class, with the rest of it being one spell for Druids, Clerics, and Summoners.

I'm a little disappointed by that, but the info I'm hearing on the actual Empyrial Lords seems like it could lead to some neat character ideas so I'll probably buy this book soon anyway.

Okay finally got some time to talk about this book again and all I have to say is wow, this book has totally eclipsed all the other orders i picked up this week including Ultimate Campaign and as it stands I'm only on Tolc (page before Vildeis). Will say though the ones I've been really digging are the ones that are just so unexpected and give some great ideas for original characters. For example I love that their is a lord of ignorance and simplicity and whats better is he's LG.

Also I have been absolutely loving see tabris with more answers about him and his story and I can't wait to see more. Now as for the whole narrative on what happened to him and the true history of the empyreal lords and heaven I've always taken it as a celestial equivalent of a good cthulhian tale. The host of heave asked to know all that was to be known and sent Tabris to accomplish this, the great tragedy is that he did. Now the host wants to destroy the books and that information before it can cause undue harm the multiverse at large and expunge it and Tabris is in this kind of bind were he believes in the cause of good and some of the danger inherent in having all the evil that exists easily codified for convenient use but believes that the knowledge in and of itself has a right to exist and can be used to good (probably in more ways then the lords would want to get behind, like airing out their sins). On top of this he's also probably of the opinion that most of the heavenly host might not be the best choices to carry out this work considering what he had discovered in his research.

I question for all Paizonian! Why can't I choose this as the starting option for the Campaign Setting Subscription? I'd like to subscribe and get my hands on this ASAP, but it only has Fey or Castles.

I think it is because the subscription prerelease has already gone out, and it's a way to avoid having people subscribe to get a book early, and then potentially unscubribe thereafter. I believe though, that there is an option to change what book your subscription does begin with, though I'm not sure you would actually get the PDF any earlier.

I question for all Paizonian! Why can't I choose this as the starting option for the Campaign Setting Subscription? I'd like to subscribe and get my hands on this ASAP, but it only has Fey or Castles.

Actually I think it's due to this batch being a double shipment of Campaign Setting books; Chronicle of the Righteous and Fey Revisited.

So you missed the boat to start it as a subscription.

And it looks like double shipments for the next couple of months.

I can't tell you all how glad I am to hear all these comments. I wrote this book during pretty much the worst year of my life. I remember sitting in the sun with Wes at PaizoCon and telling him about a friend of mine who had just passed away and how fresh and raw everything was.

I returned to Canada, went back to school, and in between classes and helping my newly-widowed best friend and dealing with my own grief (and an unexpected medical issue--yeah, it was quite a year), I wrote this book. It was comforting, in a weird way, to leave behind "earthly" things and contemplate what the ultimate good in a multiverse would look like. I tried very hard to give capital-g Good a lot of nuance and a lot of different dimensions. To think of all the different kinds of suffering and what would provide a balm. I hope I invested in it the gravity and peace and joy that I imagined during the writing.

Of course I tried to put in a lot of fun flavour and mechanics too, a lot of cool options and awesome crunch. I love how the mystery cultist turned out, particularly the capstone ability. I love the spells. And the mortification rituals! The empyreal lords, as you can imagine, were the most fun to write. I've always loved fairy tales and myths and legends and I tried to draw on them to make the lords epically fantastic, like Tabris covering seven leagues at a step, or Ragathiel wrestling in the Maelstrom for 16 years, or Eritrice's origin. I love Arshea and Bharnarol and Irez and of course Vildeis and who am I kidding, all of them.

This is not to say the book is perfect and those who have complaints, I will take them to heart. I just wanted to say that this book was a labour of love and also healing and I'm so glad it turned out the way it did.

Nice to know a fellow Canadian had a hand in this book.

and yes I agree mystery cultist turned out sweet.

Though I noticed that not every empyreal lord listed in the inside cover was covered in detail in the book (Not all had boons).

Are there Religion traits tied to the individual Empyreal Lords like there are for individual gods?

Are there Religion traits tied to the individual Empyreal Lords like there are for individual gods?

Nope,

But there is one obedience and multiple boons for each one.

Though I noticed that not every empyreal lord listed in the inside cover was covered in detail in the book (Not all had boons).

The inside cover lists all the "main" empyreal lords as well as the "lesser" ones from pages 54-55. The latter are not detailed but give an idea of all the potential empyreal lords out there. We did give them favoured weapons and domains just in case players really liked one of the minor ones.