RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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After a quick debate with myself about posting this in the "Poll: What part of Pathfinder do you want to know more about?" thread I decided that the intent of what I am suggesting is different enough from that formerly mentioned thread to merit a new thread. What it all boils down to is that I wanted some place where I could suggest an idea for a Pathfinder-related blog post on the Paizo Blog and I felt that the "Poll: What part of Pathfinder do you want to know more about?" (sticky) thread intention was geared more towards making requests & suggestions for Pathfinder as a whole.
MY BLOG IDEA(S):
I'd like to see small blurbs for all of the known deities in Golarion. Something similar to the six found in the Rise of the Runelord Player's Guide. I am particulary interested in more detail of Iomedae as I have a Player in my game about to run a Paladin of Iomedae.
Aroden is also of a high interest to me just becuase I find the concept intriguing on various levels.
Something more on the relationship between Aroden amd Iomedae would be nice. From what I've come to understand, from reading various thread posts, Iomedae is another mortal, who has attained godhood and now resides within the Realms of the Divine. Also that Aroden had something to do with helping her in this. Am I right?
Thanks. Now I sleep.
A preview of the monsters from "The Skinsaw Murders", like we got for "Burnt Offerings" would be pretty cool.
More visual descriptions of NPCs found in both the AP and the Gamemastery modules. I would also like to see general description of common things in Golarion. For example, typical dress, typical architecture, etc, etc.
More stuff about the Gods.. We're starting the campaign this Saturday, and I have a lot of players asking about this. I've mined the messageboard threads and the blog for details, but questions still come up.
As Kissmedarkly pointed out, Iomedae has also come up as a god a player character cleric might want to worship. And hell, I've learned more about Iomedae in this very thread than I knew yesterday. A GM needs this kinda data to support starting cleric and paladin characters.
For that matter, I am looking forward to the comprehensive Desna expose in Chapter 2, and seeing other dieties explored in future releases.. but we really need a small paragraph on each god with some facts (are they even found in this region) and other tidbits. Particularly as one of the themes of Burnt Offerings seems to be an assault the religion of the people of Sandpoint by the old dark gods of the Thassalonian Empire (at work, pardon my mispellings if any).
After that, some basic comments about races would be good.. as Coridan pointed out, there is next to nothing.
Then some details about general descriptions as Elorebaen mentioned, but as a lesser priority to the two points mentioned above.
Please note- this isn't meant as a bash against the product! I'm pretty pleased with Chapter One, but if asked what would I like to see to tie me over until future releases? See above.
Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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A lot of this material is still be developed for the Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer, which ships in January. I'll post some info on Iomedae and Aroden below, but I reserve the right to change some or all of it by the time we send that book to press. For example, the material below still has some "placeholder" names for nations we haven't officially named yet. So the references in Iomedae's write-up to "Crusade Land" and the "Demon Wastes" do not refer to places with those actual names. We'll have better names for them soon. Imagine that what I'm about to share is a rough first draft that will _probably_ conform to the final printed version, but not necessarily.
So without further ado...
Aroden
THE LAST AZLANT, LAST OF THE FIRST HUMANS
God of human culture, innovation, and history
Alignment: LN
Domains:
Favored Weapon: Longsword
Centers of Worship: Absalom, Cheliax, Taldor, etc.
Nationality: Azlanti
Some five thousand years after the destruction of Azlant, its last true son—the immortal hero Aroden—raised the Starstone from the depths of the Inner Sea, installing it in Absalom and becoming a living god. In time Aroden became the patron deity of Taldor, a nation rife with Azlanti blood and hungry for conquest. As Taldor’s influence spread, so too did the reach of Aroden’s proud religion. By the time the empire’s periphery reached the western frontier of Cheliax 700 years ago, Taldor itself had grown decadent and effete. Aroden’s chief clergy decamped from the Taldorian capital of Oppara to the capital of Cheliax, which soon thereafter declared itself independent from Taldor’s corrupt reach.
Two centuries later, the most zealous followers of Aroden fled the Chelish heartlands for missionary work on the nascent empire’s increasing borders or, increasingly, to the demon-haunted crusadelands of the distant north. A century ago, for reasons still poorly understood, Aroden died, leaving his followers adrift and bereft of miraculous ability. This collapse eventually led to the downfall of Cheliax and the seizure of that nation by forces in league with diabolism. Much of Aroden’s cult has turned to his divine patron saint, the missionary heroine Iomedae, but the full repercussions of the death of the Last Azlant have yet to be felt.
Published Sources: Pathfinder #1 (Journal)
Iomedae
TITLE
Goddess of valor, rulership, justice, and honor
Alignment: LG
Domains: Glory, Good, Law, Sun, War
Favored Weapon: Longsword
Centers of Worship: Andoran, Cheliax, Crusade Land, Galt
Nationality: Chelaxian
Iomedae is a deified patron saint of Aroden and has absorbed many of his followers. The strongest of her zealots flock to Crusade Land to join the crusades against the fiends inhabiting the Demon Wastes. Her holy text is the eleven “Acts of Iomedae” (or simply, “The Acts”), miracles performed in ancient times by Iomedae throughout Avistan and Garund as demonstrations of the power of Aroden, her patron.
Number three through the Test of the Starstone. Successor to a demigoddess called Escalin, who formerly served Aroden in a similar capacity before being tortured, broken, and presumably killed by the Whispering Tyrant.
Published Sources: PFPG, Pathfinder #1 (Journal)
And, lastly, here's a bit of information about Azlant:
Azlant: The Shattered Empire. Highly advanced human nation, the first to rise to power over primitive man, and the most successful to date in terms of culture, the sciences, and arcane arts. These were the gifts of the aboleths, squamous beings from the depths of outer space who came to Golarion deep in its prehistory.
Prideful and vain, the aboleths manipulated their prized civilization for millennia, until their manipulations bred their own arrogance into their playthings, with inevitable consequences. The Azlanti humans revolted, forcing the aboleths to cancel their grand experiment in an unimaginable magical catastrophe. In a matter of hours, the entire island continent was shattered and sunk to the bottom of the sea, leaving a maze of mountain peaks and shattered cliffsides to dominate the sea where once a mighty continent had stood.
Of the Azlanti, few survived. A lost colony thrived for a time in South Arcadia, but was eventually swallowed by petty rivalry and the jungle itself. Where the Azlanti settled they bred with the primitive human population of Golarion’s surviving continents, notably in the region now known as Taldor in eastern Avistan.
The sea-elves of the Mordant Spire are the most commonly encountered explorers here, but they do not necessarily have the best interests of foreign explorers in mind.
--Erik
Outstanding Erik..
Your dedication to your customers is a testament to what Paizo must be about.
I'd like to say that in response I promise to buy more products, but I was going to anyway. But more importantly, I'll feel even better about doing it, because this demonstrates to me that Paizo gives a damn whether I have a good game experience or not..
That's the best compliment I have today!
Iomedae sounds like a great deity, a rather distant and quirky LG, nice!
Azlant: The Shattered Empire. Highly advanced human nation, the first to rise to power over primitive man, and the most successful to date in terms of culture, the sciences, and arcane arts. These were the gifts of the aboleths, squamous beings from the depths of outer space who came to Golarion deep in its prehistory.
I don't think I've ever heard aboleths described as scaly. Slimy, sure, and rugose (wrinkled), but "squamous" seems downright inaccurate.
(It's a pity they don't have enough tentacle tips to qualify as "zymolosely polydactile," though. ^.^ )
Thanks!!!! This is exactly the kind of information that my players are needing now...plus it gets me as a DM twice as jazzed to see more of Golarion. The wealth of names and hints dropped in Erik's post alone could fill hours of speculation.
Thanks for the post, Erik. The collective world that Pazio is building is most promising. After our second session of the "Burnt Offerings" adventure last night, I had several players comment to me how much they loved the new adventure, and are really, really excited about the world and the way you folks are re-imagining and re-vitalizing D&D.
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Azlant: The Shattered Empire. Highly advanced human nation, the first to rise to power over primitive man, and the most successful to date in terms of culture, the sciences, and arcane arts. These were the gifts of the aboleths, squamous beings from the depths of outer space who came to Golarion deep in its prehistory.I don't think I've ever heard aboleths described as scaly. Slimy, sure, and rugose (wrinkled), but "squamous" seems downright inaccurate.
See above about this being a rough draft. I re-checked all of the important write-ups of aboleths, and almost all of them refer to the beasts as fishlike. I think, however, that the writers are talking about their tails and fins and stuff and not scales specifically.
So I'll change it. :P
--Erik
Does squamous actually have a meaning associated with scales? I've only ever heard its use as a pathological cellular diagnosis of types of cancer ex. squamous cell carcinoma of the lumg. Aboleths strike me as being somewhat cancerous, while unusual maybe its an appropriate description.
Does squamous actually have a meaning associated with scales? I've only ever heard its use as a pathological cellular diagnosis of types of cancer ex. squamous cell carcinoma of the lumg. Aboleths strike me as being somewhat cancerous, while unusual maybe its an appropriate description.
From Latin squamosus, from squama ‘scale’.
1. Covered with, made of, or resembling scales; scaly.
* 1658: In the squamous heads of Scabius, Knapweed, and the elegant Jacea Pinea, and in the Scaly composure of the Oak-Rose, which some years most aboundeth. — Sir Thomas Browne, The Garden of Cyrus (Folio Society 2007, p. 180)
* 1973: We spread the papers on the least squamous section of the floor and lay down; the smell was not so bad at ground level. — Kyril Bonfiglioli, Don't Point That Thing at Me (Penguin 2001, p. 133)
2. (anatomy) Of or pertaining to the squamosal bone; squamosal
I would like a hint about what role various iconic creatures will play, though to be frank I'm wiling to wait on some of them. Dragons seem to be ancient keepers of secrets, and may have been bumped up to have more ability to grant, say, runes of empire creation (pfr#1).
In a way I almost don't want to know about them, and about drow, as having a high level of mystery surrounding them... y'know? Especially what drow would be like if they were in a Cthulu-mythos-esque setting (ie: the stuff you shouldn't know? well, you don't know much about it, pcs). Different takes on monsters are fun, culturally at least.
so far we've got:
giants (ogres, stone giants, "rune giants", etc.)
demons/abberations (cthulu-style, thanks! or so I assume)
goblins/goblinoids
some undead
sea elves
elf-elves
dwarves
gnomes
halflings (well, Chelish halflings)
plane-touched (and thus celestials)
fey
so, if expounding on what we've got is more useful and important:
*here's what I'd like to see: explaination of Chelish characters, like ways I can have a non-nomadic varisian or tribal Shoanti good-guy, when the Chelish have a historical association in some of the literature with evil outsiders, etc.
From Latin squamosus, from squama ‘scale’.
1. Covered with, made of, or resembling scales; scaly.
* 1658: In the squamous heads of Scabius, Knapweed, and the elegant Jacea Pinea, and in the Scaly composure of the Oak-Rose, which some years most aboundeth. — Sir Thomas Browne, The Garden of Cyrus (Folio Society 2007, p. 180)
* 1973: We spread the papers on the least squamous section of the floor and lay down; the smell was not so bad at ground level. — Kyril Bonfiglioli, Don't Point That Thing at Me (Penguin 2001, p. 133)
2. (anatomy) Of or pertaining to the squamosal bone; squamosal
Ah. My mistake. Lacking a classical education, my latin is limited to the igpay atinlay variety.