I have to laugh.
I just bought the Pathfinder Campaign Setting book. Very, very nice. I'm happy to support Paizo's efforts.
I was reading the book and the name Abaddon jumped out at me...not just because I think its a cool name with a certain historical resonance, but because I, in writing up my own setting, have the name Abaddon included as well and.....its an outer plane of evil. Its not the same by any means, my conception is more along the lines of Abaddon being a replacement for the traditional abyss, but the mere fact that its also in the Pathfinder Campaign Setting makes me laugh.
I know that things like this happen because we all share the same world mythology and borrow liberally from myth and folklore. I have always been struck when I discover ideas I thought were mine alone are already published by someone else materials.
I have also run into something similar. In the Reign of Discordia setting that I wrote, I have a planet called Hagenti. In the Pathfinder setting, Haagenti is a demon lord. I'm pretty sure Haagenti was in print before Hagenti, but I wouldn't have seen it before now because I hadn't yet had time to go through my Pathfinder books.
Yes, ever since the Paizo staff unearthed and began performing some of the ancient forbidden rites, they have been uncannily in tune with their readers' psyches. There appears to be a deepening aura of darkness spreading out from their office, and friends say that it seems as if the spark of humanity is slowly draining from their eyes, to be replaced with something somehow older and more sinister, but they are saving a bundle on market research.
Yes, ever since the Paizo staff unearthed and began performing some of the ancient forbidden rites, they have been uncannily in tune with their readers' psyches. There appears to be a deepening aura of darkness spreading out from their office, and friends say that it seems as if the spark of humanity is slowly draining from their eyes, to be replaced with something somehow older and more sinister, but they are saving a bundle on market research.
The Paizo Cabal has unearthed the Lost Ritual of Claiming Fanboys' Psyche !!
My masters at Hasbro must be warned !
:: slithers back under his Rock of Hubris ::
Haagenti, like Abaddon, is from real world mythology. It's been in print LONG before Paizo (but most recently in Green Ronin's Book of Fiends, and he was also mentioned a few times in Fiendish Codex I and in a few of my Demonomicon articles in Dragon).
I think in my case, it was just the chance of a random word generator since I had never heard of Haagenti before. It may be very unlikely that it would have come up with that word, so that leads me to conclude that random word generators are in fact the work of the devil.
Incidentally, in Reign of Discordia, Hagenti is a planet whose population was completely wiped out by a weapons grade biological agent. The former native population had been heavily dependent upon robots, and those robots were not wiped out, so they continue to exist. Since they lack maintenance and corrective programming, a good number of them have gone psycho and pose a threat to anyone visiting the planet. It was also the seat of the very corrupt Stellar Imperium before it was destroyed. I find it fitting that there's a demonic connection, even if I wasn't aware of it at the time I wrote it. Does that make me the idiot savant of game designers?
As an aside, didn't they use Abaddon as one of the devils in Diablo II?
Does that make me the idiot savant of gamer designers?
He's a witch! Get 'em!
As an aside, didn't they use Abaddon as one of the devils in Diablo II?
I think there was a whole region called Abaddon. Diablo's brothers were Baal and Mephisto.
Abaddon is also a popular special character in the Warhammer 40,000 miniature game. He is a choas warrior champion that brings all the chaos powers together under one banner.
I think there was a whole region called Abaddon. Diablo's brothers were Baal and Mephisto.If I remember right Abbadon was one of those regions in A5 you could reach via the red portals.
This is correct.
I had a similar experience when I came across references to the Shackles. In my own game world, there's a nautical culture called Aziqqiym, which translates from Old Hebrew as "shackles." But I'm too classy to demand payment...
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Abaddon was also the name of a module designer alias of Neverwinter Night mods on the bioware site - he was one of the best designers I had the privilege of downloading his mods and playing - which was also the name of his popular NPC in those mods that helped inform the character of the game
Robert
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When I decided to revive my AD&D campaign world and update it to 3.5, there were a scary number of similarities to Golarion when it came out.
- I had a wasteland to the northwest called the Theld. Golarion has the Cinderlands
- I had a strong fey influence - so does Pathfinder
- I had an italian-style collection of city-state colonies called the Malacisti Protectorates. They have Cheliaxian cities that are the same
- I had (and this is the clincher that is scary) a god named Aarishem who died, leaving the italian-style empire left to worship archangels-turned-demigods and devils -- like Cheliax.
I'm really enjoying lifting a great deal out of Golarion and using it whole-cloth ...
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When I decided to revive my AD&D campaign world and update it to 3.5, there were a scary number of similarities to Golarion when it came out.
- I had a wasteland to the northwest called the Theld. Golarion has the Cinderlands
- I had a strong fey influence - so does Pathfinder
- I had an italian-style collection of city-state colonies called the Malacisti Protectorates. They have Cheliaxian cities that are the same
- I had (and this is the clincher that is scary) a god named Aarishem who died, leaving the italian-style empire left to worship archangels-turned-demigods and devils -- like Cheliax.
I'm really enjoying lifting a great deal out of Golarion and using it whole-cloth ...
Yeah I was using city-states as well for most of my world. I used huge monuments, pulling famous monuments from around the world and just making them "HUGER" :) I live near St Louis so there was an immense arch that was partially collapsed but partially remained standing due to ancient magics. The Straits of Gibraltar like area had an enormous Colossus strandling it to protect the straits from enemies.
The cultures were all based loosely on real world cultures, Egyptian, Anthenian, Spartan, Roman, Celtic, etc... Gypsies were a special mystic race that everyone loved and dreaded.
Abaddon was also the name of a module designer alias of Neverwinter Night mods on the bioware site - he was one of the best designers I had the privilege of downloading his mods and playing - which was also the name of his popular NPC in those mods that helped inform the character of the game
Robert
QFT and...
wasn't Abaddon a level in an early C64 game too? 3 chocolate chip cookies and a glass of fresh milk to anyone who can name that game...
Edit: Oops sorry, I think the game itself was called Abaddon.. never mind <sheepish grin>
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Abaddon was also the name of a module designer alias of Neverwinter Night mods on the bioware site - he was one of the best designers I had the privilege of downloading his mods and playing - which was also the name of his popular NPC in those mods that helped inform the character of the game
Robert
QFT and...
wasn't Abaddon a level in an early C64 game too? 3 chocolate chip cookies and a glass of fresh milk to anyone who can name that game...
Edit: Oops sorry, I think the game itself was called Abaddon.. never mind <sheepish grin>
Forgive my computer lingo ignorance - what does QFT mean?
Robert
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Abaddon was also the name of a module designer alias of Neverwinter Night mods on the bioware site - he was one of the best designers I had the privilege of downloading his mods and playing - which was also the name of his popular NPC in those mods that helped inform the character of the game
Robert
QFT and...
wasn't Abaddon a level in an early C64 game too? 3 chocolate chip cookies and a glass of fresh milk to anyone who can name that game...
Edit: Oops sorry, I think the game itself was called Abaddon.. never mind <sheepish grin>
Forgive my computer lingo ignorance - what does QFT mean?
Robert
Quote For Truth, indicating that the above comment, or whatever is being quoted, is "true", or at least subjectively agreable. usually applied subjectively, as in ex: "what he said about that painting being a mirror to our soul is QFT."
incidently, UrbanDictionary.com is usually a great place to find out about these acronyms and whatnot.|
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Abaddon was also the name of a module designer alias of Neverwinter Night mods on the bioware site - he was one of the best designers I had the privilege of downloading his mods and playing - which was also the name of his popular NPC in those mods that helped inform the character of the game
Robert
QFT and...
wasn't Abaddon a level in an early C64 game too? 3 chocolate chip cookies and a glass of fresh milk to anyone who can name that game...
Edit: Oops sorry, I think the game itself was called Abaddon.. never mind <sheepish grin>
Forgive my computer lingo ignorance - what does QFT mean?
Robert
Quote For Truth, indicating that the above comment, or whatever is being quoted, is "true", or at least subjectively agreable. usually applied subjectively, as in ex: "what he said about that painting being a mirror to our soul is QFT."
incidently, UrbanDictionary.com is usually a great place to find out about these acronyms and whatnot.
Thank you. That makes sense.
Thanks for the link referral, too; just tried it - can't access it at work - gave me the "website is blocked" error. No prob; luckily you went ahead and explained it. I'll have to remember the urban dictionary for future (at home) reference.
Robert