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I'm reworking an old campaign of mine to be set in Golarion, updating it to the beta PFRPG rules. Right now, I'm just working out where it's set (I decided for the Ustalav/Belkzen border, in the Palatinates area) and some background details. After this groundwork, I'll move on to the rules-updating stuff.
My homebrew campaign had ruins from a conveniently generic "Ancient Empire", and the Thassilonian Empire is just a perfect fit. So I pillaged my Paizo shelf for reference material, and started rummaging through it.
Argh. Problems. I'm using both the various articles published in Pathfinder and the hardcover Campaign Setting, mainly.
In PF #1, in the background article regarding the Thassilonian Empire, the region that now corresponds to the Ustalav/Belkzen Border (as in the Lost Kingdoms page, HCCS) is described as such: "The lands of old Gastash remain fertile, including the region around the modern city-state of Korvosa and its holdings".
Unfortunately, the Hold of Belkzen is a barren wilderness - Ustalav is a bit off to the east and does not really fall into Gastash territory - and the region around Korvosa falls squarely into the Eurythnia domain, as backed up by the info from the CotCT AP.
It's a somewhat minor inconsistency (also as Gastash was the domain of Gluttony, associated with necromancy, its current state is quite fitting too, opposed to its past plentiness).
However I'd like to know the "canon" position regarding the Gastash/Eurythnia extension and fertile/barren condition inherited from the past: is the PF #1 specific article correct or the more recent CS is to be considered more precise?
Also: Torandey in past Cyrusian (northwestern Varisia and southern Irrisen/Land of the Linnorm Kings), and Xin-Edasseril/Medesa in past Edasseril (the isles west of Varisia, up to the Mordant Spire) are cities that still stand in modern Golarion, but I didn't find any indication of them in the maps available.
Can anyone provide me with more accurate details on their location?
Thanks!
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In PF #1, in the background article regarding the Thassilonian Empire, the region that now corresponds to the Ustalav/Belkzen Border (as in the Lost Kingdoms page, HCCS) is described as such: "The lands of old Gastash remain fertile, including the region around the modern city-state of Korvosa and its holdings".
Unfortunately, the Hold of Belkzen is a barren wilderness - Ustalav is a bit off to the east and does not really fall into Gastash territory - and the region around Korvosa falls squarely into the Eurythnia domain, as backed up by the info from the CotCT AP.
I would use the most recent description of an area. PF1 is a good general description of the civilization, but they had to send it to the printers before the world had been fully created. This created inconsistencies between it and other products (this is not the first) each other time, they have said that the more recent fact was correct.
Thanks, I'll go with the more recent (PF#10 and CS) infos.
Anyone knows something more about Medesa and/or Torandey?
I've just started reading my backlog of Paizo goodies and I too would like to know where Medesa and Torandey are located. Anyone have a rough map of ancient Thassilon overlayed on Varisia?
I've just started reading my backlog of Paizo goodies and I too would like to know where Medesa and Torandey are located. Anyone have a rough map of ancient Thassilon overlayed on Varisia?
The back of the Campaign Setting has a map of overlaid ancient empires over modern Avistan and Garund.
Creative Director
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One of the problems we had early on was that the group who was building Varisia and Thassilon (me and Wes) and the group that was building the world as a whole (Erik and Jason) were rushed and didn't have time to properly "cross-pollinate" ideas. We did what we could, but there are world canon errors that have appeared as a result, mostly things in the first Pathfinder when a lot of the deep background stuff about Varisia and Thassilon was forgotten or or changed. Still, the vast majority of the words on Thassilon in Pathfinder #1 remain pretty solid, thankfully; we were able to shore up the vast majority of the conflicts before things went to print. That said, you've found a few of the (thankfully relatively minor) conflicts...
In PF #1, in the background article regarding the Thassilonian Empire, the region that now corresponds to the Ustalav/Belkzen Border (as in the Lost Kingdoms page, HCCS) is described as such: "The lands of old Gastash remain fertile, including the region around the modern city-state of Korvosa and its holdings".
Unfortunately, the Hold of Belkzen is a barren wilderness - Ustalav is a bit off to the east and does not really fall into Gastash territory - and the region around Korvosa falls squarely into the Eurythnia domain, as backed up by the info from the CotCT AP.
Page 223 of the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting shows a map of where the seven kingdoms of Thassilon existed. When we originally wrote things up in PF#1, the big map of the campaign setting didn't exist... in fact, it was a half year or so away from existing, so we had to guess and hope for a lot of the stuff that happened off the edges of the Varisia map. Thus, the placement of Ustalav and Belkzen so far from Korvosa caused a bit of a disconnect. So you should basically just totally ignore the sentence about Gastash's lands being still fertile and near Korvosa. It's an error.
It's a somewhat minor inconsistency (also as Gastash was the domain of Gluttony, associated with necromancy, its current state is quite fitting too, opposed to its past plentiness).
However I'd like to know the "canon" position regarding the Gastash/Eurythnia extension and fertile/barren condition inherited from the past: is the PF #1 specific article correct or the more recent CS is to be considered more precise?
The correct locations of all these old kingdoms is on page 223 of the PCCS. And in its time, it's important to note that Gastash WAS quite fertile. Thousands of years of apocalypse and orc wars can ruin a lot. :)
Also: Torandey in past Cyrusian (northwestern Varisia and southern Irrisen/Land of the Linnorm Kings), and Xin-Edasseril/Medesa in past Edasseril (the isles west of Varisia, up to the Mordant Spire) are cities that still stand in modern Golarion, but I didn't find any indication of them in the maps available.
Can anyone provide me with more accurate details on their location?
By "still standing," we more or less meant to say "ruins of the cities still exist." They're not necessarily still populated, although we may have (erroneously) made that kind of assumption in those early days. In any event, when we were writing the article, the assumption was that the cities we mentioned (Torandey and Xin-Edasseril/Medesa) were off the Varisia map. They do exist, but when Jason and Erik were building the world map, these cities weren't on their radars, and thus weren't placed on the PCCS map. That doesn't mean they're not there, of course, since the larger map from the PCCS leaves of a LOT of locations. We'll maybe eventually place those cities on the map, but for now we have not revealed their exact locations.
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Thanks a lot.
I think I'll keep some contradicting sources (for the PCs, that is) regarding the Gastash area and current status, as I like to add some "gygaxian realism" in confusing historical reports- IIRC Elaine Cunningham explained this same idea a lot better in another thread.
May I suggest a future Chronicles product dealing with the past of the Inner Sea region? It could keep the big secrets just for Paizo to use, while giving the DMs out there a whole bunch of "lesser mysteries" to use as inspiration/flavor/mcguffin.