So last night I was reading my girlfriend the entry from Molthune as she was falling asleep (she wanted me to read to her so she could fall asleep and I didn't want to get out of bed and the Pathfinder CS was the only thing within reach) and I found it very interesting. Fantasy USSR. I'm intrigued. But I don't know what I'd run if I ran a game there.
Then the Galt thead gave me the idea of asking you guys what you'd run.
So... what would you run?
So last night I was reading my girlfriend the entry from Molthune as she was falling asleep (she wanted me to read to her so she could fall asleep and I didn't want to get out of bed and the Pathfinder CS was the only thing within reach) and I found it very interesting. Fantasy USSR. I'm intrigued. But I don't know what I'd run if I ran a game there.
Then the Galt thead gave me the idea of asking you guys what you'd run.
So... what would you run?
A fast read (I really need to read all the countries more, there is so much good stuff here <G>) makes me feel of Russia just prior to the removal of the Tzar (spelling your choice) and the nobility with a touch of communism thrown in. If you've ever read Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's St. Germain, there's a good one set in those days just when things went to hell. I'd have to check my shelves for the specific title ...
Things I might run ... revolutionary rumblings ... expansionist war with the neighbors ... high nobles with poor serfs/slaves juxtaposed ... marrauding cossacks ... disappearance of some important family/group and the chaos it causes to that fief ... a crazy monk with magical powers ... all the classics of pre-Communist Tzarist Russia.
a crazy monk with magical powers
I'm afraid I don't know this reference. What's the basic idea?
a crazy monk with magical powersI'm afraid I don't know this reference. What's the basic idea?
Well, there was this cat that really was gone. He was Molthune's greatest love machine, and it was a shame how he carried on.
But when his drinking and lusting and his hunger for power became known to more and more people, the demands to do something about this outrageous man became louder and louder.
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Mmm. I also dug Molthune.
The revolutionary aspect could be interesting, but if you read the description, it hardly seems to be based around mass oppression of a large peasantry as they apparently are running half their mass agriculture by magical animation! (Certain groups could certainly be disgruntled or align with the nobility, but otherwise it seems Molthune needs as many good workers as it can, for their industry and shipyards, etc... Immigration TO Molthune would make sense in that aspect.) It honestly sounds like the most pressing internal threat would be a coup by factions aligned with the old nobility against the radical unitary state increasingly displacing their political/economic power.
I could see a good sub-plot of scheming of such forces forcing a loyal Half-Giant Sergeant in the Military (conveniently introduced to PCs in sympathetic way) to be 'exiled' to an un-important corner of Molthune because he was 'in the way', of course coincidentally stumbling upon another sub-plot and the PCs possibly able to glean information and allegiance from this up-and-coming actor. In any case, playing up the diverse "Military Aligned" Humanoid tribes seems a great element...
I would definitely think further developing their conflict with their neighbors would be a biggy:
They are described as the number 1 naval power of Encarthan, so that should certainly play a part. I would pick Druma as their #1 enemy, but they really don't have any signifant allies within easy reach: Cheliax/Nidal are probably #2 and 3 behind Druma (only behind because they have other interests besides Encarthan, and are happy to have Molthune fight Druma, who's allied with powerful factions in Andoran), Nirmathas is a war they don't really need but are rushing headwards into (having the PCs avert this war would be a good sub-plot), Lastwall is probably sympathetic (being a military garrison) but not one to help signifigantly, Ustalav is divided and not likely to help either, Razmiran is run by a psychopath, the Elves would probably be of assistance only when it's of complete benefit to them with no downside... Anything out of Lake Encarthan is signifigantly far away or the direct routes are controlled/ hampered by those against them.
I think the Dwarves would be potentially good allies, but they are currently neutral, needing/wanting good relations with hostile forces like Druma and Nirmathas (tipping the Dwarves' balance in their favor could be a sub-plot). An interesting plot twist could be bringing in the Gillmen (who are mentioned as also living in Lake Encarthan besides around Absalom), which fits in well with the Naval aspect. Perhaps entwined with the Gillmen could be ancient Osirioni pyraminds in the region, maybe some buried, some under-water, and for some reason the Osirion regime is least threated by/ most sympathetic to Molthune...? Somehow bringing in Hermea could make some sense, given Hermea's radical Lawful Utopianism... I don't think the Hermeans would AIM to assist Molthune, but if events somehow involved them (magic related to the pyramids?), there would probably be little PREVENTING them from cooperating with Molthune if necessary.
...All in all,
Molthune seems to offer great possibilities for neo-Roman pulp stories (with Utopian-Communist overtones)
... I LIKE!
a crazy monk with magical powersI'm afraid I don't know this reference. What's the basic idea?
Rasputin :)
Personally, I'd take Molthune in a different direction, so that it does not feel too much like Galt. I felt like Edward Rutherford's Russka (fiction) was an enjoyable read that gave me a strong feel for Russia, without spending all its energy on the (relatively short) Soviet period.
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Adapt a movie. Doesn't really need to be a russian movie just a movie with a similar culture thing going on. Behind Enemy Lines wouldn't be too bad to adapt if you remove some of the war elements. Blackhawk Down could work too.
I would also look at Russian folklore for some ideas.
Russian Folklore stuff.
You know Baba Yaga and her cool Chicken legged hut are folk tales from russia. Here is the story-
In Russian folklore there are many stories of Baba Yaga, the fearsome witch. Hideous to look upon, and with a nature to match, she devours her victims with her iron teeth.
In some stories her back is so bent down from age that she touches the ground with her head. Her nose is so long that it reaches the ceiling of her Hut on Chicken's Legs when she is sleeping. She sleeps stretched out on her ancient brick oven, which she also uses to cook her meals (including people whom she catches).
She does not seem to bother with pointed witch's hats, and has never been seen sitting on a broomstick. Her mode of travel is a large mortar pushed along with a pestle. Never one for leaving a trail behind her, she sweeps away all traces of her path with a broom.
It is also rumoured that she can fly through the air in the same manner.
She lives in a hut in the forest. The hut seems to have a personality of its own and can move about at will on its large-sized chicken legs, that's why it's called Hut on Chicken's Legs. Usually the hut is either spinning around as it moves through the forest or standing with its back towards a visitor and when approached, will only permit entry after a certain secret incantation is said: "Hut, hut, turn your back to the forest and your front to me". It spins around with blood-curdling wild screeches and creakings and eventually comes to a stop to face the visitor, where it will lower itself down on its chicken legs and throw open its door. Its windows are sometimes described as its "eyes".
The hut is surrounded by a fence made of the bones of Baba Yaga's victims. Baba Yaga scares passersby to death just by appearing to them and then devours them. Her fence is topped with the skulls of her victims whose blazing eye sockets illuminate the darkness.
In some stories she has two older sisters, who are also called Baba Yaga, just to confuse you!
Although she is mostly portrayed as a terrifying old crone, she can also play the role of a helper and wise woman. Like all forces of nature, though often wild and untamed, she can also be kind. She sometimes gives advice and magical gifts to heroes with pure hearts. The hero or heroine of the story often enters the crone's domain searching for wisdom, knowledge and truth. Then there's also an incantation to be said to Baba Yaga. When she begins asking questions, the hero must say: "Hey you old woman, first you satisfy my hunger then you satisfy my thirst then let me wash myself in your banya (sauna) then let me sleep in and then you ask me anything". Usually Baba Yaga does as the hero pleads her.
She is said to be a guardian spirit of the fountain of the Waters of Life and of Death.
Baba Yaga rules over the elements and her realm is the birch forests of old Russia.
Her faithful servants are the White Horseman, the Red Horseman and the Black Horseman. When Vasilissa the Beautiful (sometimes called Vasilisa the Wise) asks her who these mysterious horsemen are she replies: "My Bright Dawn, my Red Sun and my Dark Midnight."
Among her other servants whom she calls "my soul friends" and whom she is reluctant to discuss with visitors are the three bodiless pairs of hands, which appear out of thin air to do her bidding.
Baba Yaga is the arch-crone, the goddess of wisdom and death, the bone mother. She brings wisdom and death (just like wild nature does) and through death, rebirth. Behind her story is the figure of the ancient Slavic goddess of death and rebirth, whose autumn harvest holds the promise of winter survival and new growth in Spring.
The "old woman" of autumn was called Baba by the Slavic inhabitants of eastern Europe.
Baba passed into Slavic folk legend as Baba Yaga.
Good stuff!
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I don't really see "Workers of the World Unite" Communism in Molthune - it's just a beaurocracy that overgrew it's bounds because every other institution was weak or incompetent, and that was necessary to insure survival of the state-machine. I.e. Central Planning (look up USA during WWII or British East India Company). Molthune offers 'progress' over the most archaic social strictures, but that 'progress' ends in... itself.
Neo-Roman State-Utopianism... kind of like Star Trek's Romulans, in a way.
...But not much to do with the themes in Galt.
Baba Yaga:
Anyhow, it's great so many people are provoked to imagine about Golarion like this, huh?
Director of Brand Strategy
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So last night I was reading my girlfriend the entry from Molthune as she was falling asleep (she wanted me to read to her so she could fall asleep and I didn't want to get out of bed and the Pathfinder CS was the only thing within reach) and I found it very interesting. Fantasy USSR. I'm intrigued. But I don't know what I'd run if I ran a game there.
So you like Molthune and find it interesting but chose it out of the whole book to put your girlfriend to sleep with? I would have chosen the pronunciation guide or the index, but to each his own. Your statement does seem contradictory, though.
So you like Molthune and find it interesting but chose it out of the whole book to put your girlfriend to sleep with? I would have chosen the pronunciation guide or the index, but to each his own. Your statement does seem contradictory, though.
Actually, I hadn't read it before myself. I just flipped through the book to find a country I hadn't read before. Molthune's flag caught my eye.
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In the PbP I'm in my character, Idiah, is from Isger. She was a bandit and when the Isgeri army, supported by Hellknights, routed her camp she fled to Molthune. The Molthune govt. was sponsoring her band in a proxy-war with Isger. Molthune is afraid a strong, rebuilt Isger will expand to lake Encarthan and draw Cheliax's vast resources to enforce dominance in the region; after all, Molthune shares all of its southern border with Cheliax-aligned countries. Sure, there are mountains in the way, but that didn't stop Hannibal.
I could see a James Bond-esqe spy war going on between Molthune, Isger and Druma in the esastern Meandor Mountains.
In the PbP I'm in my character, Idiah, is from Isger. She was a bandit and when the Isgeri army, supported by Hellknights, routed her camp she fled to Molthune. The Molthune govt. was sponsoring her band in a proxy-war with Isger. Molthune is afraid a strong, rebuilt Isger will expand to lake Encarthan and draw Cheliax's vast resources to enforce dominance in the region; after all, Molthune shares all of its southern border with Cheliax-aligned countries. Sure, there are mountains in the way, but that didn't stop Hannibal.
I could see a James Bond-esqe spy war going on between Molthune, Isger and Druma in the esastern Meandor Mountains.
Hmmm... *thinking* hmmm.. *still thinking* *not hurting myself*
I like this idea *evil grin*
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
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Rasputin-type in Molthune. Nice. A charismatic 'monk' born a peasant who manages to gain Teldas' ear and eventually becomes one of the 'General Lords' -- perhaps the only one without military experience. He's sure to piss important people off with his close ties to Teldas, his love affairs with the wives of at least one of the other General Lords, and the affection of the laborer's in the countryside who see him as one of their own. His enemies feed him poison, stab him in the back, throw him in the river, but he just won't die. Love it.
RA RA RASPUTIN
Lover of the Russian queen
They put some poison into his wine
RA RA RASPUTIN
Russia's greatest love machine
He drank it all and he said "I feel fine"
RA RA RASPUTIN
Lover of the Russian queen
They didn't quit, they wanted his head
RA RA RASPUTIN
Russia's greatest love machine
And so they shot him till he was dead
(Spoken:) Oh, those Russians...
Oh, wait, you wanted a campaign pitch? I don't got one. A mission? Rasputin's having a party. Everyone is going to be there. You're invited. Kill Rasputin.
I feel like a threadkiller.
Don't feel bad. I do it all the time.
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Started my Molthune earlier. I have my 6 PCs (elf druid, elf monk, human fighter, human rogue, 2 human clerics) locked up in a prison located in Ramsgate. They were all brought in on charges of killing a superior officer.
After they were all locked up the two clerics of the group, both of Gorum, broke their restraints. I've never seen so many nat 20's rolled at once (they rolled to break the restraints, stealth checks to make it as quiet as possible, and to fool the guards into coming in the cell to check on a "sick" pc).
That's were we ended tonights game, as two of the players had to go to work. The two clerics are debating killing everyone in there path. While the others want to know how framed them and why
Adapt a movie. Doesn't really need to be a russian movie just a movie with a similar culture thing going on.
Levels 1-5:(with possibility for zero level intro) You're a group of friends who all know the village idiot, {funny name here} is actually a genius and has mastered the powers of time travel. While helping him and his pet pig {funny name here} with one of their experiments, the {magical creatures} he swindled out of their {powerful magical essence} show up and you are forced to flee. However in doing so you are accidentally sent back in time to a prehistoric world and need to find a way home, because you only had enough {magical essence} to power the {magical device} for a one-way trip. While surviving the wilderness and it's many dangers, you meet several strange and wonderous races of people who unknowingly attempt to have you help them defeat the other with no real intentions of helping YOU at all. They will also pick up strange and unusual NPCs/Cohorts along the way which may or may not actually be useful, but usually humorous in nature. Just when the players think they have found the way back home you rip it out from under them tragically with little remorse(through story plot of course)... or send them somewhere else NOT home.
Oh yea... and I'd like that with Russian dressing on the side.
As a convert from Greyhawk to Pathfinder, I discovered that Lake Encarthan and its environs makes a decent substitute for the Nyr Dyv. I transplanted the city of Greyhawk, almost in its entirety, into Molthune and transformed the Directing Oligarchy into something of a proto-Politburo.
I then found places for other Greyhawk transplants as well: Diamond Lake, Magepoint, Alhaster, and, if the pattern isn't already apparent, Kuluth-Mar. So, Molthune became the nexus for my adaptation of the Age of Worms campaign, working very well until the entire party died in the ruins of Kuluth-Mar. :(
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I don't really see "Workers of the World Unite" Communism in Molthune - it's just a beaurocracy that overgrew it's bounds because every other institution was weak or incompetent, and that was necessary to insure survival of the state-machine. I.e. Central Planning (look up USA during WWII or British East India Company). Molthune offers 'progress' over the most archaic social strictures, but that 'progress' ends in... itself.
Neo-Roman State-Utopianism... kind of like Star Trek's Romulans, in a way.
...But not much to do with the themes in Galt.Baba Yaga:** spoiler omitted **
I agree with having Molthune more as a Neo-Roman kind of vibe. The militarism, pragmatism, council granting supreme executive authority to a singular office, and incredible hunger for human (and non-human) resources all strikes me as much closer to Early Imperial Rome than Russia.
As for Molthune, I'm running a campaign where all the players are types of hybrids like skinwalkers, dhampir, tieflings, aasimar, undines, oreads, etc. They're part of Molthune's army, which isn't picky as long as people can fight and work. Some Battlefield: Bad Company-level shenanigans are expected, both from what I've planned and what the player characters are going to be like.
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I'd always thought of it more like Prussia or 1900s Germany than the USSR. Very militaristic. Maybe it's the picture of Markwin Teldas. He looks rather like Otto von Bismarck.
Rise. RIIIISE from the dead!
I'd always thought of it more like Prussia or 1900s Germany than the USSR. Very militaristic. Maybe it's the picture of Markwin Teldas. He looks rather like Otto von Bismarck.
True, but the Germans around that time were having Neo-Roman pretensions themselves.
Rise. RIIIISE from the dead!
Level 11 Forum Cleric of Urgathoa, present and accounted for.
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For me, when I first read the opening paragraph on Molthune from Inner Sea Guide it screamed Nazi Germany hiding under political correctness -- like Paizo wanted to imply something Nazi-like but really had to tone it down.
Anyway, that was my initial impression and I ran with it.
Looking back at it a few years later it didn't look nearly as, um, "Nazi-like interpretable" but by then I had already determined that Molthune had started a Blitzkrieg war both north and southeast, completely conquering Druma, Nirmathis and Lastwall and currently wage war on two fronts, EastDruman vs the Elves of Kyonin and Southern Belkzen vs the Orc hordes. In the vast middle of Molthune are Concentration camps full of elves, Nirmathi, orcs, Drumans and others (halflings, dwarves, gnomes) forced to do slave labor for the Molthune army and periodically sent to the gas chambers.
I've run, on a handful of occasions, small adventures where the PCs had to, with some aid of Nirmathi freedom fighters, infiltrate a Molthune concentration camp and kill the bastard Nazis and rescue holocaust survivors.
But that's me.
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I think a very cool campaign to run would be the characters starting out as either family with, or a part of the country's leadership mechanism. As they level up, put them in a position where they are part of at least 3 factions vying for influence over the country. Using your metaphor of Russia, put the players in a place where they become Stalin or Lenin, and see where they go with it.
Set up a situation where they are either told to or are approached by the Cult of Razmir in a bid to invade Nirmathas. Either that or they learn their country is doing this and they have to prevent it from happening, or they happen to hear that the Cult of Razmir is planning to take over Nirmathas via Tamran and is having none of it, because no one is taking over Nirmathas but Molthune of course. There's a fair amount of angles your table could take.
There are also some modules that take place in the Nirmathas/Molthune/Lake Encarthen area that would give you some good ideas - the Price of Immortality Trilogy of modules would have some good stuff in them but mainly from the Cult of Razmir angle. Fangwood Keep takes place in Northern Molthune and has some potentially cool information.
The way I've always seen a Campaign go through is that the "Cold War" (to borrow the phrase) between Molthune/Nirmathas is heating up, so players would need to choose a side and follow a series of quests a result of their choices, with possible double-crossings, etc. Basically, adventures who wander into some town and then, via the tension, get drafted into one side or the other, depending on their actions, and rise through the ranks of their faction's army, culminating in some big heroic showdown (battle, a small party storming a castle, etc). If you need to bring in the Pathfinder Society in some way, I'm sure there's a hook you can find via powerful artifacts in the Fangwood or something. Still I think the area is very interesting and there's lots to be done down that line of storytelling.
