Something I'd pitched a while ago to KQ is now up as a web feature, detailing a trio of non-demon natives of the Abyss (actually native by birth/creation or by adaptation).
I can't speak for any 'canon' status within Golarion lore as a web article rather than print (I don't know how that works), but it expands on a few smaller things in The Great Beyond. Enjoy :)
Something I'd pitched a while ago to KQ is now up as a web feature, detailing a trio of non-demon natives of the Abyss (actually native by birth/creation or by adaptation).
I can't speak for any 'canon' status within Golarion lore as a web article rather than print (I don't know how that works), but it expands on a few smaller things in The Great Beyond. Enjoy :)
Wow, no one else has responded to this? Anyway, I'd love to see this teaser and its follow ups done in full Paizo glory, w/ pictures and stats. No reason it can't be in an AP as an article (yes, yes, I know the articles are supposed to tie in w/ the AP nominally).
Let us know when you've posted more.
Hey Todd, don't you have your own website that you put up your own diabolically brewed planar realms and the beasties that dwell amongst them?
Wow, no one else has responded to this? Anyway, I'd love to see this teaser and its follow ups done in full Paizo glory, w/ pictures and stats. No reason it can't be in an AP as an article (yes, yes, I know the articles are supposed to tie in w/ the AP nominally).Let us know when you've posted more.
KQ will be posting additional segments every other Friday morning. Next finish up with the Peacock Spawn, then onto the Risen's* unfortunate progeny, then the protean offshoots.
*the Risen was only previously mentioned by name once in the protean ecology article I think, alluding to her vague similarity of form to the protean lord Il'surrish the Wanderer. Her layer of the Abyss, the Candleflame Chancre, was on the map of the Abyss in TGB as well, including the Cathedral of Splayed Demons and the Forest of Cold and Mocking Lights. Some detail on her will be given in the KQ piece. She was originally a critter in my home game, suitably adapted and altered to fit the cosmology. Though again, the canon status of the KQ is up in the air, so use if you like, and if not go with whatever works for you.
If James et al wish to chime in on if it needs to be considered in any future handling of the topic or anything tangent to it, that's up to them. :)
Hey Todd, don't you have your own website that you put up your own diabolically brewed planar realms and the beasties that dwell amongst them?
Nope! Not as of yet. I really should though, shouldn't I? :)
I'm probably going to set something up this year. I've got free hosting space if I want it (one of my players has a pair of servers and a business line running into his house), and a pair of web monkeys who would probably help me if I asked. Plus I just registered a business name formally this week, so probably will do some variation on that as a webpage name.
Would be useful to actually post all of my older stuff, anything random and recent that isn't published, etc.
Nope! Not as of yet. I really should though, shouldn't I? :)
I'm probably going to set something up this year. I've got free hosting space if I want it (one of my players has a pair of servers and a business line running into his house), and a pair of web monkeys who would probably help me if I asked. Plus I just registered a business name formally this week, so probably will do some variation on that as a webpage name.
Would be useful to actually post all of my older stuff, anything random and recent that isn't published, etc.
You should! :D I bought so much Planescape that I've never once used because I couldn't get anyone to play it with me at the time. But I'd love to see a point-of-origin for Pathfinder compatible planar realms and denziens. I'm going to eventually teach myself web-coding and I've always thought about having a main website that's "Axis/Sigil" which could essentially be you and others can link into it with their own planar realms tied together in a webring. Sorta like how certain sci-fi settings do that for their star-maps (like WH40K, for instance).
Thanks, Todd, for adding this material. I love it when contributors give us their trimmings.
Enjoy :)
Utterly fabulous.
I love how you tie in real world mythology, but do it in a way that's not campy or disrespectful. It's not an easy thing to do.
Utterly fabulous.
I love how you tie in real world mythology, but do it in a way that's not campy or disrespectful. It's not an easy thing to do.
Well, Melek-Taus is pretty dang obscure as far as real world mythology is concerned. ;)
Well, Melek-Taus is pretty dang obscure as far as real world mythology is concerned. ;)Utterly fabulous.
I love how you tie in real world mythology, but do it in a way that's not campy or disrespectful. It's not an easy thing to do.
When I first read it I was like "I know I've heard of this before somewhere..." A google search later and I was reminded of it from my previous studies. You did it great justice. Reading about the real world Melek-Taus gave me the sense that I was reading more about the Golarion Melek-Taus.
The controversy facing real world Yadizi would also be a good thing to analogize into Golarion. Yadizi worship a fallen angle who restored himself to glory. The other people around them (Muslims and Christians) consider Melek Taus to be Satan/Lucifer.
So if you had followers of Melek Taus in Golarion, the question because whether or not the centre of their faith is restored and lawful or if they are worshipping a demon.
Melek-Taus...doesn't one of the characters from Alan Moore's criminally short-lived "Top 10" comic worship Melek-Taus? His costume had some peacock-motif as well.
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I can't speak for any 'canon' status within Golarion lore as a web article rather than print (I don't know how that works), but it expands on a few smaller things in The Great Beyond. Enjoy :)
Any chance I could chat with you via email regarding some Axiomite / Protean thoughts? I was curious what sort of 'base' abilities might go across those two races, similar to the 'base' abilities of an Archon, Angel, Azata, Demon or Devil, as I was working up Improved Familiar level variations on both outsider types (for LN and CN types), and wasn't sure exactly where to draw the line.
Email is in profile, if you're interested.
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Melek-Taus...doesn't one of the characters from Alan Moore's criminally short-lived "Top 10" comic worship Melek-Taus? His costume had some peacock-motif as well.
Yep, King Peacock. That's actually the first place I ever read about the actual Yazidi belief system, though I had seen the Peacock King motif played with before in other places. Melek-Taus' being analogous to Satan/Lucifer was touched on a lot there as well.
Much love for this material, by the way!
I can't speak for any 'canon' status within Golarion lore as a web article rather than print (I don't know how that works), but it expands on a few smaller things in The Great Beyond. Enjoy :)Any chance I could chat with you via email regarding some Axiomite / Protean thoughts? I was curious what sort of 'base' abilities might go across those two races, similar to the 'base' abilities of an Archon, Angel, Azata, Demon or Devil, as I was working up Improved Familiar level variations on both outsider types (for LN and CN types), and wasn't sure exactly where to draw the line.
Email is in profile, if you're interested.
I'll email you later on today, but as is, it's 2am and I'm just getting back home.
*mumble at why do organs have to arrive in the lab after normal 9-5 hours*
Part 3 of 5 is up this week covering The Risen and her spawn within the Candleflame Chancre in the Abyss.
Great stuff Todd!
I concur! Keep up the great work.
Looks good. One thing I was a bit confused by, was the implication that Demons were a creation of the Daemons, and thus younger. I thought in the Golarion cosmology, the Daemons were the youngest, and started showing up due to the interactions between Evil and the mortal soul.
The demons in the Abyss that are the most common types, ie the ones in the Bestiary (that might be called Tanar'ri elsewhere), originally were created the daemons. The Abyss and its multitude of other CE fiends (Qlippoth for instance) predate the daemons by well, a lot - a whole heck of a lot.
Of the fiends originally native to their respective home planes, the daemons are the youngest (they aren't the 'loths by any means in that respect).
Creative Director
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Yup; demons are in fact one of the youngest of the fiendish races, since they arise as a result of the interaction with a sinful mortal soul and the raw stuff of the Abyss. The daemons were the first to trigger this interaction, and once they did so, it quickly shot out of their control and immediately became a self-perpetuating sort of fiendish genesis. Basically, the daemons "taught" the Abyss how to make demons, and once the Abyss learned it from the daemons it just kept doing it on its own with every chance it got.
And since mortals are so good at being sinful, the Abyss is unlikely to run out of these materials for making new demons anytime soon!
As Todd mentions, the qlippoth are much older. In fact, they might be the OLDEST of the outsider races... it's either them or the proteans.
The link for Part 3 is not working. Can someone post a correct link please?
Even better, can someone post a link to the menu where all 4 parts so far are located?
The link for Part 3 is not working. Can someone post a correct link please?
Even better, can someone post a link to the menu where all 4 parts so far are located?
When all 5 are done, any chance they'll be collected in a single pdf? Or reworked into a short piece that makes it into an AP by Paizo?
small typo in Part 3
Part 5 is up.
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Part 5 is up.
Love the idea of the Children of Malignant Symmetry (something Krull-like, in a good way, in the idea of alien entities coming into a world to lay seige, from an otherwise un-attackable moving 'base;).
Random tweak;
Another option to the baneful poison would be to have it not be a poison at all, but a super-fast acting infection of some sort, as the child injects some of it's own self into the afflicted, which surges around inside the host, tearing it apart from the inside. Poison immunity would logically not work, since it wouldn't be a poison, and, since it's raw chaotic reality-eroding matter, even disease immunity or acid immunity would fail to prevent this infection. The saving throw could represent the infected creature's body asserting it's own stability / reality over the invading matter, but during the time of 'infection,' the flesh and bones of the creature would have been warped and deformed, as if it was attempting to polymorph, but failing to do so, resulting in the Dexterity damage.
The mechanic for the damage would use the poison rules, but the attack itself wouldn't be as simple as mere poison, as it would more accurately be like the injections a Star Trek Borg uses to turn someone into one of them, only an unsuccessful version that just causes pain and partial transformation (and, occasionally, death).