Did Azlanti know Gorum's existence before Earthfall? Did some of them worship him?
Did Azlanti know Gorum's existence before Earthfall? Did some of them worship him?Unlikely.
Hmm. Did Gorum exist before Earthfall at all? Or did he not exist then? I'm not sure who created him, thus I'm not sure who in Paizo know about him most.
Creative Director
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Hmm. Did Gorum exist before Earthfall at all? Or did he not exist then? I'm not sure who created him, thus I'm not sure who in Paizo know about him most.Did Azlanti know Gorum's existence before Earthfall? Did some of them worship him?Unlikely.
I don't think we've ever nailed that date down, but I believe Gorum took part in the Rovagug banishment which means he vastly predates Azlant.
There are ten dwarven gods and twelve giant gods. Even orcs have eight gods. But elves have only three gods and dragons have only two gods. Will Paizo expand upon these two pantheons and add more elven and draconic gods to the game? I really wish Paizo to do so.
|
Creative Director
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
There are ten dwarven gods and twelve giant gods. Even orcs have eight gods. But elves have only three gods and dragons have only two gods. Will Paizo expand upon these two pantheons and add more elven and draconic gods to the game? I really wish Paizo to do so.
Nope. Not every pantheon needs to have an equal number of deities. That's way too artificial in construction for my tastes.
Lawful outsiders want to maintain the universe. Then can I assume that chaotic outsiders want to destroy the universe? It seems I should stop liking Desna and instead start liking Asmodeus, if she really wishes to destroy the universe and he really wishes to protect the universe!
|
Creative Director
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Lawful outsiders want to maintain the universe. Then can I assume that chaotic outsiders want to destroy the universe? It seems I should stop liking Desna and instead start liking Asmodeus, if she really wishes to destroy the universe and he really wishes to protect the universe!
Not all lawful outsiders want that, and just because something wants something doesn't mean it's opposite wants the opposite.
There's more to Desna than the word chaotic. "Good" has equal force there, and destroying the universe is hardly "good."
Even if Nocticula becomes chaotic neutral, I believe there would be some demons that will still follow her. Will these demons become proteans? Or will they become risen demons, just like Arueshalae?
|
Creative Director
|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Even if Nocticula becomes chaotic neutral, I believe there would be some demons that will still follow her. Will these demons become proteans? Or will they become risen demons, just like Arueshalae?
They'll stay demons; there'll be few enough of them that they should be all dealt with on a case by case, individual need as you wish. In time, I suspect new types of outsiders might arise to serve Nocticula, but in the short term, I could see valkyries working for her.
Is there a non core alien you'd like to try making a Starfinder character with.
Dear James Jacobs,
While I know Hellknights aren't a speciality of yours, I am curious; Do you think it would be possible for two equal ranked Hellknights to practice courtly love and still manage to go out and fight Elder Mythos cultists together? (Even though one is Order of the Pyre and the other is Order of the Rack?)
|
Creative Director
|
Dear James Jacobs,
While I know Hellknights aren't a speciality of yours, I am curious; Do you think it would be possible for two equal ranked Hellknights to practice courtly love and still manage to go out and fight Elder Mythos cultists together? (Even though one is Order of the Pyre and the other is Order of the Rack?)
I suppose, although none of those things are particularly thematic to Hellknights.
Are you working on the Kingmaker anniversary edition at all?
|
Creative Director
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Are you working on the Kingmaker anniversary edition at all?
I helped write a lot of the text you're seeing on the crowdfunding page, and was involved in many meetings to determine what was going to make up the book and its add-ons and all that. And I'll be involved in final approvals for the product before it ships to the printer, as with all of our books.
But as of right now, that's all of my involvement. I'm not writing more content or developing any of it. Which is, to be honest, fine with me. After developing the last three hardcover adventure path things we've done, I'm ready to not spend a year re-building things I've already built, and am eager to get fresh eyes that aren't mine on it.
|
Creative Director
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Three?
I developed and wrote new content for and expanded the hardcover editions of Shackled City, Rise of the Runelords, and Crimson Throne. Each one was bigger than the previous one, and they pretty much took me out of the loop on working on other Pathfinder content for a year each—that's 3 years of the Creative Director not being directly involved in "modern" products, which has resulted in me not being as good at the job I'm supposed to be doing, if that makes sense.
Dear James Jacobs,
What do you think would be more thematic to Hellkinghts if not fighting Elder Mythos cultists?
|
Creative Director
|
Dear James Jacobs,
What do you think would be more thematic to Hellkinghts if not fighting Elder Mythos cultists?
Each Hellknight order has its own thing as to what they thematically oppose. If you want to be totally generic and talk about something ALL Hellknights would oppose, that would be law-breakers.
|
Creative Director
|
Each Hellknight order has its own thing as to what they thematically oppose. If you want to be totally generic and talk about something ALL Hellknights would oppose, that would be law-breakers.Dear James Jacobs,
What do you think would be more thematic to Hellkinghts if not fighting Elder Mythos cultists?
What kind of law-breakers?
The spirit-of-the-law law-breakers or the letter-of-the-law law-breakers?
Or are they egalitarian and hate on all types of law-breaking?
Again, that depends on the nature of their focus. It's detailed very well in the Path of the Hellknight book. Each order has their own take on what sorts of laws are most important, and there are a LOT of orders, so it's not something I can or want to answer in a post at 1:00 am.
From your GMing and story perspective, is it easier to change the alignment of a character than their deity?
|
Creative Director
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
From your GMing and story perspective, is it easier to change the alignment of a character than their deity?
From my experience developing adventures and stories from writers, yes. In almost every case, the choice of a character's deity is something that is hard to screw up, since that choice tends to be one that you have to research and make and know about.
But forgetting the rule that a 1st edition cleric's alignment needs to be in 1 step of the deity's alignment? That's much easier to do than to completely misunderstand the nature of a characer's entire religion.
I'm noticing an increased emphasis on neutral outsiders (I like "Monitors", but the way ^_^) and "occult" themes. Is this indicative of an intentional narrative focus on Paizo's part?
|
Creative Director
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm noticing an increased emphasis on neutral outsiders (I like "Monitors", but the way ^_^) and "occult" themes. Is this indicative of an intentional narrative focus on Paizo's part?
No.
It's just us finally getting around to that stuff after spending more time on the other stuff.
Let's say a character is a shapeshifter, but an ooze and therefore not naturally humanoid. Does that mean it'd have no item slots, and thus be unable to use certain wearable items?
On a related note, how do item slots work in 2nd Edition?
|
Creative Director
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Let's say a character is a shapeshifter, but an ooze and therefore not naturally humanoid. Does that mean it'd have no item slots, and thus be unable to use certain wearable items?
On a related note, how do item slots work in 2nd Edition?
A character who is a shapeshifting ooze is so far out of bounds from what the game expects that your GM needs to make up new rules for that situation. I wouldn't allow a shapeshifting ooze PC in my game since that's kinda too goofy for my tastes; I prefer less outlandish groups.
If you wanted to do so, though, the shapeshifting ooze should have the same item slots as any other character, unless you wanted to design that character as having an advantage or disadvantage over the other PCs, in which case you'd want to balance things out in the right way. A shapeshifting ooze sounds like it's already super powerful a baseline, so I'd suggest limiting its item slots, I guess, since it's already doing so much more.
From a purely flavor standpoint, it should have item slots as long as it's shapechanged into something with the appropriate slot to have an item on, and would still be limited to the norm, I'd say. So a form with no hands wouldn't get to wear gloves or rings, but a form with 60 arms would still be limited to 2 rings and one set of gloves.
As for the second question...
...and...
In the description page of Hellknight Hill, it says "Preorder, expected approximately 8 Jul 2019." But it also says "Please disregard the availability information below. This item will be available August 1, 2019." Well, if the aforementioned information was an error, then why doesn't Paizo simply change the information, instead of telling us that information was an error?
|
Creative Director
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Does that mean in the absence of aggressively chaotic forces that Hellknights start tearing into each other? And in fighting each other over technical interpretations of the law aren't they then actually agents of chaos themselves?
No. It doesn't mean that at all.
|
Creative Director
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
In the description page of Hellknight Hill, it says "Preorder, expected approximately 8 Jul 2019." But it also says "Please disregard the availability information below. This item will be available August 1, 2019." Well, if the aforementioned information was an error, then why doesn't Paizo simply change the information, instead of telling us that information was an error?
That's a good question... but not for me: I have no idea.
I'm still not sure how would evil runelords treat the current denizens of Varisia when they triumph. If Karzoug was more successful in Rise of the Runelords and thus conquered Varisia, or if any other evil runelords(Xanderghul, Alaznist, Belimarius, et cetera) somehow succeeded in conquering Varisia, would the runelords have made the humans, elves, dwarves, and any other civilized races as slaves? Would the runelords simply have killed them all? Or would they have treated them as legitimate citizens of Thassilon and have ruled them justly and fairly?
|
Creative Director
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm still not sure how would evil runelords treat the current denizens of Varisia when they triumph. If Karzoug was more successful in Rise of the Runelords and thus conquered Varisia, or if any other evil runelords(Xanderghul, Alaznist, Belimarius, et cetera) somehow succeeded in conquering Varisia, would the runelords have made the humans, elves, dwarves, and any other civilized races as slaves? Would the runelords simply have killed them all? Or would they have treated them as legitimate citizens of Thassilon and have ruled them justly and fairly?
They'd be evil and brutal and violent and unpleasant, but they wouldn't have killed them all. You can't rule a nation if you kill all your subjects. But it still would have been awful, otherwise why bother doing the Adventure Paths to stop them? Wouldn't make any sense.
The fact that Sorshen goes a different way is not the norm for would-be runelord rulers of new nations.
|
Creative Director
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm watching In The Mouth of Madness again, and I was struck with curiosity. Did the ideas in the film, of an idea that propagates cosmic horror merely by being known, have any role in inspiring the Great Old One Xhamen-Dor?
While I invented Xhamen-Dor back in High School in a short story I wrote back in 1988 or thereabouts, the element of him being infectious via learning about him is something I built up later and finally ended up quantifying in print in Strange Aeons's outline.
In the Mouth of Madness is a great movie, and it likely had some indirect inspiration for the idea, but it wasn't the thing I was thinking about the most when writing about Xhamen-Dor. That was more from an amalgam of decades spent reading stories and watching movies about how knowledge can cause problems.
|
Creative Director
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Also, what are your thoughts on the individual films in the Apocalypse Trilogy? I take it for granted that you're a fan, but I'd love to know your more specific thoughts on them. ^_^
The Thing: This alternates with Alien as my all time favorite movie.
Prince of Darkness: This is a great movie as well; love the Quatermass type elements, and the combination of faith and science is super fascinating as well.
In The Mouth of Madness: Of the three, this one's my least favorite... but it's still a great movie and a really amazing look at how fiction creates reality, with some thought-provoking stuff about how books like the Bible already do that kind of in real life in that they compel people to alter their own world-view and thus their own reality.
Can we get a hint about who the deity(ies) may be? Alignment, domain, name; whatever you can give.Are there any specific deities who like to push the boundaries of the "non-interference in the mortal world" edict (Iomedae seems to have tried to see the limits, in some manner, during Wrath of the Righteous) and is this something Casandalee and Nocticula would struggle with upon becoming new divinities?Yes, and when they do, they'll show up in adventures or adventure paths*. It's not something Casandalee or Nocticula would struggle with though.
*Age of Ashes spoiler!
The deity in question is:
** spoiler omitted **
Well that just sold me on keeping up my AP subscription.
|
Creative Director
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
While reviewing monsters to use in an upcoming campaign I came across the Ankou and read into it's real world origins.
Do you recall the reasoning for making them alien looking manta ray-like creatures? I'm really curious.
I don't. I suspect that was Wes though.
|
Creative Director
|
Can we get a hint about who the deity(ies) may be? Alignment, domain, name; whatever you can give.Are there any specific deities who like to push the boundaries of the "non-interference in the mortal world" edict (Iomedae seems to have tried to see the limits, in some manner, during Wrath of the Righteous) and is this something Casandalee and Nocticula would struggle with upon becoming new divinities?Yes, and when they do, they'll show up in adventures or adventure paths*. It's not something Casandalee or Nocticula would struggle with though.
*Age of Ashes spoiler!
The deity in question is:
** spoiler omitted **
Well that just sold me on keeping up my AP subscription.
** spoiler omitted **
Nope. No plans to bring back the azi dragons.
|
Nope. No plans to bring back the azi dragons.Can we get a hint about who the deity(ies) may be? Alignment, domain, name; whatever you can give.Are there any specific deities who like to push the boundaries of the "non-interference in the mortal world" edict (Iomedae seems to have tried to see the limits, in some manner, during Wrath of the Righteous) and is this something Casandalee and Nocticula would struggle with upon becoming new divinities?Yes, and when they do, they'll show up in adventures or adventure paths*. It's not something Casandalee or Nocticula would struggle with though.
*Age of Ashes spoiler!
The deity in question is:
** spoiler omitted **
Well that just sold me on keeping up my AP subscription.
** spoiler omitted **
Aww, what about Linnorms?
Is there a Pathfinder (or maybe not even specific to Pathfinder) style guide available? Something to that outlines which words get capitalized, which words get italicized, anything about pronoun usage, etc.