Creative Director
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Ever have a Lovecraft story that you sort of forget about and then get to "rediscover" when paging through a collection?
[This question brought to you by the, "Huh, The Shunned House... oh, right!" experience I had today]
Not really. I've read his stories a lot and am pretty familiar with them now, 35 some years later.
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Creative Director
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In the context of the basic setting lore for Golarion, where does bardic magic come from? Is it an inborn talent like sorcerers, or something that can be taught like wizards?
It's occult magic. It's magic you learn through study or are taught, but it's more about improvising and improving and spontaneously customizing in creative ways than is wizard magic, which is all about tradition and memorization.
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Creative Director
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When deciding which mythological creatures from the real world to import into Golarion, what takes precedence? Is it a matter of popularity or theme or strength or...?
What takes precedence is whether or not someone here at Paizo is interested in representing that monster in the game. Not all monsters are good choices for the game, popular or not.
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Creative Director
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James, if you could re-design magic systems to suit your own vision, would you have a division between spontaneous and prepared, or would you do something differently?
I've done precisely this for Unspeakable Futures. All magic is spontaneous in that system; I tried several mixes and adjustments and the spontaneous system used by classes like bards and oracles and sorcerers feels best to me.
I've done precisely this for Unspeakable Futures.
Which is unpublished, right?
Thanks for continuously answering our questions.
Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows, by James Lovegrove, is rising to the top of my "to read" pile. It's part of a series called "The Cthulhu Casebooks". Have you perchance read it? If so, how did you like it?
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I watched the stream of the Secrets of Golarion panel where tradition dictates you don't answer "What happened to Aroden", but I'm personally more interested in the meta question: Do you, James Jacobs, know what happened to Aroden?
That is, when the time comes to reveal what happened to Aroden, will it be more "Time to reveal what we prepared in 20XX", or "Okay, that's a cool thing that could have happened. Let's run with that"
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What made you decided to feature Hastur as the featured Great Old One in Strange Aeons instead of, say, Shub-Niggurath? Thrushmoor's history of Shub-Niggurath worship is pretty rich, and the Briarstone Witch herself was venerating him during the town's disappearance, I thought. I understand that you didn't do much beyond pen the outline, but I'm curious why you chose Hastur over others.
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Creative Director
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How do I shake this aggravating feeling that I'll never fully be caught up on Pathfinder lore and that I've wasted all the time and money I've invested in it by enjoying it wrong?
I don't know. I'm not a therapist.
I do know that we publish more Pathfinder lore than I as the creative director can keep up with, so if that helps—knowing that I can't be "fully caught up" and it's my job to try to do that—then there ya go.
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Creative Director
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I watched the stream of the Secrets of Golarion panel where tradition dictates you don't answer "What happened to Aroden", but I'm personally more interested in the meta question: Do you, James Jacobs, know what happened to Aroden?
That is, when the time comes to reveal what happened to Aroden, will it be more "Time to reveal what we prepared in 20XX", or "Okay, that's a cool thing that could have happened. Let's run with that"
Yes, I do know. Whenever we skirt the topic and do content that ties adjacently in to Aroden's death, I try to make sure that the information plays into the secret without actually revealing it or providing actual clues. That way, if some day we DO reveal what happened, folks can look back at that stuff and feel like it makes sense.
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Creative Director
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What made you decided to feature Hastur as the featured Great Old One in Strange Aeons instead of, say, Shub-Niggurath? Thrushmoor's history of Shub-Niggurath worship is pretty rich, and the Briarstone Witch herself was venerating him during the town's disappearance, I thought. I understand that you didn't do much beyond pen the outline, but I'm curious why you chose Hastur over others.
Hastur is more interesting to me. He's got a legacy that predates Lovecraft, after all, and has taken on a much more complex and interesting story post-Lovecraft with various writers. Invented by Ambrose Bierce, expanded upon by Robert Chambers, brought in if only barely into the mythos by Lovecraft, expanded further by August Derleth, and then explored even further in modern RPGs from D&D to Call of Cthulhu to Delta Green, and then tangentially brought in to the first season of True Detective. Hastur's a LOT more insidious and pervasive than almost any other one of that club with the possible exception of Cthulhu.
But also, Hastur's my favorite Great Old One, so that helped.
And Shub-Niggurath has some elements that I didn't feel comfortable exploring in Pathfinder—between the way her name sounds when you pronounce it combined with Lovecraft's racisim and the fact that she's very associated with fertility and mutation means that stories about Shub-Niggurath need to be handled with an even more mature content warning, and that's not appropriate content for Pathfinder. Lamashtu's as close as we get to that content, and even then it's pretty close to the edge of what we can explore without backlash.
Hastur's a "safer" Great Old One to explore for a publishing company like Paizo that isn't fully into the mature content scene.
How large is the actual Starstone? Is it fist sized? Boulder sized? Obviously it fits inside a building.
Although Aroden's death is a secret, can you say why the Starstone chunk is able to infuse people with god-like power? Did it somehow absorb some aspect of the gods who died trying to stop Earthfall or was it infused as some type of artifact before that which Aroden somehow recognized and that is why he raised it?
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Creative Director
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Although Aroden's death is a secret, can you say why the Starstone chunk is able to infuse people with god-like power? Did it somehow absorb some aspect of the gods who died trying to stop Earthfall or was it infused as some type of artifact before that which Aroden somehow recognized and that is why he raised it?
Also unrevealed at this point.
How did people find out about Norgober completing the test of the Starstone?
Whose idea was it for Norgorber's apotheosis to be so shrouded in secrecy?
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When Golarion was first being fleshed out in the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting, it seemed like most of the seven sins had a patron god. Envy for Zon-Kuthon, pride for Asmodeus, lust for Calistria, greed for Norgorber, wrath for Rovagug, gluttony for Urgathoa.
Was there a thought of having the Runelords follow these respective faiths, back in the day?
Hi, James!
I was a player in your Call of Cthulhu: "The Prodigy of Death" game at this year's PaizoCon. I had a BLAST! I think you're a fantastic Keeper!
I would love to run that adventure myself at some point. Have you published it anywhere?
And thanks again for running it!
How is Vyre pronounced? (Or, at least, how do you pronounce it.) Rhymes with fear or rhymes with fire?
Do we know anything about those who have crossed the chasm before the Starstone Cathedral and returned without completing the Test?
Is the Test of the Starstone something you have decided already but hasn't been revealed (like the death of Aroden) or is it still undefined even in the office (have ideas but nothing really nailed down)?
Hastur's a "safer" Great Old One to explore for a publishing company like Paizo that isn't fully into the mature content scene.
Did you know that Hastur is featured in the latest "Good Omens" TV Show on Amazon Prime?
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Creative Director
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When Golarion was first being fleshed out in the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting, it seemed like most of the seven sins had a patron god. Envy for Zon-Kuthon, pride for Asmodeus, lust for Calistria, greed for Norgorber, wrath for Rovagug, gluttony for Urgathoa.
Was there a thought of having the Runelords follow these respective faiths, back in the day?
Nope.
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Creative Director
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Hi, James!
I was a player in your Call of Cthulhu: "The Prodigy of Death" game at this year's PaizoCon. I had a BLAST! I think you're a fantastic Keeper!
I would love to run that adventure myself at some point. Have you published it anywhere?
And thanks again for running it!
Yay, thank you!
I haven't published the adventure. I've considered doing something like that for the 5 or so Cthulhu games I've written over the decade for Paizocon, though... but haven't yet started to look into that seriously yet.
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Creative Director
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Is the Test of the Starstone something you have decided already but hasn't been revealed (like the death of Aroden) or is it still undefined even in the office (have ideas but nothing really nailed down)?
The idea is that it adjusts to match personalities and goals and the like of the one taking it, but we haven't nailed it down yet.
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Creative Director
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Hastur's a "safer" Great Old One to explore for a publishing company like Paizo that isn't fully into the mature content scene.Did you know that Hastur is featured in the latest "Good Omens" TV Show on Amazon Prime?
I did not. Interesting! And yet another example of how pervasive Hastur is becoming.
Have you seen Godzilla King of The Monsters yet? If so what did you think?
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Creative Director
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Have you seen Godzilla King of The Monsters yet? If so what did you think?
Yup; took Friday off from work to see it. I quite enjoyed it! Liked the prior one better, but I ADORED the return of the old musical themes! Very fun movie, marred, alas, as are so many Godzilla movies, by inane and ridiculous human dialogue.
As with the prior one, the movie would have been so much better had the human focus been on anyone else other than the guy they chose.
Who would the Malebranche for Earth be? (Sorry in advance if this is one of those undecided answers)
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Creative Director
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Who would the Malebranche for Earth be? (Sorry in advance if this is one of those undecided answers)
Since they're all from Dante's Inferno anyway, they'd pretty much be the same ones.
Who would the Malebranche for Earth be? (Sorry in advance if this is one of those undecided answers)Since they're all from Dante's Inferno anyway, they'd pretty much be the same ones.
I thought that usually a single Malebranche would be selected to conquer a planet? Sorry if I wasn't clear.
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Creative Director
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I thought that usually a single Malebranche would be selected to conquer a planet? Sorry if I wasn't clear.Who would the Malebranche for Earth be? (Sorry in advance if this is one of those undecided answers)Since they're all from Dante's Inferno anyway, they'd pretty much be the same ones.
Oh! Yeah, that's something we came up with for Golarion. I'm not sure off the top of my head which ones I'd associate with our real-world planets, since I don't really know enough about the Maelbranche off the top of my head to rattle those roles off. That was Wes's thing, and he's not been at Paizo for years.
That said, our solar system and Golarion's are relatively similar in scope and layout, so you can sort of assume that the roles would be the same for these devils, I guess.
As with the prior one, the movie would have been so much better had the human focus been on anyone else other than the guy they chose.
Agreed- a problem Legendary seems to have pretty consistently with their monster movies.
Favorite soundtrack moment in the film?
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As with the prior one, the movie would have been so much better had the human focus been on anyone else other than the guy they chose.Agreed- a problem Legendary seems to have pretty consistently with their monster movies.
Favorite soundtrack moment in the film?
** spoiler omitted **
Saw it in an IMAX theater which had a LOT of sound and fury that made actually listening to the musical score difficult... but my favorite would have been...
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Creative Director
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Hi James,
I have been thinking for a while now of running a game where the PCs are gladiators - but treat them as professional athletes, not as slaves or condemned criminals. I thought it'd be fun to spin away from the typical story of rebellion etc that comes with media about gladiators, and allow me to play with themes from stories about boxing and other sports instead.
I worry though that some of this might not translate well to a game. Having the enemy cheat their way to victory is powerful in a film but I'm worried it'd just be frustrating in an rpg. Obviously the players would have a chance to right that wrong in the end, but them losing at first and ultimately triumphing seems important to the kind of story that goes with sports media.
Do you think there's a way to pull this off? Is it plausible for a GM to do a story like this, or would I be better off taking a different approach?
If there's enemies who cheat, that's a good way to get the PCs invested in defeating them. It'd probably be best to have the "automatic win" element of cheating happen against other NPC gladiators as the bad guys climb the ladder opposite to the PCs.
Setting up fights that are TOUGH to win is good. Setting up fights where there's no way at all for the PCs to win is not.
The one exception is if it takes place before the campaign begins. You could start this campaign with the PCs already having lost a fight to the cheaters, right at the start of their gladiator careers, and be down in the dumps. The first adventure then becomes a "recover from the loss" adventure where the PCs have to fight their way back into the limelight; this could work particularly well if you start the campaign with higher level PCs.
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Hi James
Sorry to be a bother if you've answered this earlier in the thread but I bought the Imperial edition of Owlcat's Kingmaker CRPG and so far they're stonewalling the community as to progress with the bonus tabletop module and I was wondering if you could give any information in that regard for me to pass on to the community?
I only ask because it's been over 8 months and Owlcat have given us no news whatsoever.
Regards Ronin.