Varisia was the first region of Golarion to really get fully detailed and explored, and as part of that we pushed hard to make sure ALL of the ancestries are options. ANY human ethnicity works there, but Varisians, Taldans, Ulfens, Shoanti, and Tiens are a bit more common than the others, I suppose—but no one would be surprised or confused by the presence of a Kellid or Keleshite or Mwangi or Vudrani character. Sandpoint, for example, has people of ALL human ethnicities represented therein.
Same goes for the other ancestries. There's plenty of elves in the region, with a small elven homeland region in Celwynvian. There's the sky citadel of Janderhoff not far from Korvosa. Gnomes have lots of small villages and regions in and around Sanos Forest, where there's some heavy fey stuff going on, but there's also the gnome village of Whistledown as well. Half-orcs have plenty of history in the Cinderlands, particularly around Urglin and along the eastern border. Halflings are pretty common all over the place in Varisia.
Varisia is supposed to be a diverse melting pot where any and every core PC option or human ethnicity is a good thematic choice to play. It's a frontier that's attracted people from throughout the inner sea. It's a "mini campaign setting," if you will... a bite-sized version of the Inner Sea Region as a whole.
Lovely! I didn't know Ulfens and Tiens were more common than usual (although I should've known, the Linnorm Kingdoms and the Path of Aganhei are just up North). And you're right, it's like a fractal of the Age of Lost Omens... never really noticed, even considering the diversity of characters that could typically come from here.
Thank you, JJ! To avoid finishing this post without a question and getting rightfully scolded ;P are you happy with the way the P2 products and schedule are turning out? Is there something you're particularly proud of? Something you wish you could change?
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Thank you, JJ! To avoid finishing this post without a question and getting rightfully scolded ;P are you happy with the way the P2 products and schedule are turning out? Is there something you're particularly proud of? Something you wish you could change?
To be honest, I'm still stressed out and frustrated with how insanely busy we've been with the edition launch. And with the big Kingmaker book looming late next year, that stress and frustration isn't apt to be going away anytime soon. Hopefully we'll either settle down our release schedule or hire more developers/editors to keep up with the demand soon.
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Thank you, JJ! To avoid finishing this post without a question and getting rightfully scolded ;P are you happy with the way the P2 products and schedule are turning out? Is there something you're particularly proud of? Something you wish you could change?To be honest, I'm still stressed out and frustrated with how insanely busy we've been with the edition launch. And with the big Kingmaker book looming late next year, that stress and frustration isn't apt to be going away anytime soon. Hopefully we'll either settle down our release schedule or hire more developers/editors to keep up with the demand soon.
You have all my big Kingmaker book money in the meantime. Have you tried whisky? :)
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You have all my big Kingmaker book money in the meantime. Have you tried whisky? :)Thank you, JJ! To avoid finishing this post without a question and getting rightfully scolded ;P are you happy with the way the P2 products and schedule are turning out? Is there something you're particularly proud of? Something you wish you could change?To be honest, I'm still stressed out and frustrated with how insanely busy we've been with the edition launch. And with the big Kingmaker book looming late next year, that stress and frustration isn't apt to be going away anytime soon. Hopefully we'll either settle down our release schedule or hire more developers/editors to keep up with the demand soon.
Whisky works pretty good, as does gin and vodka, but these days port is my preferred method of dealing with the release schedule.
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Dear James Jacobs,
Do you prefer Tawny Port or just regular?
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What does nidal think of the wispering tyrant?
Nice try, new guy; call me back in 5 thousand years or so if you're still around and we'll talk about you potentially being a competitor.
AKA: Nidal is one of the oldest nations in the setting. It's separated from the Whispering Tyrant by distance and has a powerful patron in Zon-Kuthon that most of the inhabitants worship and fear and trust to protect them. They're not worried about yet another power-mad crazed wizard, even one like Tar-Baphon who has a habit of coming back again and again. Each time, Nidal would point out, he oversteps himself and heroes smack him down.
Way to never learn from your mistakes! Have fun rejuvenating... AGAIN... while we continue to do our quietly successful evil here for another several thousand centuries. Noob. :-P
What does Nidal as a whole make of Cheliax's recent difficulties in maintaining domestic order?
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What does Nidal as a whole make of Cheliax's recent difficulties in maintaining domestic order?
By not completely caving in to Cheliax's demands and not supporting their every decision. In one significant way, by leaving Ravounel alone and seeking to establish trade there.
Given Chaotic and Lawful aspects are both parts of reality, why do the servants of the Monad, the Aeons, favor Law and avoid Chaos now, when they didn't in 1e?
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Given Chaotic and Lawful aspects are both parts of reality, why do the servants of the Monad, the Aeons, favor Law and avoid Chaos now, when they didn't in 1e?
Because we changed the flavor and role for the aeons to shore up our lawful neutral "outsider" races.
JJ, another question came to me - are there leshies, hobgoblins and/or lizardfolks in Varisia, and if so how many, where, etc? Not demanding a preview of the Character Guide and if you can't answer it's fine of course, but I got curious. By my reckoning, hobgoblins have never been numerous in the region (not as much as in Isger, Molthune, and now Oprak of course), and lizzies have always preferred Garund, but I have no idea about leshies and maybe lately things have changed, or perhaps there's been some small retcon? Thanks for your abundant patience...
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JJ, another question came to me - are there leshies, hobgoblins and/or lizardfolks in Varisia, and if so how many, where, etc? Not demanding a preview of the Character Guide and if you can't answer it's fine of course, but I got curious. By my reckoning, hobgoblins have never been numerous in the region (not as much as in Isger, Molthune, and now Oprak of course), and lizzies have always preferred Garund, but I have no idea about leshies and maybe lately things have changed, or perhaps there's been some small retcon? Thanks for your abundant patience...
There are lizardfolk in the Mushfens in a few places. No real hobgoblin or leshy spots though.
Leshies are around wherever druids are around, not just in Garund.
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You said that the arts for ogres in Bestiary were not satisfying and they will be gone in reprints of Bestiary. Will the art for the bugbear be changed in reprints as well? At first I liked the bugbear art, but since you said it isn't the final look you are aiming at, I began to hate it and now I anticipate what kind of new look would be given to bugbears. By the way, I like the new hobgoblins very much. Now they finally look like proper goblinoids. :)
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You said that the arts for ogres in Bestiary were not satisfying and they will be gone in reprints of Bestiary. Will the art for the bugbear be changed in reprints as well? At first I liked the bugbear art, but since you said it isn't the final look you are aiming at, I began to hate it and now I anticipate what kind of new look would be given to bugbears. By the way, I like the new hobgoblins very much. Now they finally look like proper goblinoids. :)
I suspect so; the bugbear art is another that slipped through the cracks in the same way the ogres did. See Age of Ashes, Hellknight Hill for a more accurate illustration of a bugbear.
So Second Edition Bestiary will really be reprinted? I'm glad and surprised at the same time, because in First Edition, Paizo didn't reprint The Worldwound, The Emerald Spire Superdungeon, Inner Sea Faiths and Prisoners of the Blight to change the arts you disliked(lilitu, xiomorns, Apsu, Dahak, and the cover art of Arlantia). So I thought the bugbear art and ogre arts in Bestiary will never be changed. :) So in Second Edition, can I anticipate that Paizo will reprint the books as much as possible to change the arts?
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So Second Edition Bestiary will really be reprinted? I'm glad and surprised at the same time, because in First Edition, Paizo didn't reprint The Worldwound, The Emerald Spire Superdungeon, Inner Sea Faiths and Prisoners of the Blight to change the arts you disliked(lilitu, xiomorns, Apsu, Dahak, and the cover art of Arlantia). So I thought the bugbear art and ogre arts in Bestiary will never be changed. :) So in Second Edition, can I anticipate that Paizo will reprint the books as much as possible to change the arts?
There's a huge difference between a smaller book and the core Bestiary of the entire game. We normally do NOT change the art when we reprint though, because that complicates the word flow... but in the case of the hardcover bestiary, which has a good chance of seeing more eyes than ANY OTHER Bestiary book we've EVER published, getting the art right is important.
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JJ, I was wondering - lately in PF products I think I've been noticing very clear condemnations of slavery, moreso than in the past. At the same time, afaik, Kelesh is supposed to be an overall decent and ethical sociopolitical entity, even with its inevitable flaws here and there. But, they do have slavery. Reading about the place I've had the impression their slavery is somewhat nuanced, as in, they go about it with a strongly ethical mindset that tends to avoid the negative extremes one often encounters in, say, Cheliax or Katapesh (and they don't practice chattel slavery), but it's still slavery and supposed to be an essentially "evil" practice if I'm reading the subtext right.
So... I'm quite sure Kelesh was never meant to be an example of an evil society, and that's still the case. Is slavery there a societal flaw that will remain to show how one of the greatest cultures of the setting can still get some things wrong? Or perhaps there are significant changes in store for the Padishah Empire?
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JJ, I was wondering - lately in PF products I think I've been noticing very clear condemnations of slavery, moreso than in the past. At the same time, afaik, Kelesh is supposed to be an overall decent and ethical sociopolitical entity, even with its inevitable flaws here and there. But, they do have slavery. Reading about the place I've had the impression their slavery is somewhat nuanced, as in, they go about it with a strongly ethical mindset that tends to avoid the negative extremes one often encounters in, say, Cheliax or Katapesh (and they don't practice chattel slavery), but it's still slavery and supposed to be an essentially "evil" practice if I'm reading the subtext right.
So... I'm quite sure Kelesh was never meant to be an example of an evil society, and that's still the case. Is slavery there a societal flaw that will remain to show how one of the greatest cultures of the setting can still get some things wrong? Or perhaps there are significant changes in store for the Padishah Empire?
Slavery in Kelesh is a flaw that will be outlawed as well going forward. It's ridiculous to associate Sarenrae and slavery in the same breath. I'm not interested in removing Sarenrae from Kelesh, nor am I interested in making Kelesh into an evil nation, and so you can expect at some point when we do more with Kelesh that slavery's going to be increasingly illegal there.
In fact, the opportunity to do this makes me want to do a big book on Casmaron more than ever, so that we'll have a great chance to correct that in print.
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Isn't the divorcing of slavery from all non-evil nations a disservice to the subject at hand though? to have non-evil countries with slavery forces the players to introspect and perhaps organize rebels against the injustice (i.e. adventure/ropleplay opportunities, whereas if you sanitize Kelesh, there's not much of a reason to adventure there anymore other than it becoming a giant Wal-mart...)
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Isn't the divorcing of slavery from all non-evil nations a disservice to the subject at hand though? to have non-evil countries with slavery forces the players to introspect and perhaps organize rebels against the injustice (i.e. adventure/ropleplay opportunities, whereas if you sanitize Kelesh, there's not much of a reason to adventure there anymore other than it becoming a giant Wal-mart...)
Representing slavery as non-evil is a disservice to morality and humanity. I'm absolutely NOT interested in that.
Making slavery illegal does not "sanitize" Kelesh. It course-corrects Kelesh into being the type of nation we intended in the first place but that had some errors of judgement in it. The idea that "there's no reason to adventure in Kelesh if slavery is illegal" is faulty, flawed, and just plain wrong. If that were the case, then why aren't other areas in the campaign where slavery has always been illegal judged the same way? And if the only reason someone is interested in a region is because slavery is legal... then I feel like that region needs a LOT of work to make it less one-note and fraught with awful. There's still plenty of other topics there to explore without coming across as saying "slavery isn't bad." Because if we allow slavery to be legal in a nation which is not-evil, certain people will interpret that as "The employees at Paizo condone slavery and think that slavery isn't bad."
Which is not the case. Slavery is awful and gross and I'm not interested in creating content that awful people can use to justify their awful real-world politics in a game I work on. And if by taking the stance that slavery is evil and a nation that allows it to legally exist is also evil helps to get some gamers to realize their privilege may be causing pain to others, that's important to me as well.
Feel free to adjust things in your home game as you wish and as your players are comfortable with, but the baseline for us is Slavery = Evil. It's staying in the game because it IS an important topic and its a real-world awfulness, but it's going to remain a villain role and in our products will be presented as something PCs should fight against and defeat.
EDIT: One thing to keep in mind for us publishing a tabletop RPG is that we can't control the context of anything once it's in play. We can only work hard to establish a baseline, educate, and inspire GMs to run the type of game we want Pathfinder to be run as. Players tend to assume that the greatness in a game is the result of their GM and that the awful parts are from the publisher, at least, from my side of the fence, so it's very important for us to make sure that what we publish reflects on our own beliefs and opinions as employees of Paizo and as human beings. Every other GM who allies with us and strives to present games their players are comfortable playing and enjoy is a win for us all.
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Isn't the divorcing of slavery from all non-evil nations a disservice to the subject at hand though? to have non-evil countries with slavery forces the players to introspect and perhaps organize rebels against the injustice (i.e. adventure/ropleplay opportunities, whereas if you sanitize Kelesh, there's not much of a reason to adventure there anymore other than it becoming a giant Wal-mart...)Representing slavery as non-evil is a disservice to morality and humanity. I'm absolutely NOT interested in that.
Making slavery illegal does not "sanitize" Kelesh. It course-corrects Kelesh into being the type of nation we intended in the first place but that had some errors of judgement in it. The idea that "there's no reason to adventure in Kelesh if slavery is illegal" is faulty, flawed, and just plain wrong. If that were the case, then why aren't other areas in the campaign where slavery has always been illegal judged the same way? And if the only reason someone is interested in a region is because slavery is legal... then I feel like that region needs a LOT of work to make it less one-note and fraught with awful. There's still plenty of other topics there to explore without coming across as saying "slavery isn't bad." Because if we allow slavery to be legal in a nation which is not-evil, certain people will interpret that as "The employees at Paizo condone slavery and think that slavery isn't bad."
Which is not the case. Slavery is awful and gross and I'm not interested in creating content that awful people can use to justify their awful real-world politics in a game I work on. And if by taking the stance that slavery is evil and a nation that allows it to legally exist is also evil helps to get some gamers to realize their privilege may be causing pain to others, that's important to me as well.
Feel free to adjust things in your home game as you wish and as your players are comfortable with, but the baseline for us is Slavery = Evil. It's staying in the game because it IS an...
Defining Slavery as not a grey area is a huge improvement to the setting as far as I'm concerned. Thanks for this.
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Hold of Belkzen, Cheliax, Darklands, Geb, Irrisen, Mediogalti Island, Nidal, Razmiran, Ustalav are all evil and probably all practice slavery to a certain degree.
I 'think' Taldor banned slavery (Neutral nation). Absalom is Neutral and relatively recently through the Pathfinder Society, liberated their slaves in the "Siege of Absalom." I 'thought' the reason Katapesh still had it was deep-rooted, and because of Leng and the Pactmasters rather than the general population being evil, but it's been a long time since I ran Legacy of Fire and delved into this. Do you plan to publish an adventure that deals with the liberation of Katapesh?
PS: by Kelesh in the previous posts I assume we were both talking of Katapesh... sorry if this led to some confusion as I didn't mean the Kelesh people as a whole. Based on your response I seem to have touched a nerve, which was not my intent. I see Katapesh as big and wonderful but with something rotting at its core behind the veil of commerce and prosperity exactly mostly in part due to the extraplanar slavery ring.
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So gods can revive their dead heralds, but would evil gods do that in general? Like if Stabbing Beast got killed during certain AP they make appearance as boss enemy in, would Norgorber bring him back in time for 2e? :D
Whether or not ANY deity revived a dead herald is up to them. Some evil gods would. Some good gods would not. It's 100% up to the deity in question (and by extension, up to the story you want to tell). We'll make those decisions when the time is right for each AP or book as needed.
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Something is being passed around reddit as fact that I find...implausible.
Has Paizo placed an in-world-chronological limit on Owlcat Games' future ability to make computer games from adventure paths?
That is: Has Paizo told them "any future game you make cannot be set earlier than Kingmaker"?
We have not said that to them.
Other than ogres and bugbears, are there other monsters that you wish to change arts in the Bestiary reprint?
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Other than ogres and bugbears, are there other monsters that you wish to change arts in the Bestiary reprint?
Yeah, I'd like to move away from the D&D interpretation fo the simurgh and have it be more of a bird creature rather than a rainbow-winged wolf, both to drift closer to the real-world myths and away from D&D's look from back in the third edition days. You can see a preview of this new look in an upcoming installment of Age of Ashes.
That's pretty much it though. For the vast majority of the Bestiary art I think it's pretty spot on.
Sigh. I think making Qadira and Kelesh as warlike slaver nations wouldn't be a problem, actually. Describing Cheliax as such didn't raise anyone's eyebrow. So why can't Qadira and Kelesh be described as such?
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What's a/some of the new art for characters/creatures that's been your favourite(s)?
I really love the new hobgoblin look, for one. And for that matter, I love pretty much ALL of the new art. I'm thankful we have a mimic mimicing something other than a treasure chest finally.
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Sigh. I think making Qadira and Kelesh as warlike slaver nations wouldn't be a problem, actually. Describing Cheliax as such didn't raise anyone's eyebrow. So why can't Qadira and Kelesh be described as such?
Because Sarenrae is the most powerful and widespread religion there, and unlike Cheliax, whose most widespread religion is Asmodeus (lawful evil), a neutral good deity like Sarenrae wouldnt' be widespread in a region that is a warlike slaver nation.
If we make a change to Kelesh and Qadira to make them warlike slavers, we have to kick Sarenrae out of the entire thing, and that's a change I'm not interested in making. At all.
Is Sarenrae from your home campaign or did she have a different origination.
Can I assume that you originally intended to make Qadira and Kelesh as peace-loving nations that hate slavery but somehow the writers misunderstood your intention and thus wrongly described them?
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Is Sarenrae from your home campaign or did she have a different origination.
Sarenrae is indeed from my home game—I invented her back around 1990 or thereabouts, maybe a little earlier. She's the primary deity of good in my homebrew, which had five deities (one for each type of alignment—law, good, chaos, evil, and neutral) in the position of leadership over the setting's divinities.
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Can I assume that you originally intended to make Qadira and Kelesh as peace-loving nations that hate slavery but somehow the writers misunderstood your intention and thus wrongly described them?
Not "peace-loving" nations, but nations driven by tradition and money. The Qadira book captures the feeling perfectly, really. There IS an element in the region of indentured servitude, where someone gives up their freedom in return for something, and promises servitude for a set amount of time, but that's NOT the same thing as slavery—it's a pretty complicated topic, though, with some subtleties in how it works in comparison to outright slavery. As mentioned on page 25 of that book...
...One owns—and can buy or sell—a slave's labor only, not the slave himself, and the term of unpaid servitude can't last for more than 7 years. Under Qadirian law, however, one can own another sentient being, often for life, and it is not uncommon for slaves to be prisoners of war. Nobles, citizens, and registered foreigners cannot be involuntarily enslaved in Qadira...
The key there is that it's someone's LABOR, not the person themselves, who are owned, and I think that going forward as actual slavery becomes more and more outlawed elsewhere, the traditions in Qadira and Kelesh will be adjusting as well.
(Certainly the teachings of Sarenrae do NOT condone this sort of "ownership over another's labor" and this is a case where the most powerful religion in the nation doesn't sync up quite right with the government or traditions of the land.)
NOTE: The main thing I really want to avoid is publishing something that someone can then use in a public game as "Permission from Paizo to own involuntary slaves but not be evil." And honestly, that sort of gray area seems impossible to control without awful people using it for their own agendas, so this is increasingly a topic that makes more sense to just hardline a stance of "Slavery is evil, and those who buy and keep slaves are thus also evil." Which is why the game's setting is going in the direction it's going.
A direction I'm thankful for, and intend to continue to support as the Creative Director.
Slavery is evil.
Is Chelaxian a dialect of Taldane, or a distinct language?
I have always thought Azlant was a benevolent empire and Thassilon was a malevolent empire. But page 17 of Inner Sea Races said that the ancient Azlanti were slave-owners, with their vast farming and construction endeavors made possible by the labor of hundreds of thousands of slaves. Does that mean Azlant was a malevolent empire as well?
Dear James Jacobs,
With Iomedae replacing her herald with a mortal, does that mean Lady Galfrey is an outsider? Or is she now mythic? Or both?
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I have always thought Azlant was a benevolent empire and Thassilon was a malevolent empire. But page 17 of Inner Sea Races said that the ancient Azlanti were slave-owners, with their vast farming and construction endeavors made possible by the labor of hundreds of thousands of slaves. Does that mean Azlant was a malevolent empire as well?
Calling Azlant a benevolent empire is like calling Avistan a cruel dictatorship. Azlant was an entire continent, with numerous different places and nations and locations in it. Not everywhere there was good.
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Other than ogres and bugbears, are there other monsters that you wish to change arts in the Bestiary reprint?Yeah, I'd like to move away from the D&D interpretation fo the simurgh and have it be more of a bird creature rather than a rainbow-winged wolf, both to drift closer to the real-world myths and away from D&D's look from back in the third edition days. You can see a preview of this new look in an upcoming installment of Age of Ashes.
That's pretty much it though. For the vast majority of the Bestiary art I think it's pretty spot on.
Isn't simurgh with dog head from actual mythology though?(or at least she has dog head one of the myths and sassanid artifacts)
(that said, that still applies to point of being different from D&D since there are multiple different myths... But yeah, I'm fairly sure this one wasn't one of things D&D invented)