So, my wife created a very unique dream-based monster for a campaign and I was blown away by it. It got me thinking.
Great Old Ones come specifically from the Dark Tapestry, via the Outer Gods, yes?
Nyarlathotep dwells in Leng, in Kadath. Is there a link between him and the Plateau of Leng, and dreams in general? I guess the question is did he GO to Leng? Did Leng form around him?
We're working on expanding the lore for this monster type, and I want to stay within the Lost Omens canon for the Elder Mythos and not slip too far into other sources. Our recent completion of a 2e-converted Rise of the Runelords got us talking about Leng a lot, lol.
The Dark Tapestry is the same as "deep space" but less sci-fi and more fantasy. There's a LOT of things in the Dark Tapestry. It's where space-horror comes from. That does include SOME of the Great Old Ones, but not all of them, and it also includes other things. Other Great Old Ones come from other places.
In Pathfinder, Leng is a sub-region within the Dreamlands/Dimension of Dreams. Sort of a cross between a plane and a dimension. If the dreamlands are where dreams happen, then Leng is where nightmares come from, so yes, there is a strong link between Leng and dreams.
That extension doesn't particularly extend to Nyarlathotep in Pathfinder, who isn't particularly interested in dreams. That's more the realm of Cthulhu.
If you want to expand Leng's inhabitants, the BEST place to look is Lovecraft's stories, particularly "Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath." Second best place to look is Chaosium's stuff, particularly their Dreamlands setting, which incorporates a lot of other stuff beyond Lovecraft that we don't have the license to publish. Third best place is probably volume three of "Strange Aeons" which takes place in the Dreamlands.
Beyond that, thematically, brand new Leng monsters would have ties to nightmares and cold.
So Kadath being the home of Nyaralathotep is more... coincidence then? In Shattered Star... 5? I think? It refers to the deities of the Dreamlands, with Nyar as their guardian and caretaker.
I guess a part 2 question would be is there any further information on that relationship?
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So Kadath being the home of Nyaralathotep is more... coincidence then? In Shattered Star... 5? I think? It refers to the deities of the Dreamlands, with Nyar as their guardian and caretaker.
I guess a part 2 question would be is there any further information on that relationship?
Oh! I misunderstood that part of your question. Leng exists apart from Nyarlathotep. He didn't create it, but he does live there (in at least one of his 1,000 incarnations, that is). His faith is VERY strong there, certainly. But he didn't create Leng.
That all said... you ask about expanding the lore for this "monster type," but it's unclear what type you're talking about. Monsters with the Dream trait who are native to Leng?
So Kadath being the home of Nyaralathotep is more... coincidence then? In Shattered Star... 5? I think? It refers to the deities of the Dreamlands, with Nyar as their guardian and caretaker.
I guess a part 2 question would be is there any further information on that relationship?
Oh! I misunderstood that part of your question. Leng exists apart from Nyarlathotep. He didn't create it, but he does live there (in at least one of his 1,000 incarnations, that is). His faith is VERY strong there, certainly. But he didn't create Leng.
That all said... you ask about expanding the lore for this "monster type," but it's unclear what type you're talking about. Monsters with the Dream trait who are native to Leng?
Incoming wall of text, extremely sorry.
Ah! Sorry, yes. So the idea is mainly a... sort of dream eater. It is a scavenger of weak and lonely wanderers capable of trapping a small group in a dream based on their recent memories, repeatedly looping it and erasing the memories of the 'wrongness' of it any time they get too close to realizing the truth. Physically rather weak, it slowly drains the blood from it's targets one by one as they're trapped in a looping dream. Think the episode of some supernatural tv show where the heroes are caught in a repeating, looping dream by some monster or something.
It involves a lot of will saves and such, but is intended for a lower level party to function as a one-shot or side-quest boss monster type thing. (My brand-new GM wife sprung this thing on us last night and it was the most fun I've had playing ttrpg in a LONG time)
Essentially, it shapechanges into a form based on one of it's targets memories, lulls them into a sense of safety, and while they sleep, affecting them with its Dream Trap ability. When in it's trap, it functions sort of like a mindscape from 1e but simplified. We considered calling it a Dream Ghoul but since Leng already had ghouls, we changed up the aesthetic a bit.
Our overarching idea for its origin was that they are an exceptionally rare thing to encounter alone, because they usually function as a sort of... worker ant for a larger queen, an aberration that takes root beneath a settlement and sends out these dream eaters to harvest people for it, bringing their blood and such back to the queen and latching on like a male angler fish and slowly being absorbed into the queens form.
She moves in, harvests bodies from a cemetery, turns them into these dream eaters, and sends them out. The queen is an aberration, a being of congealed nightmare from Leng that slipped through during Karzoug's meddling with the realm up on Mhar Massif. I was mainly curious about the connection between Outer Gods and Leng, and maybe making a new Great Old One separate from Mhar who could be the source of these Dream Eaters and their 'queens'.
Mr. James Jacobs,
How do you imagine Aklo sounding?
Creepy and unsettling and disturbing, like the way you get when you hear fingernails scraping on a chalkboard despite the fact that Aklo doesn't sound like that at all. Unsettling and disturbing like when the voice channel on a movie is slightly out of sync with the motion of the speaker's lips. Unsettling and disturbing in that when you hear the words, you remember them as being said before you heard them despite the fact that you know you did not. The sound of the wind rustling through the reeds at the river's edge on a calm, windless day. The sound of a loved one screaming out in pain because of something you did, even though you haven't done it yet. The noise of a hungry predator calling for help in the voice of someone it just ate. The sound of someone else breathing at midnight in an empty room. The sound of flowers sobbing. The sound of something watching you from the part of the world you aren't looking at and can never see. The sound of your eyes moving in their sockets when you shift your gaze as you attempt to see what's making that breathing sound. The sound you make when you see it.
It doesn't sound safe, in other words.
How would being spoken by a human or humanoid affect the sound of it?
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Incoming wall of text...
Ah; gotcha!
Looks like you've put a lot of work into building these up, and that's great! As long as you're pleased with it, I wouldn't worry too much about making sure it fits in with Golarion lore or Elder Mythos lore that you might not have read or know about it, frankly—it's your game, so if there's something we publish or you read later that we presented that conflicts, just throw that published lore out and go with yours; that's a big part of the fun of homebrewing!
I can't get too deep into the act of helping design it or providing feedback though, for legal and time management reasons, alas. I'd assumed you were wondering what traits or types of monsters would make sense to round out Leng, not that you already had one worked out! :-)
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Incoming wall of text...Ah; gotcha!
Looks like you've put a lot of work into building these up, and that's great! As long as you're pleased with it, I wouldn't worry too much about making sure it fits in with Golarion lore or Elder Mythos lore that you might not have read or know about it, frankly—it's your game, so if there's something we publish or you read later that we presented that conflicts, just throw that published lore out and go with yours; that's a big part of the fun of homebrewing!
I can't get too deep into the act of helping design it or providing feedback though, for legal and time management reasons, alas. I'd assumed you were wondering what traits or types of monsters would make sense to round out Leng, not that you already had one worked out! :-)
Completely understandable. I always like to keep our games in with the lore; my table has a shared history throughout all our APs and Homebrews. Really appreciate the feedback and you taking the time to answer.
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How would being spoken by a human or humanoid affect the sound of it?Mr. James Jacobs,
How do you imagine Aklo sounding?
Creepy and unsettling and disturbing, like the way you get when you hear fingernails scraping on a chalkboard despite the fact that Aklo doesn't sound like that at all. Unsettling and disturbing like when the voice channel on a movie is slightly out of sync with the motion of the speaker's lips. Unsettling and disturbing in that when you hear the words, you remember them as being said before you heard them despite the fact that you know you did not. The sound of the wind rustling through the reeds at the river's edge on a calm, windless day. The sound of a loved one screaming out in pain because of something you did, even though you haven't done it yet. The noise of a hungry predator calling for help in the voice of someone it just ate. The sound of someone else breathing at midnight in an empty room. The sound of flowers sobbing. The sound of something watching you from the part of the world you aren't looking at and can never see. The sound of your eyes moving in their sockets when you shift your gaze as you attempt to see what's making that breathing sound. The sound you make when you see it.
It doesn't sound safe, in other words.
Wouldn't change it. Aklo is a supernatural, eerie, strange language that, by a strict reading of its original inventor, Arthur Machen, back in 1899's short story "The White People," has power intrinsic in its very sound so that speaking it aloud can cause magical effects. We chose to make it the language of eerie creepy fey and aberrations and aliens and the like because it has over a century of tradition in popular culture AND is in the public domain, and it worked better than simply saying that "evil aberrations speak Infernal or Abyssal" or something like that, since those monsters don't usually have direct ties to the outer planes.
As a result, I'm hesitant to describe what it sounds like in the same way I'd say "Elven sounds lyrical and musical" or "Dwarven sounds gutteral and crisp" or "Draconic sounds rough and rumbly" or the like, because using standard real-world adjectives to explain what is meant to be an eerie, aberrant, alien language makes it feel too mundane.
Instead, I'd say that when it is spoken by a humanoid, it sounds wrong and spooky and unnatural, without specifically saying WHY it does.
If you held my hand to a fire and forced me to make a call, I guess I'd say it sounded like an ancient language spoken in reverse via inhalations rather than exhalations, or something weird and awkward like that.
How are Sunsouls/Solar Ifrits viewed in Qadira (and Katapesh in general)? Are they mistreated like the other Geniekin races? Does their connection to the sun, and thus Sarenrae, give them a free pass? Or are they so uncommon noone can even tell they're not just an Aasimar?
How are Sunsouls/Solar Ifrits viewed in Qadira (and Katapesh in general)? Are they mistreated like the other Geniekin races? Does their connection to the sun, and thus Sarenrae, give them a free pass? Or are they so uncommon noone can even tell they're not just an Aasimar?
*Kelesh, not Katapesh, obviously :)
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How are Sunsouls/Solar Ifrits viewed in Qadira (and Katapesh in general)? Are they mistreated like the other Geniekin races? Does their connection to the sun, and thus Sarenrae, give them a free pass? Or are they so uncommon noone can even tell they're not just an Aasimar?
I don't believe we've ever covered this, but Sarenrae's faith doesn't mistreat any of the Genikin ancestries and they actively work to fight against prejudice. That's part of what being neutral good is. That said, they ARE uncommon enough that there's not a "blanket statement" situation to represent them overall in the nation.
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What design choices were behind the monster name changes in 2E? (Eg. Ettercap/Web Lurker, Stirge/Bloodseeker, Aboleth/Alghollthu, Mite/Mitflit)? Was it purely creative, or were there business/product identity considerations as well?
Those creatures are all monsters that were created for D&D and are either made-up words or words that have been applied to that creature for decades. We can only use these monsters thanks to the OGL, but not everything we do with Golarion is an OGL product. Some, like miniatures or novels, can't use the OGL, and that means that while we can use the flavor for these monsters we've made up for Pathfinder, we can't use the name in those cases. So we have to make up names. We've been doing this for years already, so it's nothing new, but by including those names in the Bestiary we "legitimize" the names and make it much easier for someone (be they an employee or a customer) know what we're talking about in a non-OGL product that mentions something like bloodseeker or an alghollthu.
That doesn't preclude creative reasons, though! For the Mite/Mitflit, for example, it was the only gremlin whose name was a word, and that felt weird to us, so we gave them a nonsense word for their kind so that they'd not stand out strangely next to pugwampis and jinkins. In other cases, like the iruxi for lizardfolk or the xulgath for troglodytes, we wanted those ancestries to have an ancestral name that wasn't just "what the humans who think of them as monsters and don't realize they have their own societies" call them. Whether we alphabetized them under their ancestral name (as we did with xulgaths) or their human nickname (as with lizardfolk) was something we decided on a case by case basis influenced mostly by how "accurate" or "generic" the nickname was (Lizardfolk is pretty generic and can't really be claimed as product identity, but troglodyte used to indicate a stench-emitting reptilian humanoid can be).
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Scrolled past the mention of Nyarlathotep earlier, which makes me wonder: Have you ever played or ran Masks of Nyarlathotep? If so, how'd it go?
I've STARTED it three times, but I've never made it all the way through, alas. Between those three times, I've run most of the scenarios once, a few twice, and a few partially (and none at all for the latest version, which adds a South America chapter, IIRC). Still, it's an amazing campaign!
I gather that the ability to speak a language also includes the ability to read and write it, at least for player characters. So.. what's the literacy rate in Avistan. Does it vary by country?
What's the common language in Tian Xia? Garund? Arcadia?
Do all the human languages of a region use the same script?
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I gather that the ability to speak a language also includes the ability to read and write it, at least for player characters. So.. what's the literacy rate in Avistan. Does it vary by country?
The literacy rate is about the same as modern days. AKA: It varies from region to region. Feel free to adjust as you wish for your game, but for our products, we assume all PCs and NPCs can read. The creator of the character gets to decide if they can't.
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What's the common language in Tian Xia? Garund? Arcadia?
Tien for Tian Xia.
PROBABLY Mwangi for Garund, although if/when we do a bigger book about that continent we might adjust that. For now, we haven't set this in stone.
And since we've barely done anything yet with Arcadia, it's too soon to say what the common language there is at this time.
Are you going to bid on any of these dinosaurs?
Over 50 life size animatronic dinosaurs including T-Rex, Brontosaurus and Raptors; plus hundreds of fossils, animatronic equipment, lighting, speakers and more.
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Are you going to bid on any of these dinosaurs?
Over 50 life size animatronic dinosaurs including T-Rex, Brontosaurus and Raptors; plus hundreds of fossils, animatronic equipment, lighting, speakers and more.
While those are rad... since I live on a tabletop RPG employee's salary and in a one-person apartment, I don't have the money or the room to become involved in anything so glorious, unfortunately.
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Hey James. Are there any plans on adding Deep Ones or Deep One Hybrids into 2e? And possibly a Deep One Hybrid ancestry?
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Hey James. Are there any plans on adding Deep Ones or Deep One Hybrids into 2e? And possibly a Deep One Hybrid ancestry?
I pushed to have them be in the Bestiary and to NOT include sea devils, but got overruled. At this point, with skum and sea devils already in there, I doubt very much deep ones will be back in 2nd edition anytime soon, if ever.
Disregarding whatever is in the content pipeline for Pathfinder for the near future, is there anything specific lore-wise that you are excited to eventually explore or introduce in 2e?
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Disregarding whatever is in the content pipeline for Pathfinder for the near future, is there anything specific lore-wise that you are excited to eventually explore or introduce in 2e?
Absolutely. But I can't say what that is, because being excited about lore content and setting things up to explore it in products is my job. So when you see adventure paths or modules or Lost Omens books or rulebooks come out... those things are what I'm excited to explore.
Good day Mr. Jacobs.
What would you say would make a good multiclass/gestalt, for an Obi-Wan Kenobi? (his younger years)
I know that tattoos are an inherent part of the Varisian culture, but how common are tattoos in other cultures throughout the Inner Sea region?
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I know that tattoos are an inherent part of the Varisian culture, but how common are tattoos in other cultures throughout the Inner Sea region?
It varies from culture to culture. Some are more into it than Varisians. Some are less. Common enough overall that they're generally not going to be startling or unexpected though.
Hey James, any chance we can get Amanda's original development for finding out about Voz's location in Hellknight Hill?
I remember you and her talking about cutting it for word economy in thr developer commentary, but I would love to include that into my Age of Ashes campaign!
Mr. James Jacobs,
Besides Mazmezz, Atlach-Nacha,and Grandmother Spider, are there an other spider deities in pathfinder?
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Hey James, any chance we can get Amanda's original development for finding out about Voz's location in Hellknight Hill?
I remember you and her talking about cutting it for word economy in thr developer commentary, but I would love to include that into my Age of Ashes campaign!
Sorry, but no. We don't do that sort of thing; once something's developed and edited and published, I'd rather let it stand unless we're reprinting it and have the chance and time to go back through and make sure it's developed and edited properly before we make it public. Furthermore, it's a time-management thing... if I did this once, folks would want to see more "cut content" and it'd set a precedent that would frustrate people when, inevitably, I had to say no for whatever reason.
Sorry, but no. We don't do that sort of thing; once something's developed and edited and published, I'd rather let it stand unless we're reprinting it and have the chance and time to go back through and make sure it's developed and edited properly before we make it public. Furthermore, it's a time-management thing... if I did this once, folks would want to see more "cut content" and it'd set a precedent that would frustrate people when, inevitably, I had to say no for whatever reason.Hey James, any chance we can get Amanda's original development for finding out about Voz's location in Hellknight Hill?
I remember you and her talking about cutting it for word economy in thr developer commentary, but I would love to include that into my Age of Ashes campaign!
Well, no problem! Perfectly understabdable. Thank you anyway!
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Hi James,
I know you typically don't like to weigh in on rules all that often but I wanted to see if you'd provide an opinion on a feat. Shielded Mage states that: "You reduce the arcane spell failure of any shield you use by 15% (to a minimum of 0%). Using a shield does not prevent you from completing somatic spell components with the hand wielding the shield.", however it doesn't mention anything about material components. My question then is do you still need the free hand for the components? My first instinct is yes and the obvious solution is then to take eschew materials.
Since it says nothing about material components, then yes, you need a free hand for them. Eschew Materials is a good combo in this case.
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Does changing the terms of monsters to not constrain to the OGL give any possibility of Pathfinder Tales returning? Has there been any discussion of the orphaned novels?
Changing the terms was at least in part to give definition to existing Pathfinder Tales as well, where we were already using a lot of these names. In most cases, the "new" names you see in the Bestiary for 2nd edition aren't new at all, and were names we invented years ago for other products, but particularly for the novels and the miniatures line.
New ways to bring back fiction have been discussed many many times. We haven't solved it yet, but the increased presence of shorter form fiction on our blog is one way we're trying to get more fiction out there.
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Is there a reason print on demand hasn't been utilized for the orphaned novels? POD companies like Lulu do not take copyright ownership, and your products can be repealed from them at any time.
From what I understand those novels are completed, so posting them on a POD site would take zero capital. If self-publishing later becomes more profitable, Paizo could just pull it from Lulu. POD is less profitable, but is more profitable than the zero dollars those books make currently.
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Is there a reason print on demand hasn't been utilized for the orphaned novels? POD companies like Lulu do not take copyright ownership, and your products can be repealed from them at any time.
From what I understand those novels are completed, so posting them on a POD site would take zero capital. If self-publishing later becomes more profitable, Paizo could just pull it from Lulu. POD is less profitable, but is more profitable than the zero dollars those books make currently.
We look at print on demand options now and then, but traditionally the physical quality hasn't been up to our standards. When there's a physical product from Paizo out there in the world, we like to all we can to ensure it's a high quality book or whatever. With print on demand, we lose that quality control.
There's also the element of wanting to respect the hard work these authors went through to create a novel, and trying to make sure that the novels get out in as many stores or whatever as possible plays into that as well. While I'm not one of the writers of one of those novels in limbo, I'd be disappointed if, when I wrote the novel, I was told "This book will be on shelves in stores" and then what ended up happening was "This book's a PDF or a print-on-demand option that a tiny fraction of your potential readers will ever hear about," I'd potentially be disappointed enough to question whether I'd want to work for that company again.
And rights management and royalty calculations and so on.
There's a lot to it. So far, we've not found a print-on-demand solution that works for us for all our needs, but it's been a bit since we've looked into it. We've had our hands full with launching a new edition of the game and transitioning the company to a work from home mode and so on over the past few years though.
It's something we'll continue to look at but not something we'll be providing behind-the-scenes updates for.
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Thanks! All of that makes sense.
In all honesty, I already buy more Pathfinder/Golarion products than I'll ever be able to read in my lifetime anyway. I own nearly every AP/campaign Setting/Player Companion since the beginning. But it's there for when I need it (never know which direction players will run)...
Good stuff.
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Do the alghollthus have ties to the outer gods? Reading about the ulat-kini and they have extreme "Shadow Over Innsmouth" vibes.
They don't. Alghollthus are very anti-reliigon, including worship of the Elder Mythos.
That said, the ulat-kini are absolutely inspired by "Shadow Over Innsmouth." There are deep ones in the setting to, though... we just haven't updated them to 2nd edition yet.
Do avolakia have any place in your homegames?
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Have you GMed any of the Adventure Paths beginning to end? If so, which?
I ran Savage Tide back in the day. I got about 2/3 the way through Serpent's Skull as published before that game had to stop. But lately I prefer doing my own sandbox games, and not only because the folks I run games for are the folks at Paizo who already know the Adventure Paths.
Rise of the Runelords, Curse of the Crimson Throne, and Serpent's Skull were in some parts inspired by pre-Paizo campaigns I ran.
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Hey James,
I am struggling a bit to justify rationally how small towns such as those frequently depicted in APs could contain such a variety of ethnicities.
In real history we had a true mixture of cultures only when easily accessible traveling means (cars, airplanes) became available. Before that, migration usually concerned groups of people (tribes relocating, settlers founding new colonies) and only very rarely single individuals. Travels were perilous and they took very long, cultural shock was definitely a thing, and people moving in new areas usually did not enjoy all the benefits (usually political rights) granted to normal citizens.
In the Age of Lost Omens, we do not have all of those modern means of travel, and the world is probably much more dangerous than ours, due to monsters. The common pantheon and tongue surely help, but I still feel like that is not enough to justify the huge diversity of ethnicities in small settlements. I feel like common folk travel too much in a world so dangerous as Golarion is, and with a technology level not high enough to ensure safe travels.
May I ask your 2 cents on this? I feel like there is something I am missing from my picture.