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Interesting map. How to reconcile it with the information in Hell's Rebels and Age of Ashes? Among other things, the Jarvises are supposed to be Barons of Argo but their land is in the hills west of Yolubilis; the Jhalteros are supposed to be Barons of Whiterock but their lands consist mostly of Ravounel Forest; the Aulamaxas are supposed to be Archbarons of Cypress Point but their lands are all the way on the other side of the country. Also, only the heads of Houses Aulorian, Sarini, and Tanessen were ever called "Counts" in Hell's Rebels, the rest being Barons or Archbarons.
Best I can figure without assuming serious retcons is that there are Counts in Houses Jarvis, Aulamaxa, Jhaltero, etc., that we never met, either because they live in the county seats rather than Kintargo, or are absentee and live in Cheliax. The barons we see are vassals to the Counts - so, for example, Baroness Jarvis would owe fealty to Countess Sarini as Baroness of Argo - and represent their Houses in the Court of Coin/Silver Council simply by virtue of happening to live in Kintargo, despite not being the highest-ranked members of their Houses. Does this hit anywhere near the mark?
That or the Counties are largely notional and there are no Counts other than those we see. That would fit with most of them having no settlements worthy of note to serve as county seats.
Why are the Counties of which Houses Delronge, Sarini, and Tanessen are Counts allowed to continue to exist per se after their heads fought for the old regime? Why were the counties not dissolved and their lands not redistributed? How does their continued existence square with Tomorrow Must Burn saying that House Tanessen has fallen on hard times? Same question applies to any absentee Counts living in Cheliax - why are they permitted to keep their property?
EDIT: I suppose that given the name (a very slightly tweaked Inverness) there's a River Ness flowing from Mount Nyisaid to the sea, forming the boundary between Ilverness County and Hellcoast?
(Sorry about the very compound questions. Couldn't be helped.)
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Interesting map. How to reconcile it with the information in Hell's Rebels and Age of Ashes? Among other things, the Jarvises are supposed to be Barons of Argo but their land is in the hills west of Yolubilis; the Jhalteros are supposed to be Barons of Whiterock but their lands consist mostly of Ravounel Forest; the Aulamaxas are supposed to be Archbarons of Cypress Point but their lands are all the way on the other side of the country. Also, only the heads of Houses Aulorian, Sarini, and Tanessen were ever called "Counts" in Hell's Rebels, the rest being Barons or Archbarons.
Best I can figure without assuming serious retcons is that there are Counts in Houses Jarvis, Aulamaxa, Jhaltero, etc., that we never met, either because they live in the county seats rather than Kintargo, or are absentee and live in Cheliax. The barons we see are vassals to the Counts - so, for example, Baroness Jarvis would owe fealty to Countess Sarini as Baroness of Argo - and represent their Houses in the Court of Coin/Silver Council simply by virtue of happening to live in Kintargo, despite not being the highest-ranked members of their Houses. Does this hit anywhere near the mark?
That or the Counties are largely notional and there are no Counts other than those we see. That would fit with most of them having no settlements worthy of note to serve as county seats.
Why are the Counties of which Houses Delronge, Sarini, and Tanessen are Counts allowed to continue to exist per se after their heads fought for the old regime? Why were the counties not dissolved and their lands not redistributed? How does their continued existence square with Tomorrow Must Burn saying that House Tanessen has fallen on hard times? Same question applies to any absentee Counts living in Cheliax - why are they permitted to keep their property?
EDIT: I suppose that given the name (a very slightly tweaked Inverness) there's a River Ness flowing from Mount Nyisaid to the sea, forming the boundary between Ilverness County and Hellcoast?...
If/when we publish a map like this, it'll go through plenty of development to reconcile it with published information. I used it because I had it handy and it was easy for me to plop down a dot for the village you asked about. This is a good example of why I'm normally pretty hesitant to share my homebrew content with the public, though, since I always adjust things to fit my personal vision for a setting rather than the entire company's view—there are changes now and then that, for the context of a homebrew game, do not matter.
In other words, I threw the map together last year in an hour, and knowing that I only really wanted to figure out who was in charge of Ilverness I dropped the other names in there sorta randomly. They can be moved around easily, which we'd do if this thing were to go through more than a few dozen minutes of creation for an actual publication.
Had I wanted to spend even more time preping this map, I suppose I could have gone in and adjusted names or the like, but I figured that what you were askign for was "where's the village," and that's it. Sorry I gave out too much info! :P
AKA: None of this is canon for anything other than the game I'm running for a few friends, and they've never left Ilverness for the entire campaign so I've not had the need to go through and do more work on the other stuff.
As for why the counties weren't dissolved? Because they're largely the same counties that existed before Thrune. Ravounel is not anti Cheliax's history; they're anti Thrune. Their hope for Ravounel is to build a new nation that builds on the thousands of years of pre-Thrune legacy, and that includes retaining stuff like county borders. Which, in any event, are often decided by geography to a certain extent anyway.
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I figured that what you were askign for was "where's the village," and that's it. Sorry I gave out too much info! :P
That's more or less true (although I thought I'd had a pretty good idea where it was, my question was more about how big it was), but you're well and truly stuck in now :P
As for why the counties weren't dissolved? Because they're largely the same counties that existed before Thrune. Ravounel is not anti Cheliax's history; they're anti Thrune. Their hope for Ravounel is to build a new nation that builds on the thousands of years of pre-Thrune legacy, and that includes retaining stuff like county borders. Which, in any event, are often decided by geography to a certain extent anyway.
To clarify, I wasn't referring to "county borders" in an administrative sense, but "counties," the feudal rights and properties held by the Tanessens, Sarinis, and Aulorians (and Delronges, but apparently "count" is still a misnomer for them) as Counts. These are Houses that took up arms against the new regime in the name of a usurper and tyrant - they weren't made to pay for that with their special privileges and their stuff?
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These are Houses that took up arms against the new regime in the name of a usurper and tyrant - they weren't made to pay for that with their special privileges and their stuff?
No. That's the sort of thing that Cheliax would do to "traitors." Ravounel gave them all the chance to join with them, and they all accepted and have spent the last few years working to atone for past sins. That said, Ravounel's a very young nation, and there's still time for that to change if some of those families who were pro-thrune during Hell's Rebels (most of them were not) decide to turn traitor or if there's an uprising from frustrated citizens or whatever.
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No. That's the sort of thing that Cheliax would do to "traitors." Ravounel gave them all the chance to join with them, and they all accepted and have spent the last few years working to atone for past sins. That said, Ravounel's a very young nation, and there's still time for that to change if some of those families who were pro-thrune during Hell's Rebels (most of them were not) decide to turn traitor or if there's an uprising from frustrated citizens or whatever.
Ravounel having Johnson's Reconstruction policy (which, among other things, basically renders any land redistribution to former slaves and patriotic fighters impossible, and so leaves them impoverished and ripe for exploitation and abuse - a betrayal if ever there was one) is incredibly disappointing, and I do hope there will be frustration over it. Not that there's any recourse, since there is no representative body - the Silver Council is self-selected and there are no elections.
EDIT: post needs a question, doesn't it. . . Why was Ravounel's post-revolution course so determinedly conservative?
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Ravounel having Johnson's Reconstruction policy (which, among other things, basically renders any land redistribution to former slaves and patriotic fighters impossible, and so leaves them impoverished and ripe for exploitation and abuse - a betrayal if ever there was one) is incredibly disappointing, and I do hope there will be frustration over it. Not that there's any recourse, since there is no representative body - the Silver Council is self-selected and there are no elections.
EDIT: post needs a question, doesn't it. . . Why was Ravounel's post-revolution course so determinedly conservative?
We haven't yet had the space or room in a product to dig deep into how Ravounel's government is handling the redistribution of land and resources, integration of freed slaves, and how they dealt with coming out from under Cheliax's shadow. The adventure in part 3 of Age of Ashes was at a VERY awkward point to try to fully explore Ravounel, since it was developed and written while the rules AND Lost Omens World Guide were all also being developed and written, so we had to try to focus on the adventure itself while leaving a lot of the "what's going on there since Hell's Rebels" largely implied instead of detailed in full. And the information in Loast Omens World Guide was written by other freelancers at the same time. We did our best to make it all sync up, but it's not all a perfect fit, alas.
The Silver Council wasn't "self-selected" by themselves. They represent the heroes who helped liberate Ravounel from Cheliax, and the vast majority of the citizens of the nation see the Silver Council as their heroes. If you run Hell's Rebels, I could see your game's retired PCs being members of the Silver Council. In time, as the nation finds its feet, their goal is to remain in large a chaotic good nation (to use a convenient shorthand rather than type thousands of words of political plans), but the words we need to fully explore that new nation do not yet exist.
That also said, I have no interest in turning Ravounel into a "chaotic good utopia" where there are no conflicts or clashes. That doesn't make for compelling stories.
Ravounel's post-revolution course isn't "determinedly conservative" as much as it is "unwritten by Paizo's writers" yet, in other words. I'd love to do more to explore the nation, but at this point, there's no product where it makes sense. So in the meantime, snippets here and there (such as what you saw in Legends, or the tiny bits that'll show up in "Malevolence") are all we're going to be able to do, I suspect, for now, as the rest of the products we've got in the works don't really go to Ravounel at all.
So... Please don't read into "We haven't had the time to detail this location to the extent you would like" as anything other than that. There's not gonna be much more about this part of Golarion in print anytime soon, so if you wanna explore the ramifications about the nation at your table, you'll need to do so on your own for the next 12 months at a minimum.
This thread isn't a great place for me to start brainstorming new ideas for the region, in any event, especially considering the tone of your questions and other posts you've made on the boards over the past year that have often put me on the defensive for various reasons.
In any event... let's move on to other questions for now; if you have some concerns with me please take them to PMs or another thread, but I'm not comfortable with the increasingly confrontational tone in your posts, and as you probably noticed in my reply, I'm getting overly defensive.
Mr. James Jacobs,
In your estimation would an oracle with the Demonic curse (1st ed oracles) be justified in a fear that when they dies they would go to the Abyss even if they themselves were not evil?
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Mr. James Jacobs,
In your estimation would an oracle with the Demonic curse (1st ed oracles) be justified in a fear that when they dies they would go to the Abyss even if they themselves were not evil?
That seems like a justifiable fear.
Remember that people who live in Golarion don't have access to books about Golarion we publish, so what exactly happens after you die is mostly unknown to the people who live there. They don't know who to believe, and have to look to their own faith, and faith can be all over the place.
So an oracle (or any character) with a demonic element fearing they'd go to the Abyss when they die is an absolutely sensible character personality.
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I have just got round to listening to the World of Golarion panel from this year's Paizocon, and enjoyed it immensely, thank you and the other panellists.
One thing some of your comments on that panel set me wondering about was; is there any in-universe connection or relationship between conqueror worms and neothelids on Golarion, in origin or in their current plans? They seem to be in broadly similar conceptual spaces, and to fit roles such that I can easily see them bumping into each other.
Yay! Glad you had fun with the panel!
No in-universe connection apart from them both being worm monsters. They're pretty different, thematically, otherwise. Neothelids are empire builders who gather in large numbers and worship the Outer Gods and Great Old Ones and have lots of different worm-flavored minions, whereas conqueror worms are solo creatures that don't work with others of their kind, don't have worm minions, don't necessarily worship anything in particular (and indeed instead are the ones who get worshiped and grant spells), and who focus on conquering other cultures and ruling them from the shadows. If neothelids were to conquer another nation they'd be blatant and obvious about it.
From a meta standpoint... I'm more interested in conqueror worms, since they're something we created for Pathfinder (inspired vaguely by Edgar Allen Poe), rather than neothelids, which are a weird sort of export from D&D via the Psionics Handbook being in the OGL, even though technically neothelids are a form of illithid, which we CAN'T use, so we had to do something different with them but they still feel askew to me.
Where did the name "Vidrian" come from? Is that an ancestral name for the region, or named after a person, or just something people came up with for other reasons?
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Where did the name "Vidrian" come from? Is that an ancestral name for the region, or named after a person, or just something people came up with for other reasons?
As far as I know, it doesn't have any in-world links to ancestral names. To me, it evokes the word "viridian" and as such, I've always assumed it'd translate to a name something along the lines of "Green Home" or the like.
We had some earlier potential names for the nation that had much more obvious connotations, but that route was a bit too on-the-nose so we decided to go with a made-up word for the nation—which fits in with the naming conventions for most other nations in the Inner Sea region.
Finally settling on Vidrian was something that we came to at the VERY last moment, and we had to make those changes to the text during the approvals, if I recall correctly, so there wasn't really any time to go in and revise text and give the word context.
Which I fell is fine, since we didn't really give much context to other made up nation names when we first introduced them (or in some cases, still haven't...).
Got a very specific question here: How do you pronounce Ravounel?
I got one answer from one of your colleagues at one of the GenCon online seminars; if I get the same answer from you, I'll feel secure in moving forward with a secret project I'm working on.
Thanks in advance. (Unless your pronunciation is different, in which case..."Garn!")
ADDENDUM: Just saw the exchange between you and zimmerwald1915. Thanks for that info and the map as well. :)
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Got a very specific question here: How do you pronounce Ravounel?
I got one answer from one of your colleagues at one of the GenCon online seminars; if I get the same answer from you, I'll feel secure in moving forward with a secret project I'm working on.
Thanks in advance. (Unless your pronunciation is different, in which case..."Garn!")
ADDENDUM: Just saw the exchange between you and zimmerwald1915. Thanks for that info and the map as well. :)
RAV-uh-nell
Kinda rhymes with "HAVE a nail."
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Is there potential in 2e for more magic traditions? Each one we have so far is connected to 2 of the 4 essences, but there are 2 essence pairs that don't have a tradition - matter/spirit and mind/life - so will we ever get traditions for those or are there only 4?
We've deliberately chosen and set up the four traditions so we WON'T need to add more. One of the most frustrating and awkward developments for magic in 1st edition was so many classes having their own spell lists, which started to result in spell tables that ended up being ridiculously enormous and using up numerous pages that would have been better suited for actual content.
By narrowing it down to four traditions that ALL of the spellcasting classes from 1st edition could be categorized in to, we've avoided that trap in 2nd edition.
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as a connected question, are the traditions/essences in-world features of magic or are they purely for the mechanics of the game? ie do in-world scientists/researchers of magic recognize these defined tradition boundaries?
They're in world features. As are spell names and class names and all that.
Not only do we not have the wordcount or time to develop different in-world names for all the content we create, it's nonsensical to do so in my opinion. The only thing that DOESN'T really exist in-world I can think of is the bonus part of a magic item's name.
In game, you call it a +1 dagger. In world, you call it a magic dagger.
What culture(s), if any, would old Thassilon be similar to? Are the pagodas seen in the art for Xin-Shalast indicative of anything?
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What culture(s), if any, would old Thassilon be similar to? Are the pagodas seen in the art for Xin-Shalast indicative of anything?
They're not similar to any, really. It's a culture ruled by evil wizards who enslave giants to build magical and enormous monuments and fortresses. There's no real-world analogy there. The pagodas in Xin-Shalast were inspired by various types of Asian architecture, but there's also minarets inspired by Middle-Eastern architecture and elements inspired by ancient Greece and Rome and so on.
James, your work is so consistently impressive... thanks for all the hard work.
Soul’s for Smuggler’s Shiv is easily my favorite low-level sandbox of all time. I’m in pre-production with some friends of mine on an actual-play podcast. Rule system is TBD at this point, as I’m home brewing much of the world and I want to work with the system that best allows us to realize this world, and for the most part, I will be generating my own adventures. But I wonder, good sir, would it be possible for me to use the framework of your astonishingly good AP chapter, bent and renamed a hair to fit my overarching themes... I promise I won’t do you a disservice: we’re a good group of performers.
C
Hey! Can you answer some of these questions regarding Book of the Damned, Princes of Darkness (2009) and Book of the Damned (2017). My friends and I have argued like munchkins over this several times and I would like your hot take on these burning questions. They all revolve around the diabolist prestige class that was introduced and then reintroduced in these books. Was there any particular reason for the changes from old diabolist to new diabolist? More so in regards to the tighter entry restrictions, the change from imp animal companion to imp familiar, and the loss of a spell level? Was there anything that was discovered that made the old diabolist broken or overpowered in anyway? And if so, is the old diabolist unfit for play?
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James, your work is so consistently impressive... thanks for all the hard work.
Soul’s for Smuggler’s Shiv is easily my favorite low-level sandbox of all time. I’m in pre-production with some friends of mine on an actual-play podcast. Rule system is TBD at this point, as I’m home brewing much of the world and I want to work with the system that best allows us to realize this world, and for the most part, I will be generating my own adventures. But I wonder, good sir, would it be possible for me to use the framework of your astonishingly good AP chapter, bent and renamed a hair to fit my overarching themes... I promise I won’t do you a disservice: we’re a good group of performers.
C
Aww; thank you for the kind words! Glad you enjoyed Souls for Smuggler's Shiv; had a blast writing that one. As for actual play podcasts, we just updated the Community Use policy to be more clear on how folks can stream games. The short version is "You can absolutely do it and we love having people stream Pathfinder Games!" The main thing to remember with the Community Use license is that you can't charge money for the content you create. Have fun!
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Hey! Can you answer some of these questions regarding Book of the Damned, Princes of Darkness (2009) and Book of the Damned (2017). My friends and I have argued like munchkins over this several times and I would like your hot take on these burning questions. They all revolve around the diabolist prestige class that was introduced and then reintroduced in these books. Was there any particular reason for the changes from old diabolist to new diabolist? More so in regards to the tighter entry restrictions, the change from imp animal companion to imp familiar, and the loss of a spell level? Was there anything that was discovered that made the old diabolist broken or overpowered in anyway? And if so, is the old diabolist unfit for play?
The changes from the old to the new was to bring it in line with the themes of the others playing with the various obediances, so that all three evil alignments had a prestige class that would allow them to specialize in the servitude of a specific fiend.
Feel free to use whatever version you wanted, but my philosophy for prestige classes in 1st edition is that they shoudl feel PRESTIGIOUS, and one way to make that happen is to make a PC work for them. I didn't feel that the original diabolist had prestigious enough entry requirements, in other words. And the loss of a spell level was meant to make it a tougher choice for spellcasters to take the class. You should want to take a prestige class for the flavor and prestige first, not because it's a no-questions-asked obvious upgrade to your base class, because if that were the case, why do the higher levels in that base class exist in the first place?
Taking a prestige class should always be a sort of tough choice. If it's an easy one, it's not prestigious, and it lessens and marginalizes the choice of others to stick with their one class.
Mr. James Jacobs,
Does Absalom have ethnic enclaves and if so, what are the prominent ones?
Not really sure what you're asking for, but all of the ethnicities and ancestries in the Core Rulebook are the most prominent of them in the city. Population density varies by location.Mr. James Jacobs,
Does Absalom have ethnic enclaves and if so, what are the prominent ones?
Ethnic Enclaves ala Chinatown or Little Italy.
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Ethnic Enclaves ala Chinatown or Little Italy.Not really sure what you're asking for, but all of the ethnicities and ancestries in the Core Rulebook are the most prominent of them in the city. Population density varies by location.Mr. James Jacobs,
Does Absalom have ethnic enclaves and if so, what are the prominent ones?
There are those, yes, but I'm not sure what the most prominent ones are off the top of my head. The upcoming Absalom book has those answers.
I always thought that the whereabouts of Aroden are officially unknown (well, at least to us, I understood you at Paizo have decided on the official canon). However, the Pathfinderwiki (a 3rd party ressource as I understand it) makes explicit mention of him being dead. Did I miss a change in the official explanation?
This may seem like an odd question but I'm always looking to timeline things. What year (AR, of course) was Nualia born?
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I always thought that the whereabouts of Aroden are officially unknown (well, at least to us, I understood you at Paizo have decided on the official canon). However, the Pathfinderwiki (a 3rd party ressource as I understand it) makes explicit mention of him being dead. Did I miss a change in the official explanation?
He's dead. We've been as clear as possible about that from Day One of the setting.
We never revealed HOW he died, but he's absolutely dead. The reason for his death is fundamentally tied to the core unexplained mystery of the setting, and is tied to the event at the start of the current age (the Age of Lost Omens) where prophecy failed and never was quite right again (starting with the prophecy that Aroden would come back to the world to start humanity on a new Golden Age but instead on that prophesied day he died).
The cliche of a fantasy prophecy is one of my least favorite tropes in the genre; the idea that some phrase or poem tells the future and then the entire story is about how that future comes to pass, often in an ironic or "unexpected" way, leaves a foul taste in my mouth. Furhtermore, no one more fantasy trope is MORE ill-suited to an RPG, where the players of the game pretty much always break prophecies because they hate being told that their choices don't matter and that they're just bit players on a stage play being told by the gods (AKA players hate being railroaded by the GM and realizing that nothing they do can ever change the story the GM wants to make happen). Players are infamous for going left when the GM or story expects them to go right, and the fact that a good GM can roll with that change and keep the game going is what makes tabletop RPGs so unique in entertainment.
So we knew from the aforementioned Day One that as soon as PCs showed up in Golarion, prophecy was going to be an awful tool that only annoyed people and never worked as intended, so we killed prophecy at the start and in so doing, hopefully, created a core hook to the campaign setting that sets it apart from all other fantasy settings.
Anyway... how did Aroden die? I have my own headcanon for what happened and I've been using that in all the creative direction for the setting, so if we DO reveal my story as the reason why he died, then people can in theory go back through the hints we have been sprinkling through the game for the past 15 or so years and say "Oh! That all makes sense in hindsight!"
But at this point, there are no plans to make that story public. I don't believe that an explanation is what the fanbase as a whole wants; every time I see a long-drawn-out secret revealed, the fanbase reacts with vitriol and/or loses interest, since inevitably the reveal disappoints or annoys some of the people and negative voices are so much louder on the internet.
On a more positive side of things, as long as we DON'T reveal it, the mystery will continue to intrigue readers and it gives GMs a GREAT thing to play with. A GM can set up their own "how did Aroden die" and tailor it specifically to meet or exceed their table of players and in so doing present an unforgettable revelation for their game that we would never be able to do without going to their house and watching them play games behind a one-way mirror for a decade or so.
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This may seem like an odd question but I'm always looking to timeline things. What year (AR, of course) was Nualia born?
4686 AR or thereabouts. Give or take a year.
Never really felt the need to officially pin her age down canonically, since it's irrelevant to the plot other than to know she's a young adult when Runelords starts.
Hi James!
I hope you're doing fine and Kingmaker is not stressing you out too much. Also that you don't take it too personally when some of us criticize some of the choices Paizo makes for the setting and the rules. Generally speaking, I think we care very much, so sometimes we can put too much pressure on you and yours. But most of us love Lost Omens!
Okay, so here's a question - I remember you once said the Sczarni weren't meant to be all Varisians, and not all just criminals - that it was an ethnically-mixed groups and some acted more à la Robin Hood than like mobsters.
In the CRB though they're definitely described as the Varisian mob, in line with 1e, admittedly.
Is that in the end their established role or do you think somewhat like a small retcon could take place? And is the CRB description in line with their ethnic makeup and activities in your own campaigns?
Thank you so much! Cheers!
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Hi James!
I hope you're doing fine and Kingmaker is not stressing you out too much. Also that you don't take it too personally when some of us criticize some of the choices Paizo makes for the setting and the rules. Generally speaking, I think we care very much, so sometimes we can put too much pressure on you and yours. But most of us love Lost Omens!
Okay, so here's a question - I remember you once said the Sczarni weren't meant to be all Varisians, and not all just criminals - that it was an ethnically-mixed groups and some acted more à la Robin Hood than like mobsters.
In the CRB though they're definitely described as the Varisian mob, in line with 1e, admittedly.
Is that in the end their established role or do you think somewhat like a small retcon could take place? And is the CRB description in line with their ethnic makeup and activities in your own campaigns?
Thank you so much! Cheers!
Thanks for the well wishes... but yeah, Kingmaker is weighing pretty heavy on my head these days.
The Core Rulebook doesn't have much room to talk about the Scazrni. I wanna explore them later, but by putting them in the Core, there's a starting spot for that discussion.
Did you watch the series premier of Lovecraft Country this past weekend and if so, what did you think of it?
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Did you watch the series premier of Lovecraft Country this past weekend and if so, what did you think of it?
Of course I watched it! :-)
I quite enjoyed it! Loved that "cameo" of the Arkham House Outsider near the start!
Lovecraftian fiction set in a world where Lovecraft existed is a subgenre of the mythos that I normally don't enjoy as much, because it either sets Lovecraft up as a hero (which is inappropriate) or sets him up as a sin-eater or to punish him (which is also inappropriate). The original novel, and it looks like the show as well, rides the line between those two just about perfect so far.
Also, the subtext of grappling with stories by people who themselves are flawed but still being able to enjoy the stories but not losing sight of the fact that the author had flaws is nice to see.
Plus... neat monsters!
Mr. James Jacobs,
Among the healers, alchemists, and other assorted folk, how known are hormones and their affects on the body?
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Mr. James Jacobs,
Among the healers, alchemists, and other assorted folk, how known are hormones and their affects on the body?
Not well known as hormones, but just because Golarion isn't as scientifically advanced as modern Earth, hormones work the same way. Furthermore, Earth isn't as magically advanced as Golarion, so the healers, alchemists, and spell-casters on Golarion likely have different words and explanations for hormonal effects on the body, but that's mostly a find-replace bit of semantics that changes the flavor of the lore without changing the knowledge.
Same as for things like disease and genetics and nutrition and psychology and so on.
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I've always interpreted spell casting as something you can never do stealthily even if casting a still, silent spell with no materials needed. The explanation I was given was that every spell had visual components that would manifest as it was being cast.
Others however have disagreed with me and have said that it's possible to stealth cast anything as long as it lacks verbal components.
Do i have the wrong about spell casting or is it always obvious? Also what about SLAs which always lack components?
Spellcasting is always obvious, whether it be spells you cast as a result of your class or innate spells gained by being a creature. (Note that the terminology of "spell-like ability" was jettisoned in 2nd edition.)
There are options you can take to disguise your spellcasting, such as the Melodious Spell bard feat. And some spells have subtlety built right into them, like subconscious suggestion. But otherwise, casting a spell is blatantly obvious as you chant out magic words, wave your hands to make mystical gestures, and manipulate material components, which also causes magic energy and stuff to glow and swirl around (as you see in much of our art, in the form of magical runes or shapes that glow around hands).
A spell without verbal components still makes those magic glows, and you're still moving your hands or gesticulating. To be sneaky about spellcasting, you have to use a feat like Melodious Spell or you have to cast a spell that has that sneaky factor built right into the spell.
If you want to cast a spell suddenly at the start of combat, in the same way someone might ambush from the bushes with a sword, then that's no more a function of the spell than it is the sword stab. That's you getting into an ambush and using Stealth to roll initiative.
I could see you doing the same in a public setting, where you're just chatting away and then suddenly start casting a spell. In that case, you'd roll Deception for initiative... but it's still obvious that you're casting a spell.
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Hi James,
So my group just began a new homebrew campaign set in the Sarkorian Scar where our young band of heroes will hopefully set the course to help reclaim and purify the land in a long-term campaign. I'm very excited about it. Your own homebrew in Ravounel, as well as finding glimpses of your old office campaign of Sandpoint/Orision really inspire me to take part of the setting and make it my own for me and my group. I've always done Adventure Paths but this is my serious attempt to tell a story in Golarion and I want to thank you for providing me the spark to try to make my own story.
Now my question is in regards to the Sarkorian's practice of god-calling. It was previously a Summoner archetype which means it has its roots in the Arcane. Since the Summoner is not available yet, one of my players is going to play a god-caller by using the Beastmaster archetype as a substitute for an eidolon for the time-being. After all, many old Sarkorian gods are mystical beasts in appearance. In your own personal opinion, would god-calling still be a tradition rooted in the Arcane? Or do you believe it would lean more towards the Divine/Primal considering it comes from a basis of faith or the Sarkorian deep history in nature? Or heck, each god-caller finds their eidolon through their own method? To summarize: what magic tradition would best suit a god-caller? Thank you for your time.
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Creative Director
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Hi James,
So my group just began a new homebrew campaign set in the Sarkorian Scar where our young band of heroes will hopefully set the course to help reclaim and purify the land in a long-term campaign. I'm very excited about it. Your own homebrew in Ravounel, as well as finding glimpses of your old office campaign of Sandpoint/Orision really inspire me to take part of the setting and make it my own for me and my group. I've always done Adventure Paths but this is my serious attempt to tell a story in Golarion and I want to thank you for providing me the spark to try to make my own story.
Now my question is in regards to the Sarkorian's practice of god-calling. It was previously a Summoner archetype which means it has its roots in the Arcane. Since the Summoner is not available yet, one of my players is going to play a god-caller by using the Beastmaster archetype as a substitute for an eidolon for the time-being. After all, many old Sarkorian gods are mystical beasts in appearance. In your own personal opinion, would god-calling still be a tradition rooted in the Arcane? Or do you believe it would lean more towards the Divine/Primal considering it comes from a basis of faith or the Sarkorian deep history in nature? Or heck, each god-caller finds their eidolon through their own method? To summarize: what magic tradition would best suit a god-caller? Thank you for your time.
Finding a place for summoners in Golarion the first time around was tough, since the initial version of the eidolon gave us no in-world lore to work with—the initial pitch for the summoner was for them to conjure demons and angels and devils and elementals, which has PLENTY of built-in places for them to come from, but the final version didn't do any of that. We eventually settled on having the god-caller traditions be something where summoners could exist in world... and then, of course, the Unchained version of them adjusted the eidolon to its initial world-friendly version.
But by that point, god callers were a part of the setting, and one that we really do love at Paizo. There's a reason they're one of the few philosophys/religions that we squeezed into Gods and Magic, after all!
Whatever we end up doing with the summoner in Secrets of Magic, it's going to have to sync up with the established world lore for Golarion, but the way that sync works is still something we're working on.
Personally, I could see the god-caller use primal or divine magic, and I sort of think primal works better since Sarkoris already has a very strong tie to the Green Faith, and having god-callers align with that is some good thematic alignment. That said, having them be divine works well to build in a new tradition of magic in the region since druids already have primal covered.
I don't think arcane or occult is thematically appropraite for a god-caller.
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Hey James,
I know you're not exactly the Rules Guy but bear with me - in Lost Omens World Guide there's a background called Varisian Wanderer which is very neat and very Varisian... but gives you Circus Lore? I didn't know Varisians had circuses! Is it true? Actual big tops or do they more like sing, dance, juggle, perform acrobatics and so on? I'm gonna copypaste it:
You have spent your youth wandering the lands of Varisia and beyond among the brightly painted wagons of a Varisian caravan. You have heard endless tales of your people’s history and lore, and have learned many songs and stories from the disparate people you have met.
Choose two ability boosts. One must be to Dexterity or Charisma, and one is a free ability boost.
You're trained in the Performance skill, and the Circus Lore skill. You gain the Fascinating Performance skill feat.
Also about Varisians, you once said:
Romani traditions are in there for sure, but also some Spanish as well. But also purely fantasy stuff that riffs off of more modern traditions like the Goth subculture or old time maritime traditions transposed from ship-based travel to overland travel.
Can you tell us more about the Spanish traditions and the fantasy/Goth/maritime stuff you mentioned?
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Creative Director
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| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Hey James,
I know you're not exactly the Rules Guy but bear with me - in Lost Omens World Guide there's a background called Varisian Wanderer which is very neat and very Varisian... but gives you Circus Lore? I didn't know Varisians had circuses! Is it true? Actual big tops or do they more like sing, dance, juggle, perform acrobatics and so on? I'm gonna copypaste it:
You have spent your youth wandering the lands of Varisia and beyond among the brightly painted wagons of a Varisian caravan. You have heard endless tales of your people’s history and lore, and have learned many songs and stories from the disparate people you have met.
Choose two ability boosts. One must be to Dexterity or Charisma, and one is a free ability boost.
You're trained in the Performance skill, and the Circus Lore skill. You gain the Fascinating Performance skill feat.Also about Varisians, you once said:
Romani traditions are in there for sure, but also some Spanish as well. But also purely fantasy stuff that riffs off of more modern traditions like the Goth subculture or old time maritime traditions transposed from ship-based travel to overland travel.Can you tell us more about the Spanish traditions and the fantasy/Goth/maritime stuff you mentioned?
Varisian Wanderer giving out Circus Lore is kinda weird to me too. I'd change it to Harrow Lore or Varisia Lore or even Entertainment Lore if it were me, but I suspect that of all the "common lore subcategories" listed on page 248 of the Core Rulebook, Circus Lore is the closest we could get to that topic. It does weird me out that Circus Lore is listed as a common lore but Entertainment Lore is not, but that might be someone knowing that we had a Circus AP in the works and was future proofing.
As for the other traditions I mentioned... the easiest way to get that vibe is to read the Sandpoint book and read the Magnimar book. While both of those locations have far more than Varisians living in them, the THEME and FEEL of Sandpoint and Magnimar are intended to evoke what a small town and a small city would be like in a predominantly Varisian region.
I can't really go into great detail about it further in the context of a messageboard post other than to point you toward Spanish/Mexican culture, Goth culture, and maritime culture. Mix it all up in a pot with Romani traditions and sprinkle in things like the Harrow and you're on the right path. Couldn't hurt to nudge things along with a sort of northern Californian mindset either, I guess, since that's where I grew up and there's a fair bit of that mindset in Varisians AND Shoanti.