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It has also been speculated (by none other than Rob Kunst) that the various slimes and puddings were inspired by the Formless Spawn from Clark Ashton Smith's "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros" (1929).
Another pussible source would be the "blancmange" sketch(es) from Monty Python, which aired in the US starting in 1974, although perhaps Gary or other Wisconsonites could have seen it earlier on Canadian TV. The blancmange had very ooze-like behavior, pursuing people and even eating them.
Also a likely source, but also from the pulps. I'm 99% sure it's the pulps who popularized the "blob" monsters regardless of where they're popping up, be it RPGs or movies or Monty Python.
That said, please keep posts in this thread to questions for me; thanks!
At risk of sounding like a broken record, on the topic of literacy in Golarion (which you said, if I am correct, to be the assumption) how do people even become literate? I do not recall seeing any schools in any APs. If their parents teach them, how do they have the time since in the medieval times (specifically, the medieval agricultural/manufacturing) Golarion assumes, no one had time to learn to read because they had to farm all day?By being taught to read, or by learning to read themselves. Same way in the real world. You can be taught to read by a teacher, a friend, a parent, a sibling, an employer, or whoever. It's irrelevant to game balance, so feel free to pick whatever you want for your own character if that's important to your character's background.
If Pathfinder and Golarion were attempting to be a 100% accurate representation of the medieval era of European history, then I'd have a different answer. But that's not the game I write for.
AND: At the risk of sounding like a broken record myself: I really suspect you'd have more fun with an entirely different game than Pathfinder. It just really seems like you don't enjoy the game, and have more fun complaining about it. On the off chance that complaining about a game IS what's fun for you, please take that topic elsewhere. It's tiring and obnoxious to provide answer after answer and feel like I'm talking to a brick wall.
EDIT FOR CLARIFICATION: I absolutely do enjoy answering questions like "how do people learn to read in Golarion" and the like. If those questions are interesting to anyone, please don't hesitate to ask them! The part that I find tiresome and obnoxious is when someone repeatedly keeps re-asking the same question with slight variations when they simply don't agree with my answer; it feels very passive-agressive and confrontational and doesn't make me want to keep answering questions here.
SO if you ask a question and don't like my answer, I'm sorry. But please don't keep asking...
Just to clarify, my REAL question is as follows:
Fact 1: Golarion doesn't seem very advanced; in fact, it seems downright primitive in terms of agricultural production/processes.
Fact 2: Learning to read takes time, and in IRL not many people read since there was literally not enough time to read when you had to help your parents farm all day to pay taxes to the feudal lord. Even in the Renaissance the literay rate was easily below 50%, maybe approaching it.
Question: So, with these facts in mind, what SPECIFIC events/processes have occurred to have given people the time to become literate on such a scale (it is the norm)?
EDIT: Also, in a feudal society (that Golarion seems to mostly emulate) the vast majority of people didn't need to read, and in fact it was discouraged because reading leads to a greater awareness of the world, and even if you print nothing but propaganda people are elevated from the drudgery of poverty enough to question things, like your right to rule.
How is The Watchmen show?
Can a nuke damage an ethereal wizard?
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Just to clarify, my REAL question is as follows:
Fact 1: Golarion doesn't seem very advanced; in fact, it seems downright primitive in terms of agricultural production/processes.
Fact 2: Learning to read takes time, and in IRL not many people read since there was literally not enough time to read when you had to help your parents farm all day to pay taxes to the feudal lord. Even in the Renaissance the literay rate was easily below 50%, maybe approaching it.
Question: So, with these facts in mind, what SPECIFIC events/processes have occurred to have given people the time to become literate on such a scale (it is the norm)?
EDIT: Also, in a feudal society (that Golarion seems to mostly emulate) the vast majority of people didn't need to read, and in fact it was discouraged because reading leads to a greater awareness of the world, and even if you print nothing but propaganda people are elevated from the drudgery of poverty enough to question things, like your right to rule.
magic
Can a nuke damage an ethereal wizard?We haven't statted up nukes in Pathfinder, so the rules are silent on this question.
I mean, IIRC you statted out a nuclear overload. It doesn't damage ethereal wizards.
magicJust to clarify, my REAL question is as follows:
Fact 1: Golarion doesn't seem very advanced; in fact, it seems downright primitive in terms of agricultural production/processes.
Fact 2: Learning to read takes time, and in IRL not many people read since there was literally not enough time to read when you had to help your parents farm all day to pay taxes to the feudal lord. Even in the Renaissance the literay rate was easily below 50%, maybe approaching it.
Question: So, with these facts in mind, what SPECIFIC events/processes have occurred to have given people the time to become literate on such a scale (it is the norm)?
EDIT: Also, in a feudal society (that Golarion seems to mostly emulate) the vast majority of people didn't need to read, and in fact it was discouraged because reading leads to a greater awareness of the world, and even if you print nothing but propaganda people are elevated from the drudgery of poverty enough to question things, like your right to rule.
Anything more specific?
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Anything more specific?magicJust to clarify, my REAL question is as follows:
Fact 1: Golarion doesn't seem very advanced; in fact, it seems downright primitive in terms of agricultural production/processes.
Fact 2: Learning to read takes time, and in IRL not many people read since there was literally not enough time to read when you had to help your parents farm all day to pay taxes to the feudal lord. Even in the Renaissance the literay rate was easily below 50%, maybe approaching it.
Question: So, with these facts in mind, what SPECIFIC events/processes have occurred to have given people the time to become literate on such a scale (it is the norm)?
EDIT: Also, in a feudal society (that Golarion seems to mostly emulate) the vast majority of people didn't need to read, and in fact it was discouraged because reading leads to a greater awareness of the world, and even if you print nothing but propaganda people are elevated from the drudgery of poverty enough to question things, like your right to rule.
Nope.
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I mean, IIRC you statted out a nuclear overload. It doesn't damage ethereal wizards.Can a nuke damage an ethereal wizard?We haven't statted up nukes in Pathfinder, so the rules are silent on this question.
Then I guess you answered your own question.
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Is there a God associated with patience in Golarion?
None come to mind. Of the core, Sarenrae is probably the closest, or maybe Irori. There might be a minor demigod out there but I don't know them off the top of my head... but you asked for "god" so they wouldn't count anyway.
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I have to say that I think lot of posters are really sympathizing with you right now ^_^; This has been really frustrating to observe whenever I come here to ask questions
Anyhoo, I'm curious about Ameiko, Shensen, Merisiel and Wrin, do you like dyed streak of differently colored hair or white hair? :O
I was wondering why Wrin's art reminded me of Ameiko and Shenshen despite them being by different artists and it just clicked with me xD So I'm curious if that is an actual preference or just coincidence that different artists incorporated similar elements
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I have to say that I think lot of posters are really sympathizing with you right now ^_^; This has been really frustrating to observe whenever I come here to ask questions
Anyhoo, I'm curious about Ameiko, Shensen, Merisiel and Wrin, do you like dyed streak of differently colored hair or white hair? :O
I was wondering why Wrin's art reminded me of Ameiko and Shenshen despite them being by different artists and it just clicked with me xD So I'm curious if that is an actual preference or just coincidence that different artists incorporated similar elements
I do like multi-colored hair like you see with Ameiko and Wrin; looks cool, I think. And Shensen's white hair is a holdover of her previous life, pre-reincarnation, as a drow, and I opted to just keep that when she got reincarnated as a legacy thing. It's really grown on me though, so yeah, I do like white hair on characters as well. So with Wrin, that's finally those two preferences coming together, I suppose.
(Merisiel wasn't a PC of mine, by the way; her design was 100% by Wayne, but she ended up looking so much like a PC I'd create I kinda latched on to her instantly.)
Wrin didn't start out life as a PC of mine; she started as an NPC ally of the PCs in the Whispers in Ravounel game I've been running. When I got hired to write Gauntlight, I also had to design Otari in record time, since they needed to know about it for the Beginner Box. The Otari gazetteer was the first thing I wrote for Gauntlight as a result, and to help save me time, I simply transplanted a LOT of the NPCs from Crookcove (where Whispers in Ravounel is set) into Otari, among them Wrin Sivinxi.
At about the same time, I convinced Ron Lundeen to start running an Extinction Curse game, and that's when Wrin turned into a PC. We didn't get too far into that campaign, alas, before the pandemic hit and we all transitioned to lockdown/quarantine mode, and Ron hasn't been able to pick the game back up in a VTT since, so PC Wrin has been in limbo for about a year as of now, alas.
Hey, James! Best wishes, and I hope you're hanging in there! :)
If you had a "Mount Rushmore" of Top 5 art pieces done for Paizo/Pathfinder (in terms of character art, not cover backgrounds), what would you select for it?
Nope.Anything more specific?magicJust to clarify, my REAL question is as follows:
Fact 1: Golarion doesn't seem very advanced; in fact, it seems downright primitive in terms of agricultural production/processes.
Fact 2: Learning to read takes time, and in IRL not many people read since there was literally not enough time to read when you had to help your parents farm all day to pay taxes to the feudal lord. Even in the Renaissance the literay rate was easily below 50%, maybe approaching it.
Question: So, with these facts in mind, what SPECIFIC events/processes have occurred to have given people the time to become literate on such a scale (it is the norm)?
EDIT: Also, in a feudal society (that Golarion seems to mostly emulate) the vast majority of people didn't need to read, and in fact it was discouraged because reading leads to a greater awareness of the world, and even if you print nothing but propaganda people are elevated from the drudgery of poverty enough to question things, like your right to rule.
You do realize I was asking just so I could have some "official" ways to get in a plot hook, right? Like, maybe clerics cast ceremony to get plant growth, and the goods they were going to use for the ritual are stolen. Or maybe phantom carriage/mount is used to carry goods from place to place. Does any of this apply to Golarion?
How closely does Golarion model the medieval society? If it deviates, in what ways (other than dragons, other species or magic)?
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Hey, James! Best wishes, and I hope you're hanging in there! :)
If you had a "Mount Rushmore" of Top 5 art pieces done for Paizo/Pathfinder (in terms of character art, not cover backgrounds), what would you select for it?
It'd be mostly self-serving, I guess, with a focus on characters based on my own PCs to a certain extent, but not all of them! I'm not gonna call out my top 5 in particular though since I try to avoid doing favorite lists of things like that that I've had my own hand in creating, even if that hand is as limited as "wrote an art brief for the art team to send to the artist." It feels too much like reviewing my own writing, but also weirds me out because I love a LOT more than a mere 5 or 10 or whatever pieces of art (and thus artists) we've been so lucky to have illustrate Golarion for us over the years.
Seems like a fun question to start a new thread with though to see what sorts of "Mount Rushmore" other gamers might build!
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You do realize I was asking just so I could have some "official" ways to get in a plot hook, right? Like, maybe clerics cast ceremony to get plant growth, and the goods they were going to use for the ritual are stolen. Or maybe phantom carriage/mount is used to carry goods from place to place. Does any of this apply to Golarion?
I do realize this, but I'm not interested in creating "official" ways to build alternate Golarions, or even "official" explanations to justify artistic choices. Art is not about rules, and a lot of what we do to build Golarion is art-based. And as with all art, it's not going to appeal to everyone. "Justifying" an artistic choice with proof is a zero-sum goal because you can't change opinions on art.
It sounds to me more like you're trying to catch me in a broken proof or faulty logical argument to try to use against me to rebuild Golarion in a way to match your preference. No thanks.
It doesn't help that you continue to ignore my previous posts and continue to assume that Golarion is empirically "less advanced" than modern earth. I see examples every day in the news or on the internet that prove to me that humanity is barely more advanced than a pack of feral wild animals. A lot of my work in creating Golarion is my attempt to create a setting that is BETTER than the real world. Better for me. Not necessarily better for you or anyone else.
So I can't answer questions that essentially, to me, boil down to "Your world sucks, make it more like the one I want."
A great part about RPGs is that you can build your own worlds. I've been doing that since the mid 80s using D&D, building a setting that appeals to me by borrowing parts of other settings (be they RPG settings or fiction or whatever) and ignoring others and adding in my own additions. It's very rewarding and fun and self-fufilling.
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How closely does Golarion model the medieval society? If it deviates, in what ways (other than dragons, other species or magic)?
Not closely at all, because there are parts of the Inner Sea Region that apply more to the ancient world (such as ancient Rome, ancient Egypt, Sumer, etc.), to areas not inspired by Europe (such as Qadira or Mwangi), to areas inspired by eras closer to post-medieval eras (Ustalav, Galt, Andoran), and to areas that are inspired pretty much by the imagination (Tanglebriar, Cheliax, Irrisen, Belkzen, Mana Wastes, etc.). And when you go beyond the Inner Sea to other contiental regions, the adherence to European medieval society gets even more widespread.
It deviates by nation/region, with very few areas specifically trying to go for a medieval European setting. So, the quick answer to it, I repeat, is "not closely at all."
What you're asking, to me, sounds like "How much does Earth model modern London?" It's a flawed question from the ground up.
If you want examples of the ways Golarion deviates from the "medieval society," read any of our lore/adventure products for plenty of examples. We publish far to much of that content for me to copy/paste it into a reply here.
I'll give you one, though: there's crashed spaceships in Numeria.
How closely does Golarion model the medieval society? If it deviates, in what ways (other than dragons, other species or magic)?Not closely at all, because there are parts of the Inner Sea Region that apply more to the ancient world (such as ancient Rome, ancient Egypt, Sumer, etc.), to areas not inspired by Europe (such as Qadira or Mwangi), to areas inspired by eras closer to post-medieval eras (Ustalav, Galt, Andoran), and to areas that are inspired pretty much by the imagination (Tanglebriar, Cheliax, Irrisen, Belkzen, Mana Wastes, etc.). And when you go beyond the Inner Sea to other contiental regions, the adherence to European medieval society gets even more widespread.
It deviates by nation/region, with very few areas specifically trying to go for a medieval European setting. So, the quick answer to it, I repeat, is "not closely at all."
What you're asking, to me, sounds like "How much does Earth model modern London?" It's a flawed question from the ground up.
If you want examples of the ways Golarion deviates from the "medieval society," read any of our lore/adventure products for plenty of examples. We publish far to much of that content for me to copy/paste it into a reply here.
I'll give you one, though: there's crashed spaceships in Numeria.
But Ancient Egypt/Sumer and countries like those are inherently less advanced than even a medieval society, In light of this, why doesn't anybody try to conquer any other country? For example, why doesn't Nex put more pressure on Alkenstar to give it more guns? Or why doesn't Alkenstar try to conquer Nex or Geb with advanced guns and science, or Numeria conquer Brevoy with advanced everything?
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But Ancient Egypt/Sumer and countries like those are inherently less advanced than even a medieval society, In light of this, why doesn't anybody try to conquer any other country? For example, why doesn't Nex put more pressure on Alkenstar to give it more guns? Or why doesn't Alkenstar try to conquer Nex or Geb with advanced guns and science, or Numeria conquer Brevoy with advanced everything?
The idea that ancient Egypt was "less advanced" than a medieval society is laughable, demonstrably false, and kind of offensive, to start with.
As for "why doesn't country A do this to country B?" They do. We've got plenty of examples of this sort of thing going on in our Adventure Paths, stand-alone adventures, and Org Play scenarios.
We don't do a lot of stories about different nations clashing with each other because the point of Golarion is to set up a smorgasbord of sorts for gamers to pick and choose and ignore the parts that aren't to their liking. That's why most of our Adventure Paths stay in one region rather than do multiple region stuff, but we do that too. (Ironfang Invasion comes to mind, for example.)
Remember that Pathfinder and Golarion were built for us and gamers alike to build stories in. We're setting things up for campaigns, not trying to write a series of novels chronicling the year-by-year advancement of plotlines focused on characters you read about rather than play.
We can't create all of them all at once though.
Hey James! Thanks so much for this place on the boards. It's really my favorite place on the Paizo site since it's kind of a constant trickle of bits and pieces of lore for my favorite campaign setting. As a couple of others have said in recent posts: hope you're hanging in there okay!
So I had a question. I've been running a really slow roleplay heavy campaign of Strange Aeons. We just finished book 2 and I think I'm going to homebrew rather than run book 3, because the way the campaign grew, the PCs really made themselves a home in Thrushmoor, built out a huge casts of NPCs, and they're very invested in the town now. Earned Casadia Wrentz's respect, consciously sought out making amends to townfolk they had hurt, etc.
For this point of departure I'd like to build some adventures where they "earn" the rulership of Thrushmoor and/or the surrounding county (since Lowls is long gone and was running things terribly anyway). While not asking you to design the adventure, I was just wondering about the Ustalavian context for something like earning one's way into the nobility? Any suggestions or pointers towards particular Pathfinder lore more than welcome!
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Hey James! Thanks so much for this place on the boards. It's really my favorite place on the Paizo site since it's kind of a constant trickle of bits and pieces of lore for my favorite campaign setting. As a couple of others have said in recent posts: hope you're hanging in there okay!
So I had a question. I've been running a really slow roleplay heavy campaign of Strange Aeons. We just finished book 2 and I think I'm going to homebrew rather than run book 3, because the way the campaign grew, the PCs really made themselves a home in Thrushmoor, built out a huge casts of NPCs, and they're very invested in the town now. Earned Casadia Wrentz's respect, consciously sought out making amends to townfolk they had hurt, etc.
For this point of departure I'd like to build some adventures where they "earn" the rulership of Thrushmoor and/or the surrounding county (since Lowls is long gone and was running things terribly anyway). While not asking you to design the adventure, I was just wondering about the Ustalavian context for something like earning one's way into the nobility? Any suggestions or pointers towards particular Pathfinder lore more than welcome!
I created the original outline for "Strange Aeons" and was originally going to develop it, but I ended up having to develop the hardcover Curse of the Crimson Throne instead, so as such I haven't actually read the adventures or worked on them... I know the basics, but can't really give more in-depth advice.
First off, though, since the bulk of the third adventure takes place in the Dreamlands, you can really have that stuff play out ANYWHERE; the PCs don't need to be on a river trip for all of that to happen. It can take place back in Thrushmoor with relatively little adjustment to the bulk of the adventure, after which the players may be ready to move on to the south and continue the campaign.
As for simply moving on from the plot of Strange Aeons entirely and into your own campaign, that's fun too! I'd suggest checking out "Rule of Fear" for the best collection of Ustalav lore we've done, or perhaps look at "Wake of the Watcher" or "Carrion Hill" for some semi-local adventures to have the PCs go on eventually.
Going on adventures like these and building up a reputation of heroes or at least vanquishers of local/regional evils is a great way for the PCs to build up their local fame; you can even have them get noble titles as rewards for these adventures if you want.
Ustalav itself is a region of creeping horror, so for inspiration about this sort of thing, I'd go full-on into the type of horror story where someone inherits a spooky manor or castle, then they have to deal with what's going on in there. Once the PCs are granted their land grant or right to be nobles or whatever, the catch can be that their granted land or castle or whatever is haunted, and they need to cleanse the site before it can be used as a home.
And of course, there's more organized evils to watch out for, like vampire families or cults or the like; having the PCs end up running into these dangers can be fun as well. And once the PCs get access to teleport and the like, then they can even get back to the long-distant elements of Strange Aeons, since returning home is increasingly easy when you can just teleport there. You can even have an adventure reward be access to something that allows them to do so without having to cast spells.
Finally, the ending adventure of Strange Aeons brings it back to Ustalav anyway, so that last adventure can be adjusted pretty simply as a final ending for the whole thing. If you do this, then I suggest having the cult of Hastur be pulling strings behind the scenes the whole time.
How is serfdom different in Golarion? For example, do serfs in Taldor have freedom of movement and need special permit to practice a trade other farmer?
Humbly,
Yawar
Is there indenture servitude in places that went through abolition? If so, what is the penalty for breaking the contract?
Humbly,
Yawar
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How is serfdom different in Golarion? For example, do serfs in Taldor have freedom of movement and need special permit to practice a trade other farmer?
Humbly,
Yawar
Serfdom isn't a topic we've spent much time exploring. It's mostly in the background, honestly, because it's not really information that is that relevant to the adventuring lifestyle or adventures themselves, but I suspect it's come up now and then in adventures here and there. Maybe in War For the Crown? (I haven't had the chance to read that Adventure Path so I can't say for sure.)
AKA: It's largely left up to the individual GM to adjust as they wish, I suppose.
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Is there indenture servitude in places that went through abolition? If so, what is the penalty for breaking the contract?
Humbly,
Yawar
There certainly is. The costs and penalties for breaking the contract would vary from place to place though.
As with your question about serfdom, it's largely left to the adventure writer or GM's hands, but I strongly suggest you leave things like this as plot seeds for adventures and not as things that player characters need to really worry about.
In a previous post you made some ballpark calculations for the income of a merchant. However, this asumes that gold is worth the same in Golarion as it is here.
Usually, IRL, when comparing incomes in different countries you use the Big Mac index, divide the number by the local price of a Big Mac and multiply it by the price of a USA Big Mac to obtain the value at purchasing-power parity (PPP).
For example, the minimum wage in Peru is S/. 1373.58 gross for a month (basic basket is S/. 1370), a Big Mac is S/. 11.90 and $ 5.66 in the USA, so $ 653.92 at purchasing-power parity and $ 379.44 at current exchange rate (3.62 PEN/USD). For comparison, the NYC's basic basket in 2016 was USD 602.00, or about USD 648.89 in 2020 dollars.
As a thought experiment, I wanted to do something similar for Golarion. Sadly, there are no McDonalds' I know of in Golarion so I would have to do this backwards. For the basic basket, I would use the cost of the comfortable standard of living, that's 52 gp per year (CRB pg. 294). Comparing NYC to Golarion, we get that $ 648.89 x 12 = 52 gp or 1 gp = $ 149.74. Incidentally, if there was a McDonald's in Absalom a Big Mac, it would be about 4 cp (3.77 cp rounded up).
My question would be, are the assumptions made, specially the one about the basic basket being equivalent to a comfortable standard of living, correct?
Humbly,
Yawar
Is there indenture servitude in places that went through abolition? If so, what is the penalty for breaking the contract?
Humbly,
YawarThere certainly is. The costs and penalties for breaking the contract would vary from place to place though.
As with your question about serfdom, it's largely left to the adventure writer or GM's hands, but I strongly suggest you leave things like this as plot seeds for adventures and not as things that player characters need to really worry about.
Thank you, my final question in the subject would be the following. Is there is any debtor jails and forced labor in jails?
I would like to know which established a legal framework works best as a template for Absalom and so far Victorian England seems like it is best suited.
Humbly,
Yawar
But Ancient Egypt/Sumer and countries like those are inherently less advanced than even a medieval society, In light of this, why doesn't anybody try to conquer any other country? For example, why doesn't Nex put more pressure on Alkenstar to give it more guns? Or why doesn't Alkenstar try to conquer Nex or Geb with advanced guns and science, or Numeria conquer Brevoy with advanced everything?The idea that ancient Egypt was "less advanced" than a medieval society is laughable, demonstrably false, and kind of offensive, to start with.
As for "why doesn't country A do this to country B?" They do. We've got plenty of examples of this sort of thing going on in our Adventure Paths, stand-alone adventures, and Org Play scenarios.
We don't do a lot of stories about different nations clashing with each other because the point of Golarion is to set up a smorgasbord of sorts for gamers to pick and choose and ignore the parts that aren't to their liking. That's why most of our Adventure Paths stay in one region rather than do multiple region stuff, but we do that too. (Ironfang Invasion comes to mind, for example.)
Remember that Pathfinder and Golarion were built for us and gamers alike to build stories in. We're setting things up for campaigns, not trying to write a series of novels chronicling the year-by-year advancement of plotlines focused on characters you read about rather than play.
We can't create all of them all at once though.
But what about the specific examples I gave? Why haven't any of them happened? Please answer with an in-universe reason, if possible.
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Good lord.
Anyways. James, is 30 Coins a show that's on your radar? Not sure if it's been brought up in here by this point.
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My question would be, are the assumptions made, specially the one about the basic basket being equivalent to a comfortable standard of living, correct?
Humbly,
Yawar
All of my back-of-the-envelope calculations for gold stuff was done in part to prove a point that it's not only wrong to say "people on Golarion are MUCH poorer than people on Earth," but also to showcase how silly it is to try to compare real world stuff to made-up-for-a-game stuff. In any case, for most of the "compare to Earth" stuff we DO assume it's pretty much the same. That's why a year on Golarion has the same time, why the planet is the same size as Earth, why the moon is the same size and distance from Golarion as in Earth, and so on. Because the more that those science-based things are identical to Earth, the less we have to take into account those unusual factors in doing just day to day stuff in the setting and the more time we have to focus on telling stories and playing the game.
Thanks for the feedback though!
As for "comfortable standard of living", the values we set on the cost of living in the Core Rulebook are, as far as I know, kind of arbitrary and maybe based on how much someone might be able to make earning a living. This is getting more into the design team's territory as far as the game's economy in the rules goes though.
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Thank you, my final question in the subject would be the following. Is there is any debtor jails and forced labor in jails?
I would like to know which established a legal framework works best as a template for Absalom and so far Victorian England seems like it is best suited.
Humbly,
Yawar
There is both. Victorian England works pretty well as a starting point for Absalom, but that location in particular will be getting a LOT more detail overall (including crime and law) in the massive Absalom book we're working on.
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Good lord.
Anyways. James, is 30 Pieces a show that's on your radar? Not sure if it's been brought up in here by this point.
It is! I've only seen the first 3 or maybe 4 episodes so far. It's pretty good overall. A bit too episodic overall, with the characters seeming so far to be kinda stuck in their development and not getting any forward motion in their storylines. I'll see all the episodes eventually though, but I'm still waiting for the next great horror series to come along since "The Terror" knocked it out of the park several years ago.
It is! I've only seen the first 3 or maybe 4 episodes so far. It's pretty good overall. A bit too episodic overall, with the characters seeming so far to be kinda stuck in their development and not getting any forward motion in their storylines. I'll see all the episodes eventually though, but I'm still waiting for the next great horror series to come along since "The Terror" knocked it out of the park several years ago.Good lord.
Anyways. James, is 30 Pieces a show that's on your radar? Not sure if it's been brought up in here by this point.
Awesome! I just heard about it and my curiosity was piqued.
Is the Terror the one set in the Arctic? Without spoilers, what made it a standout to you?
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Creative Director
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Is the Terror the one set in the Arctic? Without spoilers, what made it a standout to you?
That's the one! It's based on my favorite Dan Simmons novel, so that's both an advantage (in that the subject is pre-interesting to me) and a disadvantage (since it has a lot to live up to). It's more than up to that second task.
What made it stand out was just how great every factor of the thing came together, from the acting to the various story threads to the pacing to the look to the music to the effects and so on. It was actually pretty staggering how well they recreated the arctic pretty much entirely with practical effects and CGI. Plus it made a few changes to the novel that I think improved a few things, character arc wise.
When I read the novel back when it came out many years ago, there's a particular chapter that's all about the monster of the story chasing a sailor on watch one night across the ship and up into the rigging and all over the place that was incredibly well-written, such that as I read it I couldn't help but imagine in my head "oh wow, this scene could look so incredible as a set-piece acton sequence in a movie." And then a few years later, when the show was announced, it was that scene that I was most excited about to see and dreading to see. And the show did a great job adapting it to the screen.
Would you consider this: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8096183/36/Harry-Potter-and-the-Natural-20 (scroll down to middle) to be why Golarion is so locked in medieval stasis?
Or, in other words, how much of that monologue applies to Pathfinder's world as you see it?
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Would you consider this: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8096183/36/Harry-Potter-and-the-Natural-20 (scroll down to middle) to be why Golrion is so poor and the overall standard of living so bad?
Or, in other words, how much of that monologue applies to Pathfinder's world as you see it?
Golarion is not poor. The overall standard of living is not bad. No matter how often you re-phrase or re-ask that sort of question I'm not gonna suddenly change my answer.
Plus I generally don't have time to stop in the middle of my work day to read fan fiction. Answering a few questions on this thread now and then is a fun little distraction for a few minutes to break up the other parts of the day, but the key there is "a few minutes."
Furthermore, I generally try to avoid reading fan fiction or any homebrew stuff entirely, for a combination of the aforementioned time-management reasons and for potential legal reasons.
Would you consider this: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8096183/36/Harry-Potter-and-the-Natural-20 (scroll down to middle) to be why Golrion is so poor and the overall standard of living so bad?
Or, in other words, how much of that monologue applies to Pathfinder's world as you see it?
Golarion is not poor. The overall standard of living is not bad. No matter how often you re-phrase or re-ask that sort of question I'm not gonna suddenly change my answer.
Plus I generally don't have time to stop in the middle of my work day to read fan fiction. Answering a few questions on this thread now and then is a fun little distraction for a few minutes to break up the other parts of the day, but the key there is "a few minutes."
Furthermore, I generally try to avoid reading fan fiction or any homebrew stuff entirely, for a combination of the aforementioned time-management reasons and for potential legal reasons.
To summarize that segment, it boils down to how "magic stifles innovation by simply existing." Is that true?
*though to be perfectly honest the world of the character is also such that trade should not exist because everything is worth the same everywhere as per RAW, and that gp prices can never change for any reason.
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Creative Director
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To summarize that segment, it boils down to how "magic stifles innovation by simply existing." Is that true?
Absolutely not for Pathfinder.
It's honestly a nonsensical concept to me, since magic, by its very nature, allows for innovation beyond the norm.
Seven Samurai is pretty well tied with the original Godzilla there. Since they share some actors and crew, though, I get to pick them both as my favorite Toho movie, yes?
Same studio, shared actors, same year. GOOD ENOUGH!
The Meg was a lot better than I thought it would be; good fun, that one!
I maintain that it worked as well as it did because it didn't try to be "more" than it was.
Similar opinion on "Herbert West- Reanimator," actually.
So, that prompts the question- any other favored examples of fiction you like, not because it's some paradigm-altering brilliance, but because it knows what it is and executes that excellently?
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Seven Samurai is pretty well tied with the original Godzilla there. Since they share some actors and crew, though, I get to pick them both as my favorite Toho movie, yes?Same studio, shared actors, same year. GOOD ENOUGH!
The Meg was a lot better than I thought it would be; good fun, that one!I maintain that it worked as well as it did because it didn't try to be "more" than it was.
Similar opinion on "Herbert West- Reanimator," actually.
So, that prompts the question- any other favored examples of fiction you like, not because it's some paradigm-altering brilliance, but because it knows what it is and executes that excellently?
I disagree. I think The Meg exceeded expectations significantly, and Re-Animator was responsible, along with Call of Cthulhu, for revitalizing Lovecraft in popular culture. Both of those movies were great not because they didn't try to be more than they were, but because they specifically leaned in to the story's entertaining aspects HARD and didn't do so timidly. Re-Animator more than The Meg, although there WAS a Meg IN Re-Animator, now that I think on it.
Anyway, to answer the question (which I already kind of did): to a certain extent fiction that executes its story excellently IS often a paradigm-altering brilliance. Back to Re-Animator—had it not done what it did, Lovecraft adaptations wouldn't be so common, but more importantly, over the top gory movies would have likely continued to be more marginalized, which would have perhaps, for example, kept Peter Jackson from achieving his success on movies like Brain Dead or Bad Taste and then going on to do Lord of the Rings. The fact that Re-Animator ended up getting great reviews from famous critics (Roger Ebert and his thumbs-up review comes to mind) helped to pave the way for several genres. If that's not an example of a paradim shift, I don't know what is.
Does germ theory exist in Golarion as we know it? As in, microcellular living organisms causing disease? Because if so, then what keeps cure wounds from causing a target to die of infection due to the positive energy bolstering the bacteria?
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Does germ theory exist in Golarion as we know it? As in, microcellular living organisms causing disease? Because if so, then what keeps cure wounds from causing a target to die of infection due to the positive energy bolstering the bacteria?
There's plenty of theories on Golarion about how sickness works. Knowledge of germs/viruses/parasites/etc. is generally known about by most though.
Cure wounds cures wounds. It doesn't bolster bacteria. It doesn't bolster living organisms. If it did, it'd bolster the person whose wound you're healing. It Just Cures Wounds.
Both of those movies were great not because they didn't try to be more than they were, but because they specifically leaned in to the story's entertaining aspects HARD and didn't do so timidly.
That's.... kind of what I meant, though. :P Neither one tried to over-complicate what they were doing. They knew exactly what they were and went for it without aiming beyond their basic mission statement.
Anyhow.
QUERY!
John Carpenter's The Thing is justly lauded.
Which of the other two members of the "apocalypse trilogy" do you like best?
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Does germ theory exist in Golarion as we know it? As in, microcellular living organisms causing disease? Because if so, then what keeps cure wounds from causing a target to die of infection due to the positive energy bolstering the bacteria?There's plenty of theories on Golarion about how sickness works. Knowledge of germs/viruses/parasites/etc. is generally known about by most though.
Cure wounds cures wounds. It doesn't bolster bacteria. It doesn't bolster living organisms. If it did, it'd bolster the person whose wound you're healing. It Just Cures Wounds.
Wait what? How can these people know about germs and still use swords and bows? IRL germ theory did not become widely accepted until the 1890s (height of the Industrial Revolution!). How can this be? I can get literacy because you wanted handouts, but how does this add to the playing experience?
To summarize that segment, it boils down to how "magic stifles innovation by simply existing." Is that true?
Absolutely not for Pathfinder.
It's honestly a nonsensical concept to me, since magic, by its very nature, allows for innovation beyond the norm.
But isn't magic necessarily obsoleted by tech? For example, in the fanfic I referenced, the person claims that 1000 commoners with masterwork tools can aid another to make a craft check in the 1000s to create a rocket without magic, which requires a single very powerful person. Would you see this as obsoleting magic?