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Paizo Employee Creative Director

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CelestialSocks wrote:

Hi James, I've been trying to find info on the location of Nurvatchta for a homebrew 2e campaign I'm playing in. I'm writing backstory for an Anadi homebrew character, and I'm trying to figure out where Nurvatchta is in relation to the equator. The only information I can find is that it is in Southern Garund. How south? South coast, or perhaps somewhere near the equator, or just past what is visible to us on current maps?

The main reason I'm asking is for the holiday celebrated by Anadi, "Longwalk". It's said to be celebrated on the date of Nurvatchta's Winter Solstice, which would be around Kuthona 21 if its north of the equator, or Sarenith 21 if it's south of the equator. The area south of what we have on maps right now is so huge it could be anywhere. Figured you'd be the best person to ask, an the only info I could find outside of printed material on Nurvatchta was a forum post you commented on in 2012

We haven't yet fully detailed the continent of Garund south of where the Inner Sea Map region exists. I've always imagined Nurvatchta to be not too far south of where the Inner Sea Map ends, somewhere on the west coast close to or even on the equator, but its exact location isn't something we've had the time or the product to explore in detail yet. Not sure when we will, to be honest. In any event, this is a good example of something that you as the GM should feel free to place where works best for your home game. If we end up doing something different 5 years later, your game will have a 5 year head start on us for you and your players being comfortable with that and so your choice would replace ours.

Waiting for us to have an official answer will only mean that part of your game will stagnate for a long time, alas.


James Jacobs wrote:
CelestialSocks wrote:

Hi James, I've been trying to find info on the location of Nurvatchta for a homebrew 2e campaign I'm playing in. I'm writing backstory for an Anadi homebrew character, and I'm trying to figure out where Nurvatchta is in relation to the equator. The only information I can find is that it is in Southern Garund. How south? South coast, or perhaps somewhere near the equator, or just past what is visible to us on current maps?

The main reason I'm asking is for the holiday celebrated by Anadi, "Longwalk". It's said to be celebrated on the date of Nurvatchta's Winter Solstice, which would be around Kuthona 21 if its north of the equator, or Sarenith 21 if it's south of the equator. The area south of what we have on maps right now is so huge it could be anywhere. Figured you'd be the best person to ask, an the only info I could find outside of printed material on Nurvatchta was a forum post you commented on in 2012

We haven't yet fully detailed the continent of Garund south of where the Inner Sea Map region exists. I've always imagined Nurvatchta to be not too far south of where the Inner Sea Map ends, somewhere on the west coast close to or even on the equator, but its exact location isn't something we've had the time or the product to explore in detail yet. Not sure when we will, to be honest. In any event, this is a good example of something that you as the GM should feel free to place where works best for your home game. If we end up doing something different 5 years later, your game will have a 5 year head start on us for you and your players being comfortable with that and so your choice would replace ours.

Waiting for us to have an official answer will only mean that part of your game will stagnate for a long time, alas.

Thank you so much! Definitely not letting it hang up our games or anything, just some minor details I'm considering with backstory for my character. I imagined it'd be pretty far south, but figured id check if it's something you've thought about.

Additionally, regarding Longwalk, if Nurcatcha is south of the equator, do you think Anadi outside of Nurvatcha would celebrate it on the date of the solstice in the southern hemisphere, on on the date of their own solstice in the northern?
Thanks again for the quick response!

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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CelestialSocks wrote:

Additionally, regarding Longwalk, if Nurcatcha is south of the equator, do you think Anadi outside of Nurvatcha would celebrate it on the date of the solstice in the southern hemisphere, on on the date of their own solstice in the northern?

They'd celebrate it on the date of the solstice wherever they were at. It isn't a globally organized same-day-event.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

So what are Seal-Breakers up to now that Tar-Babhon is freed? I'd assume they haven't managed yet to recover Key of Geb so I guess they are still working on that?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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CorvusMask wrote:
So what are Seal-Breakers up to now that Tar-Babhon is freed? I'd assume they haven't managed yet to recover Key of Geb so I guess they are still working on that?

I don't think we've discussed them, but they no longer have a job, really, so they might be obsolete and have disbanded. Maybe they got recruited or absorbed into the Whispering Way or some other group. Haven't really put much thought into that at all, to be honest. Been pretty focused on Kingmaker for the past year and a half...


Are you aware of the method of character generation where one takes a deck of Three Dragon Ante cards in a tarot-like spread to generate stats and also provide inspiration for the character's traits and history?

If so, what do you think of that method?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Interesting Character wrote:

Are you aware of the method of character generation where one takes a deck of Three Dragon Ante cards in a tarot-like spread to generate stats and also provide inspiration for the character's traits and history?

If so, what do you think of that method?

I've heard of it, yes. I prefer point buy these days, and to build my own character history.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
James Jacobs wrote:
CorvusMask wrote:
So what are Seal-Breakers up to now that Tar-Babhon is freed? I'd assume they haven't managed yet to recover Key of Geb so I guess they are still working on that?
I don't think we've discussed them, but they no longer have a job, really, so they might be obsolete and have disbanded. Maybe they got recruited or absorbed into the Whispering Way or some other group. Haven't really put much thought into that at all, to be honest. Been pretty focused on Kingmaker for the past year and a half...

They did have their own article in Tyrant's Grasp that revealed they aren't actually part of whispering way, but an... Well okay, I don't want to spoil it here because its super cool article x'D Anyway, their ultimate goal isn't releasing Whispering Tyrant, just something they need to do before they can proceed with their plan

...Come to think about it, who did write the Seal-Breakers article? They did great job at making them interesting and giving them future role post Tyrant's Grasp

(the article seriously is super cool x'D My favorite Tyrant related thing, really want to gush about them)

Edit: Noticed author reads on shop blurb so uh nevermind question answered ^_^;

Paizo Employee Creative Director

CorvusMask wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
CorvusMask wrote:
So what are Seal-Breakers up to now that Tar-Babhon is freed? I'd assume they haven't managed yet to recover Key of Geb so I guess they are still working on that?
I don't think we've discussed them, but they no longer have a job, really, so they might be obsolete and have disbanded. Maybe they got recruited or absorbed into the Whispering Way or some other group. Haven't really put much thought into that at all, to be honest. Been pretty focused on Kingmaker for the past year and a half...

They did have their own article in Tyrant's Grasp that revealed they aren't actually part of whispering way, but an... Well okay, I don't want to spoil it here because its super cool article x'D Anyway, their ultimate goal isn't releasing Whispering Tyrant, just something they need to do before they can proceed with their plan

...Come to think about it, who did write the Seal-Breakers article? They did great job at making them interesting and giving them future role post Tyrant's Grasp

(the article seriously is super cool x'D My favorite Tyrant related thing, really want to gush about them)

Edit: Noticed author reads on shop blurb so uh nevermind question answered ^_^;

Yup!


Mr. James Jacobs,

I was reading the section changelings. Is it safe to say that only changeling women receive the Call? If a changeling man is called would their sex/gender be changed if they join a coven?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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The NPC wrote:

Mr. James Jacobs,

I was reading the section changelings. Is it safe to say that only changeling women receive the Call? If a changeling man is called would their sex/gender be changed if they join a coven?

If we haven't said otherwise in any of our recent products I'd say that'd be left to the GM to decide what works best for their game.

In mine, men and women would both potentially get the call, but there are far more female changelings than male changelings.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
The NPC wrote:

Mr. James Jacobs,

I was reading the section changelings. Is it safe to say that only changeling women receive the Call? If a changeling man is called would their sex/gender be changed if they join a coven?

The ancestry guide does say what happens when male changeling gets the call

Anyhoo I wanted to ask about another question inspired by my fascination of Key of Geb and Seal-Breakers, but on writing rather than lore itself: I'm kind of wondering how ap specific articles work? Like does the writer get summary of "okay this is what you write about and these are lore tidbits we'd like you to include" or is it more like "Okay this is topic, go wild!"?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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CorvusMask wrote:
The NPC wrote:

Mr. James Jacobs,

I was reading the section changelings. Is it safe to say that only changeling women receive the Call? If a changeling man is called would their sex/gender be changed if they join a coven?

The ancestry guide does say what happens when male changeling gets the call

Anyhoo I wanted to ask about another question inspired by my fascination of Key of Geb and Seal-Breakers, but on writing rather than lore itself: I'm kind of wondering how ap specific articles work? Like does the writer get summary of "okay this is what you write about and these are lore tidbits we'd like you to include" or is it more like "Okay this is topic, go wild!"?

Well then, there ya go; Ancestry Guide answers the question then.

For the support articles for Adventure Paths, we generally give the writer a pretty detailed outline, but often try to work in some opportunities for them to put their own spin on things. When we do, we'll use milestones of works in progress from the writer to approve the topic before letting them do everything up on a topic we might not want, though.


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Hi James, I hope the day finds you well!

I'm sure the answer is self-evident, but whatever happened to El Raja key? Wasn't it marked in Golarion at one point?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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PFRPGrognard wrote:

Hi James, I hope the day finds you well!

I'm sure the answer is self-evident, but whatever happened to El Raja key? Wasn't it marked in Golarion at one point?

El Raja Key is a world-traveling, plane-hopping megadungeon created by Rob Kuntz. At one point, early on, we were going to include Golarion on its list of stops, as in those early days we were working a lot with Rob on the Maure Castle stuff in Dungeon magazine, but you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men and all that.

I guess it's best to think of El Raja Key as having traveled to some other campaign world instead of Golarion.

Scarab Sages

Will we ever see a Sahkil-spawn, or a return of the Demodand-spawn?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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NECR0G1ANT wrote:
Will we ever see a Sahkil-spawn, or a return of the Demodand-spawn?

Maybe.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

How are you doing today?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

H2Osw wrote:
How are you doing today?

Not the best, alas.

Silver Crusade

Hugs?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Rysky wrote:
Hugs?

Always appreciated, but internet hugs can't solve everything, alas.

Silver Crusade

*nods*

*hugs*

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Life's been harsh lately here as well. Hopefully things get better for you as well

The Concordance

Hi, James. I have a question on PF 1e rules.
I already know when Empower Spell + Maximize Spell,they calculated separating.
I want to know the interaction between Intensify Spell to the above two.
A CL 15 caster casts a Intensified, Maximized Fireball, the damage will be (1)15d6=90 or (2)10d6=60+5d6 ?
And the same question when goes to Intensify Spell + Empower Spell, do they calculated separating?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Julien Dien wrote:

Hi, James. I have a question on PF 1e rules.

I already know when Empower Spell + Maximize Spell,they calculated separating.
I want to know the interaction between Intensify Spell to the above two.
A CL 15 caster casts a Intensified, Maximized Fireball, the damage will be (1)15d6=90 or (2)10d6=60+5d6 ?
And the same question when goes to Intensify Spell + Empower Spell, do they calculated separating?

As long as you're consistent in the order in which you apply these sorts of effects, and as long as that end result is enjoyable for your game, go with whatever solution works best for you.

I prefer to apply them in the order of Intensify, Empower, and then Maximize, since to maximize you need to know the actual range of damage, and you can't know the actual range of damage until you know how many dice you roll, and you can't empower a range until you know how many dice you roll.

Grand Lodge

Hi James. I got a quick question about the Strigoi if that's alright?

I noticed in their lore entry in 2E that they aren't harmed by sunlight. Are there any other of the traditional vampire weaknesses that Strigoi lack or react differently to. Will they ever be featured in any 2E content seeing as there is now a Strigoi option as a dhampir lineage?

Also, I'm a huge fan around ancestries and heritages you all at Paizo implemented with 2E. It really helps to fix some of the more underlying issues present in 1E. I've yet to actually play any games of 2E atm as I'm currently running a 1E Kingmaker campaign, but the people I know who've played 2E really seem to enjoy it.

Hope you're doing alright. Best wishes to ya.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Arkadious wrote:

Hi James. I got a quick question about the Strigoi if that's alright?

I noticed in their lore entry in 2E that they aren't harmed by sunlight. Are there any other of the traditional vampire weaknesses that Strigoi lack or react differently to. Will they ever be featured in any 2E content seeing as there is now a Strigoi option as a dhampir lineage?

Also, I'm a huge fan around ancestries and heritages you all at Paizo implemented with 2E. It really helps to fix some of the more underlying issues present in 1E. I've yet to actually play any games of 2E atm as I'm currently running a 1E Kingmaker campaign, but the people I know who've played 2E really seem to enjoy it.

Hope you're doing alright. Best wishes to ya.

They're not damaged by it, but they go "dead" in sunlight, so it's not quite accurate to say that they're not harmed by it. We'll talk more about strigoi eventually, I hope; I did a bit of work on them for the game I'm running for folks here at the office but... it's a sandbox game and the players haven't done much with the strigoi plot at all yet so I've not been working much more on them yet. Mentioning them in regards to the dhampir is more of a "future proofing " than anything else, so that when we DO get around to them as monsters they'll already work with dhampir stuff.

Grand Lodge

James Jacobs wrote:
Arkadious wrote:

Hi James. I got a quick question about the Strigoi if that's alright?

I noticed in their lore entry in 2E that they aren't harmed by sunlight. Are there any other of the traditional vampire weaknesses that Strigoi lack or react differently to. Will they ever be featured in any 2E content seeing as there is now a Strigoi option as a dhampir lineage?

Also, I'm a huge fan around ancestries and heritages you all at Paizo implemented with 2E. It really helps to fix some of the more underlying issues present in 1E. I've yet to actually play any games of 2E atm as I'm currently running a 1E Kingmaker campaign, but the people I know who've played 2E really seem to enjoy it.

Hope you're doing alright. Best wishes to ya.

They're not damaged by it, but they go "dead" in sunlight, so it's not quite accurate to say that they're not harmed by it. We'll talk more about strigoi eventually, I hope; I did a bit of work on them for the game I'm running for folks here at the office but... it's a sandbox game and the players haven't done much with the strigoi plot at all yet so I've not been working much more on them yet. Mentioning them in regards to the dhampir is more of a "future proofing " than anything else, so that when we DO get around to them as monsters they'll already work with dhampir stuff.

I see, so it's more the case that they become helpless/unconscious in sunlight. Makes sense. I assume the other weakness thing I mentioned will be more of a "wait and find out" sort of deal which is fine. I honestly cannot wait to see how they behave so I can backport them. I've been working on my own homebrew stuff, hence the orignal post.

Thanks for answering my question, James. :)

The Concordance

James Jacobs wrote:
Julien Dien wrote:

Hi, James. I have a question on PF 1e rules.

I already know when Empower Spell + Maximize Spell,they calculated separating.
I want to know the interaction between Intensify Spell to the above two.
A CL 15 caster casts a Intensified, Maximized Fireball, the damage will be (1)15d6=90 or (2)10d6=60+5d6 ?
And the same question when goes to Intensify Spell + Empower Spell, do they calculated separating?

As long as you're consistent in the order in which you apply these sorts of effects, and as long as that end result is enjoyable for your game, go with whatever solution works best for you.

I prefer to apply them in the order of Intensify, Empower, and then Maximize, since to maximize you need to know the actual range of damage, and you can't know the actual range of damage until you know how many dice you roll, and you can't empower a range until you know how many dice you roll.

Let me make a supplement.

CRB 130: An empowered, maximized spell gains the separate benefits of each feat: the maximum result plus half the normally rolled result.
So, a CL 15 Empower, Maximize fireball should be 60+0.5*10d6. It seems the designer want each metamagic feats calculated separaing, but no RAW.

Taking a CL 15 fireball as instance, does "the order of Intensify, Empower, and then Maximize" means
(1) No stack. 10d6——10d6+5d6(Intensify)——10d6+5d6+0.5*10d6(Empower)——60(Maximize)+5d6(Int ensify)+0.5*10d6(Empower), or
(2) Stack, but not Max and Em. 10d6——15d6(Intensify)——15d6+0.5*15d6(Empower)——90(Max)+0.5*15d6, or
(3) All stack. 10d6——15d6(Intensify)——15d6+0.5*15d6(Empower)——90+45(both Max) ?

Sorry I got bogged down in details. There is a group of us with several DMs and your answer means a lot to us.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Julien Dien wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Julien Dien wrote:

Hi, James. I have a question on PF 1e rules.

I already know when Empower Spell + Maximize Spell,they calculated separating.
I want to know the interaction between Intensify Spell to the above two.
A CL 15 caster casts a Intensified, Maximized Fireball, the damage will be (1)15d6=90 or (2)10d6=60+5d6 ?
And the same question when goes to Intensify Spell + Empower Spell, do they calculated separating?

As long as you're consistent in the order in which you apply these sorts of effects, and as long as that end result is enjoyable for your game, go with whatever solution works best for you.

I prefer to apply them in the order of Intensify, Empower, and then Maximize, since to maximize you need to know the actual range of damage, and you can't know the actual range of damage until you know how many dice you roll, and you can't empower a range until you know how many dice you roll.

Let me make a supplement.

CRB 130: An empowered, maximized spell gains the separate benefits of each feat: the maximum result plus half the normally rolled result.
So, a CL 15 Empower, Maximize fireball should be 60+0.5*10d6. It seems the designer want each metamagic feats calculated separaing, but no RAW.

Taking a CL 15 fireball as instance, does "the order of Intensify, Empower, and then Maximize" means
(1) No stack. 10d6——10d6+5d6(Intensify)——10d6+5d6+0.5*10d6(Empower)——60(Maximize)+5d6(Int ensify)+0.5*10d6(Empower), or
(2) Stack, but not Max and Em. 10d6——15d6(Intensify)——15d6+0.5*15d6(Empower)——90(Max)+0.5*15d6, or
(3) All stack. 10d6——15d6(Intensify)——15d6+0.5*15d6(Empower)——90+45(both Max) ?

Sorry I got bogged down in details. There is a group of us with several DMs and your answer means a lot to us.

This confuses me, since I've already given an answer to the question. Apply intensify first. Then empower. Then maximize.

Re-asking the question with a lot of weirdly-formatted math in a hard to parse post isn't a great way to get me to provide a different answer.

You might have better luck asking someone on the Design team how this might work, since they're the ones who created those rules, not me. Of course... a big part of the move to 2nd edition is the design team seeking to clean up confusing rules like these...

That all said, I think a big part of what is confusing me about this particular post is the weird formatting, confusing grammar and sentence structure, over-use of abbreviations, and what appear to be missing words. For things this complicated, it's best to be careful and exact in your phrasing, but also keep in mind that I often avoid answering exacting rules questions like these in the first place since me answering rules questions has caused problems with customers and fellow employees and management before.

The Concordance

Your answer might be conflict with CRB 130, that's why I asked again.

As you said, individual is different with Design team.
Sorry to bother you again and thank you all the same.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Hey, finished book one of Gauntlight and absolutely loved it. Just starting book two and I had a bit of an Otari lore question: I don't recall if this was mentioned somewhere but was Morlibints husband given a name? Also, I just wanted to say props on giving Otari as much flavor and depth as Sandpoint. It really makes me feel nostalgic and my entire table loves the similar feelings of having such a well developed 'starting town.' I had Morlibint carry books on the adventures of our previous parties, so when they found a Highly Embellished version of the heroes of Sandpoints journey as told by the storyteller bard from a LATER adventure we ran, they absolutely went wild.

Thank you so much for creating this world and this adventure. It's been an absolute blast.


I have noticed something about Paizo's adventure paths (and I absolutely love this feature).

There are often themes that are never overtly stated (not even in the Player's Guide or GM front material) that nonetheless get repeated and refrained throughout the whole path. For example:

Return of the Runelords:
Redemption, in the Return of the Runelords. There's Nocticula's connection to Sorshen, of course. Audrahni's character arc is one of redemption as are several other NPCs just in the first book. And there's often the opportunity to redeem foes, both significant and less so.

My question is: How intentional is this amazing attention to detail? Or does it arise organically with each writer, as they get the description of their part of the whole path?

Regardless, I really appreciate it as a GM and player. Those echoes of a theme in even minor interactions/NPCs really pull the story together in subtle but powerful ways.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Virellius wrote:

Hey, finished book one of Gauntlight and absolutely loved it. Just starting book two and I had a bit of an Otari lore question: I don't recall if this was mentioned somewhere but was Morlibints husband given a name? Also, I just wanted to say props on giving Otari as much flavor and depth as Sandpoint. It really makes me feel nostalgic and my entire table loves the similar feelings of having such a well developed 'starting town.' I had Morlibint carry books on the adventures of our previous parties, so when they found a Highly Embellished version of the heroes of Sandpoints journey as told by the storyteller bard from a LATER adventure we ran, they absolutely went wild.

Thank you so much for creating this world and this adventure. It's been an absolute blast.

In most cases, there wasn't room to go into details for more than one NPC per location in that article, so nope; Morlibint's husband's name isn't published.

And thanks for the kind words. As with Sandpoint, a fair amount of Otari is based on my hometown of Point Arena, particularly the presence of the large log flume, the loading ramp down to the water, and the location of the waterfront being nestled between enormous seaside cliffs.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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quibblemuch wrote:

I have noticed something about Paizo's adventure paths (and I absolutely love this feature).

There are often themes that are never overtly stated (not even in the Player's Guide or GM front material) that nonetheless get repeated and refrained throughout the whole path. For example:

** spoiler omitted **

My question is: How intentional is this amazing attention to detail? Or does it arise organically with each writer, as they get the description of their part of the whole path?

Regardless, I really appreciate it as a GM and player. Those echoes of a theme in even minor interactions/NPCs really pull the story together in subtle but powerful ways.

I can't speak to the adventure paths that other creators at Paizo do, but I know that the ones I build are 100% intentional when they include themes like those you've found. When I create an Adventure Path outline, I usually try to include several running themes and ask the writers to include those themes in their turnovers, and then often when I develop an adventure path I'll enhance those by adding to them, sometimes significantly.

We generally don't directly state these themes in players's guides because they'd almost always be huge spoilers, but typically those themes are supported indirectly by the advice we give for character builds.
That's one of the ways we can make a group of 6 authors working separately to build six different adventurers that all feel like they're part of the same story.

Grand Archive

Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
James Jacobs wrote:
[...] In most cases, there wasn't room to go into details for more than one NPC per location in that article, so nope; Morlibint's husband's name isn't published. [...]

His name was actually published in the first book of Abomination Vault, mentioned in the Otari Gazetteer: it is Carlthe!

Question:

Abomination Vault book 1:
There are a lot of special ghouls that have different kind of flesh that give them bonuses, in contrast with normal ghouls that get these bonuses only from fresh flesh. Was this the first time these kind of differentiations have been done with ghouls in Pathfinder? How hard was it to find ideas for those? This is an awesome level of details, and it makes these encounters so much more interesting!

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Elfteiroh wrote:
Spoiler:
There are a lot of special ghouls that have different kind of flesh that give them bonuses, in contrast with normal ghouls that get these bonuses only from fresh flesh. Was this the first time these kind of differentiations have been done with ghouls in Pathfinder? How hard was it to find ideas for those? This is an awesome level of details, and it makes these encounters so much more interesting!

Glad you got a kick out of them. I do enjoy giving monsters variants of their standard abilities, in order to tie them to the story better. The ideas of how to make these adjustments come out of the environment, theme, and location that the creatures get put in. The ideas weren't really that tough to find once I looked at the creatures from that angle; from how the location they were in might adjust how they work.

That said...

Spoiler:
...ghouls have been one of my favorite types of undead for a long time, in large part because of how writers like Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith and Caitlin R. Kiernan and so many others use them in ways that juxtipose the visual of a decaying corpse with high society or scholastic society or the like. So I've been putting ghouls in my adventures in one way or another for a long time... I guess it's another example of how practice makes things easier, maybe?


Do many history museums that are open to the public (with or without a fee) exists in Golarion? If so, where would they likely be? I assume that there would probably be some in Taldor, it being such an old and historied country, but what about other places?

What about other similar things like public libraries or art museums?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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RevenantBacon1 wrote:

Do many history museums that are open to the public (with or without a fee) exists in Golarion? If so, where would they likely be? I assume that there would probably be some in Taldor, it being such an old and historied country, but what about other places?

What about other similar things like public libraries or art museums?

Yup, there's a fair amount of those. They'd be anywhere that there's someone interested in running one. Absalom has several, for example, but even a small town like Otari has one. Some might be big deals, but others are more akin to roadside attractions. Same for libraries and art museums. They're pretty common in most settlements... if only because all of those are great places to set adventures.

Grand Lodge

Does Iomedae have a last name and if not, is it because her family followed the Azlanti tradition of only having a first name since she was born in Cheliax? Did she simply deem it unnecessary and so had it wiped from everyone's minds?

I could understand that potentially being the case seeing as Aroden was still around at that time, and one of the more popular gods for humans to worship.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Arkadious wrote:

Does Iomedae have a last name and if not, is it because her family followed the Azlanti tradition of only having a first name since she was born in Cheliax? Did she simply deem it unnecessary and so had it wiped from everyone's minds?

I could understand that potentially being the case seeing as Aroden was still around at that time, and one of the more popular gods for humans to worship.

She doesn't. Or if she does, she never told anyone here at Paizo.

There's a LOT of examples of characters in the setting who don't have last names, just as in the real world. For deities, its honestly VERY rare for them to have last names because that's an element of "humanity" that deities don't normally hang on to. The intent of having Cayden Cailean retain his name is both a nod to his chaotic nature and the unusual genesis of his drunken ascension to divinity. He's an exception, not the norm, as far as names go.

Sovereign Court

Hi James,

In your opinion, how would remove disease or heal spells work in regards to mental illness? I had an issue in War for the Crown when

Spoiler:
a PC simply decided to cast heal on Grand Prince Stavian to combat his worsening dementia. I ruled it temporarily cured the condition but he quickly regressed after a few hours.
Thoughts?
(not really much of a spoiler but better safe than sorry)

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Faithful of Aroden wrote:

Hi James,

In your opinion, how would remove disease or heal spells work in regards to mental illness? I had an issue in War for the Crown when ** spoiler omitted ** Thoughts?
(not really much of a spoiler but better safe than sorry)

Full Disclosure: I'm not that familair with War for the Crown; I approved its general outline but wasn't involved in its development or creation, so my following advice might go against what that adventure path was going for.

A powerful spell like heal can cure mental illness as surely as any other illness. An affliction (be it a physical disease or a mental illness or whatever) can certainly be something that recurs, but personally, I think that using mental illness as a reason for a villian's motivation is kind of tone-deaf.

In a case where the PCs manage to use magic to help someone suffering from mental illness by curing them, that should be an even more lauded resolution than fighting that person in combat and just killing them.

Spoiler:
In this case, I'd let the PCs have their well-deserved triumph for helping Grand Prince Stavian and let him stay free from dementia for the foreseeable future, then do what I could to adjust remaining plot points in the campaign that expected him to remain afflicted, perhaps by introducing a new, sinister malevolent influence behind the scenes in the form of a fiend or undead or evil mesmerist or whatever. Then play it off as if the PCs, by being merciful and saving Stavian, managed to uncover the true source of peril in the region.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

War for the crown side note(the topic really provokes strong feelings from me so its hard for me to ignore it, please ignore this sidenote otherwise):
I'd like to note that Stavian III isn't evil nor combat encounter nor main villain of the ap <_< By time you discover he is still alive and run into him again, he is extremely tragic and depressing depiction of what dementia is like and book assumes that most merciful ending for him is putting him in house arrest since he isn't exactly in state to take care of himself.

I have mixed feeling on the "heal" spell itself just fixing all genetic and hereditary diseases permanently mostly because on fantasy side, it was nice if it was that easy, but on realism side one of my grandparents had slow and worsening Alzheimer so it feels weird to solve it "that" easily and I'm kinda offended by the idea of "why not just get heal scroll?" when its really harsh and depressing to see person change over years like that. (wish/miracle/similar dealio different and I don't mind it because those spells are meant to be that extremely powerful akin to divine intervention)

Anyhoo I wanted to ask about Night of the Gray Death :O How long has that been in planning? Is it going to focus on nature of Galt as extremely unstable country or more on horrors of Gray Gardeners?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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CorvusMask wrote:

** spoiler omitted **

Anyhoo I wanted to ask about Night of the Gray Death :O How long has that been in planning? Is it going to focus on nature of Galt as extremely unstable country or more on horrors of Gray Gardeners?

The specifics of Night of Gray Death as it currently exists started the process many months ago, but the basic idea of doing a significant, high level adventure that addresses certain situations in Galt has been one of many adventure plots I've been hoping to do for many years. The first version of an adventure sort of like it was originally going to show up late in 1st edition, in the year before we released 2nd edition, but various reasons (mostly of the "we didn't have the resources to do an additional stand-alone adventure at the time" type) prevented it from happening. Then again and again and again, as we've had a pretty rough go at getting the stand-alone adventures back into place. Especially considering each time we DID do one, folks wanted it to be low level or mid level.

I'm delighted we're finally able to do this one though. It's quite literally been waiting to be put into production for about four years. There's many more too that, hopefully, we'll put out soon as well!

That all said... not quite the time yet to start teasing more plot points. Maybe in a few months. Although I can say that it's gonna feature a pretty Big Deal Event.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Looking forward to hearing more about it then :3

On another question, how old elf is ancient elf? Like would Shalelu Andonasa be too young to have ancient elf heritage? Or is anybody over 100 year old enough old to qualify?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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CorvusMask wrote:

Looking forward to hearing more about it then :3

On another question, how old elf is ancient elf? Like would Shalelu Andonasa be too young to have ancient elf heritage? Or is anybody over 100 year old enough old to qualify?

Are you asking "how old does an elf have to be in order to 'qualify' for the Ancient Elf ancestry feat?" (Looks like there's some missing words in your question that make it a bit unclear...)

If so, that's pretty much 100% left to the player with GM approval. Aging and its categories have largely been turned into nothing more than fun flavor in 2nd edition, rather than a hard-wired set of penalties that apply and feel outdated and ageist.

All Ancient Elf says is "in your long life," so anything that you and the GM feel is long would count. Doesn't even have to be long as far as elves consider it, if the elf character in question grew up in a human society. It's relative, in other words.

Also, I've met plenty of childish elderly people and old-soul young people in my life, so there's that too.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Yeah the heritage was what I was asking about :D And that helped, thank you!


Hey James, I don't know if this has been answered before but I wasn't able to find the answer through google. I am running Return of the Runelords right now and I was curious as to why the Runelord's reigns are so long? Obviously some of them are Mythic or liches which explains the longevity but others such as Angothane just seem to be regular humans.

The obvious answer is magic, but I was wondering if there was a specific type of magic you had in mind to explain it?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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The_Mothman wrote:

Hey James, I don't know if this has been answered before but I wasn't able to find the answer through google. I am running Return of the Runelords right now and I was curious as to why the Runelord's reigns are so long? Obviously some of them are Mythic or liches which explains the longevity but others such as Angothane just seem to be regular humans.

The obvious answer is magic, but I was wondering if there was a specific type of magic you had in mind to explain it?

Because that helps to show just how powerful they were and how strong their grip over Thassilon was...

...but also to keep the total numnber of runelords down to a managable number (about 50) that I would be able to generate and maintain the names of in the amount of time I had to prepare for Return of the Runelords.

Most of them certainly used magic to extend their lives, though.

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