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In Carrion Crown, heroes can find a bottle of Port (Oporto in spanish); this is a wine, whose name comes from the capital city of Portugal. So we stopped (of course... xDDD) the game to discuss about another foods with "Earth" names... We have here a salad we call Ensaladilla Rusa (Russian Salad), that is a potato and mayonnaise saldad;in a search, i've found an article where American professor Dennis Whitehurst recommends using: Spanish potato salad. I don't know if you've eaten that sometime.
But... what could be the name of those meals?
I mean, Port can be named this way due to (i.e.) RIddleport. It could fit... But what about other themed meals? Spanish could be renamed to Chelaxian, or maybe Taldoran? Indian should be renamed to Vudran food? Which country could be the first maker of the baguettes?
Do you have any general pararelism between cultures to set some foods (and of course, "spirit" drinks) in certain countries?
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In Carrion Crown, heroes can find a bottle of Port (Oporto in spanish); this is a wine, whose name comes from the capital city of Portugal. So we stopped (of course... xDDD) the game to discuss about another foods with "Earth" names... We have here a salad we call Ensaladilla Rusa (Russian Salad), that is a potato and mayonnaise saldad;in a search, i've found an article where American professor Dennis Whitehurst recommends using: Spanish potato salad. I don't know if you've eaten that sometime.
But... what could be the name of those meals?
I mean, Port can be named this way due to (i.e.) RIddleport. It could fit... But what about other themed meals? Spanish could be renamed to Chelaxian, or maybe Taldoran? Indian should be renamed to Vudran food? Which country could be the first maker of the baguettes?Do you have any general pararelism between cultures to set some foods (and of course, "spirit" drinks) in certain countries?
We write and read and edit in English. What I'm going to say after this applies equally well to any real-world language.
When we create content, we use real words so that we can get our point across, so editors can edit easier, and so readers can understand us. Every time we make up a new word to replace a real word, we make all three of those things harder.
So when it comes to words that are based on real world locations or historical figures or the like, we do have to make that choice. "Port" is a good example—we could have just said something like "desert wine" or "sweet grape wine" or "fortified wine" but that's two to three words to get across what four letters do more efficiently, and so we made the choice to use "port."
There's lots of other words that fall into this category. It's strange, for example, to use the word "christening" in regards to naming a boat, even though that word works for that purpose. If we stat up something like a Lucerene hammer as a weapon, we have to think about renaming it. The word "armageddon" is based on the real world historical city of Megeddo, so does that mean we can't use "armageddon" in our products without confusing people? And so on.
There are a LOT of these types of words in the language, and not all of them are ones that our writers or developers or designers or editiors catch. Some are obscure. Some are in such constant use that, like "Kleenex" or "Band-Aid" or "Dumpster" or "D&D" that they've as much become a generic word for a tissue or a bandage or a trash container or an RPG that folks just use them interchangeably.
And on top of that, dozens of developers and editors and designers work on our products, and hundreds of freelancers do as well over the years, so there's gonna be some variance even in our own style. We try to standardize these things (that's a huge part of a developer's and an editor's job), but some slip through.
In the end, we usually make choices that make the game easier to read.
If we were creating a non-shared universe with only one creator, things would be different.
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So realized Lamashtu's realm Kurnugua has presence of lot of the named nascent demon lords. Is it incidental or does Lamashtu have some sort of interest in nurturing or dominating demon lords without their own realms?
When you wanna climb the ladder and get a promotion, one of the best ways to do that is to impress the boss. It's not that she's got an interest in nurturing them as much as it is demons who want to become demon lords will often go to Kurnugua to make a name for themselves. There's a lot of nascent demon lords there as compared to elsewhere, yes, but the number of demons who tried to ascend to that position and failed is probably countless, and most of those failures who have been forgotten by history and thus never even warranted a mention by us in print met their dooms on Kurnugua.
Hey James! Question about pathfinder lore in general.
In pathfinder, existence more or less seems like a closed system in that nothing is wasted and anything that can actually 'delete' things from the multiverse are universally awful and "evil". So I was wondering what happens to an outsider's corpse when they actually are kill killed.
I had a discussion a bit ago with a friend who cited from like the tome of fiends or some book that covered evil outsiders that supposedly said that, when killed, the 'souls' of the outsider is just lost forever. But from everything I knew and thought, I am certain that the quintessence of their 'soul' is not lost and just gets fed back into the closed system of existence.
Which is it?
Is it all recycled and such or are the 'souls' that make up their bodies lost forever.
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Hey James! Question about pathfinder lore in general.
In pathfinder, existence more or less seems like a closed system in that nothing is wasted and anything that can actually 'delete' things from the multiverse are universally awful and "evil". So I was wondering what happens to an outsider's corpse when they actually are kill killed.
I had a discussion a bit ago with a friend who cited from like the tome of fiends or some book that covered evil outsiders that supposedly said that, when killed, the 'souls' of the outsider is just lost forever. But from everything I knew and thought, I am certain that the quintessence of their 'soul' is not lost and just gets fed back into the closed system of existence.
Which is it?
Is it all recycled and such or are the 'souls' that make up their bodies lost forever.
When a fiend or angel or whatever is killed, its body decays (be it in a normal biological manner or a supernatural one) and becomes part of the quintessence that makes up the outer planes, while its life force drifts back through reality to re-join the Positive Energy and gives that place new energy to manifest brand new souls that then drift out to bond with new lives.
As for the rest:
The mythology of the deep past implies that previous realiteis have come and gone, and that each time a soul makes its full trek through reality a part of that energy is lost, until finally nothing is left alive and the Maelstrom churns away everything and then the next cycle of reality begins, with one deity from the previous one carrying over as the "Survivor" and another carrying over as the "Watcher." In each cycle of reality, the Survivor is a different deity, so that no three cycles ever have the same one, but the Watcher is always the same—Yog-Sothoth. Beyond this, all of the Great Old Ones and Outer Gods are outside of the cycle of realities so they may well survive from one reality to the next, but those are anomalies rather than built-in parts of the mechanisim of reality.
This cycle, though, had an event that may have thrown all of that out of sync, and the whole idea of the "Age of Lost Omens" is that what happens in the future from this point on is, perhaps, going to be something different than the countless unknown previous cycles of reality. What that new future for this cycle of reality might be is unknown, and that's the third of the things that scares Pharasma.
As for what's right in your game, that's up to your GM to decide.
In fact, what's right for canonical Pathfinder will be different depending on which employee you ask. That's the whole point of mythologies like this. They're meant to be things you can't prove but can still believe in.
Thank you very much Mr. Jacobs!
Have you ever read God's Demon? Is that where the idea of souls being the essence of the outer plains? (in the novel they are the literal building blocks).
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Have you ever read God's Demon? Is that where the idea of souls being the essence of the outer plains? (in the novel they are the literal building blocks).
Nope; I've never heard of this book. Checking its publication date, looks like it came along about 15 to 20 years after I'd started to come up with the Golarion model of the outer planes for my homebrew campaign setting. That setting is primarily inspired by D&D's great wheel cosmology, of course, but with a series of nested spheres instead of a wheel.
The idea of souls being used to create reality is hardly limited to recent writings though... that concept's been around forever.
Would you take a bonus or what's in the box?Yes.
Yes to the box! You won an all expense paid trip to Bulgaria!
Hey James! Question about pathfinder lore in general.
In pathfinder, existence more or less seems like a closed system in that nothing is wasted and anything that can actually 'delete' things from the multiverse are universally awful and "evil". So I was wondering what happens to an outsider's corpse when they actually are kill killed.
I had a discussion a bit ago with a friend who cited from like the tome of fiends or some book that covered evil outsiders that supposedly said that, when killed, the 'souls' of the outsider is just lost forever. But from everything I knew and thought, I am certain that the quintessence of their 'soul' is not lost and just gets fed back into the closed system of existence.
Which is it?
Is it all recycled and such or are the 'souls' that make up their bodies lost forever.
When a fiend or angel or whatever is killed, its body decays (be it in a normal biological manner or a supernatural one) and becomes part of the quintessence that makes up the outer planes, while its life force drifts back through reality to re-join the Positive Energy and gives that place new energy to manifest brand new souls that then drift out to bond with new lives.
As for the rest:
** spoiler omitted **...
Not sure whether I understood correctly or not. Does that mean a dead outsider's soul goes directly to the Positive Energy Plain and reincarnate? I have always thought that a dead outsider's soul will go to the Boneyard to be judged by Pharasma and then becomes a petitioner. I guess my main question is, were the souls of the demon lords killed by Desna and Nocticula, the gods devoured by Rovagug, and Aroden judged by Pharasma?
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Not sure whether I understood correctly or not. Does that mean a dead outsider's soul goes directly to the Positive Energy Plain and reincarnate? I have always thought that a dead outsider's soul will go to the Boneyard to be judged by Pharasma and then becomes a petitioner. I guess my main question is, were the souls of the demon lords killed by Desna and Nocticula, the gods devoured by Rovagug, and Aroden judged by Pharasma?
No, it means a dead outsider's soul decays into positive energy and drifts back to the positive energy plane to merge with all that energy, and from that energy new souls emerge. No reincarnation is involved.
Outsiders don't go to the boneyard when they die. They can't be judged because they don't generally have a mortal's free will. A rare outsider that jumps out of that treadmill, like a fallen angel or a redeemed demon, would go back through the judgment process though, I suppose.
What happens when a demigod or deity dies is a case-by-case basis and follows entirely different story-based things that are different in every case and can't be summarized like the case for lesser beings.
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Not sure whether I understood correctly or not. Does that mean a dead outsider's soul goes directly to the Positive Energy Plain and reincarnate? I have always thought that a dead outsider's soul will go to the Boneyard to be judged by Pharasma and then becomes a petitioner. I guess my main question is, were the souls of the demon lords killed by Desna and Nocticula, the gods devoured by Rovagug, and Aroden judged by Pharasma?
No, it means a dead outsider's soul decays into positive energy and drifts back to the positive energy plane to merge with all that energy, and from that energy new souls emerge. No reincarnation is involved.
Outsiders don't go to the boneyard when they die. They can't be judged because they don't generally have a mortal's free will. A rare outsider that jumps out of that treadmill, like a fallen angel or a redeemed demon, would go back through the judgment process though, I suppose.
What happens when a demigod or deity dies is a case-by-case basis and follows entirely different story-based things that are different in every case and can't be summarized like the case for lesser beings.
So, a typical outsider is similar to an AI, sentient and sapient, but not really self-aware? With the rare one becoming self-aware and developing a "real" soul?
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So, a typical outsider is similar to an AI, sentient and sapient, but not really self-aware? With the rare one becoming self-aware and developing a "real" soul?
Yup; that's a good way to look at it thematically. They're powerful and can do a lot but aren't normally able to do anything outside of their "Programming" (aka Alignment).
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Yup; that's a good way to look at it thematically. They're powerful and can do a lot but aren't normally able to do anything outside of their "Programming" (aka Alignment).So, a typical outsider is similar to an AI, sentient and sapient, but not really self-aware? With the rare one becoming self-aware and developing a "real" soul?
Mr. James Jacobs,
With the above in mind, would it then not be considered a violation to take an evil outsider, use a ritual to strip the evil essence out of the them (Remove the evil subtype essentially) and then have them reborn/reincarnated to give them a new life and chance at choice?
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Yup; that's a good way to look at it thematically. They're powerful and can do a lot but aren't normally able to do anything outside of their "Programming" (aka Alignment).So, a typical outsider is similar to an AI, sentient and sapient, but not really self-aware? With the rare one becoming self-aware and developing a "real" soul?
Mr. James Jacobs,
With the above in mind, would it then not be considered a violation to take an evil outsider, use a ritual to strip the evil essence out of the them (Remove the evil subtype essentially) and then have them reborn/reincarnated to give them a new life and chance at choice?
It would be as much a violation as it would to torture an angel into being evil. Forcing someone to change is an evil and violating act. Whether it's a plain old human or an angel or a devil or anything in between or on either side.
A good person wouldn't use a ritual to strip something from a creature, even if that thing that they're stripping is evil, because a good person wouldn't do an invasive and agency-removing act like that.
Instead a good person would work with the evil creature to educate them and show them trust and faith and let them make their own decision.
Yup; that's a good way to look at it thematically. They're powerful and can do a lot but aren't normally able to do anything outside of their "Programming" (aka Alignment).So, a typical outsider is similar to an AI, sentient and sapient, but not really self-aware? With the rare one becoming self-aware and developing a "real" soul?
No wonder Baba Yaga doesn't want to become a god. Smart lady.
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No wonder Baba Yaga doesn't want to become a god. Smart lady.Yup; that's a good way to look at it thematically. They're powerful and can do a lot but aren't normally able to do anything outside of their "Programming" (aka Alignment).So, a typical outsider is similar to an AI, sentient and sapient, but not really self-aware? With the rare one becoming self-aware and developing a "real" soul?
I don't see how that has anything to do with anything, but in any event, please keep posts here to questions to me.
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Do the Elves have a name for their ancestry other than elf?
I ask mostly due to annoyance at trying to find golarion elf portraits for the crpgs that have the eyes right
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Do the Elves have a name for their ancestry other than elf?
I ask mostly due to annoyance at trying to find golarion elf portraits for the crpgs that have the eyes right
Elf is the name of their ancestry. We chose to make our elves have solid color eyes deliberately to set Golarion/Paizo elves apart from all the rest.
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James, this may have been asked before but did the Ashen Man manipulate the Veiled Masters in any way to engineer Earthfall? IIRC Golarion is an incubator for a Great Old One. Course I could have my wires crossed. Read sooo much Cthulhu stuff these days.
Nope. The Ashen Man is a different plotline entirely.
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So while reading up on Sekmin for a character I noticed that it’s stated they’re warm-blooded, has that always been the case or an advance for P2?
That's always been the case. Not that there's rules implications either way (an early draft of the lizardfolk in the Bestiary had them with some kinda janky cold-blooded rules that I cut because no thanks).
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So while reading up on Sekmin for a character I noticed that it’s stated they’re warm-blooded, has that always been the case or an advance for P2?That's always been the case. Not that there's rules implications either way (an early draft of the lizardfolk in the Bestiary had them with some kinda janky cold-blooded rules that I cut because no thanks).
*nods*
I don't have much experience with them yet, I don't think I've every played a game with them in it, so how you would you play them off if encountering one? It says they're good at copying accents.
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So while reading up on Sekmin for a character I noticed that it’s stated they’re warm-blooded, has that always been the case or an advance for P2?That's always been the case. Not that there's rules implications either way (an early draft of the lizardfolk in the Bestiary had them with some kinda janky cold-blooded rules that I cut because no thanks).*nods*
I don't have much experience with them yet, I don't think I've every played a game with them in it, so how you would you play them off if encountering one? It says they're good at copying accents.
Super creepy and evil and sinister is my take on them. When they appear as human, look to all the "Body Snatcher" style movies where people look like us but are very much not us. Alternately, look to how cults operate for inspiration.
"Serpent's Skull" was intended to focus on a lot of their plots, and I put a fair amount of my own thoughts into how they work in the first adventure, but after that it seemed like everything that could go wrong did go wrong with that Adventure Path, unfortunately, so it's not one I look back on all that favorably.
I myself would love to write another big adventure about them, and I know at least one other employee at Paizo who does as well, but it'll be a while I suspect when/if that'll start moving forward.
Have you seen the new Dune movie? I'll probably be watching it tonight on HBO.
Who came up with the Matter/Mind/Spirit/Life essences for magic in 2e? It's a very neat way to arrange the metaphysics and I've greatly enjoyed the essays on them Secrets of Magic!
Is there a major metaphysical difference between the nature spirits who become leshies and the Kami?
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Have you seen the new Dune movie? I'll probably be watching it tonight on HBO.
Saw it on HBO Max Thursday evening. It's glorious and amazing and so much better than I thought it would be, and I was expecting it to be great considering the director's track record and the cast. Might end up being my favorite movie of the year, or if not my favorite, it's for sure in my top 3.
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Is there a major metaphysical difference between the nature spirits who become leshies and the Kami?
Yeah, a huge one, and there's several, but the biggest and foremost is that leshies are mortals who start life with a new soul, while kami are immortals who start life from a judged soul.
Leshy is to kami what human is to demon/angel/etc.
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Who came up with the Matter/Mind/Spirit/Life essences for magic in 2e? It's a very neat way to arrange the metaphysics and I've greatly enjoyed the essays on them Secrets of Magic!
That was a combination of myself and the design team. Mark Seifter came to chat to me about the idea that the design team was kicking around about minimizing the spell lists in 2nd edition to four choices, and whether it was okay to redefine "primal" magic. From that conversation we came up with the matter/mind/spirit/life combos.
It's often hard to remember who came up with what idea; a lot of our content is really collaborative, but from my memory, the design team came up with the categories of arcane/divine/occult/primal (but "occult" was originally "psychic" I think), and I was the one who started things going on the essences, with Mark Seifter taking those ideas and running with them.
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In relation to your professional involvement in the RPG industry, have you ever received criticism so profound that it ended up being a life-changing experience, a watershed moment?
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So each of the 2e skills keyed to a magical tradition can be used to recall knowledge about certain planes. I links between most of them, but why did the Shadow Plane end up linked to Arcana and Occultism? The best guess I have is that shadows are often associated with illusions (and thus the Mind essence) in d20 games, but it feels like a reach to me.
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In relation to your professional involvement in the RPG industry, have you ever received criticism so profound that it ended up being a life-changing experience, a watershed moment?
Yes. Sometimes from customers. Sometimes from fellow employees. It can be tough to accept criticism, especially when it points out one of your own flaws, even if it's just a minor one, but those are excellent moments to grow.
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So each of the 2e skills keyed to a magical tradition can be used to recall knowledge about certain planes. I links between most of them, but why did the Shadow Plane end up linked to Arcana and Occultism? The best guess I have is that shadows are often associated with illusions (and thus the Mind essence) in d20 games, but it feels like a reach to me.
You'll have to ask the Design team.
I would have made the same decision had it been up to me though, since the Shadow Plane has a long history in the game of being associated with wizards due to all of the illusion and shadow spells, and because it's spooky and weird so it makes a good match for Occultismm. And it's also the opposite of the First World, which is for sure going to be associated with Primal magic. All that leaves Divine, and that tradition seems to be better assocaited with the First World for me too since that place was the "first draft of the world" created by the gods.
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They're being kept down by Big Jacket.Alright, Mr. Jacobs, time we got some real answers:
What ever is it about wondrous magical legwear that so perplexes and eludes even the greatest artificers of Golarion???
Does Big Jacket encompass cloaks and robes?
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Does Big Jacket encompass cloaks and robes?They're being kept down by Big Jacket.Alright, Mr. Jacobs, time we got some real answers:
What ever is it about wondrous magical legwear that so perplexes and eludes even the greatest artificers of Golarion???
Nope. Cloaks and robes aren't jackets, and Big Jacket is VERY DISAPPOINT with you as a result.
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Hi, James.
1) Is your homebrew still called Unspeakable Futures?
2) Do you currently run any games?
3) If so, are those games online or in person?
1) Unspeakable Futures is my d20-based Post-Apocalyptic game that I've been tinkering with since 2000 or thereabouts. I've run several games and campaigns with it, but it's not my D&D homebrew; it's different. My D&D homebrew is set on the world of Baria, which is what Androffa turns into after over after many centuries of history.
2) I'm currently not running any games. I was running a 2nd Edition Pathfinder game set in Crook Cove on the southwest coast of Ravounel for folks here in the office (and it was from this game that the adventure Malevolence was born), but the pandemic eventually convinced me to put that game on hiatus when it became apparent that running a game via a VTT was causing more frustration and stress to me than it was solving.
3) I'm not running any games at all now. I'm playing in two games on VTTs as players, one of which happens once a month and one of which has been on hiatus for half a year or so but is in theory starting back up on Saturday. The monthly game is a mythic 1st edition Pathfinder game of the Legendary Planet adventure path, and the one that's restarting soon is a homebrew supernatural weird-west 2nd edition Pathfinder game. I'd love to actually play a straight up 2nd edition Pathifnder game, but yeah... the pandemic has made that difficult for me.
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Do you usually play with people from work, or do you have a group of friends?