In First Edition, I liked Monster Codex and Inner Sea Monster Codex very much. Are you interested in publishing similar books in Second Edition?I'm more interested in publishing adventures as a way to present interesting characters, personally.
Sigh. Does that mean chances are very slim for us to see similar books in Second Edition, since you, the creative director of Pathfinder Second Edition, are not interested in such books?
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So I think you don't watch stickman videos. What do you think of stick-shaped humans?
As in stick figures? No real opinion—I don't find them aesthetically pleasing, but I don't mind them.
If instead you're asking about humans or human shapes/effigies made of sticks? The closer that gets to folk horror (such as "The Wicker Man" or "Blair Witch Project") the more I like them.
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Sigh. Does that mean chances are very slim for us to see similar books in Second Edition, since you, the creative director of Pathfinder Second Edition, are not interested in such books?In First Edition, I liked Monster Codex and Inner Sea Monster Codex very much. Are you interested in publishing similar books in Second Edition?I'm more interested in publishing adventures as a way to present interesting characters, personally.
It doesn't mean that at all, since I'm not the one who makes the decisions about what books we publish. That's Erik, the publisher and Chief Creative Officer's job.
In addition, I'm increasingly less of a creative director and more of a developer for special projects these days. I can help out with institutional knowledge for the rest of the department, who haven't been at Paizo as long as me, but the actual and traditional role of a "creative director" is increasingly in the hands of each individual developer for each individual book they're the lead on.
Doesn't that present a danger that stuff will get published that doesn't really fit in with other stuff in the setting?
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Doesn't that present a danger that stuff will get published that doesn't really fit in with other stuff in the setting?
Yes, but it avoids the danger of one person being narrow-minded or accidentally constraining creativity and empowers more creative folks to be able to add their own voices to the setting. You can't really do both, and Pathfinder as a whole is bigger than one person's vision anyway. By employing developers and editors and designers who all work together and collaborate on the setting's direction, we can avoid the danger you mention.
We'll see if it works out I suppose, but I've not been playing the role of a classic "creative director" for Pathfinder for several years now as I've instead been focusing on developing "overflow" products like Age of Ashes, Bestiary 2, Kingmaker, and now the standalone adventure line and some other upcoming things instead, so if the danger you fear was going to come to pass... it would have done so already.
It's certainly been a difficult and complicated change for me to navigate and adjust to after putting so much of myself and my homebrew into Pathfinder in the early days, but as Pathfinder and Paizo has grown in size and scope, it's a change that was necessary in order to foster creativity and imaginations and diverse voices. I've always said that Pathfinder is bigger than one person, and that it's not just a game for a single table. More voices is good for the health of the game and the setting, after all.
It does mean my title's not all that accurate, and it hasn't really been all that accurate for several years, but I'm not sure what sort of title would be more accurate at this time, so it's kinda just gone into status quo.
Would 'Chief Conceptual Advisor' (I resisted the urge to say Consultant, which as legal baggage) work as a different title?
"That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die."
This is a famous quote made by Howard Phillips Lovecraft. But I thought the correct English spelling is "eons", not "aeons". Not sure whether this is a typo or not. Why did he use such an unusual and incorrect spelling?
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"That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die."
This is a famous quote made by Howard Phillips Lovecraft. But I thought the correct English spelling is "eons", not "aeons". Not sure whether this is a typo or not. Why did he use such an unusual and incorrect spelling?
Because he preferred British spellings of words. Aeon is a British spelling of eon. You can see another example of this preference of his in the title of his story "The Colour Out of Space."
It's not incorrect, in any event, but a deliberate artistic choice he made.
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Oh I love folk horror!
I've often had this problem where I'm not quite sure where paganism ends and diabolism (or even gnosticism or New Age stuff) begins...which is, of course, entirely the point.
Would you say something like the Wicker Man cultists would fit best as followers of one of the Eldest (the obvious answer), something fiendish (less obvious but more malevolent), or Ymeri or some other elemental power (rather esoteric)?
I'd say the Wicker Man is for sure something that fits with the First World and the Eldest.
I'm not sure the exact meaning of this phrase: "That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die."
Is it easy to understand for English native speakers? Can you paraphrase it for me? Perhaps in this context "strange aeons" means Great Old Ones or Outer Gods or Elder Gods?
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Petition to officially change your title to Directorsaur?
Cute, but nah. If my situation changes and I end up looking for work elsewhere, a title like "Creative Director" holds a lot more value on a resume than something like "Directorsaur."
It's easy to get distracted by the fact that Pathfinder's a game and that it has a vibrant community, but it's also legit a job and there are parts of it, like titles and all things associated with it, that are pretty important for reasons far beyond what sort of descriptor goes after a name when you post here.
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Speaking of the effigies, have you played or watched a playthrough of House of Ashes?
Nope. I very much enjoyed Until Dawn, and I've picked up the next two games from that publisher but haven't sat down to play them yet. One I do I'll probably pick up House of Ashes, but I'm gonna void watching playthroughs.
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I'm not sure the exact meaning of this phrase: "That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die."
Is it easy to understand for English native speakers? Can you paraphrase it for me? Perhaps in this context "strange aeons" means Great Old Ones or Outer Gods or Elder Gods?
People have discussed what that most famous of Lovecraft's phrases means for about a hundred years... but my take is below.
It's easy to understand for English native speakers, yes. It's a variant spelling of a word that's different whether you speak American or British English, along the lines of MANY other words, such as:
Color vs. Colour
Armor vs. Armour
Toward vs. Towards
Paralyze vs. Paralyse
Traveller vs. Traveler
In fact, for many folks, I'm certain that they're not aware of the differences and use words like toward and towards interchangeably. The words all mean the same, and in casual conversation or writing, which one you use is your choice.
If you're a professional writer, you'll want to choose which one you prefer. Opting for British spellings when you're an American writer, or opting for American spellings when you're a British writer, are both legitimate choices for you, but you'll also need to be prepared for your editor to change those spellings if their publishing house has a house style.
SIDE NOTE: Pathfinder's use of the word "aeon" as a classifcation of monster leans on a different definition of the word than "Many Years." Wikipedia has a lot more info for you there.
Anyway, I chose "Strange Aeons" for that Adventure Path's title because it's short, catchy, poetic, and recognizable. It tells the reader this Adventure Path is about "weird times" in Golarion, but also lets the reader know it's got esoteric elements, and ALSO lets the reader know that it has Lovecraftian themes if they recognize the context of those two words together in that way.
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Hey James!
First of all huge fans (my mate got me into this a couple years ago, he's been at it for 20 years). We have a huge favor to asl. I saw that you at one time at least had the full mythic stats for Runelord Xanderghul. Apologies if this is a redundant ask but is there any way we could get those stats (private email and agree to not publicly post is fine too if thats a requirement). This runelord is by far my mates favorite character and he's been dying to see what you put for him.
Thanks for your time and sorry again if this is a redundant ask. :) <3
I created his stats back when I was setting up the Return of the Runelords adventure path, because I wanted to provide statistics for some of the key villains for the writers in the outline. In Xanderghul's case, since in the adventure, he...
...I needed to know what his actual stats were as a starting point, even though those would never appear in print.
I've never made those stats public, however, mostly because there was no elegant or simple way for me to do so. Simply dropping them into a forum post here would take FAR too long to edit them so that they'd look nice, and even then the limitations of how we format posts here as messages are optimized for chatting, not presenting rules content, and on top of that if I posted them, they'd get lost swiftly and be tougher to find. A blog post is no better, since I don't have the capacity to change errors easily if they appear in a blog post, and our blog schedule is pretty complicated and already has to serve a lot of uses that makes dropping in a stat block for an Adventure Path that's increasingly years in the past something that not everyone feels is a good use of the blog, I guess.
Thanks you for the kind answer. There's one more question: In "That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die." shouldn't "eternal" be replaced by "eternally", since "eternal" is an adjective, not an adverb? I mean, is it grammatically correct to put "eternal" there? I cannot imagine that Lovecraft made such an error by mistake. Perhaps he deliberately made this "error" because he liked to use really complicated language even when he could have use very simple language?
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Thanks you for the kind answer. There's one more question: In "That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die." shouldn't "eternal" be replaced by "eternally", since "eternal" is an adjective, not an adverb? I mean, is it grammatically correct to put "eternal" there? I cannot imagine that Lovecraft made such an error by mistake. Perhaps he deliberately made this "error" because he liked to use really complicated language even when he could have use very simple language?
Nope. What Lovecraft wrote is more lyrical and poetic sounding. "Eternally" with three syllables breaks the oral cadence of the couplet. It's poetry, after all. Whatever the choice, Lovecraft was VERY deliberate about his writing, to the extent that he'd go through published writing in the pulps and correct typos by hand in his copies.
It's not an error, in other words, but an artistic choice.
"Eon" and "aeon" are variant spellings of a same word. Their pronunciation and meaning are entirely identical. Then what about "demon" and "daemon"? Most native English speakers are not aware of the difference and use these words interchangeably? Are their pronunciation entirely identical?
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"Eon" and "aeon" are variant spellings of a same word. Their pronunciation and meaning are entirely identical. Then what about "demon" and "daemon"? Most native English speakers are not aware of the difference and use these words interchangeably? Are their pronunciation entirely identical?
Demon and daemon are also the same word with pretty much the same pronunciations, but back in the day, Gygax decided that the game needed more variety in villains to fight. Rather than make something up, he did what he often did—he drew upon mythology and combined that with his imagination to make up an entire new category of fiend.
Most native English speakers also don't know what a roper or a slurk or a mimic or a reefclaw or a seugathi is either unless they play RPGs. That's fine. Learning that Pathfinder has daemons and demons and that they're different is part of learning about the game.
Ioun stones are renamed as aeon stones in Second Edition. Have Paizo and Wizards of the Coast always assumed that ioun stones are heavily related to the neutral outsiders who serve to preserve balance throughout the Great Beyond? Also, are "ioun", "aeon", and "eon" pronounced identically?
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Ioun stones are renamed as aeon stones in Second Edition. Have Paizo and Wizards of the Coast always assumed that ioun stones are heavily related to the neutral outsiders who serve to preserve balance throughout the Great Beyond? Also, are "ioun", "aeon", and "eon" pronounced identically?
Ioun stones were first invented by writer Jack Vance long before D&D (this is where the "Vancian Magic" comes from as well). The story goes that Jack Vance gave Gary Gygax verbal permission to use some of his creations in D&D, not expecting the game to last that long or make a big splash, but it ended up being more popular than Jack Vance in the long run, I think, which is kind of depressing. I wish D&D had done better giving credit where credit is due, and I kind of wish all game companies did (Paizo included) as well, but that's a different story.
We changed them to aeon stones in 2nd edition for the same reason we changed the names of troglodytes and stirges and ankhegs—to make it easier for us to use the flavor for these things we invented in non OGL products. Having aeons in the setting was a happy coincidence that gave us a great similar sounding word to change to, but the link between these things didn't exist in print before 2nd edition.
Aeon and eon are pronounced the same. I've always pronounced ioun closer to ion or even "EYE-yoon" but I'm not sure how Jack Vance pronounced the word.
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What're your personal thoughts on the elemental (not including the positive and negative energy) planes, James? I've struggled in the past to make them less niche (here's where all the genies go!). I'm curious if you thought they added a unique flavor, and what that might be given your decades of experience.
I think that they're an interesting notion but that they're a bit one-note and tend to foster lazy design for monsters. I like how I set up the "shells" for them surrounding the Material Plane (the way that Golarion's multiverse works is exported in large part from my homebrew setting), but I regret that it sort of places a single cultural idea on how the elements work in a fundamental reality–makes it awkward and difficult to bring in other cultures' view on the topic.
In large part, they exist in Golarion because they're so ingrained in D&D, so they're mostly inherited still. They have never been a particularly inspiring part of the game, historically speaking, to me personally though.
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I have recently acquired a Netflix, are there any shows or movies you would recommend?
Anything by Mike Flanagan, so "Haunting of Hill House," "Haunting of Bly Manor," "Gerald's Game," "Midnight Mass," "Hush," "Before I Wake," etc.
"Daredevil" and "Jessica Jones" are great.
"Aggretsuko" is brilliant.
"The Kingdom" is cool.
Quite enjoyed "Squid Game."
"Dark" is good.
"Mindhunter" is OUTSTANDING.
The new seasons of "Unsolved Mysteries" are a lot of fun.
"The Umbrella Acadamy" is mostly delightful.
"Tiger King" is a thing.
"Black Mirror" is all over the place, but rarely awful and often brilliant.
"Stranger Things" is awesome, of course.
The three "Fear Street" movies are fun.
"The Ritual" and "Cam" and "The Babysitter" and "Apostle" and "The Platform" are all movies that I think were either made by Netflix or debuted there... and are various flavors of rad.
I'm sure I'm forgetting plenty, and I'm sure some of those won't be for everyone, but those come to mind first.
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Of any living creatures(or even the undead ones) I would have assumed gods could vibe in the positive plane but apparently they too go poof, my question is do we know who the unlucky bastard is that went poof, was it multiple, or was it figured out somehow beforehand?
That's still a mystery.
Can gods of Fire eat cold food, or does their fiery nature sear the meal as they try to eat it? That is, could Asmodeus or Sarenrae have Ice Cream? Ditto for hot meals and gods with the Cold domain, like Gozreh.
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I think that they're an interesting notion but that they're a bit one-note and tend to foster lazy design for monsters. I like how I set up the "shells" for them surrounding the Material Plane (the way that Golarion's multiverse works is exported in large part from my homebrew setting), but I regret that it sort of places a single cultural idea on how the elements work in a fundamental reality–makes it awkward and difficult to bring in other cultures' view on the topic.
On that note, was there any thought of updating them at some point to include possible elemental planes of wood, metal or void to cover some of the more Eastern elemental schemes?
Mephits, elementals, even genies, based around the elements of wood, metal and void would seem to be an interesting design area that generally get ignored by more Western-influenced game designers (and hopefully a bit more interesting than the generic 'it's a giant crab, but it's on fire!' or 'it's a rhino, made of rock!' elemental creature design).
Why were aeon stones named such? I heard that Azlant created aeon stones. So why did Azlanti called the items aeon stones? Are these stones somehow heavily related to aeons? Or maybe Azlanti named these items as aeon stones because they worshiped aeons very deeply?
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Can gods of Fire eat cold food, or does their fiery nature sear the meal as they try to eat it? That is, could Asmodeus or Sarenrae have Ice Cream? Ditto for hot meals and gods with the Cold domain, like Gozreh.
Gods can do whatever they want. That's part of what makes them gods. It's less of a question of CAN they eat ice cream or if the WANT to.
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I think that they're an interesting notion but that they're a bit one-note and tend to foster lazy design for monsters. I like how I set up the "shells" for them surrounding the Material Plane (the way that Golarion's multiverse works is exported in large part from my homebrew setting), but I regret that it sort of places a single cultural idea on how the elements work in a fundamental reality–makes it awkward and difficult to bring in other cultures' view on the topic.On that note, was there any thought of updating them at some point to include possible elemental planes of wood, metal or void to cover some of the more Eastern elemental schemes?
Mephits, elementals, even genies, based around the elements of wood, metal and void would seem to be an interesting design area that generally get ignored by more Western-influenced game designers (and hopefully a bit more interesting than the generic 'it's a giant crab, but it's on fire!' or 'it's a rhino, made of rock!' elemental creature design).
That's a question we're working on sorting out now. Personally, I'd rather abandon ALL the elemental planes and come up with something new that is more flexible—sort of like how there's essentially an infinite amount of space in the Outer Sphere to put in new planes. That's harder to do with the elemental planes. Getting rid of the elemental planes as-is would help reset the design philosophy of "its a giant crab, but it's on fire!" element, but turns out you can also avoid that by hiring creative and talented folks to write new elemental stuff—Jessica Redekop is outstanding at doing elemental content, as an example.
It's not the right time to completely redesign how the multiverse works for Pathfinder, so we're looking at other ways to include a more diverse inclusion of things like wood and metal as elements, but I feel like just making "wood elementals" and "metal elementals" is even lazier.
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Why were aeon stones named such? I heard that Azlant created aeon stones. So why did Azlanti called the items aeon stones? Are these stones somehow heavily related to aeons? Or maybe Azlanti named these items as aeon stones because they worshiped aeons very deeply?
I'm not sure we've covered that, but if we have it'd probably be in Extinction Curse.
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Please ignore if it's too personal! But, are you doing okay?
It's been a pretty tough couple of years for everyone, let alone for you all with the added stress and issues at Paizo. It's obviously ultimately good that things change and the place becomes more welcoming, more kind, and fairer to everyone working there, you all deserve that much and more, but it's hard to keep things ticking whilst all that's going on.
Please remember to hug yourself and your friends, hydrate, and find what time you can for fun and relaxation, we're obviously all huge fans of the games and love what you all put into them but I feel it sometimes helps to remember to actually say that, your work has changed lives, helped people get through things that felt overwhelming, realise things about themselves they never would have otherwise, make friends and connections that are life changing, so thank you!
(This goes for everyone else in the thread as well, take care of yourselves!)
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Please ignore if it's too personal! But, are you doing okay?
It's been a pretty tough couple of years for everyone, let alone for you all with the added stress and issues at Paizo. It's obviously ultimately good that things change and the place becomes more welcoming, more kind, and fairer to everyone working there, you all deserve that much and more, but it's hard to keep things ticking whilst all that's going on.
Please remember to hug yourself and your friends, hydrate, and find what time you can for fun and relaxation, we're obviously all huge fans of the games and love what you all put into them but I feel it sometimes helps to remember to actually say that, your work has changed lives, helped people get through things that felt overwhelming, realise things about themselves they never would have otherwise, make friends and connections that are life changing, so thank you!
(This goes for everyone else in the thread as well, take care of yourselves!)
I'm not gonna get into details, but no, not doing all that great lately, and haven't been for a while. There's not a lot of positivity in my life lately from any angle it seems, other than my immediate family (who live over 800 miles to the south) and my cat (who gets extra snuggles these days), so escaping into movies or shows or video games or reading has been increasingly important to me. Not so much WRITING content though, lately, because imposter syndrome and guilt that I've been able to write for games has been extra overwhelming lately.
Thank you for the kind words though. They really do help.
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I would name names in the TTRPG industry who's content is among the very best but I'd be afraid of making a bad comparison somehow. Let's just say you are easily in my personal Top 5 - I've purchased product only because your name was attached to it; just to read it! And I'm not sure I could validly order my Top 5.
Ever since Red Hand of Doom came into my possession, among a couple of boxes of old(er) TTRPG material and was a clear stand out, your work rates among the very best. I know you give Keith Baker due credit on that one but even so, looking back over my limited experience as an end-user, your involvement and the quality of that work was no fluke. Writing for games is hard work, else you'd have more people in your league. Clearly you are no imposter.Keeping to the rule for this thread:
What do you like best about Umbrella Academy?
Aww; thank you! :)
(And it was Richard Baker who was the co-author for Red Hand of Doom, not Keith Baker.)
As for Umbrella Academy? It's irreverent adult gory snarky grit is my favorite part. Haven't seen season 2 yet though.
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Have a hug, James!
I also wanted to agree with what was expressed above-the things you've written have been incredibly inspirational for me as a DM, player, you name it. The quality is out of this world.
(and I love the demons)
Speaking of demons...
Was Ashamintallu (of Lady's Light fame) the daughter of Ayandamahla and Sorshen? Or did she have a different parent?
And if she's not Sorshen's kid, does Sorshen have any half-fiend offspring, period?
Nope, Ashamintallu is not their daughter, and Sorshen has no half-fiend children at all.
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Do you think it's appropriate for Great Old Ones and Outer Gods to have anathemas?
I don't, hence they don't. That wasn't my idea, but it made a lot of sense and I like them not having anathemas, because it helps to make them feel different and unsettling and offputting and strange.