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I would love a Psionics book that does't use that point system and Psychic related arctype for every class(yes all of them). A Psion/psychic class that is like a an oracle, sorcerer, witch in that you have a specialized field that grants you various abilities related that field like Telekinesis, Telepathy, Clairavoyance, Pyrokenisis, etc. would be awesome.
Well How many people would have to take an interest in it for you guys to consider doing a hardcover book for psychic powers related stuff?
I mean we already have guns, robots, aliens, dreamworlds, outerspace so why not psychic powers.
Creative Director
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I would love a Psionics book that does't use that point system and Psychic related arctype for every class(yes all of them). A Psion/psychic class that is like a an oracle, sorcerer, witch in that you have a specialized field that grants you various abilities related that field like Telekinesis, Telepathy, Clairavoyance, Pyrokenisis, etc. would be awesome.
Well How many people would have to take an interest in it for you guys to consider doing a hardcover book for psychic powers related stuff?
I mean we already have guns, robots, aliens, dreamworlds, outerspace so why not psychic powers.
Frankly, including psychic powers alongside of robots, aliens, and science fiction elements makes a lot of sense. So if we do a big Numeria type book... that might be a place to talk about psychic magic. Or maybe not. It's a can of worms.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Are you familiar with Katherine Kurtz's Deryni books? I've always considered them the best example of psionics in a fantasy setting (though it's more a mix of psionics and ritual magic). A more recent example is Dave Duncan's Ill Met at the Arena, which is a great read (like all of his books, IMO). So there are some precedents, even though psi-powers are much more common in horror/sci-fi as you've noted.
Frankly, I think we COULD do a "mind magic" book that covers the need for psionic-type stuff, from a flavor perspective, by doing nothing more than presenting some new archetypes and feats and spells. No new base classes required.
I've always thought that Green Ronin's Psychic Handbook did something of that nature akin to what you're describing.
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Creative Director
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Are you familiar with Katherine Kurtz's Deryni books? I've always considered them the best example of psionics in a fantasy setting (though it's more a mix of psionics and ritual magic). A more recent example is Dave Duncan's Ill Met at the Arena, which is a great read (like all of his books, IMO). So there are some precedents, even though psi-powers are much more common in horror/sci-fi as you've noted.
I've heard of them but haven't read them. I heard about them via the article that appeared in Dragon Magazine back in the day in like issue #76–78 or in there somewhere. But again... these precedents are generally the exception to the rule, similar to seeing magic show up in sci-fi stories. Magic still feels out of place in sci-fi. And psionics still feels out of place in standard fantasy.
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Creative Director
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Frankly, I think we COULD do a "mind magic" book that covers the need for psionic-type stuff, from a flavor perspective, by doing nothing more than presenting some new archetypes and feats and spells. No new base classes required.I've always thought that Green Ronin's Psychic Handbook did something of that nature akin to what you're describing.
Yup. I agree.
James, do you enjoy Order of the Stick?
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Marauder, because it looks so sleek and kinda like a dinosaur a little bit.I know I asked about Battletech upthread, but I forget if I asked this followup: what is your favorite battlemech and why?
Apologies if you already answered.
Not a question, but: Woo! That's my favorite too! And, as cheesy as Macross was, the original design mecha belonged to the coolest character in that series.
I'm considering getting something very close to this image as an upper arm tattoo. What is your level of approval?
Speaking of Inner Sphere tech (I feel that the clans have skeeved the balance and damaged the game):
Awesome for pure efficiency
Griffin for look: in some of the paper miniatures it is very similar to the original Gundam
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Also, I'm not convinced that a moose needs a larger size category than an elk. I think it just needs more hit dice and higher ability scores.You realize that the elk in the bestiary is only medium sized? My original thought when I read the question above was "No way a moose is huge, large is just fine." But when I double checked elk, it's only a medium creature. That's a fairly large medium. A moose which has a 6 foot antler span, 7 to 9' in length, and weighs over 1,000 pounds is easily a large creature.
Try the River Elk from Stolen Land (AP31).
3 HD and large CR2 creature.Or the Megaloceres (same source).
4 HD, large, CR4
Are all dinosaurs from Bestiary 1 in the box-set that soon comes to market in may, also the ones without picture? (with the small white pictures standing inside a holder so you can use them instead of miniatures, forgot the name of the box.)
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Not yet that I can think of. Because it's easier to fall from good than rise from evil. THAT SAID, sounds like a challenge!
A ridiculously tiny (as in, like, three, total) group of Kytons that have transcended to become sort of sort of archons of discipline, martyrdom and self-sacrifice could be funky.
....... And now I want to throw an Exalted Devil of some kind at higher-level PCs as a side-quest to get him a Ring of Wishes so he can become an actual good-aligned Outsider ..... while being chased by a cabal of Asmodeus-worshipping of Inquisitors eager to 'redeem' the Devil.
And a misguided Paladin trying to smite the Devil. Just because.
James, something I thought of, with the Age of Darkness, did Orcs spread across ALL of Golarion? I was thinking, with Nex and Geb, did the Orcs ever penetrate that far?
I was thinking of a Campaign for my players in which they are contacted by an underground 'Cult' of Pharasma, Iomedae and Sarenrae in Geb to help fight the State, only to learn later on that the 'Cult' is actually trying to figure out an Ancient Gate buried deep under the capital.
Gate is not Elven, but appears similar to in certain aspects, and is dated as belonging to the later years of the Age of Darkness.
Players who manage to survive this long learn that a Kingdom of Vampires once ruled this region for a significant period of time, even pushing back the Orcs, and that when their Seers learned that the Age of Darkness was coming to an end, the Vampires took their prized chattel with them and fled to another work steeped in perpetual twilight.
Players run through the gate due to any number of reasons and find themselves in an alien world where the Vampires have evolved along radically different lines from the breeds they know of, the Chattel have all devolved into either Mongrel-Men or Dhampir, and the Vampires are eager to return to Golarion now that their 'bastion against the Sun' is no longer able to support their numbers (The natives having all been driven to near-extinction).
Players have to find another Ancient Gate, get back to Golarion and shut it down on both sides simultaneously to prevent these 'Vhampyres' gaining a toehold in Geb and potentially starting up another war with the surrounding regions.
Do you think the campaign would work or would it be too 'fiddly' (mostly worried about doing a home-built campaign and then finding I've mucked up a future Campaign by Paizo. I prefer your guys campaigns as they tend to be a lot better than my own, or at least I don't have to burst a frontal lobe when using Paizo Campaigns .....)
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Not yet that I can think of. Because it's easier to fall from good than rise from evil. THAT SAID, sounds like a challenge!A ridiculously tiny (as in, like, three, total) group of Kytons that have transcended to become sort of sort of archons of discipline, martyrdom and self-sacrifice could be funky.
Another board produced something a bit along those lines....but that board being what it was the end results probably aren't entirely SFW. Still, some nice ideas were born out of it.
But yeah, it would be nice to see some kind of celestials born out of risen fiends, to show that Good can actually be good at pulling off some actual good.
(heck, doesn't Ragathiel technically fit the "risen fiend" bill?)
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As a GM: The one where I made a player fall backwards out of his chair with laughter. Ties with the one where I arbitrarily killed of Erik Mona's character in a totally unfair encounter in a Call of Cthulhu game.
As a Player: The one where my rogue Lavinia Ameiko's cohort, Chuko the kobold samurai, shamed one of the campaign's arch villains, another samurai, into committing sepuku. Ties with the time when Shensen lost her favorite sword to a hook horror's sunder attack 1 second after she released said hook horror from her mind control.
Those are beauties James. I am pretty sure I read Erik's version of the story on his blog over at EnWolrd a little bit ago, but could you please, please elaborate on Chuko the kobold's story (sounds fascinating, not because he's a mere kobold but rather because he got to have an arch enemy commit ritual suicide!) and please do tell us what made your friend (name if you could) double over his chair with laughter.
Thank you.
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But yeah, it would be nice to see some kind of celestials born out of risen fiends, to show that Good can actually be good at pulling off some actual good.
That's your job as the hero. :) To be Good's proxy in accomplishing that goal. That really is the whole justification for heroic fantasy. Evil has the ruthlesness, and the power, What Good has going is the pluck you bring to the table.
IF the forces of Good were equal or superior to the Forces of Evil, you'd be out of a job.
Having imaginative and cool examples of redemption gone right don't remove the need for heroes. I'm always baffled that so many suggest that it's an either-or situation. It doesn't have to result in an equal good-evil exchange either. That's another confusing assumption that gets made whenever this gets brought up.
1. We could get some cool, creative creatures out of this. Cool creatures that could be used for all manner of things, including inspiring worldbuilding and characters.
2. It's nice to finally have precedence. Because putting up with years of "no you can't redeem MEMBERS OF RACE X, now kill them and their children like a real adventurer" really wasn't all that fun.
2a. It gives players that want to play idealistic heroes some actual hope that they can actually play those characters.
3. It makes gods/organizations big on redemption more than just talk.
4. Introduces new motivations for heroes rather than taking them away. There's something new and precious in the setting that needs to be protected, for starters.
5. And hey, maybe it would just be nice to have the "redeemed monster/usually-evil-race" trope treated seriously rather than as a one-off April Fool's Day joke in the blog. :(
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Furthermore... when you look at literature, the type of magic presented by psionics does not normally appear in fantasy stories. It appears more often in horror or science fiction stories.
James, have you read Julian May's Saga of the Exiles (Saga of Pliocene Exile in the US, I believe), and do you have an opinion on her treatment of psionic powers.
Personally, I now have great difficulty thinking of psionic powers in any other terms.
Follow-on question: Given that Paizo is unlikely to do a psionic book in the near future, do you think that there are any key psionic tropes that are currently unable to be replicated by either arcane or divine magic (i.e. could you currently build a 'psion' by deft selection of spells).
ZMOG, I'm so amazed that anyone even remembers that title!
...Aiken drum?
Am I showing my age...?
They remain, for me, the most awesome series of books I have ever read. Mainly because all of the fantasy (and I use that term for both the Pliocene and Milieu books) is so damned plausible!
Our problem is that our Alchemist keeps trying to come up with reasons that it is perfectly acceptable to stuff his Halfling Fighter Cohort into a cannon barrel and shoot him at the enemy because his full-plate armor with it's fire-resistance will protect him from the explosion and the 'attack' (as such) should be resolved as a charge attack. After weeks of "Can I use the cannon attack?" "NO!" "Aaaaaw c'mon!", should we just throw out hands in the air and let him do it, should we have the cohort take impact damage at the end of his 'charge' or should we stick to our guns on the issue (pun not intended).
Depends if the GM feels it's too silly or not. Sounds like the campaign's already got a fair amount of whimsy and wacky going on.
I would have the poor halfling take damage from the impact for sure—I might even rule it an automatic critical hit on the ammo. Being used as a cannonball should not be conducive to your long-term health.
Well, Fargo Flintlocke (orignally from his own WoW sprite based comic, now actually IN World of Warcraft) fired woodchucks from his rifle. In fact, he even will teach player hunters how to do it (via a gun attachment item called "Flintlocke's Woodchucker") :) So, what's a halfling other than a woodchuck without fur?
Not yet that I can think of. Because it's easier to fall from good than rise from evil. THAT SAID, sounds like a challenge!
Well, I'll be interested to see how that challenge turns out.
Do you have a favorite magical item, excluding weapons and armor?
Mine is the Necklace of Adaptation. So many uses, in such a small item
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Creative Director
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James, something I thought of, with the Age of Darkness, did Orcs spread across ALL of Golarion? I was thinking, with Nex and Geb, did the Orcs ever penetrate that far?
I was thinking of a Campaign for my players in which they are contacted by an underground 'Cult' of Pharasma, Iomedae and Sarenrae in Geb to help fight the State, only to learn later on that the 'Cult' is actually trying to figure out an Ancient Gate buried deep under the capital.
Gate is not Elven, but appears similar to in certain aspects, and is dated as belonging to the later years of the Age of Darkness.
Players who manage to survive this long learn that a Kingdom of Vampires once ruled this region for a significant period of time, even pushing back the Orcs, and that when their Seers learned that the Age of Darkness was coming to an end, the Vampires took their prized chattel with them and fled to another work steeped in perpetual twilight.
Players run through the gate due to any number of reasons and find themselves in an alien world where the Vampires have evolved along radically different lines from the breeds they know of, the Chattel have all devolved into either Mongrel-Men or Dhampir, and the Vampires are eager to return to Golarion now that their 'bastion against the Sun' is no longer able to support their numbers (The natives having all been driven to near-extinction).
Players have to find another Ancient Gate, get back to Golarion and shut it down on both sides simultaneously to prevent these 'Vhampyres' gaining a toehold in Geb and potentially starting up another war with the surrounding regions.
Do you think the campaign would work or would it be too 'fiddly' (mostly worried about doing a home-built campaign and then finding I've mucked up a future Campaign by Paizo. I prefer your guys campaigns as they tend to be a lot better than my own, or at least I don't have to burst a frontal lobe when using Paizo Campaigns .....)
Nope; when the orcs emerged, driven to the surface by dwarven agression, the orcs did not spread across all Golarion. They were mostly localized in central Avistan, which is where the dwarves were mostly localized. The dwarves won the battle, and over the next several thousand years spread throughout the Inner Sea Region; the orcs, having lost, ended up being mostly contained in the Hold of Belkzen. There's isolated tribes all over central Avistan, and individual orcs all over the place, but the vast majority of Golarion's orcs dwell in Belkzen.
As for your campaign idea... I'm not going to say if it does or doesn't "clash" with future plans we might have for Golarion. Furthermore, what happens in your Golarion is canon for you... if we DO end up clashing with some development in your Golarion, we're the ones who are wrong and should be ignored.
If you really do prefer our Adventure Paths over the risk of one of your own ending up at odds with something we might or might not do in the future... you should probably just play Adventure Paths, I guess.
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Creative Director
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As a GM: The one where I made a player fall backwards out of his chair with laughter. Ties with the one where I arbitrarily killed of Erik Mona's character in a totally unfair encounter in a Call of Cthulhu game.
As a Player: The one where my rogue Lavinia Ameiko's cohort, Chuko the kobold samurai, shamed one of the campaign's arch villains, another samurai, into committing sepuku. Ties with the time when Shensen lost her favorite sword to a hook horror's sunder attack 1 second after she released said hook horror from her mind control.Those are beauties James. I am pretty sure I read Erik's version of the story on his blog over at EnWolrd a little bit ago, but could you please, please elaborate on Chuko the kobold's story (sounds fascinating, not because he's a mere kobold but rather because he got to have an arch enemy commit ritual suicide!) and please do tell us what made your friend (name if you could) double over his chair with laughter.
Thank you.
Not much more to elaborate upon. We'd been hounded for several adventures by a rival adventuring group. The samurai in the group ended up challenging Chuko to a duel to first blood, and when Chuko won, he said something to the effect of, "Now that you've been bested, before witnesses, by a kobold, I think you know what you need to do."
And the samurai nodded and killed himself. Ha.
As for what made my friend fall out of his chair... the party was in a super long complicated fight against duergar in a mine. The PCs jumped into some mine carts and were hurtling down the mine, being chased by duergar in carts, Indianna Jones Style, and as they were hurtling through the mine I unleashed a rapid-fire barrage of the strange sights the PCs saw in rooms as they shot by. The laughter caused by the increasingly nonsensical and strange sights grew, and when I said in one side room "you see two cats boxing," (a reference to a video game commercial that was running on TV at the time and was quite funny), Eric Haddock burst out in such laughter that he fell backwards out of his chair. TRIUMPH.
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Creative Director
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We all know that you despise authors inserting "Easter eggs" into their turnovers, but have you ever committed this particicular sin? If so, what was your favorite?
I don't despise Easter Eggs when they're in-world and function in the context of the world in which the adventure is set. In fact, I quite like those. I just don't like Easter Eggs when they're referencing things OUTSIDE of world canon. Partially because they're silly, partially because they make me look foolish for not catching them in development, but mostly because that treads far too close for my comfort to possible legal action should another company catch wind of it should we let a copyrighted Easter Egg slip by.
As for in-world Easter Eggs, I've done LOTS of them. But I can't think of one in particular that I like more than the others, really. Apart from the fact that I've seeded many of my characters into adventures over the years—Rowyn and Lavinia into Savage Tide, Shensen into Shackled City and Golarion, Chuko into an older Rich Pett adventure called "The Devil Box," Ameiko into Burnt Offerings and Jade Regent... It's a pretty effective way to get cool illustrations of your characters done by professional artists, that's for sure!
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Not yet that I can think of. Because it's easier to fall from good than rise from evil. THAT SAID, sounds like a challenge!Well, I'll be interested to see how that challenge turns out.
Do you have a favorite magical item, excluding weapons and armor?
Mine is the Necklace of Adaptation. So many uses, in such a small item
Rod of wonder. That thing rocks.
Is allowing players and npcs to add nexavar to bronze to overcome cold iron damage reduction something interesting?
How long have the properties of Nexavar been known?
Since Nexavar makes a blueish metal is allowing it to make a blue glass a good idea?
will there be any dinosaur minisI hope so... but they're not really a high priority at this point since dinosaur minis are actually pretty easy to fake.
also, will there be minis for other APs aside from the ROTRL set?
I noticed an inconsistency regarding (you guessed it) dinosaurs. In the bestiary, the deinonychus is a more modern, feathered, birdlike creature. But in Racing to Ruin, the deinonychus is the traditional pebbly-scaled version. Why the change? Also, which form is canon?
If you lived in/were transported into a Fantasy world, which race/species/template/whatever and/or combination would you want to be? Different gender?
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Creative Director
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Is allowing players and npcs to add nexavar to bronze to overcome cold iron damage reduction something interesting?
How long have the properties of Nexavar been known?
Since Nexavar makes a blueish metal is allowing it to make a blue glass a good idea?
Actually... nexavar is no longer part of Golarion. (I felt it was a far too convenient and kind of lazy way to explain why the Worldwound hasn't expanded, and also sort of undermined the accomplishment of the Iomedan crusade as a result, and so it's been removed from the world as of Inner Sea World Guide.)
Since nexavar is not part of Golarion anymore... I don't really have much else to say about it—if you want to keep its presence in your version of Golarion, though, that's fine! :-)
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Creative Director
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I noticed an inconsistency regarding (you guessed it) dinosaurs. In the bestiary, the deinonychus is a more modern, feathered, birdlike creature. But in Racing to Ruin, the deinonychus is the traditional pebbly-scaled version. Why the change? Also, which form is canon?
The change happened because different artists do different things. I actually do not communicate directly with the artists (that's the art director's job). I write the art orders, but if I write "this dinosaur has bright feathers" but the art director doesn't forward that bit on to the artist, or the artist simply doesn't read that line or forgets it... then presto, dinosaur with no feathers. We're supposed to be able to see and approve sketches, but that often gets skipped for various reasons... and then it's often too late to make the change, either because there's just no time to do so before we ship to the printer, or because it'd essentially be paying for a brand new piece of art. At that point, I just have to make peace with the fact that the art I wanted isn't 100% right... and in the case where the art's otherwise quite good, I'd rather not cost the company extra money or delay a book's printing by 3 or 4 weeks just to get feathers put on a dinosaur.
Part of being creative director is having to make hard decisions, in other words.
All that said... there's absolutely no reason that there can't be regional variances between creatures. Some deinonychuses can have feathers while some might not.
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Creative Director
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If you lived in/were transported into a Fantasy world, which race/species/template/whatever and/or combination would you want to be? Different gender?
Race: Elf, cause they're quick and graceful and match my own politics pretty well.
Gender: Female, since all my female characters are a lot luckier. My male characters always get killed too fast.
Dear James Jacobs,
Why are quality halfling miniatures so hard to find?
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Did a moose once bite your sister?I'd argue that the elk in Bestiary 2 is not big enough for a moose, but that's just me - even if I do live in a part of the world where having a moose show up on the streets of a moderately large town/small city is not a big news-item.Where would I find stats for a moose or deer? I want a deer animal companion, and I just plain want moose stats. Is it possible to ride a moose into battle, or it that (as I somewhat suspect) a stupidly dangerous thing to attempt considering moose temperament?
Which existing cat stats should I use for a cougar? What stats should I use for a coyote?
Deer/Moose: Use the elk stats from Bestiary 2.
Cougar: Use the leopard stats from Bestiary 1.
Coyote: Use the dog stats from Bestiary 1.
(Often we'll list these suggestions in an animal's flavor text, by the way...)
No, but a llama once spat on my brother.
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Creative Director
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James,
Where in Golarion would Dinosaurs most likely to be?? I am assuming the Mwangi Expanse, but is there anywhere else?
Dinosaurs can appear anywhere you want. They're mostly wild in the Mwangi Expanse, certain regions of the Realm of the Mammoth Lords, the Shackles, Sargava, and Mediogalti Island, but they can show up wherever. They're not in a "save for only one spot on the map" category at all. It's kind of like asking "where can reptiles be found on Golarion?"
Narrowing the question down to specific species of dinosaur would get you a lot more focused questions... but as an entire animal type... yeah... they can be found all over.
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James,
Where in Golarion would Dinosaurs most likely to be?? I am assuming the Mwangi Expanse, but is there anywhere else?
Dinosaurs can appear anywhere you want. They're mostly wild in the Mwangi Expanse, certain regions of the Realm of the Mammoth Lords, the Shackles, Sargava, and Mediogalti Island, but they can show up wherever. They're not in a "save for only one spot on the map" category at all. It's kind of like asking "where can reptiles be found on Golarion?"
Narrowing the question down to specific species of dinosaur would get you a lot more focused questions... but as an entire animal type... yeah... they can be found all over.
I am all afire to have a witch with a Compy familiar since I read about it Bestiary 2, so I was just wondering where the witch would be from to have a Compy.
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Creative Director
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I am all afire to have a witch with a Compy familiar since I read about it Bestiary 2, so I was just wondering where the witch would be from to have a Compy.James,
Where in Golarion would Dinosaurs most likely to be?? I am assuming the Mwangi Expanse, but is there anywhere else?
Dinosaurs can appear anywhere you want. They're mostly wild in the Mwangi Expanse, certain regions of the Realm of the Mammoth Lords, the Shackles, Sargava, and Mediogalti Island, but they can show up wherever. They're not in a "save for only one spot on the map" category at all. It's kind of like asking "where can reptiles be found on Golarion?"
Narrowing the question down to specific species of dinosaur would get you a lot more focused questions... but as an entire animal type... yeah... they can be found all over.
Northwest Garund is your best bet. Mediogalti, Sodden Lands, the Shackles, Rahadoum, Sargava... that whole area.
Is there any connection between Sarenrae and the Divine Empress Shizuru?
Did Iomedae ever face off against the Whispering Tyrant? Was she was present at the Tyrant's last battle? Did she have a prior battle where she clashed with Tar-Baphon and survived? You'd mentioned that Iomedae was over 20th level, so I'm curious if she held her own where Arazni had failed and died.
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Creative Director
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Is there any connection between Sarenrae and the Divine Empress Shizuru?
Not beyond the similarities in some of their religions.
Did Iomedae ever face off against the Whispering Tyrant? Was she was present at the Tyrant's last battle? Did she have a prior battle where she clashed with Tar-Baphon and survived? You'd mentioned that Iomedae was over 20th level, so I'm curious if she held her own where Arazni had failed and died.
Unknown—but probably.
Are there catfolk in Osirion? I'm entering into a PBP in Osirion, and I want to play a catfolk native to the country. It makes sense (Egypt. Anthropomorphic Cats. Doesn't get more thematically perfect than that.), but I want to be sure that the race actually lives in Osirion.
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Creative Director
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Are there catfolk in Osirion? I'm entering into a PBP in Osirion, and I want to play a catfolk native to the country. It makes sense (Egypt. Anthropomorphic Cats. Doesn't get more thematically perfect than that.), but I want to be sure that the race actually lives in Osirion.
There's at least one... Mark Moreland's playing a catfolk in the "Lost City" half of my "Sands of the Scorpion God" campaign, which takes place in eastern Osirion.
Beyond that... there's certainly a few others, but no actual tribes. The ones who are in Osirion are travelers or adventurers or whatever. Catfolk themselves have a MUCH stronger presence in Southern Garund.