>>Ask *James Jacobs* ALL your Questions Here!<<


Off-Topic Discussions

36,451 to 36,500 of 83,732 << first < prev | 725 | 726 | 727 | 728 | 729 | 730 | 731 | 732 | 733 | 734 | 735 | next > last >>
Paizo Employee Creative Director

Chrysanthe Spiros wrote:

Why is Arazni okay with being called the Harlot Queen?

I surely would take offense at the first word if I were her.

She's taken the name and has owned it, diluting its use as an insult in the process. There's plenty of real-world examples of this.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

TheLoneCleric wrote:

James,

How rare are the classes in the Advanced Class Guide? If the ones from the Core are the most common and APG are next after that, does that make the likes of Shaman, Swashbucklers, etc very rare in Golarion? Do people even make those distinctions?

From say an Oracle, Paladin, Cleric and Warpriest?

All of the classes in the Advanced Class Guide already exist in Golarion. In the same way that all the classes in Advanced Player's Guide existed—we have been talking about oracles and witches and inquisitors and alchemists and cavaliers long before we ever thought of the Advanced Player's Guide, and looking through various Golarion products now you'll see plenty of mentions of shamans, swashbucklers, and the like.

AKA: They're already there, and they're as rare or common as we've already established them being.

Also: Note that I didn't mention the summoner on the list above. That's a good example of us having a disconnect between the rules line and Golarion—in hindsight, we probably should have built the summoner to be something more along the lines of an outsider-summoning class and not one based on an entirely new concept that didn't have any gravity or presence in Golarion yet... but we didn't, and as a result, for better or worse, summoners are by and far the rarest base class in Golarion.

There may be some that end up with that situation in Advanced Class Guide... but time will tell.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Kairos Dawnfury wrote:
We have stats for Arazni in Mythic Realms, right? Would the Graveknights who were raised from the knights who tried to rescue/end her be unique? Do you think we may be getting stats for them as well, and would they be Mythic?

Since graveknight is a template, by definition all graveknights are unique.

No plans to stat those particular ones up yet. They would not be mythic.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Filby Pott wrote:
If Malcanthet existed in the Pathfinder cosmology, how would you differentiate her from Nocticula?

I wouldn't. I would have used Malcanthet for the role instead of Nocticula.

But if on the other hand I got "permission" to use Malcanthet in the Pathfinder cosmology... I probably wouldn't bring her in.

If I did, though... she's different enough from Nocticula that I think they could exist side by side. Nocticula would still be more powerful, and Malcanthet would be more focused on the sexual side of things. Nocticula's pretty evenly split between lust and assassination. Nocticula's more into seizing power for herself as well, whereas Malcanthet is more about being the power behind a throne and manipulating the rulers.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

1 person marked this as a favorite.
LazarX wrote:
Chrysanthe Spiros wrote:

Why is Arazni okay with being called the Harlot Queen?

I surely would take offense at the first word if I were her.

Does she have that much free will to care, or is she Geb's creature?

Did you create Arazni as a lich with backstory, or was she originally alive when you brought her forth into your original campaign?

She does have the free will to care.

I created Arazni back when I was developing "The Skinsaw Murders," and needed to build a backstory for the haunted house; neither she nor Socorro existed at all until the point where they became the first official liches in the world.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Alexander Augunas wrote:

Cool, Uncool, or Insane:

For my home campaign that I run, I recently sat down and mapped out the region that my PCs have been exploring for the past year or so (real-world time) and are now starting to do some kingdom building of their own. After finishing the map, I went onto Adobe Illustrator and made a Hex grid that was of the appropriate scale (1 Hex = 12 Miles, spaced enough so that the map's area shows a region roughly the size of California) and then took this PDF file to Staples and had it printed onto a transparency sheet of plastic.

Before leaving, I bought a three-subject notebook and ripped out the subject dividers to have roughly 120 undivided sheets of paper. When I got home, I immediately started breaking up the book into sections of nine lines, with each page possessing three "sections." These sections were split into groups of 25 and labelled with the letters "A through W" to correlate with my Hex Grid; there are roughly 525 hexes on this grid and every section was labelled with a standard format like the following:

HEX # / Hex Owner
Hex Type
Hex Element(s)
Hex Improvements

Next I colored the map and drew in major landmarks as well as labelled important features on the map itself. On the transparency, I marked off political boundaries and then immediately started inscribing this information into my notebook, one hex at a time. After completing an entire letter's worth of pages, I go back and randomly determine on a d% if that hex has a settlement in it (95 - 100 indicates a settlement) before moving on to the next letter.

Its been a lot of work, but I'm hoping it'll allow me to bring an equal amount of depth to the region when my players start exploring those hexes!

Cool AND Insane! :-)

Your players are lucky to have you as a GM!

Paizo Employee Creative Director

captain yesterday wrote:

James,

have you seen the pictures of the new island that was formed by the recent earthquake off the coast of pakistan.

Nope.


I just got to Anor Londo in Dark Souls, holy crap, they stepped up their game, that place is gorgeous.

If it were set in Golarion, plane would you say the game world would fit onto?


James Jacobs wrote:
TheLoneCleric wrote:

James,

How rare are the classes in the Advanced Class Guide? If the ones from the Core are the most common and APG are next after that, does that make the likes of Shaman, Swashbucklers, etc very rare in Golarion? Do people even make those distinctions?

From say an Oracle, Paladin, Cleric and Warpriest?

All of the classes in the Advanced Class Guide already exist in Golarion. In the same way that all the classes in Advanced Player's Guide existed—we have been talking about oracles and witches and inquisitors and alchemists and cavaliers long before we ever thought of the Advanced Player's Guide, and looking through various Golarion products now you'll see plenty of mentions of shamans, swashbucklers, and the like.

AKA: They're already there, and they're as rare or common as we've already established them being.

Also: Note that I didn't mention the summoner on the list above. That's a good example of us having a disconnect between the rules line and Golarion—in hindsight, we probably should have built the summoner to be something more along the lines of an outsider-summoning class and not one based on an entirely new concept that didn't have any gravity or presence in Golarion yet... but we didn't, and as a result, for better or worse, summoners are by and far the rarest base class in Golarion.

There may be some that end up with that situation in Advanced Class Guide... but time will tell.

And the inevitable common in Golarion but rare in the Inner Sea, common in the Inner Sea but rare in the rest of Golarion, and all variations thereof.


I see the Grey Maidens in a lot of art, and I saw you mentioned your original Homebrew Version of Korvosa was ruled by a mad queen who had them as minions.

Do the Grey Maidens still have their roots in Korvosa, or somewhere else in Golarion? I think I remember a short web fiction that involved one...


James Jacobs wrote:
captain yesterday wrote:

James,

have you seen the pictures of the new island that was formed by the recent earthquake off the coast of pakistan.
Nope.

check it out! its pretty awesome, whatever search engine you use type "pakistan island quake pics"

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Kairos Dawnfury wrote:

I just got to Anor Londo in Dark Souls, holy crap, they stepped up their game, that place is gorgeous.

If it were set in Golarion, plane would you say the game world would fit onto?

Thassilon!

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Kairos Dawnfury wrote:

I see the Grey Maidens in a lot of art, and I saw you mentioned your original Homebrew Version of Korvosa was ruled by a mad queen who had them as minions.

Do the Grey Maidens still have their roots in Korvosa, or somewhere else in Golarion? I think I remember a short web fiction that involved one...

The Gray Maidens are rooted in Korvosa, and in fact, don't technically exist until the 2nd adventure in Curse of the Crimson Throne.


Does anyone at paizo have a particularly large stake in the Lands of the Linnorm Kings, design and content wise? The way Eric does with Nex, etc.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

The Golux wrote:
Does anyone at paizo have a particularly large stake in the Lands of the Linnorm Kings, design and content wise? The way Eric does with Nex, etc.

Erik certainly does, and I'm pretty interested in it as well. I think Rob is too. But no one has put their "marker" on it in the same way Erik's got his on Nex, or I've got mine on Sandpoint or Mediogalti, or Wes has his on Ustalav.


Alexander Augunas wrote:
Ombrenuit wrote:
Or make a deal with another Rakshasa. Ask him to impersonate the one you killed.
I'm Neutral Good. I'm more likely to try and kill the new rakshasa. : / Especially if he's anything like our last rakshasa, who embodied the societal taboos of pedophilia and incest. >_<

You're Neutral Good but you can't make deals with Evil creatures? Even Paladins can do that.

Are you sure you're not set on justifying how to act in line with your alignment in an alignment vs. alignment perspective, rather than justifying things within the character's in-world priorities and let the Alignment chips fall as they may...? That's how Alignment can shift in the first place.

Quote:
My character is currently agnostic in that he acknowledges the gods but doesn't really worship them, and I think that is something that most RPG settings don't capture very well. Virtually all of such settings have people who worship gods for power and tangible blessings, but very few present characters who embody the very real idea that worshiping a higher power can be spiritually invigorating in its own right. Many people are religious (or spiritual) simply because that faith gives them the strength to carry on against insurmountable odds.

Really? Rahadoum is full of non-worshippers. The Kalistrade is rather disinterested in deity worship. Tian-Xia in general is noted for Clerics and Paladins being rather rare, which doesn't seem to bode well for deity worship. On the flip side, there's several dead or 'missing' gods who nonetheless do have some worshippers, Aroden being a major one.

Obviously if Deities can grant real tangible benefits then the majority of people will choose ones which do grant such benefits and ideally coincide with their aesthetic/spiritual preferences. And then there is worship of Deities who are pretty Evil/dubious but are worshipped as means of PROTECTION vs. whatever threat lies within their domain. I mean, in the real world, people worshipped deities or religions in fact because they DID truly believe that tangible benefits flowed from such worship, even if we might now think that untrue (or even frown on such an attitude). The idea of some abstract philosophical faith does not correspond to 99% of actual human religion, historically, modern revisionist attempts to spiritualize/universalize historically inherited religious traditions aside.


Now I really want to buy the Rise of the Runelords book!

Just saw the preview for the new Thor Movie during Agents of Shield. It looks awesome! Are you excited!?


If you were to crash land a massive spaceship into an area of hilly northern plains, how would the pilot's cabin or bridge be affected? Would it detach, be buried in the ship or be destroyed in the process?

Contributor

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Quandary wrote:
You're Neutral Good but you can't make deals with Evil creatures? Even Paladins can do that.

There is a pretty broad line between "can't" and "refuses to."

Quote:
Are you sure you're not set on justifying how to act in line with your alignment in an alignment vs. alignment perspective, rather than justifying things within the character's in-world priorities and let the Alignment chips fall as they may...? That's how Alignment can shift in the first place.

This is a difficult question, because in my opinion alignment shift happens when you started out acting one way that made sense for your alignment, but was slowly deteriorated over time. So no, I don't consider randomly doing a blatantly against-alignment act as justifiable. True alignment change is done over time as a slippery slope.

And also, as the player I am in absolute control over what I want my character's alignment to be. I agree that situations like this are what cause people's alignment to shift slowly over time, but I don't have to pursue that storyline if I don't want to in the same way a paladin can justify working with an Evil party member if it serves the story that the players wish to be a part of. I'm not interested in changing my character's alignment, I'm interested in how I can stay true to my alignment in spite of the horrible things I'm going to have to do.

Quote:
Really? Rahadoum is full of non-worshippers. The Kalistrade is rather disinterested in deity worship. Tian-Xia in general is noted for Clerics and Paladins being rather rare, which doesn't seem to bode well for deity worship. On the flip side, there's several dead or 'missing' gods who nonetheless do have some worshippers, Aroden being a major one.

I'm 90% sure I mentioned that this is a home game, not a Golarion-rooted one. I also don't think that this post really fits with what you originally replied to, my thoughts that for most characters, religion is an all-or-nothing detail. It is either an all-consuming aspect of a character's personality (Kyra) or it is a minor detail that is hardly ever referenced (Valeros, although I admit I haven't kept up with the comics, so I could be wrong here).

I want to use the opportunity to make my character a deeply religious individual, but not because he's praying for some mechanical benefit. Simply because he asks the god for the strength to continue down the difficult path he's set for himself or the trials that he will experience, and like it or not but few games ever present that sort of character.

Quote:
Obviously if Deities can grant real tangible benefits then the majority of people will choose ones which do grant such benefits and ideally coincide with their aesthetic/spiritual preferences. And then there is worship of Deities who are pretty Evil/dubious but are worshipped as means of PROTECTION vs. whatever threat lies within their domain. I mean, in the real world, people worshipped deities or religions in fact because they DID truly believe that tangible benefits flowed from such worship, even if we might now think that untrue (or even frown on such an attitude). The idea of some abstract philosophical faith does not correspond to 99% of actual human religion, historically, modern revisionist attempts to spiritualize/universalize historically inherited religious traditions aside.

I don't agree with this at all. Under this logic, every member of a clergy would be a cleric, and aside from destroying iconic character archetypes like the "Temple Assassin," it simply isn't reasonable. Not everyone who worships should receive the powers of the gods, because if they did then everyone would worship the gods. Having characters like Razmir wouldn't make sense.

Also, I consider spiritual a strength and spiritual healing (as in, you are emotionally and spiritually burdened and you are praying in order to soothe yourself spiritually) a tangible benefit of worship. It is not a mechanical benefit of worship, but as I mentioned many people worship because it feels good to have that sense of a higher power in their lives, and if anything people who worship for that reason should be even MORE plentiful in worlds like Golarion where you can physically see the power that those gods have wrought upon the world.

I love having discussions like this, but James Jacobs' thread isn't the place for them. PM me if you want to keep the discussion going. ;-)


Topic derailment/hijacking! Will James stop it?

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
James Jacobs wrote:
LazarX wrote:
Are you familliar with Continuum which can be said to be the only true time travel roleplaying game on the market? Although to be fair, the Dr. Who game from Cubicle 7, comes somewhat close.
Nope.

Continuum is worthy of note because it's the only game in which time travel is used beyond getting heroes into and out of an adventure, every character having the power of time travel is a prime keelstone of the game and it even has neat things like Time Combat.

Contributor

Belle Mythix wrote:

Topic derailment/hijacking! Will James stop it?

I hope my message at the end was enough. Now that he's mythic, his DR/epic means that I'm not going to be able to deal enough damage to his stomach to cut myself free from his swallow whole attack before being digested like I did the last time I hijacked the thread by accident. >_<

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Kairos Dawnfury wrote:

Now I really want to buy the Rise of the Runelords book!

Just saw the preview for the new Thor Movie during Agents of Shield. It looks awesome! Are you excited!?

Nah. I'll certainly go see the new Thor movie, but that's not the kind of movie that gets me excited to see.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

4 people marked this as a favorite.
Tobaris wrote:
If you were to crash land a massive spaceship into an area of hilly northern plains, how would the pilot's cabin or bridge be affected? Would it detach, be buried in the ship or be destroyed in the process?

That's the type of question that sounds like it might well be answered in great detail in about 17 months.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Alexander Augunas wrote:
I love having discussions like this, but James Jacobs' thread isn't the place for them. PM me if you want to keep the discussion going. ;-)

Correct. Beat me to it!

Paizo Employee Creative Director

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Belle Mythix wrote:

Topic derailment/hijacking! Will James stop it?

He almost did but it fixed itself!

In theory... it's lingering...

...narrows eyes... gets out threadwacker...

Silver Crusade

1 person marked this as a favorite.
James Jacobs wrote:
Belle Mythix wrote:

Topic derailment/hijacking! Will James stop it?

He almost did but it fixed itself!

In theory... it's lingering...

...narrows eyes... gets out threadwacker...

The scary ninja lady?


Is there any goofy literature that you do like?


Why do you not love me?!

just kidding...

Maybe...

But in all seriousness, is there anything you could share about any of the upcoming Pathfinder books?


Hi James! Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to answer our questions! After a few... hours... of reading the recent thread history, I have a few to add to the pile for your kind consideration.

1) What was the original thematic inspiration, if any, for the city of Absalom? It always struck me as a fantastical combination of New York, Jerusalem, and London.

2) Suppose that Ileosa triumphs against the PCs at the end of Crown of Fangs and successfully uses the Everdawn Pool, which stirs Runelord Sorshen from her hibernation beneath the Grand Mastaba. How would the former react to the latter, and vice versa? How would it affect their mutual plans?

2a) Conversely, supposing Sorshen awakens before Ileosa makes use of the Everdawn Pool, how would this change the above? And would Ileosa attempt to petition Sorshen for its use or similar if the Runelord isn't overtly hostile?

3) Which of the Pathfinder Society faction leaders would choose to attend one of Zarta Dralneen's "special parties" if given an invitation (directly or indirectly)?

4) Very little information has been written about the personality of Lady Darchana (archdean of the Arcanamirium) outside Guide to Absalom that I've seen. What sort of person is she? Any thoughts as to what she looks like? I always pictured her as the "unamused headmaster" type.

4a) How likely is it that her ambition to crown Princess Eutropia the Queen of Absalom will be developed in future products?

4b) And about how old is the Princess, anyway?

5) What was the balance of power like between Azlant and Thassilon at their height? Were they evenly matched or was there some acknowledged disparity between the two rivals?

6) I read - and the source isn't springing to mind - that Xin's heir was sequestered as a puppet ruler in Cyrusian. Did Xin's line survive to the end of Thassilon or did the Runelords allow his legacy to die out? Diplomatically, would that heir be perceived as the head of state or barely worth acknowledging?

7) If Lissala were to empower a godling (per Mythic Origins), how would you write her godling path ability, off the top of your head?

8) I absolutely love the work that was done throughout the Shattered Star Adventure Path! After reading through Lost Kingdoms, I've become very curious about other Thassilonian antiquities. If you were to quantify the abilities of The Mirror of Sorshen (viewers "trapped in a dream of arousal and awaken to serve the mirror's master") and Xin's Robe of Runes ("immediate access to the powers of rune magic in pure form") in game terms, what route would you be inclined to take?

Please forgive me if any of these questions have been asked previously in the thread. I tried to find answers in the posting history first, but it all starts to blend together after a while and things get overlooked...


Was Urgathoa worshipped at all in ancient Azlant, and if so was she viewed any differently than she is today; like how Achaekak was viewed as a god of monsters rather than assassination or how Pharasma was primarily a goddess of prophecy?

The Exchange

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Petrefax wrote:
Was Urgathoa worshipped at all in ancient Azlant, and if so was she viewed any differently than she is today; like how Achaekak was viewed as a god of monsters rather than assassination or how Pharasma was primarily a goddess of prophecy?

You mean like We Jas from Greyhawk?


James Jacobs wrote:
Tobaris wrote:
If you were to crash land a massive spaceship into an area of hilly northern plains, how would the pilot's cabin or bridge be affected? Would it detach, be buried in the ship or be destroyed in the process?
That's the type of question that sounds like it might well be answered in great detail in about 17 months.

YAY!

*Runs in circles.*


James

If you were to make the Gray Maidens into a prestige class how would you likely handle going about what abilities they would get and what would they be?

Lantern Lodge

Excuse me Monsieur, I just got to thinking about something and figured that you might be able to give me an answer.

Have you ever, or are you ever planning to, give stats for corsets as armor?

Something along the lines of;

Silk corset, light armor +0 max dex +6 ACP 0 arcane failure 0%
Leather corset, Light armor +1 Max dex +4 ACP -2 Arcane failure 10%
Whale bone Corset, Medium armor +2or3 max dex +2 ACP -4 Arcane failure 15%


James Jacobs wrote:
Hitdice wrote:
James, Have you read The Ocean at the End of the Lane? I think you might really enjoy it.
I have heard of it, haven't read it yet though...

It's very good, I gave it a great review. Note it's rather short, however. Great atmosphere.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Icyshadow wrote:
Is there any goofy literature that you do like?

Hmmmmmmmm...

Nothing comes to mind, honestly. Remember, my favorite genre is horror, and while comedy DOES mix well with horror, comedy also happens to be the hardest genre to write and thus the easiest to mess up. I prefer grimdark stuff anyway.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Seth Parsons wrote:

Why do you not love me?!

just kidding...

Maybe...

But in all seriousness, is there anything you could share about any of the upcoming Pathfinder books?

Awwww! HUGS!

As for sharing about the upcoming Pathifnder books... that's a way-too-broad question. Narrow it down please! :P

Paizo Employee Creative Director

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Petrefax wrote:
Was Urgathoa worshipped at all in ancient Azlant, and if so was she viewed any differently than she is today; like how Achaekak was viewed as a god of monsters rather than assassination or how Pharasma was primarily a goddess of prophecy?

She absolutely was. She was pretty much viewed the same way, but back then the demon lord Zura was more commonly worshiped as well and the two of them had a lot of conflict. Obviously Zura is still around, but Urgathoa's ascendance may have had something to do with that conflict back during Azlanti times.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

1 person marked this as a favorite.
TheLoneCleric wrote:
Petrefax wrote:
Was Urgathoa worshipped at all in ancient Azlant, and if so was she viewed any differently than she is today; like how Achaekak was viewed as a god of monsters rather than assassination or how Pharasma was primarily a goddess of prophecy?
You mean like We Jas from Greyhawk?

Ahem. It's WEE Jas!

And yes... Wee Jas being my favorite Greyhawk deity, she was a pretty big influence on Turthonir (my homebrew version of Pharasma).

Paizo Employee Creative Director

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Joseph Blackhand wrote:

James

If you were to make the Gray Maidens into a prestige class how would you likely handle going about what abilities they would get and what would they be?

I wouldn't. They were originally intended to be single class fighters, and an example of how you can pile on some cool flavor for that class, which at the time (and arguably still is) gets a lot of flak for being "flavorless."

Paizo Employee Creative Director

6 people marked this as a favorite.
Hordshyrd wrote:

Excuse me Monsieur, I just got to thinking about something and figured that you might be able to give me an answer.

Have you ever, or are you ever planning to, give stats for corsets as armor?

Something along the lines of;

Silk corset, light armor +0 max dex +6 ACP 0 arcane failure 0%
Leather corset, Light armor +1 Max dex +4 ACP -2 Arcane failure 10%
Whale bone Corset, Medium armor +2or3 max dex +2 ACP -4 Arcane failure 15%

Nope. Corsets aren't armor, and I'm not really interested in giving artists an even bigger excuse to paint cleavage in inappropriate action scenes... sorry!

And anyway, as seen in Ultimate Equipment, we've already established that the corset takes up the body slot when it's a magic item, not the armor slot.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Victoria Dethasma wrote:

1) What was the original thematic inspiration, if any, for the city of Absalom? It always struck me as a fantastical combination of New York, Jerusalem, and London.

2) Suppose that Ileosa triumphs against the PCs at the end of Crown of Fangs and successfully uses the Everdawn Pool, which stirs Runelord Sorshen from her hibernation beneath the Grand Mastaba. How would the former react to the latter, and vice versa? How would it affect their mutual plans?

2a) Conversely, supposing Sorshen awakens before Ileosa makes use of the Everdawn Pool, how would this change the above? And would Ileosa attempt to petition Sorshen for its use or similar if the Runelord isn't overtly hostile?

3) Which of the Pathfinder Society faction leaders would choose to attend one of Zarta Dralneen's "special parties" if given an invitation (directly or indirectly)?

4) Very little information has been written about the personality of Lady Darchana (archdean of the Arcanamirium) outside Guide to Absalom that I've seen. What sort of person is she? Any thoughts as to what she looks like? I always pictured her as the "unamused headmaster" type.

4a) How likely is it that her ambition to crown Princess Eutropia the Queen of Absalom will be developed in future products?

4b) And about how old is the Princess, anyway?

5) What was the balance of power like between Azlant and Thassilon at their height? Were they evenly matched or was there some acknowledged disparity between the two rivals?

6) I read - and the source isn't springing to mind - that Xin's heir was sequestered as a puppet ruler in Cyrusian. Did Xin's line survive to the end of Thassilon or did the Runelords allow his legacy to die out? Diplomatically, would that heir be perceived as the head of state or barely worth acknowledging?

7) If Lissala were to empower a godling (per Mythic Origins), how would you write her godling path ability, off the top of your head?

8) I absolutely love the work that was done throughout the Shattered Star Adventure Path! After reading through Lost Kingdoms, I've become very curious about other Thassilonian antiquities. If you were to quantify the abilities of The Mirror of Sorshen (viewers "trapped in a dream of arousal and awaken to serve the mirror's master") and Xin's Robe of Runes ("immediate access to the powers of rune magic in pure form") in game terms, what route would you be inclined to take?

Please forgive me if any of these questions have been asked previously in the thread. I tried to find answers in the posting history first, but it all starts to blend together after a while and things get overlooked...

1) Jerusalem is certainly one of them. So is Greyhawk. New York as well. And probably some Lankhmar.

2) That all depends on the type of campaign you'd want to build, and would first require you to decide if you want Sorshen or Ileosa to be the main bad gal.

2a) Honestly, I suspect that for a long time, Sorshen would stay in the shadows and start manipulating Ileosa from hiding, slowly extending her influence over her and Korvosa as she slowly reintegrates herself into the world. She's got over 10,000 years of stuff to catch up on, after all!

3) Dunno. I actually know very very little about those characters and their personalty—I'm not that involved in the Pathfinder Society campaign.

4) She's not someone we've really done much at all with, so at this point I'm not ready to say much more about her.

4a) Unknown.

4b) I'm guessing early 20s, but Rob likely has a better idea.

5) Azlant was more powerful, but Thassilon was less shackled by tradition and bureaucracy. If the two had gone to war, it would have been a tough fight—Azlant would have likely won, but it would have cost them dearly... and the closer to Earthfall they got, the more likely Thassilon would win. Azlant was getting decadent and falling into decline (hence part of the reason the aboleths gave up on them) and Thassilon was still rising in power at that point, after all...

6) His heir, if I remember correctly, didn't last much longer after Xin's death. None survived, in any event.

7) It'd have something to do with carving runes into your flesh and in so doing giving yourself magic powers.

8) Thanks! I'm not yet ready to reveal much more about the artifacts and magic yet... although Xin's Robe of Runes would use the robe of runes as detailed in Rise of the Runelords as a starting place for its powers.


How did Aboleth view Thassilon anyway? Were they largely ignored? considered part of an experiment gone out of control? Considered a threat?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

MMCJawa wrote:
How did Aboleth view Thassilon anyway? Were they largely ignored? considered part of an experiment gone out of control? Considered a threat?

They viewed it as a curiosity, sort of like how a scientist might view an unexpected side effect of the main experiment that suddenly started being more successful than the original one. Had Earthfall worked as intended, it's likely that the aboleths would have turned to whatever remained of Thassilon to start over.


1) a) Any chance for Lovecraftian Deep Ones in the near future ?

b) Or are they under copyright protection and not in the public domain ? And hence, us players be forced to "Houserule-create" them ?

2) Looking at Galt : It seems to be locked in a post-renaissance republican Revolution espousing certain non-monarchy ideals (and a lot of wonderfully terrible means to make things turn BAD ).... Does paizo/JJ have any idea of how widely known said ideals are/have spread ? And how do they effect Molthune, Andoran or Taldor ?

b) any plans on the part of Cheliax or Molthune to gobble up the distraught realm through military means ?

3)With hobgoblins usually viewed as well-organized and militarized : where should we look for Hobgoblin realms ? I canT really remember much about them in APs or otherwise but for turning up

Spoiler:
in the Skulls and Shackles AP with a Drakkar

Shadow Lodge

Is there any chance Words of Power will be expanded? I think it has potential, but it's pretty limited at the moment,

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Dragonborn3 wrote:
Is there any chance Words of Power will be expanded? I think it has potential, but it's pretty limited at the moment,

Not much of a chance. It's not something we're including in Golarion, and it was never really intended to be more than a stab at a variant rules system. Anything's possible, though.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

vikingson wrote:

1) a) Any chance for Lovecraftian Deep Ones in the near future ?

b) Or are they under copyright protection and not in the public domain ? And hence, us players be forced to "Houserule-create" them ?

2) Looking at Galt : It seems to be locked in a post-renaissance republican Revolution espousing certain non-monarchy ideals (and a lot of wonderfully terrible means to make things turn BAD ).... Does paizo/JJ have any idea of how widely known said ideals are/have spread ? And how do they effect Molthune, Andoran or Taldor ?

b) any plans on the part of Cheliax or Molthune to gobble up the distraught realm through military means ?

3)With hobgoblins usually viewed as well-organized and militarized : where should we look for Hobgoblin realms ? I canT really remember much about them in APs or otherwise but for turning up ** spoiler omitted **

1a) Yes.

1b) Deep ones are public domain. The tricky part is that we already have skum and sahuagin who do a lot of the same types of things as deep ones... we'll see, though.

2) I've not done much thought on Galt yet, but for the most part, as with all the Inner Sea regions, each region's themes and stories are generally set up to be pretty self-contained so that if any one GM isn't a fan of it, it's relatively easy to omit that region from their setting. So, no... the events in Galt don't impact other nations all that much. Might not be realistic from a real-world simulation viewpoint, but it's a necessary evil in order to make the game setting work better.

2b) Nope.

3) The big hobgoblin presence in the Inner Sea region is in Isger; they're still recovering from a recent war, though. There's an entire hobgoblin nation over in Tian-Xia though.

Grand Lodge

I've got 4-5 ideas i'm trying to think though for character for runelords... we are using the society rules but will have crafting allowed and 3 trait rather than 2... right now in our party we have an paladin, a cavalier, and wizard... what i'm thing of building are a elvish cleric, elvish druid (the arch type that gets plants, gnome alchemist (rouge archetype), a gnome fire cleric, or a tiefling monk... most of the before 4th taking a level of rouge... our gm said we could take one of the pregens if we need it... so the question if you had to chose one of those which one and why... or if you can think of some thing better tell me what it is...

36,451 to 36,500 of 83,732 << first < prev | 725 | 726 | 727 | 728 | 729 | 730 | 731 | 732 | 733 | 734 | 735 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Gamer Life / Off-Topic Discussions / >>Ask *James Jacobs* ALL your Questions Here!<< All Messageboards