
![]() |

James Jacobs wrote:3) She would not. Others elsewhere might... but in almost every case, it's the Runelord who'd be calling the shots in that kind of situation.This is interesting. Who in the Inner Sea do you think (top five?) are the most likely to agree to that kind of political marriage? Doesn't need to be any particular order, if you'd rather not rank them.
And might a tactic like this be something Runelords with access to enchantment magic (such as Sorshen primarily, but also others) would use if they wanted to insinuate themselves into the hierarchy, rather than just "blasting their way to the top" with more obvious magic?
Depends on the story you want to tell... but I don't see ANY of the runelords really going in for any sort of marriage that had any sort of loss of power. They're not all that generous with their holdings.

![]() |

There are bad ideas that made it into print? How is that even possible? You guys are some of the best RPG writers I've ever read!
And how does returning to the baseline give an opportunity for the world to develop and allow for former PCs making cameo appearances? I don't know, maybe BioWare's games and Legend of the Five Rings have spoiled me and I just sort of feel like all RPG games should give similar experiences. Do events in PFS affect what happens in later books? I know there's a lot in the Pathfinder Society book that references what's apparently from the PFS adventures. How am I supposed to keep up with all this stuff if there's a whole subsection of canon being developed that I don't have access to?!
Speaking of canon, how canon is the stuff in Wayfinder?
And on an unrelated note, under the coat of arms on the Korvosan flag, there's this phrase that I assume is Korvosa's city motto or something: "Trosker Ep Styrk." What language is this? What does it mean?
Trust me... there's plenty of bad ideas we've let get into print... if you don't know about them, that's fine with me! :-)
Returning to a baseline doesn't give an opportunity to develop and grow the world at all... but if you're that worried about canon and how things change, it's really the only option.
Events in PFS only affect what happens in PFS really. They might inspire us to do things in future published products, but the PFS is its own campaign, just as are anyone's home games or Adventure Paths, and we don't canonize those events except in context with themselves.
Nothing in Wayfinder is canon. That's all fan-produced with no direct input from a Paizo employee. That said, a lot of it is GREAT content and now and then we pick up ideas from there to "graduate" into official canon in a print product. The Zon Zon dolls come to mind.
And yes, that's Korvosa's city motto. The language is an archaic form of Taldane and it means "Fidelity and Strength".

![]() |

Dear James Jacobs,
As a long time Call of Cthulhu fan perhaps you can tell me if the following is true ----
That in Call of Cthulhu when an elder god is summoned from beyond, they suffer a sort of summoning sickness. They're still unbelievably strong, but can be killed FOREVER if you hit them hard enough?
Such as by detonating a building filled with enough explosives to make Michal Bay blush.
Nope. There is no summoning sickness in Call of Cthulhu, unless you count madness-induced nausea or vomiting that might affect the person casting the spell upon experiencing or sensing a creature he/she summons.
Nor does a summoned creature's ability to die or not die change upon it being summoned.

![]() |

Trust me... there's plenty of bad ideas we've let get into print... if you don't know about them, that's fine with me! :-)
Returning to a baseline doesn't give an opportunity to develop and grow the world at all... but if you're that worried about canon and how things change, it's really the only option.
It's less "I'm concerned about changing things" and more "my ideas are poorly thought out and inherently crappy compared to official word from the creators and if I do something that contradicts them, then I'm misrepresenting something wonderful."
Events in PFS only affect what happens in PFS really. They might inspire us to do things in future published products, but the PFS is its own campaign, just as are anyone's home games or Adventure Paths, and we don't canonize those events except in context with themselves.
Then what about that teleportation tapestry and those allies of the Pathfinders mentioned in the Pathfinder Society Guide? And things mentioned by people here on these boards? I found myself thinking "Wait, they have a teleportation tapestry?! And saved someone from shadows?! And Runelord Krune has been awakened and killed? When did this happen?! What book is it in?! Do I have another AP to put my players through or something?! I want them to experience Golarion completely: play through every AP and module and stuff. But I feel like there's simply too much out there. It's why Forgotten Realms frustrated me too. There's too much world to experience in a single campaign, and with the APs each being self-contained stories in separate parts of the world, it feels like there's too much to keep track of. Most of the campaigns I've played in were Lord of the Rings style affairs with long overland journeys that sort of act as a guided tour of the world.
Nothing in Wayfinder is canon. That's all fan-produced with no direct input from a Paizo employee. That said, a lot of it is GREAT content and now and then we pick up ideas from there to "graduate" into official canon in a print product. The Zon Zon dolls come to mind.
What's a Zon Zon doll?
And yes, that's Korvosa's city motto. The language is an archaic form of Taldane and it means "Fidelity and Strength".
Huh. So Common doesn't sound like English at all, does it?

AlgaeNymph |

Trust me... there's plenty of bad ideas we've let get into print... if you don't know about them, that's fine with me! :-)
Saidly, there's some stuff I think we should know about. There's a line in Pathfinder #69 (p.37) that reeks of race fail: "Kyrisjana's skin has darkened to reflect the wickedness in her soul." How do you handle authors who say things like that?

![]() |

James Jacobs wrote:Trust me... there's plenty of bad ideas we've let get into print... if you don't know about them, that's fine with me! :-)Quote:Returning to a baseline doesn't give an opportunity to develop and grow the world at all... but if you're that worried about canon and how things change, it's really the only option.It's less "I'm concerned about changing things" and more "my ideas are poorly thought out and inherently crappy compared to official word from the creators and if I do something that contradicts them, then I'm misrepresenting something wonderful."
Quote:Events in PFS only affect what happens in PFS really. They might inspire us to do things in future published products, but the PFS is its own campaign, just as are anyone's home games or Adventure Paths, and we don't canonize those events except in context with themselves.Then what about that teleportation tapestry and those allies of the Pathfinders mentioned in the Pathfinder Society Guide? And things mentioned by people here on these boards? I found myself thinking "Wait, they have a teleportation tapestry?! And saved someone from shadows?! And Runelord Krune has been awakened and killed? When did this happen?! What book is it in?! Do I have another AP to put my players through or something?! I want them to experience Golarion completely: play through every AP and module and stuff. But I feel like there's simply too much out there. It's why Forgotten Realms frustrated me too. There's too much world to experience in a single campaign, and with the APs each being self-contained stories in separate parts of the world, it feels like there's too much to keep track of. Most of the campaigns I've played in were Lord of the Rings style affairs with long overland journeys that sort of act as a guided tour of the world.
Quote:Nothing in Wayfinder is canon. That's all fan-produced with no direct input from a Paizo employee. That said, a lot of it is GREAT content and now and then we...
Your post got too long and complicated with quotes for me to easily quote it back...
The teleportation tapestry is only canon in the PFS society. It hasn't and likely will never appear in an adventure or product we publish, since it really only exists to give the PFS org play a handy and convenient in-world excuse to transport their players' characters all over the world. All of that stuff hasn't happened in the baseline world, just as no one has yet discovered Xin-Shalast or Saventh-Yhi, and the Worldwound hasn't gone on its latest offensive, and Ameiko is still running the Rusty Dragon and so on. It's the only sane way to run things, honestly, because if we went with everything we published in the game products and novels and comics and PFS and so on being instantly canon and thus expanding events... two things would happen that we DO NOT WANT:
1) With every single publication, the amount of product a newcomer to the game setting has to read and be familiar with increases. That is an INCREASINGLY significant barrier to entry and a psychological break for folks; it's one thing to say "If I want to get into Golarion, I only really have to worry about getting familiar with the contents of the Inner Sea World Guide and then I can go from there, branching into other regions by picking and choosing from the dozens/hundreds of products Paizo has published." That's what we want. It's another thing to say "I have to read dozens/hundreds of products in order to be caught up on the world... that's a lot of time and while I'm doing that, Paizo is simultaneously putting out more product, so I'll never catch up!" That's what we DO NOT WANT, since with every product we publish under that mindset, our potential new customers have a more daunting task/hurdle in their way to becoming fans of Golarion.
2) Perhaps even worse... the worries of #1 above apply also to our writers. We want to be able to have a new writer be able to start working for us and only need to familiarize themselves with a few products in order to get to work. If a new writer has an increasing number of things he has to read... he will NEVER be able to write for us. That goes as well for actual Paizo employees. Simply put... we publish FAR MORE MATERIAL than any one person can hope to keep up with AND produce new product at the rate we produce product.
At this point... it's unlikely your players will ever be able to experience Golarion completely. Gaming takes longer than it does to publish product. That's the whole point.
Click here for zon-zon doll info.
And no, Common does not sound like English at all. That's why it's called "Common" or "Taldane" and not "English."
That said, printing Korvosa's city motto in a made-up set of nonsense words to stand in for a fantasy language that was also the most widely spoken language in the region was an error. We should have just printed the motto in English, since it's less confusing that way, since folks DO assume that Common sounds like English (or whatever language you're reading the book in). Obviously, we don't print our products in Taldane/Common because no one, including us, speaks that language.

Kairos Dawnfury |

James Jacobs wrote:Trust me... there's plenty of bad ideas we've let get into print... if you don't know about them, that's fine with me! :-)Saidly, there's some stuff I think we should know about. There's a line in Pathfinder #69 (p.37) that reeks of race fail: "Kyrisjana's skin has darkened to reflect the wickedness in her soul." How do you handle authors who say things like that?
You're trying too hard to find things to be offended by.

![]() |

James Jacobs wrote:Trust me... there's plenty of bad ideas we've let get into print... if you don't know about them, that's fine with me! :-)Saidly, there's some stuff I think we should know about. There's a line in Pathfinder #69 (p.37) that reeks of race fail: "Kyrisjana's skin has darkened to reflect the wickedness in her soul." How do you handle authors who say things like that?
Generally, when we see something like that, we just change the wording and let the author know that the phrasing of something like that could be taken the wrong way. But sometimes they slip through. I think that certainly that phrase could be interpreted in a bad light, but I also don't feel that the author intended it to be taken that way. Still... we should have caught and corrected it.

![]() |

AlgaeNymph wrote:You're trying too hard to find things to be offended by.James Jacobs wrote:Trust me... there's plenty of bad ideas we've let get into print... if you don't know about them, that's fine with me! :-)Saidly, there's some stuff I think we should know about. There's a line in Pathfinder #69 (p.37) that reeks of race fail: "Kyrisjana's skin has darkened to reflect the wickedness in her soul." How do you handle authors who say things like that?
Easy now.
As I just said, that was indeed a poorly written sentence, and we should have caught it and fixed it.
It's the person who gets offended that gets to decide if something is offensive, after all. Please don't try to call out folks like that.

Todd Stewart Contributor |

5a) Yes, absolutely, and they are not fond of it.
6) Not everyhthing powerful lives forever. It can die, but it hasn't yet. Rest assured, if it DOES... something WOULD happen. What that might be isn't yet revealed.
7) Alderpash doesn't know everything... but there's more than one way to be a "prisoner."
Congrats James, you've just doomed the PCs in my home campaign to run afoul of the Oliphant or run across Jandelay in some capacity, given that the campaign is based out of Galisemni and there's a crazy heavy protean influence just about everywhere they look.
Now my brain is fixated on what exactly Jandelay is, how it relates to various protean lords, any relation to Galisemni, and lots of home-campaign-specific backstory thereof. I love the Maelstrom and I'm eating this up here. :D

Nanatsusaya |

Rysky wrote:What are your thoughts on a Awakened T-Rex Vampire?Overkill.
Also, the vampire template is best when it's on a human-shaped creature.
And now I am imagining a timeless love between a Vampire and an Awakened T-Rex, who go rampaging through Golarion as their honeymoon.

xavier c |
xavier c wrote:can you use charm person to make someone fall in love youCharm person doesn't last that long. It can make someone friendly toward you and then give you a chance to get them to like you... but I wouldn't call mind-controlling someone like that the same as real love.
will i know it's not real but can you use Charm person (or charm monster) to make the person(or monster) act like your lover for the Duration of the spell

![]() |
James Jacobs wrote:Alexander Augunas wrote:If you absolutely had to cast Samuel L. Jackson as the voice actor for one Pathfinder RPG Iconic, who would it be?Limiting myself to the current iconics... Harsk.I actually figured Adam Baldwin for him.
Well that or Valeros.
If we go by the tradition on how Samuel L. Jackson is typically used for either. (1, putting him in so he can put use his famous catch phrse) (2. Putting in a real unexpected visual change on an established character.
Would these be the most likely choices?
1. Valeros
2. Ezren. or Lem.

![]() |

1) With every single publication, the amount of product a newcomer to the game setting has to read and be familiar with increases. That is an INCREASINGLY significant barrier to entry and a psychological break for folks; it's one thing to say "If I want to get into Golarion, I only really have to worry about getting familiar with the contents of the Inner Sea World Guide and then I can go from there, branching into other regions by picking and choosing from the dozens/hundreds of products Paizo has published." That's what we want. It's another thing to say "I have to read dozens/hundreds of products in order to be caught up on the world... that's a lot of time and while I'm doing that, Paizo is simultaneously putting out more product, so I'll never catch up!" That's what we DO NOT WANT, since with every product we publish under that mindset, our potential new customers have a more daunting task/hurdle in their way to becoming fans of Golarion.
This. This encapsulates probably one of my biggest sources of anxiety with the game right now! That is exactly how I feel right now!
How do I stop feeling like that? How do I stop feeling overwhelmed by my obsessive-completionist mindset? The...well, compulsion, to try and do everything in a game in a single playthrough or otherwise feel like I've intrinsically devalued the experience?

![]() |

James Jacobs wrote:will i know it's not real but can you use Charm person (or charm monster) to make the person(or monster) act like your lover for the Duration of the spellxavier c wrote:can you use charm person to make someone fall in love youCharm person doesn't last that long. It can make someone friendly toward you and then give you a chance to get them to like you... but I wouldn't call mind-controlling someone like that the same as real love.
That's left to your GM to decide.

![]() |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |

Voltron64 wrote:James Jacobs wrote:Alexander Augunas wrote:If you absolutely had to cast Samuel L. Jackson as the voice actor for one Pathfinder RPG Iconic, who would it be?Limiting myself to the current iconics... Harsk.I actually figured Adam Baldwin for him.
Well that or Valeros.
If we go by the tradition on how Samuel L. Jackson is typically used for either. (1, putting him in so he can put use his famous catch phrse) (2. Putting in a real unexpected visual change on an established character.
Would these be the most likely choices?
1. Valeros
2. Ezren. or Lem.
3. Lini.

![]() |

Quote:1) With every single publication, the amount of product a newcomer to the game setting has to read and be familiar with increases. That is an INCREASINGLY significant barrier to entry and a psychological break for folks; it's one thing to say "If I want to get into Golarion, I only really have to worry about getting familiar with the contents of the Inner Sea World Guide and then I can go from there, branching into other regions by picking and choosing from the dozens/hundreds of products Paizo has published." That's what we want. It's another thing to say "I have to read dozens/hundreds of products in order to be caught up on the world... that's a lot of time and while I'm doing that, Paizo is simultaneously putting out more product, so I'll never catch up!" That's what we DO NOT WANT, since with every product we publish under that mindset, our potential new customers have a more daunting task/hurdle in their way to becoming fans of Golarion.This. This encapsulates probably one of my biggest sources of anxiety with the game right now! That is exactly how I feel right now!
How do I stop feeling like that? How do I stop feeling overwhelmed by my obsessive-completionist mindset? The...well, compulsion, to try and do everything in a game in a single playthrough or otherwise feel like I've intrinsically devalued the experience?
I can't tell you how to stop feeling like that... other than to say it's okay for your version of Golarion to adapt and adjust into your own version of it. My version I run in my games isn't the same as the printed version, after all, and that's a strength of the game!