Would you ever consider adding more goblinoid races to Pathfinder, or even Golarion canon?
If so, would they cover the six alignments not covered yet, also be generally evil, or aligned independently of the categories that existing goblinoids hqave been put into (hobgoblins LE, goblins NE and bugbears CE)?
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Hi James,
It has been a couple of months since I asked about the ninja/rogue archetype question. Well, I have been playing my halfling ninja in the Pathfinder Society with a new PFS GM. I have three xp, so I am leveling up my character. In the last game, which was very fun, there were some ninja weapon questions that came up, yet we were completely unsure, so my GM told me to go find the answers. I have been looking online, yet I have been seeing conflicting answers. I thought I might ask you the questions in a general way, which may clear up lots of specific questions, and I will put in my examples of what I am using, so those specific questions, if not answered in the general question answer, can then be hopefully answered.
Setup: Ninja are proficient with all simple weapons, plus the kama, katana, kusarigama, nunchaku, sai, shortbow, short sword, shuriken, siangham, and wakizashi.
Note: My character just purchased a MW Aklys before the session, where a lot of aklys questions were posed.
Aklys: Under exotic light melee section. First half of the flavor text, which affected the controversial questions: The aklys is a hooked throwing club with a 20-foot cord attached.
The category states exotic light melee weapon. The flavor states it is a hooked THROWING club. Q1) Can I use the club to fight with it in melee against someone next to me? Q2) When I attack an enemy at range with the club, whether I am tripping or hitting them, is it a melee reach attack or range attack? Q3) Can I trip with the chain part?
I want to use TWF feat from the level 2 talent. So, here are TWF feat questions for the aklys and kusarigama weapons.
Q4a) Can I attack with the club in one hand and trip with the chain? Q4b) If I can, then can I attack with the club to X feet and the chain to Y feet, where X and Y equal twenty, i.e. 10 feet for club and 10 feet for chain?
Q5) Can I attack two aklys, one in each hand?
Kusarigama question: Q6) When I attack an enemy at range with the kusarigama's sickle, is it a melee reach attack or range attack?
Here is an overall encompassing question: Q7a) If I am attacking with a weapon that is on a chain, such as the "hooked throwing club" on an aklys, a sickle on a kusarigama, a weighted ball at the end of a chain such as the one on a kusarigama, the spikes on a spiked chain, or any other weapon as these examples where one holds onto the chain, then is the attack considered a melee reach attack, a range attack, or does it depend? Q7b) If it does depend, does it depend on the length of the cord, for example an aklys has 20 feet of length and the kusarigama has 10 feet of length? Q7c) Or does it depend on a case-by-case situation?
I realize it is a lot, so I tried to make it as short and simple as possible. I appreciate any help with these questions.
Very respectfully,
Nathanial
First step to realize—the more unusual and exotic you make your character, and the more rules you pull together from different sources (a ninja fighting with an aklys would be a good example)... the more likely it is that you'll hit on a combination that's confusing or needs someone to come in an make some rules decisions.
As a result... that kind of character is really MUCH more appropriate for home games, where the GM can make those rules calls as he needs to without worrying about how those calls might affect thousands of other games.
To answer your specific questions as they work in PFS...
Q1) An aklys is an exotic weapon. It doesn't possess rules (like the bastard sword) that says you can use it using another weapon proficiency. So no, you can't use it as a club. You need a club instead to attack using club proficiency
Q2) Trip attacks resolve as trip attacks, regardless of whether it's a melee or ranged attack. AKA: It's a CMB check versus CMD.
Q3) I'm not sure what chain it is you're talking about here... if you mean the cord that the aklys is attached to your wrist by, then no. You trip with the aklys.
Q4a) Again... not sure where the chain is coming from. An aklys is not a double weapon. The cord is not a second weapon. So, no, you can't attack with it.
Q4b) See above. no.
Q5) Yes.
Q6) It's a melee weapon, so it's a melee reach attack.
Q7a) It's a melee reach attack.
Q7b) It doesn't depend.
Q7c) Nope.
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Creative Director
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Not all those immunities together, but like an amulet that makes you immune to petrification would be more expensive that one that makes you immune to diseas but maybe as much or less then one that protects against poison. Being immune to charm effects isn't game breaking but curse effects, maybe. We have periapts that grant immunity to disease, poison, or wounding effects. We use to have a Ring charm resistance in ether 2nd edition or 3rd that made you immune to charm or enchantment effects of up 4th level and then a bonus to saves vs such spells of a higher level. I like items that grant an immunity to an attack for or ailment of some kind so it would be nice to figure out how much such items would cost.
I do not remember seeing to many items like these in pathfinder ecxept of the modules had an interesting one, a lotus shaped one that was interesting.
The fact that you don't see many items like these in Pathifnder means that it's not a type of item we enjoy putting into the game. It shuts down too many tactics.
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Creative Director
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Would you ever consider adding more goblinoid races to Pathfinder, or even Golarion canon?
If so, would they cover the six alignments not covered yet, also be generally evil, or aligned independently of the categories that existing goblinoids hqave been put into (hobgoblins LE, goblins NE and bugbears CE)?
We added one in Pathfinder #53 (the kijimuna), so yes. But we won't be doing it too much. The kijimuna are chaotic neutral.
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Q1) If dinosaur were to be respelled as dinosaurus, would the plural version--dinosaurs--be changed to dinosauri?
Q2) What is the plural form of aklys?
Q3) Have any of your characters ever used the aklys?
Q4a) Have you ever been to a Medieval Times show?
Q4b) If you did go, did you enjoy the weapon fighting show, the storyline, neither, or both?
Q5) What is your most creative weapon that you have created?
Q6) Have you ever played and leveled a character from level one all the way up to level twenty?
Q7a) What is your favorite Pathfinder melee weapon?
Q7b) Why is it your favorite melee weapon?
Q7c) Do you own that weapon?
Q1) I guess so, but that would be silly. "Dinosaur" is already as perfect a word as you can have.
Q2) Aklyses.
Q3) Nope. I tend to prefer to leave aklyses in the hands of derros. There's a character coming up in the Shattered Star Adventure Path that uses them though, and she's a character I invented for Golarion, though, and she' s a half-elf, not a derro.
Q4a) No, but I've been to renaissance fairs.
Q4b) Never been.
Q5) From my homebrew, there's an urdefhan weapon the name of which I can't recall. It's basically a spear with barbs sticking out all over it, and it has a big crank at the end so that you stick it in a person and then crank it to spin the shaft and spool up all their guts on it before you yank it back out. That one never made it into print, mostly because the way damage works in the game would make statting a weapon up like that take up way too much rules.
Q6) Yes. Three times. A human druid named Ruvagog (in Jim Butler's campaign), a human cleric named Rowyn Tai'tesseril (in Julia Martin's campaign), and my favorite character Shensen (in Jason Nelson's campaign). Some of those made it higher than level 20, in fact.
Q7a) Starknife or sawtooth sabre.
Q7b) See above.
Q7c) Nope. I only own two weapons—a compound bow and a dogslicer. Actually, I guess I own a fair amount of knives as well, but those are for making sammiches, not stabbin'.
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Can I have a sammich?
Hi James,
Very rarely post but had to ask SOMETHING because this thread has made me chuckle a lot since finding it.
Do you have any plans to visit us over the pond in Blighty any time soon?
The tea is brewing and the crumpets are toasting.
Offer him some bangers and mash with spotted dick for dessert from me. ;)
And a question: Since I'm in complete ignorance of something a previous question was about, what/who is a starpanda?
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Creative Director
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Hi James,
A last question regarding aklyses, though I shouldn't be using it, but I will since I have spent the gold for the MW part. The aklys has damage d6 (small)/d8 (medium). An aklys has a maximum range of 20 feet, allowing the user to retrieve the thrown aklys as a move action. The hook allows you to make trip attacks at range.
Regarding the question I posed earlier about using it as a club seemed to include things that I did not understand, so I think I asked the question in a bad way, though I did learn from your explanations. 2) Can I use the damage part of the aklys at close range and at long range? I ask, because a player in the group states my character cannot attack at close range with the aklys where I think my character should and my GM does not know how to call it.
Regarding where your were confused about my calling the aklys cord an aklys chain, I did mean the cord that is held or attached to the wrist. Thank you again for all of your help.
Very respectfully,
Nathanial Isaacson
Ah.
Yeah... with an aklys in particular, you can make attacks with it as a melee weapon or as a ranged weapon. The damage die you roll to determine the damage doesn't change. An aklys is a melee weapon so you can indeed attack melee targets... but it's also a throwing weapon (like a club or a dagger) which lets you throw it. Normally, a weapon's maximum range is equal to 5 range increments, but an aklys's maximum range is the length of its cord, which is usually 20 feet.
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Creative Director
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And a question: Since I'm in complete ignorance of something a previous question was about, what/who is a starpanda?
An example of lazy monster design. Someone once asked me about bad monster design, and I said something to the effect of throwing together two random animals is generally a good indicator of lazy monster design. Sometimes, it can create cool monsters.
But other times it's just lazy. And the example I used was a "starfish panda" which, to me, sounded ridiculous... but this being the internet... someone out there thought otherwise and latched onto it.
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Creative Director
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Hi James,
Very rarely post but had to ask SOMETHING because this thread has made me chuckle a lot since finding it.
Do you have any plans to visit us over the pond in Blighty any time soon?
The tea is brewing and the crumpets are toasting.
I'm kept pretty solidly busy here at Paizo. I suppose there's a chance some day of me going overseas for a convention, but that'll probably be mostly work and not play, unless I extend it into a vacation... but then you get back to the fact that I'm busy here and I don't really like the prospect of taking a vacation only to have to work twice as hard when I get back.
So... no plans to yet.
James is there any other way I can help support paizo? I am already a pathfinder superscriber and battles case subscriber. I have already converted all of my friends to Pathfinder and 1 gaming store. And I would subscribe to the gamemastery stuff but I am unsure I would use most of it especially with my proclivity for 3D Terrain over flip mats. I also go out of my way to answer any minis questions Erik asks on the blog, but I still don't think it's enough. Suggestions?
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Creative Director
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James is there any other way I can help support paizo? I am already a pathfinder superscriber and battles case subscriber. I have already converted all of my friends to Pathfinder and 1 gaming store. And I would subscribe to the gamemastery stuff but I am unsure I would use most of it especially with my proclivity for 3D Terrain over flip mats. I also go out of my way to answer any minis questions Erik asks on the blog, but I still don't think it's enough. Suggestions?
The best way is to spread the word. Talk to game stores about carrying our products. Run games for friends in game stores and at conventions. Get involved in the Pathfinder Society organized play program.
It sounds like you're already doing what you can do, frankly... so keep doing all of that, I guess...
Buy other company's products on paizo.com so they get a cut of it?
Contributor
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And a question: Since I'm in complete ignorance of something a previous question was about, what/who is a starpanda?An example of lazy monster design. Someone once asked me about bad monster design, and I said something to the effect of throwing together two random animals is generally a good indicator of lazy monster design. Sometimes, it can create cool monsters.
But other times it's just lazy. And the example I used was a "starfish panda" which, to me, sounded ridiculous... but this being the internet... someone out there thought otherwise and latched onto it.
Curiously, a starfish and a panda are on my daughter's top ten favorite animals list. So far, no dinosaurs, however. She also likes Gnomes.
What is your opinion of animal-headed races, such as found in Egyptian and Hindu mythology? Of Cynocephali? Does making one of the animals incorporated into the composite human make the idea less silly?
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Q6) Yes. Three times. A human druid named Ruvagog (in Jim Butler's campaign), a human cleric named Rowyn Tai'tesseril (in Julia Martin's campaign), and my favorite character Shensen (in Jason Nelson's campaign). Some of those made it higher than level 20, in fact.
Q6) Have you ever played and leveled a character from level one all the way up to level twenty?
That Human Druid sounds totally friendly and not at all menacing. On a totally unrelated Note, Can you tell us How the Evil All-Consuming deity Rovagug came about? How was it named and How was it conceived?
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Creative Director
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Curiously, a starfish and a panda are on my daughter's top ten favorite animals list. So far, no dinosaurs, however. She also likes Gnomes.
What is your opinion of animal-headed races, such as found in Egyptian and Hindu mythology? Of Cynocephali? Does making one of the animals incorporated into the composite human make the idea less silly?
For the most part, I think we've got more than enough animal-headed races already.
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Creative Director
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That Human Druid sounds totally friendly and not at all menacing. On a totally unrelated Note, Can you tell us How the Evil All-Consuming deity Rovagug came about? How was it named and How was it conceived?
Heh... Ruvagog was actually all about spiders, as it worked out. He was Neutral, if I recall correctly, so he was as friendly and not at all menacing as he was not.
I made up the name Rovagug aobut 25 or so years ago when I was making up deities for my homebrew game. At that time, he was the god of nightmares, the underworld, and screams, and the "gug" part of his name is a direct nod to Lovecraft's monsters from "The Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath," the gugs.
In my homebrew, the big bad end-of-the-world deity was actually Obox-ob, but when I made him into an obyryth lord for the Abyss in D&D, I more or less gave up the rights to use that name for much else... which was fine with me, since I got the name "Obox-ob" out of the 1st edition Monster Manual II anyway from a list of "other demon lords."
So when it came time to give Golarion a big bad end-of-the-world god, I used Rovagug's name and kind of melded the two deities from my homebrew (Rovagug and Obox-ob) into one.
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Creative Director
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Hi James,
Ok. I think I mostly understand. Melee weapons with chains do melee reach attacks, such as the kusarigama or spiked chain. However, a weapon that is on a cord for the purpose of pulling a thrown weapon back, such as an aklys, would be considered a melee weapon that can be thrown; therefore, the attack is a range attack and not a melee reach attack despite the fact it has an attached cord. Am I understanding this correctly now? The question I have to resolve is how to finish building the character. Well thank you for your help again.
Very respectfully,
Nathanial Isaacson
Correct.
Another way to keep track is that melee weapons who let you make reach attacks will list "reach" in their special qualities on the weapons table, while weapons that instead are thrown weapons (like the aklys) will have a range increment listed.
James what are the chances we could get a PFRPG update of Curse of the Crimson Throne, and Second Darkness?
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Why does Urgathoa have the war domain? I have some ideas myself but everything I've read about her that's been put out doesn't really show any indication that she's that warlike. Any answer for this?
Also why does Phrasma have the Water domain? Is it to do with the styx or does it have some other relation to her ideology?
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.......?
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Have you seen this extended trailer James?
I think the musical score and the sound effects of the previous trailers gave me more goosebumps than I thought I possessed.
1)Will we ever a type(s) of dragons with feathered wings?
2)Are all the greater spawn of Rovagug the same alignment?
3)Will the art for the Lashunta in the innersea bestiary be new?
4)Have you ever seen the movie Eragon? If so what did you think of the design of the Dragon?
5)What are top 5 dragon related movies?
6)Does Arcadia have cultures similar to native americans?
7)When will we get more info about the other continents? Even if this info is only a page worth as long as it is new.
8)Does raise dead and similar magic work on Fey?
9)Are there any unique non-divine dragons on Golarion? If so can you name them?
Q7c) Nope. I only own two weapons—a compound bow and a dogslicer. Actually, I guess I own a fair amount of knives as well, but those are for making...
Seriously? You actually have a sword with holes drilled in it? That is what a dogslicer is right, the goblin weapon?
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Why does Urgathoa have the war domain? I have some ideas myself but everything I've read about her that's been put out doesn't really show any indication that she's that warlike. Any answer for this?
Also why does Phrasma have the Water domain? Is it to do with the styx or does it have some other relation to her ideology?
We give unexpected domains to deities sometimes because that's a great way to infuse personality into them when all we really have the room to talk about them is what's on the big table.
Urgathoa's got war because her cult is at war with the living, because she wants her followers to use those spells to continue their battle against those who are not yet dead.
Pharasma has Water because of its connotations with birth (the waters of a mother's womb) and death (the waters of the River Styx).
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Creative Director
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Hi James,
Got it. That last part really helped: the reach quality. I will keep that in mind from now on. So, would you be afraid of a t-rex with a longer reach with its arms or with functional wings?
Very respectfully,
Nathanial Isaacson
Wings. You can climb up and away from something with longer arms.
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Creative Director
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Have you seen this extended trailer James?
I think the musical score and the sound effects of the previous trailers gave me more goosebumps than I thought I possessed.
Not sure what you're linking to there... if it's the new Prometheus trailer, then yes I have seen it. (Because what other trailer could possibly be as awesome?)
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Creative Director
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Seriously? You actually have a sword with holes drilled in it? That is what a dogslicer is right, the goblin weapon?
Q7c) Nope. I only own two weapons—a compound bow and a dogslicer. Actually, I guess I own a fair amount of knives as well, but those are for making...
That's the one.
It's from the play that Tom Beckett directed; they had more or less real weapons for the fight scenes. They were mostly dull, but still metal and still had points. Super cool!
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Creative Director
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1)Will we ever a type(s) of dragons with feathered wings?
2)Are all the greater spawn of Rovagug the same alignment?
3)Will the art for the Lashunta in the innersea bestiary be new?
4)Have you ever seen the movie Eragon? If so what did you think of the design of the Dragon?
5)What are top 5 dragon related movies?
6)Does Arcadia have cultures similar to native americans?
7)When will we get more info about the other continents? Even if this info is only a page worth as long as it is new.
8)Does raise dead and similar magic work on Fey?
9)Are there any unique non-divine dragons on Golarion? If so can you name them?
1) Probably not.
2) Yes.
3) Yes.
4) Haven't seen it.
5) The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, Dragonslayer, Reign of Fire, Game of Thrones, The Hobbit
6) Yes.
7) Within the next 12 months there's very likely to be at least 1 page more of information about the other continents... but that may well be 25 sentences spread out over 25 books... or it might not...
8) Yes.
9) I'm not sure what you mean by "unique." Do you mean "dragons with stat blocks to themselves that no other dragon has?" There's a certain linnorm up north that would count...
I mean dragons that are a unique creature, as in not a standard chromatic, metalic, etc. but a creature all to itself like Fafner. I also remember hearing something about a Nirvana dragon as well but I don't know if it is unique creature or a species.
James!
Why the lack of feats that boost healing spells? Such as the Augmented Healing feat from 3.5?
Reign of Fire as a good movie? Seriously? I found that movie to be so terrible I fell asleep in the middle of it.
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Reign of Fire as a good movie? Seriously? I found that movie to be so terrible I fell asleep in the middle of it.
If you can find a better dragon movie, I'll knock it off the list. The question wasn't "List five good moives." It was "List the top 5 dragon related movies." AKA: Most dragon-related movies aren't that good, in my opinion. Alas. Once the live action "Hobbit" comes out later this year, that might change (although it'd weird me out to have 2 Hobbit movies on that list). And it's certainly possible that I'm forgetting a good dragon movie.
But until that point, Reign of Fire is better than most of the rest. Even if it is relatively mediocre. And the dragon effects themselves were quite fun.
1)Who or what do Catfolk worship?
2)Will advanced races have any info about culture or religion?
3)How do animals become dieties?
4)What are the odds of Kobolds being in a races of Golarion style book in the next couple of years?
5)What is/are the Nirvana Dragon?
6)Will the Lashunta get a good amount of cultural information in the Innersea Bestiary?
7)Since we have gods that were once humaniod, animal, demon, dragon, angel, etc. then what about one that was once an intelligent plant?
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Creative Director
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| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
1)Who or what do Catfolk worship?
2)Will advanced races have any info about culture or religion?
3)How do animals become dieties?
4)What are the odds of Kobolds being in a races of Golarion style book in the next couple of years?
5)What is/are the Nirvana Dragon?
6)Will the Lashunta get a good amount of cultural information in the Innersea Bestiary?
7)Since we have gods that were once humaniod, animal, demon, dragon, angel, etc. then what about one that was once an intelligent plant?
1) A mix of empyreal lords, Shelyn, and as-of-yet undisclosed catfolk deities.
2) Not much, no. It won't have ANY Golarion-based info at all. It's more about the rules options.
3) Through fantastically rare and magical and epic unique events.
4) Low but not zero.
5) A powerful dragon or race of dragons associated with the outer plane of Nirvana—we've not done much more with this concept and in fact have deliberately put it on the back burner for now—it's one of those concepts we "tried out" in the first Pathfinder Campaign Setting hardcover but then abandoned in the "Inner Sea World Guide" since we're not sure we want to do much more with the concept of planar dragons.
6) As much as we can fit between the end of their stat block and the start of "Lashuntas as Characters" portion of the entry. Which works out to probably 100 to 200 words at most, and most of THAT will likely be talking about what the ones on Golarion are doing there. "Distant Worlds" will remain the best resource to go to for lashunta cultrue lore.
7) There are some of those among the Eldest.
I was assuming that when Kobolds of Golarion came out was more dependent on when Wolfgang wasn't busy :)
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What gods do the Ratfolk worship? For that matter, what gods are popular in the Darklands? Who do drow call their gods? Svirfneblin?
The ratfolk, as with all other races, worship different gods depending on their region. We haven't done much with the ratfolk yet, so we haven't revealed much about their culture at all.
As for what gods are popular in the Darklands—evil gods are more popular than most others.
The drow worship demons (see Second Darkness).
Svirfneblin mostly worship the Eldest of the First World.
There's quite bit more about Darklands societies in "Into the Darklands."