I've been reading up on the back story for Golarion and there's plenty there for me to enjoy and possibly use...but one thing that kinda sticks in my memory (for the moment anyway) is Azlant. I'll explain further.
ok, so we know that Azlant was destroyed because they got the Aboleth ticked off at them. they dialed up the starstone, smashed Azlant to bits and kicked off an age of darkness that sucked for everyone, including themselves. that part I understand....but why were the Aboleth pissed off?
speculation: I cannot confirm/document this part, so I'll classify it as speculation. I think there have been hints and allegations in the back story material to establish that the Aboleth considered Azlant an experiment. But what was the experiment and what did they want to accomplish? were they building better humans? did they want smarter slaves? the Azlanti could have been an attempt to build better people and it went wrong. Or maybe they were trying to build a model of human that was part mortal/terrestrial life and part...other. maybe the Azlanti were to be bred with things from Dark Tapestry. But things went screwy and the Azlanti broke aboleth control(s).
I think what I can't get past is that nothing happens in a vaccum...even ancient slimy alien horrors have to have a reason for their actions. Even if the reason is horrible or seems dumb to us, there has to be a reason behind their actions. I just don't see a reason for the aboleth to artifically evolve the Azlanti humans.
I will add one other thing. Based on data from Lost Cities of Golarion book (specifically Sun Temple Colony), I can infer that the Azlanti might have been aiming to capture the gods and use them for some unknown purpose. I don't know if their society was atheist from the start, or if that was just one small (if powerful) faction but they do seem to have been uncaring of the results of their experiments into the gods. At any rate, the Azlanti could have been intended as a means to capture the gods for the aboleth. Further speculation - could Aroden (the Last Azlanti) have ultimately been the final result of the aboleth attempts at understanding the process of divinity? nobody really knows how old Aroden was at the time of his apotheosis. In theory he COULD have known about the aboleth experiments and techniques concerning the divine. If so, that might have been the real reason for his mucking about with the starstone.
anywho, just some thoughts on the matter. figured I'd throw them out to the masses and see what the community had to say.
Nice analysis from the material. Any imput from Paizo?
I think the aboleths have been mentioned as atheists, so the turn of the Azlanti to gods and divine magic really upset the aboleth. But no mention of what upset them enough to turn the lights off, except the suggestion that the Azlanti empire was actually getting stronger (magically) than the aboleth.
At least that's the vibe I've picked up on :).
I prefer the theory that the the Aboleth turned the lights off because it was just that point in their aeons long life cycle for there to be a "night" so that they could get some beauty rest.
Azlant got smashed because they were the pre-teens next door, with their infernally loud music and stuff. It's hard to sleep through that "we're gaining independence and power and gods" stuff and consider it a good nights rest, so the Aboleth went next door with a baseball bat and smashed the radio, as it were.
This means they'll be turning the lights off in the future as well, when they start to get tired and the young ones start getting cranky because of it.
"Get off my lawn..."
They want to turn the oceans into mucus, Golarion into a slimeball, to achieve unity with other aboleths and domination over all other forms of life
Nice analysis from the material. Any imput from Paizo?Nope.
We know what the aboleths are up to, but the stars are not yet right for us to reveal that hidden truth.
I hate it when you do that.
Nice analysis from the material. Any imput from Paizo?Nope.
We know what the aboleths are up to, but the stars are not yet right for us to reveal that hidden truth.
How about now?
"Get off my lawn..."
You do a perfect Eastwood impersonation!!
Greg
They want to turn the oceans into mucus, Golarion into a slimeball, to achieve unity with other aboleths and domination over all other forms of life
I heard their leader, the evil Thrakkorzog, wanted to clone a mucus-based army of Tick-, er, Arodens.
We know what the aboleths are up to, but the stars are not yet right for us to reveal that hidden truth.
How about now?
{points to walnut shell on the left where little Aucturn should be hiding}
Obviously, the Aboleth DID have some sort of plan. I strongly suspect that the Starstone incident merely slowed them down a bit. they had some kind of plan to use humanity. Maybe as base stock, maybe as trained slaves. But it's very probable that their plans for humanity are done and over with.
I've got 'dark tapestry', Aroden and Elder Evils swirling around my brain tonight.
For some reason, I read that as "Elder Elvis".
I suspect that the aboleths' plan for the Azlanti had something to do with 1) their ancient conflict with elder things (Pathfinder AP 46) and 2) the Azlanti's conflict with the serpentfolk (Serpent's Skull AP). Could the serpentfolk be a creation of the elder things who then rebelled (like the shoggoth are rumored to have done)? Could the Azlanti have been "enhanced" by the aboleth specifically to deal with the sepentfolk empire and then destroyed when they became too "arrogant" after they suceeded (possibly viewing themselves as rivals of the aboleths)?
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RANDOM SPECULATION!!!
Ok, so the aboleth migrated to Golarion from their home planet of Zeist with their favorite space pets, "greater humans." They did this by hanging out in fluid filled tanks and flew through space via the ingestion of a ton of psychotropic purple worm excrement. They chose Golarion as their breeding ground due to the high concentration of sky metals which have polluted the planet, and they hoped to harness this pollution to improve their pets. These greater humans developed a society called Azlant, where the started selective breeding and killed all the weak. This was, of course, oversaw by their abomination masters.
Fast forward thousands of years...
The 'society' of Azlant is now full of 'elder' humans, paragons bred from the supreme gene stock of the greater humans. Aboleth get worried and call down their space ship which has been just out of the planet's orbit in order to put a number of these specimens in stasis to send back to their Cthululand overgods beyond the Dark Tapestry. Pilot error occurs and the space ship breaks apart upon re-entry and utterly destroys part of the world.
The power source from that spaceship flew to the other side of the globe and made a big sea, BTW.
OK, so with the Elder Humans excessively reduced, radiation from the explosion makes them all a bit mad... They begin systematically eliminating each other, until only two remain. They fight at the bottom of the sea near the power source, and eventually one named 'Aroden' kills the other one (Lets call him the Kurgan), absorbs a lot of radiation from the space ships power source and becomes a being who knows everything and is everything. He uses his new fangled power to bring the power source out of the depths and puts it in a sentient box (shaped like a cathedral), and gives the box one command: Deny Aboleths Entry. Aroden then runs away to hide in the multi-verse.
Eons pass, the box lets a few humans get a blast of Cthululand power source radiation, and they similarly mutate into super beings and run away to the multi-verse.
Eventually, the aboleth on Zeist sends more ultra humans ("Greater Humans" irradiated by the same material as the 'Power Source') to fight Aroden, and after an odd series of events, Aroden kills all of those ultra humans and becomes mortal again, effectively 'dying' from his place in the multi-verse.
Sources:
Dune
Highlander
Highlander 2: The Quickening
RANDOM SPECULATION!!!
Ok, so the aboleth migrated to Golarion from their home planet of Zeist with their favorite space pets, "greater humans." They did this by hanging out in fluid filled tanks and flew through space via the ingestion of a ton of psychotropic purple worm excrement. They chose Golarion as their breeding ground due to the high concentration of sky metals which have polluted the planet, and they hoped to harness this pollution to improve their pets. These greater humans developed a society called Azlant, where the started selective breeding and killed all the weak. This was, of course, oversaw by their abomination masters.
Fast forward thousands of years...
The 'society' of Azlant is now full of 'elder' humans, paragons bred from the supreme gene stock of the greater humans. Aboleth get worried and call down their space ship which has been just out of the planet's orbit in order to put a number of these specimens in stasis to send back to their Cthululand overgods beyond the Dark Tapestry. Pilot error occurs and the space ship breaks apart upon re-entry and utterly destroys part of the world.
The power source from that spaceship flew to the other side of the globe and made a big sea, BTW.
OK, so with the Elder Humans excessively reduced, radiation from the explosion makes them all a bit mad... They begin systematically eliminating each other, until only two remain. They fight at the bottom of the sea near the power source, and eventually one named 'Aroden' kills the other one (Lets call him the Kurgan), absorbs a lot of radiation from the space ships power source and becomes a being who knows everything and is everything. He uses his new fangled power to bring the power source out of the depths and puts it in a sentient box (shaped like a cathedral), and gives the box one command: Deny Aboleths Entry. Aroden then runs away to hide in the multi-verse.
Eons pass, the box lets a few humans get a blast of Cthululand power source radiation, and they similarly mutate into super beings...
Oh god a mention of Zeist... MUST. STOP. THE. RAGE.
Oh god a mention of Zeist... MUST. STOP. THE. RAGE.
In my gaming group, "Zeist" is traditionally the verbal component for the spell power word: insanity. :)
Nice analysis from the material. Any imput from Paizo?Nope.
We know what the aboleths are up to, but the stars are not yet right for us to reveal that hidden truth.
Oh, come on, dinosaur-worshipping individual. You know as well as we do that time is but a passageway, the beginning of the end - an end that never was. Time - but a curve in space.
When you see the stars as right, they were actually right long ago back where they actually are. You see the light they sent out, which then travelled the gulf of the Dark Tapestry for aeons to arrive at your position in space at your position in time. But the reflection is not the thing itself.
You as someone who assumes the likeness of a creature that has been extinct for a long time (though still not as long as the starlight you're looking at has travelled) should be aware of that universal truth.
So when you say the stars are right, we say you just see them as right in what you call the future while actually they have been right long ago - in the opposite direction on the axis of time.
What we are saying is that it's past time (to borrow one of the quaint idioms you creatures of time and space are so fond of) to tell your fellow individuals about the Aboleths and their plans.
Nice analysis from the material. Any imput from Paizo?Nope.
We know what the aboleths are up to, but the stars are not yet right for us to reveal that hidden truth.
Oh, come on, dinosaur-worshipping individual. You know as well as we do that time is but a passageway, the beginning of the end - an end that never was. Time - but a curve in space.
When you see the stars as right, they were actually right long ago back where they actually are. You see the light they sent out, which then travelled the gulf of the Dark Tapestry for aeons to arrive at your position in space at your position in time. But the reflection is not the thing itself.
You as someone who assumes the likeness of a creature that has been extinct for a long time (though still not as long as the starlight you're looking at has travelled) should be aware of that universal truth.
So when you say the stars are right, we say you just see them as right in what you call the future while actually they have been right long ago - in the opposite direction on the axis of time.
What we are saying is that it's past time (to borrow one of the quaint idioms you creatures of time and space are so fond of) to tell your fellow individuals about the Aboleths and their plans.
For the love of all that is good and sane, James! Please tell us now, before my Unspeakable Associates take it upon themselves to give us the absolute truth. When you tell us, you tell us one of those nice half-truths that are, strictly speaking, lies, which is because you know human minds cannot survive the absolute truth intact and will go insane. So we get something that is close enough for us to be satisfied, but lie enough to keep our minds save.
When Z'XSPXRZ tells us, no mind gets out alive!
For the love of all that is good and sane, James! Please tell us now, before my Unspeakable Associates take it upon themselves to give us the absolute truth. When you tell us, you tell us one of those nice half-truths that are, strictly speaking, lies, which is because you know human minds cannot survive the absolute truth intact and will go insane. So we get something that is close enough for us to be satisfied, but lie enough to keep our minds save.
So, James is in the kitchen tempering our brains, so we'll end up as a nice lemony custard instead of curdled?
Nice analysis from the material. Any imput from Paizo?Nope.
We know what the aboleths are up to, but the stars are not yet right for us to reveal that hidden truth.
How about now?
Nope. Move Paizo to the middle of Texas.
(Why? Well, you know, the stars at night? They're always right, deep in the heart of Texas.)
The same thing they do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world.