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I recently bought the Inner Sea World Campaign guide and for the most part I like alot of the material yet I can see myself changing some of the factions and countries in the book. I don't like Galt that much and a country where the ruling body is disposed off on a regular basis added with an almost constabnt of anarchy just does not appeal to me. So I'm probably going to have them invaded and become an extension of whomever conquers them. What have you the Paizo fanabse changed or altered in the default background?
One last thing. I want to see no anti-4E comments of any kind within this thread nor any referecnes to Forgotten Realms of any sort. I'm not interested in hearing about that.
HOW HAVE YOU CHANGED GOLARIAN?
Well, for one, I spell it with an "o" instead of that last "a".
For two: I played Kingmaker. :D
EDIT: I mean, it's got some flaws, but at least it's not fou-... er, I mean, well you know, I kind of prefer Forgo-... um... I like it as is?
(Sorry, I couldn't resist!)
Also, because I didn't have the Inner Sea Guide at the time, and there are a couple of slightly, different takes on Sargava that I ran than it is as printed. But over-all, we keep the feel as close to the published material as possible and still run our games. We do link our gaming chronologies, however, where feasible.
Shorten the age of some kingdoms as I really hate the thousands of year old kingdoms. The second thing I most often do is make firearms more common, say mid 17th century level or closer to the early 18th century
I'm not fond of guns in my game, so they just don't appear in it.
I ran a game that consisted of a very large war where molthune was expanding its borders. Due to some inovative ideas with industrialization and science, our current game has a more steampunk feel to it, due to that there are a lot of steampunk type areas. Our next G game will be as it is written?
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Ulfen are dwarves. All of them. (Although the Land of the Linnorm Kings also has some Kellid humans.) They drink a lot of mead and sing The Immigrant Song.
Most historical ages (but not all) are reduced by a factor of five or ten. So Absalom is 500 years old, not five thousand years old.
Halfling populations are much larger in the Inner Sea area (comprising 20 to 30 percent of the populations of Taldor, Andoren, Cheliax, Isger, Molthune, Nirmathas and Ustalav, and being present among Varisian groups, and considered Varisians, despite their obvious racial difference).
Numerian super-science requires stuff found in the Starmount to function (silverly liquid, seeping from the wreckage) and so it isn't often seen outside of Numeria. Alkenstar has guns, but they are also not seen much outside of Alkenstar, for different reasons. They don't seem to work as well in areas of normal magic, as they do in the Mana Wastes... (So, when I want to use them, they'll be in the Mana Wastes area. Otherwise, they are more trouble than they're worth.)
Lamashtu is totally behind the Worldwound. That locust demon-lord is a flunky.
Until something cooler comes along, elements of Nyambe lie south of the map, and elements of Zakara, Kara-Tur and Naranjan lie to the east.
Osirion borrows from Hamunaptra. In the history of nations treating races bad, old Osirion treated halflings even worse than current Cheliax does, and even in this more enlightened age, they aren't exactly common.
Rahadoum and Hermea aren't mostly evil, which is technically canon.
- absolutely no elves whatsoever; that includes drow, half-elves, aquatic elves, green elves, blue elves, Highland Scottish plaid elves, any elves
- no Kyonin either; expanded Razmiran
- no halfings
- no deities; religions based around them exist, but the actual deities do not
- Garund ethnicities are not spread all over Avistan
- dwarf history of firearm development (created cannons, for example)
- advanced firearms available
- Nex and Geb do not exist, Alkenstar expanded
Depending on the campaign I want, further changes are made. At times I've...
- completely removed Garund, Qadira, Absalom, Belkezen, Varisia, and Andoran
- no orcs
- removed Garund ethnicities
- added industrial tech (steam locomotives, all firearms advanced, etc.)
- Varisian ethnicity rare, Chelaxian/Ulfen/Kellid more widespread
- more fog
Numerian super-science requires stuff found in the Starmount to function (silverly liquid, seeping from the wreckage) and so it isn't often seen outside of Numeria.
Set, I like almost all of your changes but I especially like this one. If I get to using Golarion more in my campaigns I'll adopt this one.
I will also say that Alkenstar does not exist in my version of Golarion. The Mana Wastes are there but there are no civilizations to be found in or around it and no advanced forms of weaponry in the world at all.
Ulfen are dwarves. All of them. They drink a lot of mead and sing The Immigrant Song.
^This, I can't believe it, but this is dead on exactly what my Ulfen looks like.
a metric ton of things don't exist here anymore
... do you actually want to play in Golarion?
That said, I didn't think the Garund ethnicities were "spread all over Avistan"... I was pretty sure they weren't much of anywhere other than Garund, actually. But I do find your campaign traits filled interesting ideas. Also, I like the fog.
Halflings are more hobbity, gnomes are gnomes and not anime characters. I love Set's idea of Ulfen as dwarves, fantastic idea.
No firearms, no tengus, planetouched extremely rare (Tieflings in Cheliax etc), no samurai, no ninjas.
Also, I'm forced to alter names of NPCs/towns on a regular basis, because too often they sound like a profanity (or some other silly word) in my language. Not that I mind profanities, but try roeplaying a serious encounter with a guy named Pillow. Or Doctor Beard in Carrion Crown. There's also a little girl called Penis.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Hmm a bit of 3PP Background changes.
Numerian ship is Tauri/Ancient level tech. (allowing Matthew to use his Stargate books)
Azlanti practiced a lot of different magic (chaostech, binding, psionics etc.)
Some Azlanti escaped to Castrovel, became first elans.
Osiron is heavily influenced by Hamunaptra. The royal houses are celestial touched, with much in(ter)breeding*
Taldor is much more fractured, some trying to stave off the decay in their homelands, some encouraging it.
Andoran aren't the good guys.
Elves are getting inpatient that these upstart races won't die off already, and some are advocating they need a push.
*
Numerian ship is Tauri/Ancient level tech. (allowing Matthew to use his Stargate books)
Can you give me some more info on this? I am a huge stargate fan i would like very much to see how one has incorporated them in Golarion. (use spoilers so that we don't derail this discussion).
After the upcoming RotRL AP i am going to run i will do the following changes:
1) No guns. (which means no gunslingers, holy guns etc.)
2) No ninjas. (although i might allow ninja tricks as rogue talents)
3) No samurais.
4) No eastern armors.
5) Almost none eastern weapons.
6) No Alkenstar (the mana wastes are just... wastes)
7) More dragon presence.
8) Try to put dragon riders in Golarion.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Numerian ship is Tauri/Ancient level tech. (allowing Matthew to use his Stargate books)
Can you give me some more info on this? I am a huge stargate fan i would like very much to see how one has incorporated them in Golarion. (use spoilers so that we don't derail this discussion).
here is a link with some of my ramblings.
Using this model, Aroden ascended. The 'test of the starstone' is a path to ascention (Irori achieved his own ascention, and these ascended ancients are more like the Ori than the Milkey Way Ancients.) Whether the other deities are also ascended beings like the ancients or were already there I've not touched on.
Key several thousand years later, and a ship (Asgard, Human, Go'uld, what have you) gets knocked off course and slams into Numeria...
Just fudge a bit and they have robots as well, and voila.
Aside: There are Seven Runes of Sin, and 7 Chevrons for a normal gate, 8 Chevrons for a long distance call. Maybe the 7 runes are a gate address?
If you can find AEG's Stargate RPG get it. It's a d20, spycraft light, system that can be ported fairly easily.
Incorporating my players' actions and achievements:
Korvosa is ruled by a high priest of Zon-Kuthon and his Queen in the aftermath of the CotCT AP.
Certain grave threats have been quietly removed (other APs I have not or will not run for my current crop of players): RotRL, 2D, LoF, Serpent, probably JR.
SOME 5-10 years ahead of current timeline of canon material Avistan War 1 might begin. Maybe even as long as 15 years, not sure yet.
Sorry about that since posters have responded I cannot edit my mista
I have no idea if you did that on purpose or not, but you, sir, have made me so very happy. Also, I'd forgotten how hard it was to laugh silently (my baby is asleep near me).
(ALSO: I was totally just teasing you, you're fine - I make mistakes all the ti)
<pst: these two were totally on purpo>
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Ulfen are dwarves. All of them. (Although the Land of the Linnorm Kings also has some Kellid humans.) They drink a lot of mead and sing The Immigrant Song.
Not Mitch Benn?
(Now, of course, I'm imagining bands of dwarven merchants from the Land of the Linnorm Kings, settling in the major cities of the Inner Sea nations and building great azure and gold shops.)
They don't seem to work as well in areas of normal magic, as they do in the Mana Wastes... (So, when I want to use them, they'll be in the Mana Wastes area. Otherwise, they are more trouble than they're worth.)
One idea: Gunpowder isn't exactly known to be stable and safe. In areas of normal magic, it might simply be too prone to blowing up for no good reason.
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The (slim) majority population of Nirmathas are orcs comprising mostly CN/CG-leaning tribes, descended from tribes that crossed the mountains out of Belkzen during the reign of Kazavon. These people are a big motivator behind Nirmathas' fierce independence, which leads them to greater conflict with Molthrune, a land that promises their race security in exchange for freedom. These tribes are also entangled, for better or worse, with the fey courts of Nirmathas' forests, which are somehow larger on the inside than the outside due to First World shenanigans. The orcs get on well enough with their human countrymen, and this place provides ample opportunity for half-orcs to have backstories that aren't rooted in tragedy. They have a grudging mutual respect with Lastwall, though it took a while to get there.
Orcs are also +2 STR, +2 WIS, -2 INT, rather than +4 STR, -2 All Mental.
There's a large city-state located in a desert valley between Osirion, Thuvia, and the Mwangi Expanse that was built with some other folks on the forum.
Nantambu is now a small country in the Mwangi Expanse rather than just a city.
The Bekyar are not one monolithic ethnic group made of evil demon-worshipping slavers. The original culture is located in South Garund, where a sort of reverse-Worldwound rift led to a schism among their people: the original warrior/shamanistic culture and the demon cultists. The cultists were largely forced out of the homeland, after which they went north and have pretty much sullied the Bekyar name across the Inner Sea Region. Meanwhile the original culture is mostly tied up with containing that rift, losing many of their most able warriors as they fling themselves from the cliffs into the mists below to join an eternal battle at an unknown place, plane, and time in the hopes that it will keep it from spilling out into their world.
A lot of plug-ins of 3.x and earlier closed material here and there. Axis is lousy with moingos from Planescape for example. Illumians exist in Nex. Etc.
Osirion has bits of Hamunaptra plugged into it.
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I have no idea if you did that on purpose or not, but you, sir, have made me so very happy. Also, I'd forgotten how hard it was to laugh silently (my baby is asleep near me).(ALSO: I was totally just teasing you, you're fine - I make mistakes all the ti)
<pst: these two were totally on purpo>
No but I'm glad you got a laugh out of it because it was funny. Admitting to making a spelling mistake then make another one. Still one has to correct the post right away or it does not allow you to edit it.
Anyone add other elements from other settings into Golorian? I might add some material from Green Ronins Mythic vistas line.
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Anyone add other elements from other settings into Golorian? I might add some material from Green Ronins Mythic vistas line.
I plugged a lot of an already homebrew-adjusted Planescape cosmology into Golarion too...or rather the other way around I guees. It's not completely transparent though.
LoP in my games is something of an inscrutable guardian of existence. She may have charged ZK with that task, and he may be carrying that out in a particularly twisted fashion. (pain proves that you're alive/that you exist, and so forth. It's part of why he's one third of a loose divine conspiracy with Sarenrae and Gorum to take down Rovagug, Groetus, and daemonkind permanently. There's one "bad future" adventure I'd like to get to that shows what would happen in ZK gains the upper hand in the conspiracy, involving most of the gods(except Shelyn) reshaped in his image, a flayed Groetus hanging over the Boneyard, forever denied nothingness, and general badness on Golarion.
Also, daemons and yugoloths are different. Baernoloths are behind the Abbadon experiment.
No but I'm glad you got a laugh out of it because it was funny. Admitting to making a spelling mistake then make another one. Still one has to correct the post right away or it does not allow you to edit it.
Anyone add other elements from other settings into Golorian? I might add some material from Green Ronins Mythic vistas line.
Trust me, I understand completely. Man, I've wished I could edit things later! :)
Also, now that you mention it...
I've added Green Ronin's Psychics and 3.5's Psionics, True Naming, and Shadow Magic.
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Also, now that you mention it...
I've added Green Ronin's Psychics and 3.5's Psionics, True Naming, and Shadow Magic.
Ooh, Green Ronin's Psychics are pretty awesome. The power that lets one drain vitality from others makes for a fairly neat re-empowering tactic. The telekinetics are fun, but strain can be murder with no way to recover it...
I have no idea if you did that on purpose or not, but you, sir, have made me so very happy. Also, I'd forgotten how hard it was to laugh silently (my baby is asleep near me).(ALSO: I was totally just teasing you, you're fine - I make mistakes all the ti)
<pst: these two were totally on purpo>
No but I'm glad you got a laugh out of it because it was funny. Admitting to making a spelling mistake then make another one. Still one has to correct the post right away or it does not allow you to edit it.
Anyone add other elements from other settings into Golorian? I might add some material from Green Ronins Mythic vistas line.
I had intended gloomwrought to be the shadowfell equivalent of absalom, but it didn't feel big enough. It's likely to be magnimar or korvosa now.
Diamond lake from age of worms is a tiny village along the coast between sandpoint and magnimar (the free city).
I suspect it's going to change once more canonical material becomes available, but at this stage the red mantis don't exist (other than in a "dread pirate Roberts" kind of way). They're a mythical organization many disparate groups claim to be, but theres no actual global network.
Magic is much, much rarer than the sourcebooks would suggest.
Elves are nicer.
Human-kind lost Goblinblood Wars in Isger. New Hobgoblin-led empire covers all of what was formerly Isger, more than half of Druma, and small parts of Molthune and Andoran.
A race of short, hairy and evil humanoids called the Krylos have replaced the drow as my subterranean humanoids masterminds with ancient empires and ruins both above and below the ground. Their god-king, a demon lord is entombed alive by an Azlanti hero (not Aroden) in their capital city in the darklands.
A humanoid-wolf race of shapeshifters (can assume form of normal wolves or man/wolf hybrid form, no regular human form) lives in small packs/tribes across most of Avistan. Were previously heavily concentrated around Sarkoris. Many still fight the corruption that has enblighted their home. [I'm a big fan of old school Werewolf: the Apocalypse, what can I say;)]
Shackles goes a good ways off the map to the West, and has many many more islands. A lot of pirates there aren't part of the Free Captains, though they are still the strongest group by far. Also replaced the tengu in the region with the Hadozee from Stormwracked 3.5 book.
No guns, no Alkenstar.
Most of Galt is part of Taldor. The rest is part of the River Kingdoms.
I think thats about it so far.
I removed all guns and nations where there are guns.
I got rid of magic-dead areas.
Elves are native, still reverie and occasionally the wild ones have green hair and the high ones have blue hair.
I removed the crashed Eldar ship from Numeria.
Gnomes still have the World of Warcraft hair, but its not so prominent that every gnome is running around looking like my pink-ponytailed Battleground twink rogue.
I added the Keep on the Borderlands, The Isle of Dread and a bunch of other areas all sprinkled in various locations.
There are Displacer Beasts to be found.
I axed all the regional human languages. Common is Common.
Humans treat all weapons that have the name BASTARD SWORD in their title as a martial weapon.
Hobgoblins look like they did in D&D.
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Human-kind lost Goblinblood Wars in Isger. New Hobgoblin-led empire covers all of what was formerly Isger, more than half of Druma, and small parts of Molthune and Andoran.
A race of short, hairy and evil humanoids called the Krylos have replaced the drow as my subterranean humanoids masterminds with ancient empires and ruins both above and below the ground. Their god-king, a demon lord is entombed alive by an Azlanti hero (not Aroden) in their capital city in the darklands.
A humanoid-wolf race of shapeshifters (can assume form of normal wolves or man/wolf hybrid form, no regular human form) lives in small packs/tribes across most of Avistan. Were previously heavily concentrated around Sarkoris.
Shackles goes a good ways off the map to the West...
These four ideas, in particular, are pretty awesome.
The Shackles always struck me as an odd place for pirates. It's so darn far away from the shipping lanes of the Inner Sea, and the Arch of Aroden / Chelish blockade pretty much means that the only people who suffer from piracy are people trading with Sargava.
Sucks to be Sargava, I guess.
Jalmeray, on the other hand, would be a hawt location for a pirate stronghold, having such uninterrupted access to the biggest port of trade in the world, Absalom, and the shipping lanes of Cheliax, Qadira, Taldor, Andoran *and* Osirion (among others, like Thuvia, etc.).
The Shackles always struck me as an odd place for pirates. It's so darn far away from the shipping lanes of the Inner Sea, and the Arch of Aroden / Chelish blockade pretty much means that the only people who suffer from piracy are people trading with Sargava.Sucks to be Sargava, I guess.
I actually agree... except Sargava totally pays the pirates not to pirate them and instead to focus on Cheliax. And the pirates do exactly that. It's still no fun to be Sargava... but they don't actually suffer from rashes of piracy.
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I mostly stuck to the setting as described in the Pathfinder gazetteer and Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting, dismissing the updates of the Inner Sea Primer and following hardcover.
Dragons also stay as seen in Dragons Revised: they're all over Golarion and they are involved in its events.
Things that I added/subtracted/changed:
- Azlant magic includes forbidden lore (Chaositech) that taints the body and the soul.
- the Worldwound is a demon lord. Yup, the very rift in dimensions is a lovecraftian, metaphysical being from the Abyss.
- Guns stay in Alkenstar, samurai and ninjas stay in Tian-Xia, numerian super-science stays in Numeria. A lot less travelling and commercial efficiency.
- Andorans are as troublemakers as much as they're freedom-focused. Factions are on the verge of fracturing up the nation, revealing some of them to be puppets of hidden powers.
- Something "bad" is brewing up in the Keleshite Empire. No one knows what it is, but there are really bad omens about it.
- in the Crown of the World there's a surface city of Drow, which enjoy the arctic night and send raiding groups to pillage human border settlements and recover forbidden artifacts from ice-entombed lost ruins.
- beholders and illithids are very rare but exist; they're a relic of an age past (Azlant, Thassilon), and less murder-prone - they really would like to survive a little further. Usually they work as recluse, hidden sages which work strange magics, know forgotten lore and maybe require unusual tasks.
- I use the Mindshadows (Green Ronin) setting for Vudra inspiration and the Spiros Blaak barony (Green Ronin, again) is in the River Kingdoms.
- an ungodly lot of HR, from a number of 3.5 sources and some non 3.X ones.
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I plugged a lot of an already homebrew-adjusted Planescape cosmology into Golarion too...or rather the other way around I guees. It's not completely transparent though.
** spoiler omitted **
Only 5$ I might actually buy it later. Even if I don't like the product one cannot exactly complian as it's so cheap.
I'm digging the Hobgoblins in Isger and humans with bastard swords. We're just dipping our toes into Golarion, and as the GM I seem to be the only one with any interest. Bah.
I think firearms are fine. I rather like them for the high seas adventuring. Well, cannon, rather than small arms. I also like Galt where it is. If it's going to be squashed, let it happen in-game by a neighbouring army.
I like to see lower Avistan with a lot more conflict going on. With so little unchartered wilderness and "trouble zones" like the warfront in Lastwall I'll probably play up a 'cold war' between Andoran, Taldor and Cheliax, with plenty of high seas skirmishes.
I also want to see Dwarves and Elves having a more active role in global politics. (also the fact that they're neighbours and shunted off to a corner gives me a bit of pause). I can see the Dwarves having commited a great many troops to fight on the Lastwall front.
I'm otherwise a bit stuck for ideas. Has anyone else tried to make Golarion a bit more... 'active' for their campaign? After all, that's what it's there for.
In order to clarify some of my removals from my version of Golarion, I asked my primary 4 players what they didn't like about Golarion in general and what they would like most to see removed from the world. and this is what I got...
I removed all guns and nations where there are guns.
I got rid of magic-dead areas.
I LOVE guns. Were it up to me Golarion would be set at about the era of high piracy. Late 1700s Earth-ish. However, 3 of my 4 primary players, plus the 5th wheel player, all HATE guns. This was the first thing that got removed.
Elves are native, still reverie and occasionally the wild ones have green hair and the high ones have blue hair.
This is 50% my own doing because I personally loathe the sneaky forum-changing of elves, but also my sister plays almost exclusively elves, half-elves and gnomes. (see below) She likes the "Forgotten Realms" elves. Since we converted from the 3.5 days and bought the Elves of Golarion book, we still use it. I like to eke out whatever extra mileage I can get for stuff I've shelled out money for.
I removed the crashed Eldar ship from Numeria.
My son and I play WFB and WH40K. He thinks Sci-Fi and Fantasy works well in Star Wars, not so much in Golarion.
Gnomes still have the World of Warcraft hair, but its not so prominent that every gnome is running around looking like my pink-ponytailed Battleground twink rogue.
My sister again. Were it not for her, my gnomes would look like regular D&D gnomes. (although, admittedly, i am beginning to grow warm to Pathfinder gnomes)
The rest of it
Is all my own doing. ;)
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Were it up to me Golarion would be set at about the era of high piracy. Late 1700s Earth-ish. However, 3 of my 4 primary players, plus the 5th wheel player, all HATE guns. This was the first thing that got removed.
I think that something like that imo would sell. Too bad more oftwen than not when it comes to settings it feels like more of the same with very little variation. Aty least to me.
a metric ton of things don't exist here anymore... do you actually want to play in Golarion?
That said, I didn't think the Garund ethnicities were "spread all over Avistan"... I was pretty sure they weren't much of anywhere other than Garund, actually. But I do find your campaign traits filled interesting ideas. Also, I like the fog.
I like many of the countries as they stand, but so much of the world contains things that, while well-written, do not interest me at all. Anything resembling Africa, the Middle East, or South America instantly pushes me away. I also address the issue of occasional Middle Earth influences by killing it with fire.
As for the fog, that is entirely due to my simultaneous obsession with Victorian England, Ravenloft, Silent Hill, classic horror films, and rainy/overcast weather. I like spooky visuals even if the campaign isn't a horror one.
One idea: Gunpowder isn't exactly known to be stable and safe. In areas of normal magic, it might simply be too prone to blowing up for no good reason.They don't seem to work as well in areas of normal magic, as they do in the Mana Wastes... (So, when I want to use them, they'll be in the Mana Wastes area. Otherwise, they are more trouble than they're worth.)
...or blowing up for a very good reason- the Freeport setting brings up the point that carrying around a large quantity of gun powder is just a very bad idea where fire spells are a somewhat common occurrence.
Several folks have mentioned using Hamunaptra for Osirion- what is that?
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Several folks have mentioned using Hamunaptra for Osirion- what is that?
A boxed set from Green Ronin, available at the Paizo store for five bucks, that details a totally awesome Egyptian style fantasy setting, with some details that won't mesh perfectly with Golarion (such as each of the core fantasy races being tied to a particular Egyptian god), but is all kinds of inspiring for maps, story elements, hooks, etc.
It's a seven-course meal worth of 'fantasy Egyptian' flavor, with some fairly easy to convert mechanics, if you want to include, for instance, Lector Priests (cleric PrC that focuses on eventually mastering all of the domains of her god) or Anpur (noble LA+0 gnoll-like humanoids made in the image of Anubuis) or chariot-racing.
It's not quite as beefy as Nyambe, for an African-themed game, or Al-Qadim, for a Persian/Arabian Nights-style game, but it's the best Egyptian equivalent I've seen.
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I'm running Kingmaker so right now the Kingdom of Kyshahn has sprung up in the River Kingdoms.
Furthermore:
Pitax is a steam-punk citystate ruled by the megalomaniacal genius Irovetti "The King in Iron".
Dwarven women are very rare, and wear veils. Dwarven males seek treasure and glory in order to pay exorbitant dowries and earn the love of a beautiful dwarven female. There is also a fundamentalist faction of "Deep Dwarves" who were against the quest for sky, many dwarves respect them for their knowledge of ancient dwarven lore, but there is the danger the Deep Dwarves are holding dwarf culture back from its potential.
Alignments are not fixed for mortal races, while there are huge cultural traditions of evil in races like orcs and kobolds, it is possible to rehabilitate them with time. The problem is most don't WANT to be rehabilitated.
The Winter Council is basically Cerberus for Elves.
Thanks, Set. I've got Nyambe and of course love GR's Freeport material, but somehow missed Hamunaptra. Looks excellent. Green Ronin is def my 2nd favorite RPG company :). Thanks again.
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The most significant change is that Golarion is combined with a few other worlds, I won't say which ones. The countries on the map are arranged similar to Earth. Andoran is in Arcadia, Taldor is where is Cheliax, then going east first is Galt (still a province), then Cheliax, Varisia. North of Varisia is Ustalav, Brevoy and Zobeck, south of Varisia is Iblydos. And so on for other countries.
I also changed the pantheon, a few names and portfolios. The planes are incorporated into my old cosmology that includes the Great Wheel and the World Tree from before.
The changes to races, elves are fey and alien, there are no elves in jungles and outside of Avistan. Orcs are demons, Belkzen and the Worldwound are almost the same.
Aboleths did not destroy Azlant but Gozreh.
Numerian robots mostly don't have visible machinery, it's nanotechnology.
These four ideas, in particular, are pretty awesome.The Shackles always struck me as an odd place for pirates. It's so darn far away from the shipping lanes of the Inner Sea, and the Arch of Aroden / Chelish blockade pretty much means that the only people who suffer from piracy are people trading with Sargava.
Sucks to be Sargava, I guess.
Jalmeray, on the other hand, would be a hawt location for a pirate stronghold, having such uninterrupted access to the biggest port of trade in the world, Absalom, and the shipping lanes of Cheliax, Qadira, Taldor, Andoran *and* Osirion (among others, like Thuvia, etc.).
My krylos race came out of a dream I had around 15-17 years ago, and have always been present in my worlds as my evil mastermind humanoids. I pretty much just drop their whole culture and history into whatever world I'm currently playing in or building. One of my staples.
The hobgoblin empire covering old Isger and Druma is what I've been trying to get the most work done on, as it has a major affect on the regions economy and trade.
The expansion of the shackles was mainly to include a large archipelago of pirate inhabited islands from my last major homebrew world, and keep some old PC's and NPC's from their as viable enemies and patrons. I wanted it closer to the Inner Sea, since it was in a large land-locked sea originally, but didn't really feel like there was enough room there without major geography changes to the coastlines, or severe shrinkage of my islands.
I do like your idea of moving it around Jalmarey though, and may just do that, since they haven't come up in my games yet. Let them get to the Inner Sea through the 'back door' so to speak.
Here is what I have on my wulfen race so far
In Varisia, Ustalav, and other Varisian dominant regions, some bands of wandering Varisians, particularly amongst the Szcarni, occasionally treat and trade with wulfen packs. The travesty of the Worldwound has attracted nine different packs to the defense of the land. Six of these packs have actually joined the Mendevian Crusaders, while the other three fight the traditional wulfen way. At least two packs have come to the side of the demons, whether by choice or corruption is unknown to most.
In many of the more advanced regions, such as Cheliax, Druma, Galt, Razmiran, and Taldor, wulfen are viewed as dangerous monsters, no different from lycanthropes, ogres, or undead, and hunt parties issue forth as soon as signs of their presence is found.
In the wilder places, such as the River Kingdoms and Nirmathas, the wulfen are undisputed lords of the wilderness, and none who run into them there have any doubt as to that. They are almost unheard of on the Garundian continent to the south of the Inner Sea.
Wulfen are a crippled race in modern-day Avistan, due to the travesty of the Worldwound. Previously, most wulfen packs roamed in or around the area known to humans as Sarkoris. They rarely made contact with the savage humans who lived in the area, other than to occasionally hunt them. Nearly a hundred packs roamed the region when the Worldwound appeared. The wulfen, with their strong ties to the natural world, fought against the demonic intrusion hard, so hard in fact, that over half the tribes died in the first few weeks. The crusades swallowed many others in its righteous quest. Now less than a dozen packs remain in the area, the others all either fallen to the demonic swarms, or having abandoned the region for better hunting grounds. One of the reasons the wulfen fight so hard against the worldwound is that of the 32 sites the wulfen hold most sacred, 28 of them have been lost to and corrupted by the demonic incursion.
Six packs are allied with the Mendevian Crusaders, another three packs lead a more feral fight, shunning the humans. Corrupted wulfen exist as well, called the Black Howlers, they are led by a cabal of powerful sorcerers and witches who worship the abyssal entities around them. They can turn a captured wulfen in a vile ritual that instills them with abyssal taint, corrupting their mind, body, and spirit. They lucky ones die during the rite, the unlucky ones emerge with strange mutations, broken psyches, and thoroughly evil dispositions.
Young wulfen from other regions often join the Crusade, often being adopted by one of the local packs, though sometimes they remain as lone wulfen, living amongst the humans.
Wulfen held Thron and Curchanus both in high regard amongst the gods and spirits, but one is now as twisted as its master-son, and the other was slain by the demon-b@~$* Lamashtu. As the successors of Thron and Curchanus, many wulfen now hold Shelyn and Desna in similar regards, though rarely are any of them devout enough to receive spells. Amongst the packs who have joined the Mendevian Crusaders, the worship of Iomadea is taking hold, one pack in particular has devoted themselves to Iomedae, and many of its members are paladins or clerics. Nearly all wulfen believe that by howling at the moon, they keep Groetus, and thus the end of the world, at bay. An old legend of theirs states that when no wulfen are left to keep Groetus away, then he will descend upon the world and cause its final destruction.
Wulfen thrived in times before the rise of man, and even afterwards, in the remote reaches of Avistan. But as humans spread across the continent, and the wild places grew smaller and smaller, and the wulfen lost more and more of their spirit-sites, so did their population. Packs became smaller and many vanished altogether, along with the wilderness they lived in.
The most significant change is that Golarion is combined with a few other worlds, I won't say which ones. The countries on the map are arranged similar to Earth. Andoran is in Arcadia, Taldor is where is Cheliax, then going east first is Galt (still a province), then Cheliax, Varisia. North of Varisia is Ustalav, Brevoy and Zobeck, south of Varisia is Iblydos. And so on for other countries.
I also changed the pantheon, a few names and portfolios. The planes are incorporated into my old cosmology that includes the Great Wheel and the World Tree from before.
The changes to races, elves are fey and alien, there are no elves in jungles and outside of Avistan. Orcs are demons, Belkzen and the Worldwound are almost the same.
Aboleths did not destroy Azlant but Gozreh.
Numerian robots mostly don't have visible machinery, it's nanotechnology.
oh man oh man I like the sound of this.
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The changes to races, elves are fey and alien, there are no elves in jungles and outside of Avistan. Orcs are demons, Belkzen and the Worldwound are almost the same.
Orcs as demon-tainted humans is a neat touch.
Aboleths did not destroy Azlant but Gozreh.
Ooh, intriguing! Did s/he go all Poseidon and 'Release the Kraken!' upon them?
Numerian robots mostly don't have visible machinery, it's nanotechnology.
The notion that the silver-fluid sipping sorcerers of the technic league are slowly infecting themselves with this micro-machinery, and turning into half-man/half-machine, and having their original power-seeking goals subverted to an alien agenda, could be fun.
As long as one doesn't go too overtly 'Borg' with the idea, it could be creepy.
Orcs as demon-tainted humans is a neat touch.
Another change was that the Worldwound started in the First World, Tolkien-ish origins. Then it spread through the Darklands to the surface. I connected it to the fey legend from Monster Mythology by Sargent, the fall of Ladinion, when the dwarves were exiled.
Ooh, intriguing! Did s/he go all Poseidon and 'Release the Kraken!' upon them?
Typhon actually. First there was a war with Iblydos, with the titans-gods conflict in the background. Then followed internal wars in Azlant, betwen the technological factions (the Expansionists from Planescape) and the nature factions. Gozreh was just sea then, the titanic armor of Talos was damaged releasing the endless energy (lightning form). That energy started purging all the aberrations from the sea.
The notion that the silver-fluid sipping sorcerers of the technic league are slowly infecting themselves with this micro-machinery, and turning into half-man/half-machine, and having their original power-seeking goals subverted to an alien agenda, could be fun.
As long as one doesn't go too overtly 'Borg' with the idea, it could be creepy.
yea, only that the collective mind is shattered and fragmented, having all the known types of AI, influencing different groups within the League.
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Hmm, I'm glad that I'm not attending some of the home versions of Golarion presented here. No offense, but I really don't like large geopolitic changes as a whole. Not to mention far-reaching events in general.
See, they way we have played in Golarion and how it has so far been set has been very hands-off way. Sure, Karzoug is two slowly rotting halves after meeting a certain bickering adventuring party and Xin-Shalast is facing a slow conquest. Yeah, there's a young barbarian king of the Axe Clan carrying his near-fabled greatsword "Legacy" (a +1 domineering keen greatsword) to gather the Shoanti tribes for war, but that's a future eventuality in the same way that the spreading of Nidal is. It might happen, but we are not busy in any way and it, like other such epic happenings, will stay in stasis until we aren't busy with the adventure paths. In the same vein Varisia has been sprinkled with a smattering of NPCs(a couple of them level 16) from previous adventures where they we either PCs, their relations or possible replacement characters.
None of them really matter in the grand design of things...until we decide to move the world forward. This happens during APs for the most part. I think it's easier to get into character if far-away places stay distant and mythical. And static as well. Makes exploring them more interesting when we haven't brainstormed the heck out of the cool possibilies in each, but leave the AP writers the freedom to do that.
I admit it though, if we actually got to play more often and not just APs, things might change pretty quickly.
PS. Might have to make a character who doesn't use swords once in a while. Okay, the barbarian king isn't mine, but our groups have been curiously phallocentric as of late. Everyone has an important blade and some kind of warlike memento of glory or tragedy with them.