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What is the founder of Thassilon's alignment supposed to be? From the sounds of it he's supposed to be some kind of good but I wonder with...
Shattered star campaign it seems that they will be uniting the pieces of the shattered star which is said to bring him back to the world of Golarion how that is supposed to affect the story.
Creative Director
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Xin's alignment when he was alive and founded Thassilon was...
It didn't stay that way.
And what exactly will happen when...
Xin's alignment when he was alive and founded Thassilon was...
** spoiler omitted **.
It didn't stay that way.
And what exactly will happen when...
** spoiler omitted **
Interesting.
My initial take on Lassila was that she was LN....and i was more than a little peeved that she turned out to be LE.
Now that the idea has had time to gel....I'm dealing better.
I REALLY can't wait for this AP.....I feel like I have a full bladder and no where to go....
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Xin's alignment when he was alive and founded Thassilon was...
** spoiler omitted **.
It didn't stay that way.
And what exactly will happen when...
** spoiler omitted **
Interesting.
My initial take on Lassila was that she was LN....and i was more than a little peeved that she turned out to be LE.
Now that the idea has had time to gel....I'm dealing better.
I REALLY can't wait for this AP.....I feel like I have a full bladder and no where to go....
Lol know how you feel I'm really interested in finally getting an article on the other star metals as well as info on the grey maidens. I do hope though that when/if xin returns he's actually good. I would love to have a final encounter where you are summoning back this cosmic force of good to the world and the forces of evil are trying to stop you now that they know what you are doing or even have no one be sure and the game ends with the players left to decided whether it is right to bring this guy back and if he will actually be good or not. I'm always a fan of leaving the players on a cliffhanger question.
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Creative Director
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Note: While I did say that ...
That only makes sense. Maybe Xin was one of those strict law-and-order types who didn't give a ratfolk's tuchus whether law and order oppressed the peasants or not. Kinda like Hammurabi, I suppose.
Then why were there virtues in comparison to "evil" sins in Thassilon? Wealth, fertility, honest pride, abundance, eager striving, righteous anger, and well-deserved rest all sound like things a good-aligned person would strive for compared to their seven counterparts.
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Then why were there virtues in comparison to "evil" sins in Thassilon? Wealth, fertility, honest pride, abundance, eager striving, righteous anger, and well-deserved rest all sound like things a good-aligned person would strive for compared to their seven counterparts.
Well, and this is just my take on it, the seven virtues are referred to as "The Seven Virtues of Rule" so its not the same as the Heavenly virtues(Chastity, Temperance, Charity,Diligence,Patience, Kindness, and Humility) that are opposite the deadly sins . These are virtues in the meaning of a good quality of something so these are referring to the benefits of ruling not the moral standing of the ruler.
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Creative Director
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Yup; the "Seven Virtues of Rule" are actually an Azlanti construct, one that Thassilon took with it when it started, but one that got corrupted into sin.
Note that while the runelords were evil... their sins are not necessarily evil. Nor are they good. Nor are they ANY alignment. Same goes for the Virtues of Rule. They can certainly be personality traits that a good or evil character overindulges in... but they are not themselves intrinsically alignment based. Thassilonian magic does not require you to be evil to use it.
If anything, the virtues are more closely aligned to Law and the sins are more closely aligned to chaos... but even THEN they're not officially "LAW" or "CHAOS" in the same way that an inevitable or a protean is.
Furthermore... evil in a society is not always balanced or opposed by good, and vice versa. There are plenty of societies on Golarion where the dominant alignment is, say, evil, while the opposition (if indeed there is one) is, say, neutral.
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Just because an action has noble ends, does not mean that Xin did not have ulterior motives, or perhaps he simply felt that the cooperation between the tribes would create a powerful union.
What if he was making a power play, and the powers that be in Azlant said, "Uh-uh. You go now!" :p
The problem with that is he still tries to go through with it even after his exile. It's why he takes his followers with him and founds Xin, to prove that his beliefs were correct and not have to worry about the oversight of azlant or their involvement in his work.
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Creative Director
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But what about all that co operation that Xin wanted between the azlanti and the human tribes of the mainland that he wanted and got him kicked from azlant proper? That seems like a pretty noble and good thing to be striving for yet why is he LN?
Yeah... getting all those races to work together is indeed a noble end, but Xin wasn't really all that nice of a guy. Getting a bunch of diverse races to work together for a common goal is certainly LAWFUL, but when your'e doing it to make sure you have a more powerful nation than you would otherwise so you can enjoy the benefits (AKA the "virtues of rule") is not all that good. In other words, while Xin was not a racist, he was certainly a classist. And he took a lot of shortcuts that a good character wouldn't have taken, which, in some ways, is what started setting up his fall from power in that his flaws were what helped the runelords, who would eventually betray him, be evil instead of good.
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But what about all that co operation that Xin wanted between the azlanti and the human tribes of the mainland that he wanted and got him kicked from azlant proper? That seems like a pretty noble and good thing to be striving for yet why is he LN?Yeah... getting all those races to work together is indeed a noble end, but Xin wasn't really all that nice of a guy. Getting a bunch of diverse races to work together for a common goal is certainly LAWFUL, but when your'e doing it to make sure you have a more powerful nation than you would otherwise so you can enjoy the benefits (AKA the "virtues of rule") is not all that good. In other words, while Xin was not a racist, he was certainly a classist. And he took a lot of shortcuts that a good character wouldn't have taken, which, in some ways, is what started setting up his fall from power in that his flaws were what helped the runelords, who would eventually betray him, be evil instead of good.
Ahh now that makes a lot more sense. The way it has always come off to me from the readings is that he was seeking to create an interracial nation composed of azlanti and the natives of golarion in an effort to build a stronger nation which sounds to me like LG but I can see the LN if he just thought that they would be good enough to use as tools for his own ambitions besides just azlant.
Wow their really weren't a lot of good azlanti were there? James have you guys yet put out an published azlanti that is actually good especially from near the end of the fall?
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Creative Director
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There were certainly more evil Azlantis than good ones, but there were more neutral ones than good.
Aroden himself was lawful neutral, after all.
We've actually not published many Azlanti stats at all, but one that IMMEDIATELY comes to mind would be the hero Savith, who was the woman who beheaded the serpent folk deity Ydersius. We never statted her up (she died WELL over 10,000 years ago) but her legacy plays an enormous role in Serpent's Skull.
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There were certainly more evil Azlantis than good ones, but there were more neutral ones than good.
Aroden himself was lawful neutral, after all.
We've actually not published many Azlanti stats at all, but one that IMMEDIATELY comes to mind would be the hero Savith, who was the woman who beheaded the serpent folk deity Ydersius. We never statted her up (she died WELL over 10,000 years ago) but her legacy plays an enormous role in Serpent's Skull.
Are there any other ones closer to the end of their fall besides Savith? I knew about her from Serpent Skull but I was hoping their were at least a few more floating around in their history before it all went sideways.
From how I read JJ's post, Savith would not have to be good-aligned either.
The serpentfolk was an outstanding enemy to Azlant - ending that threat would make it a lawful act, but actually all three - good, neutral or evil - would fit to complete her alignment entry.
Ruyan.
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Creative Director
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Are there any other ones closer to the end of their fall besides Savith? I knew about her from Serpent Skull but I was hoping their were at least a few more floating around in their history before it all went sideways.There were certainly more evil Azlantis than good ones, but there were more neutral ones than good.
Aroden himself was lawful neutral, after all.
We've actually not published many Azlanti stats at all, but one that IMMEDIATELY comes to mind would be the hero Savith, who was the woman who beheaded the serpent folk deity Ydersius. We never statted her up (she died WELL over 10,000 years ago) but her legacy plays an enormous role in Serpent's Skull.
There probably is, but not that we've talked about. In fact, we've said really not a lot at all about Azlant. On purpose. We kind of want it to kind of remain mostly mysterious for now.
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Creative Director
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From how I read JJ's post, Savith would not have to be good-aligned either.
The serpentfolk was an outstanding enemy to Azlant - ending that threat would make it a lawful act, but actually all three - good, neutral or evil - would fit to complete her alignment entry.Ruyan.
She doesn't have to be good-aligned. But she was. Probably Chaotic Good. She was a relatively radical Azlanti.
My impression of the Azlanti, based on reading "fluff" alone: they were mostly neutral, leaning toward chaos.
My impression of the Azlanti, based on Aroden's alignment, and based on...
... is neutral leaning toward law.
Either way, I never really saw them as "good", but rather "human-centric", or, more specifically "Azlanti-human-centric". This would still put them very neatly at-odds with the more evil groups, considering that said evil groups generally also despise humanity, and are the "worse" of the two.
It's worth noting that several ancient Azlanti deities changed from ethically neutral or chaotic to become more ethically lawful, but seems to have occurred only after the fall of ancient Azlant.
Specifically: Shelyn went from chaotic good to neutral good. Dou-Bral went from chaotic good to lawful evil (then again, he's a bit of an outlier, having changed into Zon-Kuthon entirely, and it seems his change occured before the fall). Achaekek went from neutral evil to lawful evil. Although not Azlanti, somewhere on these boards, I vaguely recall reading that Erastil became more lawful over time. I don't know what Aroden's "original" alignment was (it may very well have been lawful neutral throughout), but he was a Thief as one of his aspects, so, you know, that indicates at least a slight lack of lawfulness in some regards.
Also, the Thassilonian empire was strongly lawful, at least from what I can see. You've got a lawful (neutral?) ruler, a lawful (evil?) primary goddess, and a lawful (neutrevil?) deity of indeterminate gender. I've never played Rise of the Runelords, so I don't know what Runelord of Greed's alignment (or name) is. All-in-all, though, it seems pretty lawful. Question: does Asmodeus have any ties to Thassilon?
Anyway. I'd probably suggest Azlant being more True Neutral (with a few evil-ish-sort-of tendencies), with Thassilon starting Lawful Neutral but quickly degenerating toward evil. But that's just a guess.
Looking forward to the Lissala artcile in Shattered Star!
And thanks for commenting on my take on Savith, James.
Ruyan.
Question: does Asmodeus have any ties to Thassilon?Nope. Lissala and Minderhal were the primary lawful evil deities worshiped in Thassilon.
Cool! And interesting. Lissala and Minderhal both sound Asmodeus-y to me, so that's why I was wondering (as in, just curious if he had ties to them and/or influence, or vice-verse).
Thanks!
Oh, as another note: Adabar was worshiped in Azlant, but even though he was lawful neutral (if I recall), he wasn't worshipped as a god of law. He was worshipped as a god of business and wealth. Also Azlanti worshiped a non-Desna moon goddess (or at least Savith did, according to the small temple in Serpent's Skull) and a chaotic evil demon-lord of the sun and war. This seems to indicate that Azlant was substantially tipped more in the favor of "chaos" (even though they apparently had a lawful[?] good goddess of love before Shelyn took over).
Does the rest of my breakdown about Azlant seem more or less correct, James?
EDIT: why do I keep putting two "p"s in "worshiped"?!
EDIT: why do I keep putting two "p"s in "worshiped"?!
Because doubling the end consonant when adding a suffix such as -ed or -ing is commonplace in English. Worship is one of the weird outlier "exceptions".
EDIT: why do I keep putting two "p"s in "worshiped"?!Because doubling the end consonant when adding a suffix such as -ed or -ing is commonplace in English. Worship is one of the weird outlier "exceptions".
Huh. I... really wasn't expecting an answer to that. Thanks! :D
No worries. Mostly noticed because it's something I do all the time. =) Firefox spellcheck, where would I be without you?
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Creative Director
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Oh, as another note: Adabar was worshiped in Azlant, but even though he was lawful neutral (if I recall), he wasn't worshipped as a god of law. He was worshipped as a god of business and wealth. Also Azlanti worshiped a non-Desna moon goddess (or at least Savith did, according to the small temple in Serpent's Skull) and a chaotic evil demon-lord of the sun and war. This seems to indicate that Azlant was substantially tipped more in the favor of "chaos" (even though they apparently had a lawful[?] good goddess of love before Shelyn took over).
Does the rest of my breakdown about Azlant seem more or less correct, James?
EDIT: why do I keep putting two "p"s in "worshiped"?!
The gods a society worships can certainly be an indicator of how that society functions... but in this case, not so much.
Just as in the Inner Sea and in Tian-Xia, there were probably 20 core deities of Azlant. We've not revealed them all yet. Furthermore, the gods of Saventh-Yhi are not the same as the gods of Azlant... there are differences.
Is there ever going to be an AP that takes place during these ancient times?
Thanks, James! That's... very interesting and good to know.
Also, I like you're reply. Very much!