Venture-Captain, Germany–Hannover
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So with two factions saying goodbye soon, i feel like i would like to discuss something on my mind.
While a human fits in all factions, for others it´s more complicated.
Tieflings fit into Cheliax, could also be elsewhere due to different spawns.
Aasimars fit into Silver Crusade, maybe Andoran, but could be everywhere.
Halflings fit thematically everywhere but Chelix.
For half-elves it´s more difficult. Cheliax seems strange, but also lands far away from Kyonin.
And most difficult i find it for elves or dwarves and soon for Tengu too.
What do you think?
Might there be a demand for not so human centered factions? Is there a place for something like that in Golarion? And in the Society?
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The beauty of it is that ANY race can fit ANY where. You can be that teifling that wants to be a hero and joins silver crusade. You can be that aasimar that is corrupt and joins the cheliax. You create a story for why your character is where they are
My extremely choatic gnome joined sczarny and his story is that they are the only faction that would take him.
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There was an extremely similar thread on the topic last week.
Short answer: it's more likely that we'll see a further winnowing of the number of factions, rather than a new set of factions being added.
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Andoran is close to Kynonin and the elves generally approve of the Andoren way of life; Kyonin has a queen, but elven culture abhors slavery and places a great deal of importance on individual liberty. A somewhat less scrupulous elf would fit in well with the Sczarni; the Varisians have historically gotten along well with the elves, as well. An elven cleric of Desna would be a pretty natural fit for the Silver Crusade. Many elves don't care much about politics and are driven to experience all the world has to offer, so the Grand Lodge or even Osirion could be good fits as well. It would be an unusual elf who aligned himself with Cheliax, Taldor, or Qadira, but it could happen.
Dwarves tend to be loyal, determined, straightforward folk, so the Grand Lodge might be the most natural fit. Many dwarves would find the Silver Crusade attractive as well, since they tend to be morally upstanding folk. On the other hand, the dwarven tendency toward greed could motivate one to join the Qadira faction or even the Sczarni. Other dwarves are loyal subjects of Taldor and Osirion, so those factions are possibilities as well, while the lawful bent of the Chelaxian faction might appeal to dwarves who've turned their backs on Torag. A dwarf might even join the Andoren faction; dwarven society isn't particularly democratic, but slavery is the purview of Droskar and good dwarves believe that profit should always come from one's own hard work.
Tieflings, incidentally, may very well be *from* Cheliax, but they wouldn't necessarily fit into the faction very well, since they're looked down upon as subhuman walking embarassments in that country. Half-Elves and Half-Orcs are pretty much as flexible as humans are when it comes to where their loyalties lie, though again they may face some prejudice in places like Cheliax, Osirion, and Taldor.
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Hmmm. My Kitsune Sorcerer is actually in the Szcarni faction, since it is the closest one to how his build works. He is a Razmiran Priest with the Undead bloodline.
Gives him an odd outlook on life, but, so far, he has been more-or-less fine in playing with others.
Of course, he hasn't played with any Paladins or LG Silver Crusade Clerics, so far. And he has been the only healer in at least one party with his "slow but happy" stick. Fortunately, no one objected to having it used on them when the time came.
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Tieflings fit into Cheliax, could also be elsewhere due to different spawns.
I find this offensive! Although I AM a lady of Cheliax, I was pretty spurned when I was young and the main reason I was sent to boarding school in Kaer Maga. Only now has auntie helped me get back in the good graces of Cheliax.
I am also a great follower of the ideals of good, as hard as that is to believe. I even have a halo of inner calm to prove it!
Venture-Lieutenant, Finland—Tampere
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My tengu infiltrator ranger (who will multiclass swordmaster rogue and dip into inquisitor of Erastil) is in Osirion partly as a relic - he started life as the most inefficient of wizards, then promptly rerolled him as soon as I realized my idea for the character didn't work (he was supposed to adventure in hopes of stealing spells from other wizards' spellbooks). Currently, he's fluffed as obsessed with survival of the fittest and hunting, which also expands to treasure hunting, hence he felt Osirion was a good match.
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So with two factions saying goodbye soon, i feel like i would like to discuss something on my mind.
While a human fits in all factions, for others it´s more complicated.
Tieflings fit into Cheliax, could also be elsewhere due to different spawns.
Actually.. Tieflings aren't welcome in Cheliax. According to Blood of Fiends it's a sign of weakness to breed with devilkind.
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Actually.. Tieflings aren't welcome in Cheliax. According to Blood of Fiends it's a sign of weakness to breed with devilkind.So with two factions saying goodbye soon, i feel like i would like to discuss something on my mind.
While a human fits in all factions, for others it´s more complicated.
Tieflings fit into Cheliax, could also be elsewhere due to different spawns.
Tell that to the two Cheliax tieflings I played Blakros Matrimony with.
...(One of them was me, but he has a good reason for being in Cheliax! Slavery is a good reason, right?)
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This actually brings up one of my biggest complaints about Golarion in general, not just the Society. Why aren't there more race specific countries? Why are humans the only race with countries where they're the majority? Most fantasy worlds like this have mountain ranges full of dwarves, forests full of elves, etc, but there's very little of that in Golarion, which has always kinda bugged me.
As for my own PCs, the only one I ever put in a faction specifically because of race is my nagaji character, and even that took some thought. He's from Nagajor in Tian Xia, but he could have allied himself with any faction once arriving in the Inner Sea. Because of his expertise in dealing with devils, he offered to help Cheliax curb their devil problem, but gave up on that when he realized that Chelaxians don't consider the devils to be a problem. But because his main goal in life is to restore his honor so he can return to his homeland, he allied himself with the Lantern Lodge, in the hopes that tales of his deeds would reach the east more easily.
With the LL going away, I'm torn where to put him next, but he's very much concerned with honor and goodness, even if his reasons for becoming an adventurer were initially out of his control and maybe a little self centered. So he'll probably end up in Silver Crusade or Andoran, though Grand Lodge or Osirion aren't out of the question.
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- Elves are pretty much in Kyonin and Mordant Spire, with some in upper Varisia too (and don't forget about Sovyrian).
- Dwarves are in the Five Kings Mountains, Alkenstar, and other mountainous regions.
- Gnomes are in Cheliax, the Steaming Sea, and a few enclaves here and there (I don't think they've ever appeared in large numbers in any fantasy setting enough to warrant their own country).
- Halflings are most highly concentrated in Cheliax (as slaves) but when freed, Andoran and the Shackles are mentioned as places they congregate.
- Half-Orcs, like Half-Elves, don't really get their own countries, but the Orc nation of Belkzen is a good place to look.
- Nagaji and Tengu have their own nations in Tian Xia, and Kitsune are spread out across that region (as they were meant to be, I think).
Since most (if not all) players of fantasy RPGs are human, it's often easier to experience a fantasy world through the eyes of a human, which is why, IMHO, they're almost always the dominant race throughout the world(s).
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Plus, you have to consider the character of the different races in question. Humans (or at least some of them), as evidenced by what we've done in the real world, like to form governments that are defined by geography and draw all sorts of imaginary borders between states and nations and civilizations and cultures and the like. However, who's to say that other fantasy races would have the same idea?
Elves consider Kyonin their sacred homeland on Golarion, and they're interested in controlling places like Celwynvian and Nagisa and Sevenarches and the ruins of Azlant for similar arcane and/or religious reasons. Other than that, however, they seem pretty content to just roam around and/or dwell among members of other races and leave governance to those silly humans.
Dwarves are a highly urbanized culture and mostly live in centralized complexes hewn from the living rock or built from iron and stone, and so they naturally tend to form city-states rather than empires that encompass a lot of land on the surface.
Orcs prefer to capture wealth and resources rather than to hold and work land, so nations with borders and cities and the like are of limited interest to them. Plus, they mostly seem to be hunter-gatherers and possibly herders, so small, mobile communities are more practical to them than stationary nations.
Halflings don't normally seem to have much interest in forming hierarchical communities larger than a family or group of interrelated families, so like the elves they're more or less content to live under the rule of those silly humans with their endless treaties and bureaucracies and maps and the like.
Nonhuman races don't have less countries on the map than humans do because they're less important to the setting; they have less countries on the map because they're less interested in forming countries and drawing maps.
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Actually.. Tieflings aren't welcome in Cheliax. According to Blood of Fiends it's a sign of weakness to breed with devilkind.So with two factions saying goodbye soon, i feel like i would like to discuss something on my mind.
While a human fits in all factions, for others it´s more complicated.
Tieflings fit into Cheliax, could also be elsewhere due to different spawns.
Also, a Cheliax faction mission
I doubt that's significant enough to spoiler, but I figure it's better to be safe.
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There's also the fact that when they left all that territory vacant when they fled the planet prior to Earthfall, opportunists (which describes Human to a tee) moved in. In some cases the returning elves were able to get the newcomers removed, in others, not so much.
Yeah, and their 2,000-year-long war against an incredibly powerful unique demon probably doesn't help with that. Nor does their ongoing seige against the drow in Celwynvian. Beings that take more than a hundred years to reach maturity can't really afford to send a bunch of their young folk off to die in wars of conquest when they're fighting to maintain a precarious stalemate in their own back yard.