If you dig around on the message boards, you will find other ideas for a Distant Worlds AP/campaign. Try the PF Campaign Setting General Discussion sub-forum and maybe the Distant Worlds product thread.
Book 4 of Reign of Winter takes place on Triaxus... so there's a start!
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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There's a strong and vocal group of supporters for Distant Worlds AP on the forum. We're burning candles and holding a vigil every Saturday. Our prayers will be answered someday.
We need fewer burning candles and more human sacrifice if we want to get the attention of the gods to whom the Paizo staff are beholden.
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Sometimes i wonder if a community advanture could be made.
I hope to post looking for ideas for a distant world campaign.
Probable survivros of the EOX weapon/ battle station blow up.
I'm not entirely sure how keen I would be to see a Distant Worlds AP, but if you do go ahead with the home-brew game, then the rocket should absolutely be built by a gnome!
Or if you set the game in Geb (or whichever region is ripped off ancient Eygypt, I forget), you could parody the whole Stargate concept instead of having them flying around the universe in a jury-rigged spaceship.
Once upon a time there was a game called "Spelljammer"........ ;D
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Once upon a time there was a game called "Spelljammer"........ ;D
And it was good
I have to admit I'm not really familiar with the Distant Worlds setting, but with all the discussion here about how to get your players into space it does sound a bit like re-inventing the wheel. At least as far as the technical aspects of the "ship" goes I think SpellJammer would fit the bill, and for adaptation to PF I know there was a preliminary "upgrade" of basic SJ to the 3.0/3.5 system in one of the later issues of Dragon magazine. If you can find a copy of that conversion to PF should be fairly simple.
In Distant Worlds, space travel is set up more through stargate like portals and technology-based space ships. It's less a fantasy take of space travel than one that draws it's tropes from classic science fiction/pulp
In Distant Worlds, space travel is set up more through stargate like portals and technology-based space ships. It's less a fantasy take of space travel than one that draws it's tropes from classic science fiction/pulp
Yup! Akiton is pretty much Mars ("Barsoom") in the style of Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars series.
Castrovel is pretty much the "Venus, Jungle Planet of the Amazons" from pulp fiction.
Unlike in Spelljammer, outer space in PFRPG is pretty much real-world outer space, with hazards like vacuum, extreme temperatures, and radiation. So, travel through space would require protection from these hazards-- whether that's by using interplanetary teleport, stepping through interplanetary Elf-Gates, riding a shantak, or techno-thaumaturgic spacecraft.
I may want to go digging but one idea I just got is the idea of space travel to a planet that doesn't have an elf gate in order to put an elf gate on said planet.
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I recommend tracking down copies of the old 2E Monstrous Arcana modules about the mind flayers, The Illithiad. The adventures were A Darkness Gathering, Masters of Eternal Night, and Dawn of the Overmind. The series is essentially a new Spelljammer with a mind flayer plot to black out the sun. It could easily be run as a Star Trek style exploration space opera with some very high stakes.
Also there was a Spelljammer adventure, Wildspace if I remember correctly, that was centered around a super scale dungeon for the party to explore in their ship.
I ran The Illithiad as the capstone for a 3.5 game a while back bridging levels 17-20 and it was pretty awesome. The original modules are listed for levels 7-10 which is just absurd given the scope of the series.
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Ah Wildspace. Thanks for the memories, Joshua.
Takes a "land based" party into the stars for an introduction to Spelljammer where the BBEG is a beholder "death star" trying to blow up their home planet. That's the super scale dungeon you're thinking of. Great stuff.
Oh and
Folks get excited at the cons all the time. I wonder when Zombie Sky and Clockwork Gnome will be releasing their space books?
I recommend tracking down copies of the old 2E Monstrous Arcana modules about the mind flayers, The Illithiad. The adventures were A Darkness Gathering, Masters of Eternal Night, and Dawn of the Overmind. The series is essentially a new Spelljammer with a mind flayer plot to black out the sun. It could easily be run as a Star Trek style exploration space opera with some very high stakes.
That series was my favorite adventure set of all times, thanks for bringing it up. The background book of the Illithiad was also fantastic!
I am seriously thinking of converting my copy of Slipstream(Savage Worlds game system) into Pathfinder for an Adventure Path. The series has it all including a major villain in the space opera/pulp style.
I did some spelljammer, but I hated the terminology and fluff.
My copy of It Came From The Stars! came today, good stuff. Starlit Sea... I am not sure how much I can say on that as I was a backer on that.
Just my opinion but Please God, No! If you're gonna do it don't force subscribers to sit through six months of it. Make it a module or something and gauge response. And this is from someone who's favorite caster is a Void Mage and favorite Cleric 'worships' the Old Ones.
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Um, Martial? They have tested the waters. First with a gazetteer in Second Darkness (book 3 IIRC), then with Distant Worlds (64 pg softcover), the Moonscrar (32 pg module) and Reign of Winter book 4. A lot of us really dig sword and planet fiction (including Eric Mona, Paizo's publisher). I'm not just hopeful, I'm confident a sword and planet AP will be published. It's just a matter of time.
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I would love a planet AP.
If I can last six months through a demon AP then you can last 6 through a planet one.
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Please.... distant worlds was just too good to abaondon.
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Still waiting to run a Distant Worlds campaign. Currently slowly building it up. :)
Personal dream DW system-wide AP:
Every planet is gettin' ready to align, even Apostae.
Start on Golarion at a population center that could reasonably have a wide range of potential Golarion characters
Vercite Aethership crash along with a forboding Dominion of the Black appearance, crash site is a known dangerous locale
PCs get there and rescue the injured Vercite captain and possibly some of her surviving crew (giving the players a larger number of regular NPCs to interact with) from both the local dangers of the site.
Aeathership captain reveals that they're on a mission of great importance and that there's some Macguffin further down in a previously-unknown-to-local-scholars portion of the site that they have to retrieve for the safety of the surrounding area, and that their crash was caused by a sort of defense system left behind by the Dominion. PCs save the day, Aethership captain offers them the adventure of a lifetime if they help her complete the mission she can't carry out alone, journeying to each world in the system and recovering/activating these artifacts to prevent some terrible disaster related to the Dominion.
Aethership is completely busted, leaving only a back-up vessel that's kind of crap, but it'll do.
As they go from planet to planet, more and more of the Dominion's corruptive influence shows itself almost in reaction to their collecting/activating of these MacGuffins which were actually left behind by the Osirion futurist Kahotep, Pharaoh of Tomorrow(from The Great Beyond, see the Nirvana entry) and his/her various incarnations allies across the worlds as a defense system against the Dominion. (one or more of the PCs will have the option of being a reincarnated aspect of that same Pharaoh).
They also potentially gain new crew members from some of the worlds they visit, building an ever more motley collection of people from all over the system.
They first travel to Akiton, get into all sorts of trouble, maybe some arena matchs, and have to secure a meeting with the Contemplatives of Ashok.
Then the captain inexplicably changes direction and steers the ship to Castrovel, where they have to help the local Lashunta defend a city against a possessed, sentient jungle before they'll allow them near their artifact.
Then onto Aballon, where they have to weave between battling robotic forces to reach their goal.
Then after hesitating as long as the captain can, they head to Verces, where she and her crew are immediately arrested and the PCs are placed in confinement, until a Steward manages to get them released (with distant supervision). There they find out that the captain was herself a Steward that went off the radar and stole her ship and crew to take on her mission despite her government's forbiddance after she came across some archives on Darkside. While some in the government believe that the information she discovered bears investigating, they fear that her mission would instigate all out war between Verces and the undead planet Eox, where their mission would eventually take them. The PCs either manage to convince the government to allow them to carry on with their mission after some subterfuge adventures in the streets of Verces or they manage to break their captain and crew out. Either way, they gain access to a new and larger ship.
At this point the PCs likely take the lead over the captain as far as inspiring and driving the crew and mission on. She's still driving, but now she's depending almost entirely on them to save the system.
Then they cut through the Diaspora, not just hunting for the next artifact but also gaining help from the locals and trying to find a way to safeguard their mission on Eox.
The Eox mission should be tense affair, not just because they're trying to pull off a lightning raid or a stealth mission without igniting a war or because they're on the most hostile planet they've been to yet, but because they may find the biggest presence of the Dominion's footprint on the system yet, and it becomes clear that the Dominion is aware of their efforts. It could even drive home that (some of) the bone sages of Eox are worried about the Dominion.
Then on to Triaxus, where a bit of high fantasy dragonrider action can be engaged before setting off back into the wild and crazy.
Bretheda takes them to a floating metroplis and/or ruin, where the local Brethedans need their help against a Dominion-corrupted legion of their own kind.
Apostae has them having to teleport blind into Apostae from its surface, and from there they have to manage to weave through or negotiate peace with warring and disparate bands of Ilee, not only to reach their artifact, but to gain a wildly and insanely genetically varied army to fight the Dominion(as the Dominion's tactics and corruptive influence seems to tend to depend on regular patterns of genetics, behavior, and culture. That could be a thing with the Dominion, they read and manipulate patterns, guiding life itself to fit their purpose. This could make the Ilee a wild card.)
Then Aucturn, Dominion-influence Central. Where Eox as tense and full of dread, Aucturn might be a place of absolute horror. The cost this place takes from the heroes should probably be terrible, but it should also make clear the depth of what's at stake for the PCs and every world in the system.
(maybe a quick stop by Numeria for some recovered equipment from the Silver Mount, which turns out to be a ship from another system that the Dominion has already dominated, could be good, pulling in some help from those who have fallen already to the Dominion)
Once every artifact is gathered or activated, the PCs, their crew, and any other allies they've managed to gather have one last place to go: The Sun. There, as the planets align, in an ancient city of crystal hanging within the burning fires of their home sun, they'll find the ancient remnants and/or remains of the beings born from the Sun and system before the coming of the Dominion. And the Dominion arrives as well.
All out war between the PCs, their allies, and the vanguard of the Dominion(along with their corrupted creations and the spawn of Aucturn) breaks out within the city, all the while with the PCs running towards the final artifact, one that can be used to either attack the heart of the Dominion and drive them out of the system, even if only for a time, or used by the Dominion itself to darken the very sun, and immediately remake the system in its own horrible image.
Probably with the ME influence toned down. The "allies across worlds" angle would remain a driving focus though.
Still waiting to run a Distant Worlds campaign. Currently slowly building it up. :)
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I am intrigued and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
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I am intrigued and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.Still waiting to run a Distant Worlds campaign. Currently slowly building it up. :)
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I can't really type too much more at the moment on this phone(that was a copy-paste job with some edits), but the H. R. Giger influenced Dominion thread stuff would definitely come into play. :)
I can't really type too much more at the moment on this phone(that was a copy-paste job with some edits), but the H. R. Giger influenced Dominion thread stuff would definitely come into play. :)I am intrigued and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.Still waiting to run a Distant Worlds campaign. Currently slowly building it up. :)
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I need to check back up on that thread...
I am intrigued and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.Still waiting to run a Distant Worlds campaign. Currently slowly building it up. :)
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Ditto
As would i.
Still waiting to run a Distant Worlds campaign. Currently slowly building it up. :)
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Wow. That is seriously impressive and thought-out.
Note to self: if ever need off-Golarion ideas, just ask Mikaze.
Come on third parties! Instead of making more bestiaries and using creatures from real mythology so Pathfinder doesn't use them anymore you should be making space AP"s and alien/realworld/robot bestiaries and modern technology-in-fantasy books!
That would be good money making for you third party compagnies.
Third Parties work your magic!
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Come on third parties! Instead of making more bestiaries and using creatures from real mythology so Pathfinder doesn't use them anymore
Wha...you're seriously saying that 3PPs are purposely ... doing something that's actually impossible, because mythological monsters are in public domain (not to mention OGL makes them open content anyway)?
Come on third parties! Instead of making more bestiaries and using creatures from real mythology so Pathfinder doesn't use them anymoreWha...you're seriously saying that 3PPs are purposely ... doing something that's actually impossible, because mythological monsters are in public domain (not to mention OGL makes them open content anyway)?
You know what I mean, mostly if monsters from real mythology end up in 3PP and paizo likes them they won't reprint them in their original material anymore, only use them in AP's, much like what happend to Kikimora.
I don't buy 33P marterial, there is enough to buy from Paizo itself already and money doesn't grow out of humans and trees.
So that's why I want 33P to focus more on Space, Robots and Modern Warfare AP's, Bestiaries and Books so that Paizo can continue with their Pirate, Demon, Snow and Pharaoh Ap's, and Ya'll have your Space AP's anyway.
Yes, but if it was for you guys EVERY material from Paizo will have lasers and robots in the future. :-D
And then there is this little problem that 33P don't feel like paizo material and their art is mostly black/white which I really don't like.
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Out of the material Paizo has put out since 2007, over 95% was traditional fantasy or thereabouts. The world won't end if that percentage becomes 90% with one AP and if you don't buy it. They've printed hundreds of mythological monsters (which you seem to be mostly after) and just a handful of science-fantasy ones.
Several 3PP bestiaries are absolutely outstanding, such as Midgard Bestiary or Tome of Horrors. Full color art is horribly expensive, but I'm sure that with Kickstarter funding more and more books will be done full color. Actually, Tome of Horrors 4 is coming in full color.