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Well I hope life stops throwing baseballs at you, or at least gives you a batting helmet or some softballs at the least :-)
Keep at it, and yup I even gifted a copy to a brother for Christmas:-)
I wish I had more, alas I'm not great in the format :-)
Man, two years already?
1) What are you most interested in from Occult Adventures? Shedding some light on the esoteric planes, perhaps? The promised occult rituals? Mindscapes? Psychic duels? Or perhaps some of the new classes?
2) What planes do you think are most likely to get some coverage in Occult Realms? And, conversely, which planes would you like to see the most getting covered in Occult Realms?
3) Of the classes from Occult Adventures, from what you know of them, which are you most interested in?
These are very difficult questions for me to answer, given that I've already read the book. :)
Based on what has been mentioned already, teased, or previewed: yeah the esoteric planes, clearly. Any look at or expansion upon the planes is going to make me like a kid on Christmas morning wanting to unwrap presents. That's my thing, be it writing that content or enjoying and appreciating planar material that other folks write.
Just want to thank you for creating the proteans and the daemons. Proteans and psychopomps are hands down my favorite outsider types and daemons are my fiends of choice.
Anyhow to the questions
1) Fey creatures are described as having a different sort of soul than normal mortals. Would daemons be more or less inclined to feed on fey?
2) How do most proteans react to other chaotic aligned outsiders such as azata, demons, or the servitors of gods like Callistra, Gorum or Besmara?
3) I believe there is a spell in the Horsemen of the Apocalypse that causes all the souls a daemon has ingested to start to haunt and harm the daemon? How does that work exactly? I was under the impression that being devoured completely destroyed the soul.
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Just want to thank you for creating the proteans and the daemons. Proteans and psychopomps are hands down my favorite outsider types and daemons are my fiends of choice.
The proteans are possibly my favorite thing that I've ever created, and I'm absolutely thrilled that other people have added their own awesome material on top of my mine. Sutter's expansion on their manner of speech (in the Gamemastery Guide and in 'Death's Heretic') is a beautiful thing, Schneider's voidworm is seriously inspired, and Thursty's new protean rocks.
1) Fey creatures are described as having a different sort of soul than normal mortals. Would daemons be more or less inclined to feed on fey?
Depends on the particular daemon I suspect. They as a collective race of fiends have different philosophical opinions on themselves, their goals and ultimate destiny should they achieve those goals, and the deeper reasoning behind why they do what they do. Many of them are just hungry, but some of them are connoisseurs, some of them approach it like academics or mystics, etc.
Would they devour fey? Absolutely.
Would they devour other outsiders that have/are souls? Absolutely.
Would they pay particular attention/fanaticism towards mortal souls? Good God yes.
They key thing to ask is are they only inclined to destroy -mortals- from the Material Plane or just anything that qualifies as mortal, or just anything with a soul derived from the same cycle as material plane mortals. The daemons ask themselves the same questions. At no point are they ever not ravenous.
2) How do most proteans react to other chaotic aligned outsiders such as azata, demons, or the servitors of gods like Callistra, Gorum or Besmara?
Proteans have a hatred for qlippoths and demons that rivals their hatred for Law. They view the Abyss as a perversion of the Maelstrom, and on some level as their own mistake. Depending on who you ask, several protean choruses were responsible for either creating or opening the way between the Maelstrom and the Abyss in the first place. Those same choruses are sometimes described as "mad" or "corrupt", but who really knows at this point what the particulars behind it all were (that of course is a major plot point in my current Pathfinder campaign).
As for azata the proteans might ignore them, might toy with them, might follow them around and make royal asses of themselves, or gleefully work alongside them if it strikes their whimsy to do so. You never can tell really. Case by case basis.
When dealing with particular gods' servitors, it depends on the deity. Nethys for instance is on very good terms with them. Others they might help, ignore, or seek to use for their own causes even as they help them. Case by case basis.
3) I believe there is a spell in the Horsemen of the Apocalypse that causes all the souls a daemon has ingested to start to haunt and harm the daemon? How does that work exactly? I was under the impression that being devoured completely destroyed the soul.
Destroyed for most purposes, but think of it like conservation of mass and conservation of energy. Things can be changed, even utterly radically changed, but not destroyed. A miracle for instance can still bring someone back (presumably by ripping out and recovering all of the tattered, repurposed soul fragments).
The spell IIRC pulls upon the daemon's own soul that was at one time a mortal soul. It makes them remember their own lives as a mortal. Faced by the abject existential horror of their own mortality versus the abomination they have become... it doesn't do anything good for them.
The spell (presumably derived from magic originally created by daemons themselves in their experiments on souls, including their own kind) might also takes all of those tattered digested soul fragments and pull upon them to haunt the daemon with mortal memories, invoking their own.
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YES!
Also, "dot".
Oh, really? Lucky you, I can't wait for my own copy. Have you read a copy of Occult Realms too? 'Cause if you haven't, you could still comment on (2)...and you could still say which class you like the most without giving any details.Just sayin'. ;)
Anyways...
1) Do you often buy third party material? Or are you more likely to write for it? If you do buy it, what are three of your favorite products that you didn't write for, off the cuff, and why do you like them?
2) What kind of supernatural weather do you envision existing in Abaddon? Thunderstorms with black lightning bolts that target living creatures, dealing half electricity and half negative energy damage, with a Fort save or taking a negative level, perhaps? Negative energy rain, Fort save for every round in it, ten failed saves equals a negative level? Or would that be too harsh, go for every minute?
3) Unicorn having its soul eaten by a daemon and instead of dying, gaining the half-fiend template and a soul-sucking aura, fun or lame?
I haven't looked at the various classes yet to say which I'd most enjoy. For various reasons my home game is on hiatus and the game I play in has been paused for two months or so due to the GM's wife having a baby and another player having back surgery. As such I haven't payed much attention to mechanical options for a while.
1)
Truth be told, I don't actually buy a lot of material. This is largely because I get contributor copies of things I contribute on, and I get a lot of free pdfs from more than one publisher. As such at least for Pathfinder, I tend to only buy hard copies of Bestiary books and core books that I might need to immediately reference at the table during combat. I write stuff for my home game and for publication usually with four or five pdfs open for reference, but at the table running a game I don't much care to have a tablet/phone/laptop versus a tangible paper book. Personal quirk there.
I'm much more likely to buy material for games that I haven't written for (and honestly my freelancing is so focused on Pathfinder/D&D/D20 stuff that I don't have the time to learn rules and material well enough to be comfortable writing for another game system. I own the entire print run of Eclipse Phase (I <3 EP), Shadowrun, oWoD, and nWoD. Pathfinder and D&D (2e and 3e) stuff collectively have a book case, SR and Eclipse Phase have half of a book case, and WoD/nWoD have one of their own.
Too many games that are awesome and not enough time to play them all, let alone know them enough to be able to write for them.
2) Thunderstorms with freezing rain/acid rain/hail made of water and frozen bile salts; sandstorms of ash and splintered bone, red and sticky snow made from blood, etc. Not a pleasant place. Though to be honest, the environmental hazards should IMO take a back seat to the native daemons hunting you down, the petitioners falling from the sky like burning and screaming falling stars, etc. I would actually avoid too much mixing of negative energy hazards into Abaddon as a whole, so as to avoid an unnecessary linking of daemons with undeath, or muddying the atmosphere of Abaddon with the Shadow Plane and Negative Energy plane.
That being said, daemons can/do/will muck around with negative and positive energy when it comes to tinkering with souls and soulstuff, especially meladaemons in service to Trelmarixian, and Charon when it comes to spreading undeath (as much of a paradox as that would seem in Charon's case).
Of course, if you gain the ire of a harbinger or God forbid, one of the Four themselves, they can and will manipulate the structure of the plane itself to go after you. Groundwater may swell with the waters of the Styx to poison and swallow you in Charon's domain, lightning storms may seek you out with bolts of black lightning in Apollyon's domain while leukodaemons cavort in the skies above, tornadoes of ash and razor-sharp obsidian may hunt you across Szuriel's domain, etc.
3) I'm down with that.
Bizarre exceptions to the rules are always fun to play with, especially when it comes to daemons experimenting on living creatures. In my home game, I have the daemonic trade-city of Awaiting-Consumption populated with mortal slaves literally awaiting consumpion (hence the city name) as well as an underclass known as The Hollow. These humans were born on Abaddon from this slave population of mortals, and uniformly they lack souls of their own (or they lack anything but the tattered fragments of one). Gaunt and perpetually starving, wracked with hunger pangs, they survive only be being in the proximity of actual daemons and siphoning off a tiny bit of soul energy when daemons devour a mortal soul.
* What Obediences would you give Yrsinius, The Speakers in the Depths, and the Godmind?
* Kytons: Are you a good person to ask things about them?
* I noticed you mentioned that you worked on some stuff for Tian Xia. What regions of Tian Xia did you work on?
Any obedience for Yrsinius would really depend on what his current status is. Dead? Alive? Alive but manipulated by the Chorus of Malignant Symmetry?
When Yrsinius was Horseman of Pestilence, I would say that some act of corruption or contamination. Placing a rotting piece of flesh into a water supply or bleeding yourself into a well or spring, or releasing a plague vector into a plague-free place (mosquitoes, rats, etc) including if you yourself carry some disease and simply move from place to place, wandering and sowing disease.
The Speakers of the Depths embody the myriad interpretations of absolute Chaos, both its creative and destructive aspects at once. The fact that the innumerable and potentially infinite keketar choruses each have their own unique manifestation of the Speakers' will as their own ethos (at least until it changes at random), means that there really isn't a single obedience for them. It's best then tailored to the individual and what aspect of Chaos they promote, or for mortal servitors, which protean chorus they revere as intermediaries, with that particular keketar cabal serving as saints to the Speakers' godhead.
The Godmind I would say it would vary in one of three ways, corresponding to the three axiomite factions who collectively merge to become/form the Godmind. Either writing down and solving a mathematical proof (it doesn't need to be one you haven't solved before mind you, just a display of that logic), building or repairing something tangible, or overcoming a thing of chaos (multiple interpretations of what that means of course).
Kytons are cool. Buy I've done virtually nothing with them outside of some very early descriptions of Zon-Kuthon's domain and their residency in the Shadow Plane. Wes Schneider is absolutely the person to ask about them :)
Yeah, I contributed to the Dragon Empires Gazetteer. I wrote the sections on Kwanlai and Zi Ha, and a number of the non-human racial writeups.
1)Are there mortal civilizations on all of the outer planes?
2)How do the outsiders of Heaven interact with the mortals that live on the plane of Heaven?
3)How much do you know of the Empyreal Lords?
1) Populations, yes. Civilizations, no. I see long-term habitation on any of the outer planes not necessarily being good for a mortal. Be it horrific of beatific, exposure to those environments before you're ready for them will radically alter your outlook on things afterwards. I suspect that to an extent, the planes themselves may alter their own appearance to better accommodate mortals; altering their perceptions and experiences and modulating the intensity of what they experience compared to an outsider.
You see some very clear signs of this in James Sutter's excellent novel 'The Redemption Engine'.
2) Warily I suspect, with those mortals simply not being capable of accessing much of the plane since they're not considered ready for it. Every interaction won't be by chance, and ideally they'll all function to mold and influence that mortal's moral/ethical/alignment towards Heaven's goals (though ultimately it being a case of free will on the mortal's part).
3) A good amount, but I'm not the expert here. Between when I wrote 'The Great Beyond' and when 'Chronicle of the Righteous' came out, the concept of some of the good outsider races evolved and many new Empyreal lords came onto the scene (the name didn't yet exist when I wrote TGB). Some of the celestial paragons I came up with didn't feature in CotR at all (Melek Taus, most of the agathion specific ones, etc), while others were greatly expanded, and some really awesome new ones were created. That's how shared world writing works :)
I've never been super fascinated by celestials though, unless you're talking about celestials that used to be fiends or fiends that used to be celestials. I like edge cases. Most of my adoration for planar creatures resides with proteans, daemons, and axiomites (and jyoti and sceaduinar). Those are my favorites. Of course I'd never say no to writing on any sort of planar concept. But celestials are a weaker point in my repertoire.
Hi Mark,
Do you think the extra channeling damage from the sun domain would apply to haunts?
And thanks for the extra time during the Con to help explain Occult Adventures.
Hi Mark,
Do you think the extra channeling damage from the sun domain would apply to haunts?
And thanks for the extra time during the Con to help explain Occult Adventures.
Oops! Sorry, wrong forum.
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Hi Mark,
Do you think the extra channeling damage from the sun domain would apply to haunts?
And thanks for the extra time during the Con to help explain Occult Adventures.
I'm not Mark, but I can, just like an erodaemon, pretend to be him and give you the answers that you want to hear, only to have him then provide different answers potentially and cause delicious, delicious misery! Mwahahaha!
*dances like an erodaemon, complete with wriggling, Wisdom draining snake-headed tail*
Yes, the extra channeling damage from the sun domain applies to haunts.
And you're welcome for the extra time during the Con!
;)
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1)How do you think axiomites, Inevitables, Archons and Devils interact
with each other?
Archons and Devils interact with polite, cool distance. They agree on Law but not on their uses of it. A very good exploration of this can be found in James Sutter's novel 'The Redemption Engine'.
Axiomites are the creators and masters of the inevitables, though it isn't always so clear cut of a servile situation. In my own campaigns I have multiple additional types of axiomite and more structure in their society than has been explored in Pathfinder - with the higher ranking axiomites becoming more and more alien in nature, more divorced from their original status as exalted LN petitioners closely sticking to their original mortal forms.
Axiomites will happily work with both Archons and Devils and/or use them as tools.
Shared goals -and more often than not, shared enemies- are what binds the various lawful outsiders into a cool, sometimes uneasy, but always polite if possible fellowship of sorts. They don't always trust each other, not at all, but they aren't demons (or proteans or azata).
2)How do you think Angels, Azata, Archons and Agathions interact
with each other?
They're much happier bedfellows than the LG/LN/LE split. Archons and Azata tend to view each other as stupid, wayward, embarrassing family members, but still as family members with their hearts usually but not always in the right place. Everyone tends to get along with agathions. Angels are a different, more complicated matter, since they're not exclusively one alignment, and they often act as servitors of specific gods.
You won't see any of the celestials going to war with each other. Not at the current moment in the cosmos anyways. But the Law/Chaos divide is still there, and to be sure, you've got devils whispering in archons' ears and proteans whispering to azata (and everyone else).
3)How do you think Devils, Daemons, Demons and Kytons interact
with each other?
Daemons will work with anyone so long as it furthers their own goals of the eventual obliteration of all mortal life.
Demons don't really get along with anyone, including themselves. The daemons probably at times regret creating them (but then go right back to experimenting with souls regardless of the potential to screw themselves over in that same way once again).
Devils are deal makers and they'll try to use everyone else to their own advantage. Clearly they won't trust daemons (but they're well aware of the daemons' overriding obsession that can be used as leverage), they despise demons utterly, and they probably harbor resentment towards kytons (but will work with them towards shared goals).
Kytons are a different beast in a way, because while they may have originated in the Hells, they're now native to the Shadow Plane and as a result, don't have as much interaction with the other fiends. Kytons and daemons probably get along the least, because if daemons win and extinguish mortal life, kytons would not longer have vessels to torture towards whatever bladed gnosis they want to push everything towards (including themselves).
How do you think Iomedae, Erastil and Torag interact
with each other?
This is more a James or Wes question, and to be honest I haven't worked much with any of those three both in published content or in my own home campaign (writing up Erum-Hel with his/its connection to Iomedae is the closest I've come).
I suspect they interact with one another like adults in a room full of people they feel aren't as mature (Erastil and Torag) or haven't sucked it up amid all that life throws at you and pulled themselves up and become the adult they need to be (Iomedae).
1)Have you been watching MLP: FiM lately?
2)Have you seen Strange Magic? If so what did you think?
3)What movies have you seen lately?
4)What have you been working on for Paizo lately?
5)What are top 10 favorite 0HD races for Pathfinder?
6)Have you seen Frozen, Big Hero Six, or the two Equestria Girls movies? If so what did you think?
7)What video games have you played lately if any?
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1)Have you been watching MLP: FiM lately?
2)Have you seen Strange Magic? If so what did you think?
3)What movies have you seen lately?
4)What have you been working on for Paizo lately?
5)What are top 10 favorite 0HD races for Pathfinder?
6)Have you seen Frozen, Big Hero Six, or the two Equestria Girls movies? If so what did you think?
7)What video games have you played lately if any?
1) Yes. Don't judge me!
2) Never heard of it.
3) 'Human Centipede 3' last week, and 'Mad Max: Fury Road' the week prior.
4) Stock response: until a given product is announced -and additionally author or authors announced- I can't speak about it. This is neither an admission or working on anything or a denial of working on anything. :)
As always, if you'd like to see me do more stuff for Paizo, politely whisper in their ears or inboxes that you'd like to see more stuff by me. Sending them pizza or booze with your requests might also help! :D
The last thing that I worked on that I can talk about was several sections in 'Undead Unleashed'.
5) 1 - tiefling. 2 - aasimar. 3 - goblin. 4 - fetchling. 5 - sylph. 6 - undine. 7 - human. 8 - ifrit. 9 - oread. 10 - half-elf
6) All of them. Frozen was amusing. Big Hero 6 was remarkably good and something of a tear-jerker. The two EQG movies were most or less longer versions of normal episodes of the show, but the show is better IMO.
1)So you saw that recent episode of Discord at the grand galloping Gala? It's one of my favorites of the season 5.
2)Have you seen Gravity Falls? If so do what are your favorite episodes?
3)Have you seen ParaNorman or Box Trolls? If so what did you think?
4)Have you or will you see Tomorrow Land?
5)Do you play videogames? If so what kind?
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1)So you saw that recent episode of Discord at the grand galloping Gala? It's one of my favorites of the season 5.
2)Have you seen Gravity Falls? If so do what are your favorite episodes?
3)Have you seen ParaNorman or Box Trolls? If so what did you think?
4)Have you or will you see Tomorrow Land?
5)Do you play videogames? If so what kind?
1) Yes, it was amusing to no end.
2) No, completely unfamiliar with it.
3) Seen neither.
4) I'm generally dubious on movies made for seemingly no reason other than they're a commercial property owned by a large company (see Battleship. Pirates of the Caribbean being one that broke this rule by being actually good).
5) Currently playing Pillars of Eternity. Have Torment: Numenera on preorder. Finished Dragon Age: Inquisition earlier this year (have yet to play the expansion). Waiting for Starcraft 2's next expansion. Waiting for Mass Effect 4. PS: Torment is the greatest game of all time.
Are you going to play Witcher 3?
Have you played Witcher 1 and/or 2?
Do you, or have you, played any JRPGs?
Atelier(alchemist) series?
Final Fantasy?
Shin Megami series?
Phantasy Star series?
Breath of Fire series?
Are you going to play Witcher 3?
Have you played Witcher 1 and/or 2?
I've not played any of them. I'm only vaguely aware that they exist.
Do you, or have you, played any JRPGs?
Atelier(alchemist) series?
Final Fantasy?
Shin Megami series?
Phantasy Star series?
Breath of Fire series?
Disgaea. Disgaea 2. Disgaea 3. Disgaea 4. Disgaea D2. All of them are awesome.
I've played only the original Final Fantasy for the NES.
I've played Breath of Fire 1-3.
1)I love Disgaea, will you be playing Disgaea 5 anytime soon?
2)Wich is your favorite Breath of Fire game?
3)Have you played any of the Persona games?
4)Have you seen Monsters vs Aliens, Mega Mind, and/or Mr. Peabody and Sherman?
5)Favorite NES Game? SNES? Sega Genesis?
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1)I love Disgaea, will you be playing Disgaea 5 anytime soon?
2)Wich is your favorite Breath of Fire game?
3)Have you played any of the Persona games?
4)Have you seen Monsters vs Aliens, Mega Mind, and/or Mr. Peabody and Sherman?
5)Favorite NES Game? SNES? Sega Genesis?
1) Probably not immediately, because I haven't yet gotten a PS4. I figure I'll get one eventually (even if only just to play Disgaea 5), but I'll probably wait for the price to drop a bit more.
2) Probably the first one (which is the only one I actually finished).
3) Never heard of them.
4) Never seen any of those.
5) NES: Legend of Zelda or Final Fantasy; SNES: Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past; Sega Genesis: I don't actually own any of the Sega platforms
Was this to hard of a question?Do you think this is a accurate description Angelic Physiology?
I'm just completely unfamiliar with the material there to make a comparison.
1)Do you think Archons are mean?
2)Do you think Iomedae was to harsh in the wrath of the righteous?
3)currently what are your top 10 favorite Empyreal Lords?
1) No, unless you're actively trying to do something they disapprove of. Even then their response might be seen as one of the following: stern, serious, parental, reproachful, or full of righteous fury all depending on what you are, what you're doing, and who you're doing it to.
2) Not necessarily, no.
3) In no particular order:
Arshea
Black Butterfly
Chucaro
Lady Taramyth
Kelinahat
Melek Taus
Sinashakti
Kelumarion
Pulura
Ragathiel
What is Lady Taramyth and Kelumarion and Melek Taus like?3) In no particular order:
Arshea
Black Butterfly
Chucaro
Lady Taramyth
Kelinahat
Melek Taus
Sinashakti
Kelumarion
Pulura
Ragathiel
Lady Taramyth is essentially a vulpinal risen to Empyreal Lord status. Super keen on evocation magic, and with a demiplane of her own creation. Not a ton of information on her.
Kelumarion is a leonal risen to Empyreal Lord status, with some echoes of the 'King in the Mountain' motif, but implied to be more of a protector of the sleeping heroes waiting in the hinterlands of Nirvana for the time of their greatest need.
Melek Taus is a difficult one to answer, because her status as alive/dead/fallen/imprisoned is right up in the air as an open question. She's one of the archon Empyreal Lords who oversee the various layers of Heaven, and for as long as anyone can remember, she's been missing and her throne vacant (the plane hasn't seen fit to replace her, thus implying that she isn't simply dead, and thus her throne is waiting for her triumphant return or her redemption, whichever the case might be). Some find a parallel in her name 'The Peacock Angel' with the Thassilonian 'Peacock Spirit', but it's only speculation, and the alignment seems very, very off (though if she's fallen, that would settle that). The material I wrote on that conflation of the two is very much just rumors and legends, and might be completely off base as more about the Peacock Spirit is written. Melek Taus -whatever her fate- is no longer in possession of her original sword, which is now utterly corrupted and held like a badge of station by Szuriel the Horseman of War (and has been held by prior holders of her position who renamed the sword 'Lamentation of the Faithless').
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Hi Todd, I have posted before, I have been a longtime fan (Shemeshka lives!), some on your work back in the day with the baernaloths were downright spooky.
Will you please have a drink with me, Erik, Cosmo, Lou Agresta, Thurston and Tim Hitchcock at Gencon?
In my campaign, the rulers of each layer of the Nine Hells have remained unchanged since 1st Edition Ad & D which works out gratifying well because now it perfectly matches up in line with Golarion's Nine Hells (the exception is Barbatos who was added by Pathfinder, who just became one of the nine Dukes who holds the 1st layer on behalf of Asmodeous, and yet all pay lip service to Tiamat, again this is a throwback to 1st Edition).
As far as I recall the Archons who had stewardship of the Seven Heavens did not appear until very late 2nd Edition Ad & D, and thus don't have as long a history with the game.
Before Pathfinder, where did you base your own campaigns govenorship hierarchy of the Seven Heavens from, who were there Seven Saints of Mount Celestia?
Did you transplant these unique Archons into Pathfinder?
I am a fan of Anthraxus who remains the Oinodaemon in my campaign (he forced his predecessor to fuse with the plane), as well as Bubonix, the Master of the Tower Incarnate Pain and The General of Gehenna. And of course Mydianchlarus and forsaken Apomps.
How could I keep the power structure of the above intact and still reconcile the motivations and forces of The Four Horsemen?
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Hi Todd, I have posted before, I have been a longtime fan (Shemeshka lives!), some on your work back in the day with the baernaloths were downright spooky.
Thank you so much! I should be posting another update of that storyhour within the next week, and I'm working on another story in the baernaloth sequence as well. :)
Will you please have a drink with me, Erik,Cosmo, Lou Agresta, Thurston and Tim Hitchcock at Gencon?
I would be honored and I'd absolutely love to, however I'm having to cancel my attendance at GenCon this year at the last moment due to a death in the close family. I have every intention of being back next year (and possibly for PaizoCon), so hold that offer for me till then if you would. :)
As far as I recall the Archons who had stewardship of the Seven Heavens did not appear until very late 2nd Edition Ad & D, and thus don't have as long a history with the game.Before Pathfinder, where did you base your own campaigns govenorship hierarchy of the Seven Heavens from, who were there Seven Saints of Mount Celestia?
In my own two long-running Planescape campaigns I never did much with the archons of Mount Celestia. I was solidly fascinated with the lower planes, and when I did venture into the upper planes, I largely focused on Elysium as a bright mirror of the Waste. I never worked with any specific members of the Celestial Hebdomad.
Did you transplant these unique Archons into Pathfinder?
I named a number of unique archons in 'The Great Beyond', but the full structure of the hierarchy wasn't fully defined at that point, nor had the term empyreal lord been coined either. That developed over time bit by bit, and most recently had a lot of really awesome stuff written in 'The Chronicle of the Righteous' (including more details on some of those names I mentioned in TGB, some from Bestiary 1, and many cool new ones).
I am a fan of Anthraxus who remains the Oinodaemon in my campaign (he forced his predecessor to fuse with the plane), as well as Bubonix, the Master of the Tower Incarnate Pain and The General of Gehenna. And of course Mydianchlarus and forsaken Apomps.
How could I keep the power structure of the above intact and still reconcile the motivations and forces of The Four Horsemen?
Make a separate layer of Abaddon to house the 'loths, or a distinct and also NE plane for them, or place both 'loths and daemons into Abaddon in a two-tiered system of native fiends ('loths being distinctly -not- derived directly from mortal souls, and daemons the exact opposite). For the last option, they wouldn't come into conflict necessary because they have very different goals and the daemons' antipathy of all things mortal would absolve the 'loths of that hatred. It might be difficult to handle that much material and backstory into a cohesive whole, and tricky to utilize in-game, but it's doable.
While canonical Pathfinder doesn't strictly have the sort of NE creator ur-fiends that the baernaloths represented in Planescape/D&D, I've certainly hinted at the possibility in my home Pathfinder game (with the creature known as Tegresin the Laughing Fiend [from TGB and 'Classic Treasures Revisited' being very heavily hinted at being an imprisoned baernaloth essentially shipwrecked and stranded in Golarion's reality, and responsible for manipulating events and persons through history simply to watch the suffering that commenced).
The level of deep history that Planescape's baernaloths introduced and fostered is something I personally adore (whether it be the early history of Abaddon and what sort of things the Oinodaemon had to do as a mortal to be so horrific as to die and become what they became, or the prehistory of the proteans, things like that, etc)
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Kindly elaborate on how you would see the relationships between the unique daemons would work out between them the Four Horsemen.
The politics would be absolutely byzantine, and the 'loths would end up dominating the daemons like favored pets, leashed with a dangling carrot of a steady stream of mortal souls keeping them in line. IMO. The daemons are slaves to their own hunger, hatred for mortals, and perhaps the gnawing knowledge that they themselves come from mortal souls.
Perhaps the Four would realize the actual state of affairs? Perhaps Apollyon wouldn't care as long as the 'loths helped him sow disease. Perhaps Szuriel would only laugh with glee at the steady march of damned souls to her gates. Perhaps Trelmarixian's madness would leave him blind to how his arcanaloth keepers guided his research and actions. But perhaps Charon would fully understand the state of things when he gazed at the undying corpse of the chained and mutilated Oinodaemon and recognized the dozens of blades still piercing the vital points as knives of Gehennan obsidian driven there by the 'loths who smiled their jackal's smiles, made fawning obeisance, and promised Charon and his kindred power and independence, only to become their new masters.
Now I want to run a game with that premise. :D
Who is Kelinahat and what is he like?
She actually. She's in Chronicle of the Righteous.
I didn't have anything to do with her in particular or in CotR itself. You'd have to ask Amber Scott since she wrote the book. :)
How intense is the submission pool for this year's Pathfinder Chronicler?
At the moment not very heavy. Typically we don't have a ton of submissions until literally the last few days, and then it explodes at the deadline. People want to keep picking at and revising things right up until the deadline, wanting to make their work the best that they can. :)
I say this having sat on a submission to Wayfinder for nearly a month, with the intent to finally do final revisions on it this weekend and submit it. :)
What is the most recent things you have worked on from paizo?
I can't actually talk about the most recent thing(s) that I've worked on for Paizo, because they haven't come out yet and/or haven't had author names attached to them. :)
Previous to that, my most recent work was for 'Undead Unleashed', where I did three of the chapters therein.
It's been a fairly slow freelancing year for me.