| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Congrats Todd.
Though my hopes of an expanded Great Beyond hardcover just went down.
I've told Paizo that I would make time even in the absence of time to freelance on certain projects. No need to worry. That's the sort of thing I'd make time to work on if offered. Begging for such a book with me in on it on my behalf couldn't hurt. ;)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Just thought I'd ask a few (possibly silly) questions.
1.Aberrations or Outsiders?
2.favorite movies? (specifically Horror, Sci-Fi, and fantasy, but any other genres would be of interest)
3.Do you like Weird Fiction? if so, who would some of your favorite authors be?
4.currently, what is your favorite plane of existence in Pathfinder.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Just thought I'd ask a few (possibly silly) questions.
1.Aberrations or Outsiders?
2.favorite movies? (specifically Horror, Sci-Fi, and fantasy, but any other genres would be of interest)
3.Do you like Weird Fiction? if so, who would some of your favorite authors be?
4.currently, what is your favorite plane of existence in Pathfinder.
1. Outsiders.
2.The Goonies, Event Horizon, Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, Prometheus, Fight Club, Ghostbusters (original), Groundhog Day, Session 9, The Usual Suspects, Se7en, Exorcist: the beginning, Apt Pupil, The Hangover
3. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, China Mieville, MR James
4. The Maelstrom
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
We care nothing for faith. Your suffering is without meaning. We desire only the cold silence of the soul's obliteration.
I thought I'd take a swing at the quote from Trelmariaxian on this thread. Take it as an invocation of his power!
... I also have questions.
The main one being that in the Daemon's source book, it was noted that some of the harbingers worked specifically under certain horsemen. Can we have a list of who exactly works under whom, or will we have to assume things for ourselves, such as Cixyron working under Szuriel or Aesdurath working under Charon?
Also, what are their personalities like? I know that they're all nihilists of the "Nietzsche Wannabe" variation, but how does this impact how they interact with others? Are they the gloom-and-doom sort or can they express some sort of humor, however dark it may be?
Also, how would Cixyron react if he found the planet Terra and saw what kind of armaments they possessed? Would he upgrade his favored weapon from a musket to, say, a flamethrower? How would he react to the nations that create said weapons, namely the US and Russia?
Some of them I've already stated their allegiance, like Roqoloros under Apollyon, Aesdurath under Charon, and Vorasha under Trelmarixian, etc. Not wanting to potentially contradict either myself or another freelancer should the topic be revisited and those actually listed, I would leave it an open to your own interpretation. Harbingers tend to cluster around one of the Four which best fits their respective focus of death however (though some like Pavnuri for instance have flitted around and sold their allegiance to best fit their ambitions and aims).
I've mused about their actually being some pretty substantial fault-lines running through daemonic society (such as it is) regarding how they view themselves, their own nature, their drive to obliterate mortality, their origins, and their relationship to mortals (being that they actually derive from mortal souls). I like to think that a particular harbinger's personality is influenced by both their focus area of death (which is 99% of the time linked to how they died as a mortal), as well as their personality in life, and which of the various strains of daemonic philosophy they adhere to.
Obviously all of this is non-canon unless it appears in a published book, but I go with this in my home game with regards to the best race of fiends.
Those strains of daemonic philosophy in my mind transcend a given daemon's allegiance to one of the Four, and officially the Four make no proclamation as to the underlying truth of any of those lines of thought or their own adherence to one or the other. Without wall of texting (and more than I already am), the three philosophies are:
The Cursed - Existence is a curse placed upon daemonkind by those gods who created mortal life or by mortals by their very existence. When the last mortal soul is consumed and snuffed, the daemon races will undergo some manner of apotheosis denied to them by a jealous multiverse. Some daemons believe that by consuming mortal souls in unique manners, they can prematurely elevate themselves to this state, while others practice this art upon other outsiders. The way out is through.
The Deniers - These daemons actively deny their origin in the souls of evil mortals despite all evidence to the contrary. So thoroughly do they despise mortal life, they cannot accept that they themselves are or were originally created from it. Instead, they zealously claim that when a mortal soul is touched by the essence of the lower planes, specifically Abaddon, that soul is devoured completely and irrevocably, and in a sort of infernal transfiguration it is replaced with something from the plane itself. The mortal soul is merely the mold and the placeholder wax into which daemonic steel is poured. Vague mortal memories are only flaws remaining with no importance or indication of any deeper connection.
The Chosen - Daemons are the final and most perfect iteration of the fiendish races. They claim that as the youngest of the evil outsiders they are the last creations of an unknown, greater race of fiends or some other being or beings antithetical to the gods whose very existence is hidden from the face of creation. Their distant masters wait beyond reality’s fabric to reward them once the last mortal life is snuffed.
As for your last question about Cixyron... he'd act like a kid in a candy store. Genuinely a few brief moments of 'Hey! Yeah, you mortals! Stop running and just stand there. Hold on, let me light the pilot light on this flame thrower. *wooosh!* Holy crap that's awesome! You went up like worms in kerosene! I love this planet so much! I never want to leave this happy place! *tears up*'
Cixyron's favored weapon probably changes to fit the local technology level, probably to something at or just beyond the cutting edge of what a given culture or civilization possesses, just dangling something horrific and death dealing just at the border of their reach of conception and availability. The same is likely true to every single harbinger and Horseman, with their worship shifting to adapt the local customs of a planet and its mortals.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If you had to choose, what would your top three favorite outsider subtypes be?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Why are some daemon forms derived from the way a mortal died, while some (i.e. the Obcisidaemon and genocide) are derived from a mortal's actions in life? All other outsiders types seem to be based on the (de)merit and actions of a mortal, not what happened to him.
The Chosen - Daemons are the final and most perfect iteration of the fiendish races. They claim that as the youngest of the evil outsiders
But aren't they actually the oldest race of evil outsiders? Demons didn't exist until a Horseman taught the Abyss to convert larvae, and devils didn't exist until after the rebellion in heaven, which was over mortal free will so unless all evil mortal souls were just piling up in petitioner form that never progressed to outsider status it seems likely Daemons (or at least the Horsemen) proceeded the other main evil outsider races.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If you had to choose, what would your top three favorite outsider subtypes be?
Just Golarion: Proteans, Daemons, Demons.
Anything: Proteans, Daemons, Yugoloths.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Why are some daemon forms derived from the way a mortal died, while some (i.e. the Obcisidaemon and genocide) are derived from a mortal's actions in life? All other outsiders types seem to be based on the (de)merit and actions of a mortal, not what happened to him.
I figure it's never an absolute thing. If you engaged in the creation of starvation and famine in life but then happened to get drunk and fall down some stairs by accident, I figure that most likely the matter of your death won't be enough to override your actions taint on your soul and you'll probably still end up as a meladaemon (assuming that your soul survives long enough to land on the ground rather than being snatched and devoured by astradaemons on the whole screaming way down from the skies after being dumped into the plane by Pharasma's sorting process, and then assuming that your soul survives its duration of being one of The Hunted).
They're not devils, axiomites, or archons, so there's going to be more flux in what precisely happens than any sort of rigid system in place.
Being NE just gets you in the door to Abaddon (or puts you on the lunch table), and the type of particular actions in life, the intensity of those actions, your particular manner of death, and then any worship of a particular harbinger or Horseman in life all come together to determine what you become (or who gets to eat you while laughing at the bleak, horrific irony of it all).
The Chosen - Daemons are the final and most perfect iteration of the fiendish races. They claim that as the youngest of the evil outsidersBut aren't they actually the oldest race of evil outsiders? Demons didn't exist until a Horseman taught the Abyss to convert larvae, and devils didn't exist until after the rebellion in heaven, which was over mortal free will so unless all evil mortal souls were just piling up in petitioner form that never progressed to outsider status it seems likely Daemons (or at least the Horsemen) proceeded the other main evil outsider races.
Daemons aren't the oldest*. That 'youngest' there is 'youngest among the original natives of their respective plane (Qlippoth/Abyss, Daemons/Abaddon, Devils/Hell). I should have stated that more in depth.
Daemons required mortal life to first spark their existence, and even then it took quite some time for a critical threshold of NE larvae to form (and the catalyst of the Oinodaemon) for them to appear. Qlippoth and devils are older, but that's about all we can say.
I think James Jacobs has talked about this before, and I would absolutely defer to his judgement on the particular issue. There's not been a set in stone timeline for the outer planes. From my reading of it all however the order of outsider origination seems to be the following:
Proteans / Qlippoth (time ceases to have meaning in terms of before and after since they're from essentially two separate, pre-existant and infinite realities).
Their mutual attempts at genocide allowed the other planes to emerge out of the Maelstrom's infinite potential and primordial chaos, with the precise timeline for those other planes not being pinned down. At some point later the gods showed up on the scenes. Mortal life shows up later, and it's only once mortal life has spawned enough NE souls that have literally just been sitting around as a tide of soul-refuse that one of them -the soul from the mortal who would become the Oinodaemon- contained enough evil puissance of its own and fed upon those other NE souls around it that Abaddon formed as a distinct plane, spun off by the Oinodaemon's actions, power, and that tide of NE souls with nowhere to really go finally reaching a sort of cosmic inflection point and triggering a sort of metaphysical false vacuum collapse.
At some point later, after the Oinodaemon was overthrown/bound/eaten by the Four, working in the perpetual shadow of their fallen ruler/mother/godhead the Oinodaemon, one of the Four creates the first demon in their experiments on souls (possibly Lyutheria the Parasite Queen, possibly Trelmarixian while serving under her, this is my musing here and I don't recall what has been strictly stated in print versus draft form so pardon me if I go off the rails of canon here). The daemons dump the first demon into the Abyss either as a discarded and failed experiment or just to see what the hell happens when they do so (I like the idea of Trelmarixian doing the latter upon being ordered to discard of it by Lyutheria, but that's not canon), and the Abyss is never the same afterwards.
* Just to throw a wrench into things because my inner protean enjoys doing that sort of thing, if you wanted to run with The Chosen daemonic philosophy, here's something to consider from canon: the daemons virtually worship a book called 'The Withered Footsteps of the Dire Shepherd', while the soul-eating undead called Devourers occasionally speak and converse with entities they claim responsible for their transfiguration. One of those names/entities is 'The Dire Shepherd'. What that means and entails is a very, very open question.
But stepping outside of canon again, the whole theme behind 'The Chosen' was to tip the hat towards 2e Planescape's NE yugoloths and their primordial creator race the baernaloths who were the demonstrable original fiend race. But things in Pathfinder canon are different.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Original fiend race, yes. Though sort of dependent on what you call the ancient Baatorians...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Original fiend race, yes. Though sort of dependent on what you call the ancient Baatorians...
Depends on if you go with the strict 2e version where they predated the arrival of the Baatezu, with the baatezu being created from the purification of the yugoloths by the Heart of Darkness, or if you go with the 3.x version which had the same process resulting not in the tanar'ri and baatezu, but the obyriths and the ancient baatorians. Regardless though, it's still baernaloths -> yugoloths/gehreleths -> everything else on the lower planes.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
So I've started a GoFundMe to help pay my (and my other half's) way to PaizoCon this year (and it'll be my first time going to PaizoCon!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I asked James Jacobs this, but on an second thought, you are probably the right guy for this question:
I was reading about the Imentesh Protean, when the following passage came up:
Despite their sometimes loquacious and courtly manner, imenteshes’ entropic agenda is ever at the front of their minds, and this inherent madness is evident in the soft, telepathic susurrus that constantly surrounds them, threatening to warp the minds of the weak-willed.
So i thought "this is pretty cool, lets look at their sheet", only to see nothing about an aura or ability that messes with people's minds.
Intrigued, i researched the origin of the creature, and found it on Legacy of Fire 4 (which was 3.5), where they had the following description:
As this serpentine creature slithers forward, its body combining elements of snake, bird, and human, a visible shiver shudders through the fabric of reality. Its unblinking eyes reveal a patient and powerful intelligence, while from nowhere and everywhere at once resonates a susurrus of infectiously spreading whispers.(...)
However, their most marked trait is the subtle telepathic whisper that constantly surrounds them, reaching out to touch the minds of those they encounter, capable of confusing the weak-minded and even temporarily altering their alignments.
This is even cooler, but again, the 3.5 sheet had nothing about such ability.
What happened there? Is that a fluff that was discarded? Or an ability that was replaced by their warpwave ability?
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Now that there are rules for Mental Static Aura in the Occult Bestiary, that might be an appropriate thing to add to the Imentesh.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I asked James Jacobs this, but on an second thought, you are probably the right guy for this question:
I was reading about the Imentesh Protean, when the following passage came up:
Despite their sometimes loquacious and courtly manner, imenteshes’ entropic agenda is ever at the front of their minds, and this inherent madness is evident in the soft, telepathic susurrus that constantly surrounds them, threatening to warp the minds of the weak-willed.So i thought "this is pretty cool, lets look at their sheet", only to see nothing about an aura or ability that messes with people's minds.
Intrigued, i researched the origin of the creature, and found it on Legacy of Fire 4 (which was 3.5), where they had the following description:
As this serpentine creature slithers forward, its body combining elements of snake, bird, and human, a visible shiver shudders through the fabric of reality. Its unblinking eyes reveal a patient and powerful intelligence, while from nowhere and everywhere at once resonates a susurrus of infectiously spreading whispers.(...)
However, their most marked trait is the subtle telepathic whisper that constantly surrounds them, reaching out to touch the minds of those they encounter, capable of confusing the weak-minded and even temporarily altering their alignments.
This is even cooler, but again, the 3.5 sheet had nothing about such ability.
What happened there? Is that a fluff that was discarded? Or an ability that was replaced by their warpwave ability?
I think that this was a case of the original flavor text being retained, but an ability reflective of that being replaced at some point along the way. I've always played them as surrounded by that whispering aura that may or may not be talking to anyone specifically near them (and in fact it might keep talking to you in dozens of different voices, all at different volumes, all in different languages, all from different apparent points of origin including inside your own head).
I'd have to go dig up my original draft of the imentesh, but I do know that my original protean trio ended up being tweaked and reworked considerably by several others before we ended up with the final stats in Bestiary 2. I'm considerably happy with where they ended up, let me be very clear about that.
Without looking, I strongly suspect that the warpwave ability (which is amazing but takes up a lot of space) ended up replacing a few other things, including a bevy of SLAs and probably an aura that dovetailed on that fluff.
The imentesh are also one of my favorite monsters to use just in non-combat encounters with PCs. I had one of them show up in the Maelstrom borderlands and just fall in with them, badgering them about where they were going (while actively bending the landscape around them to keep them walking in circles), and then keep showing back up at odd points and insist that it wasn't them, but another imentesh altogether who'd been making an ass of themselves to the PCs.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Awesome, thanks. :D
TODD~!
How's it going?
Pretty awesome actually. I just got accepted into the top pharmacy program in the country, and I start later this year. Career change for me after a decade in biotech research. Lots of loan debt and four years of school and minimal income, but looking forward to it.
My freelance work is going to decrease or pause depending on how the workload at school ends up (but I do have unreleased things on the way). I'm toying with following fellow freelancer Clinton Boomer's path and starting a Patreon as a bit of a tip jar as I write stuff on my own time and interest for the next few years. Probably fiction and some monsters and some rules stuff. No idea if anyone would find me worth tossing in anything to help feed me and keep the lights running once my income goes into poverty level once I'm in school full time.
Glad things at going well!
Selfishly sorry you can't do both, but excited about the idea of an expanded Great Beyond...
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Todd what do you think a CR20 protean would look like? What do you think it would be able to do?
I'd say it would look like the Izfiitar that appears in Bestiary 6!
My apologies to not answering your question at the time (since at the time I'd already written up that critter but I couldn't comment on unreleased material).
:D
If Donald Trump went on a redemptive streak, what kind of Protean would be eventually become?
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
If Donald Trump went on a redemptive streak, what kind of Protean would be eventually become?
{mumbles grumpily:} You can't redeem a qlippoth into a protean.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
If Donald Trump went on a redemptive streak, what kind of Protean would be eventually become?
Tempting as it may be, unless the question involves any element of Federal science policy, I'm going to take a pass on any political questions. :)
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
So Todd, if manuals of the planes became a thing, would you want there to be planar kaiju? And if yes, what do you think a planar kaiju would be like?
I don't see why not, though I think that they make better sense on the Prime Material given their origins and the frequent nods to classic Toho monsters, etc.
But I can see a few unique creations lingering about on the planes. A kaiju created for the hell of it by a protean chorus. One drifting about the Astral as a guardian of the River of Souls having been placed there by a long-dead species seeking to keep their own peoples' spirits intact on their journey to Pharasma's judgement. Etc.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Hi Todd,
Long-time fan of all your planar work. I was curious if you have ever done design work on planar-themed spells for PF (or 3.5). If so, I'd love to see them ... and perhaps you could list your published work on said spells?
On a related note, if you were to create any new Pathfinder spells, what type would interest you? I'm guessing that spells with a Golarion-specific focus on summoning/binding/planar thematics would be in that mix?
Thanks and best wishes! I look forward to seeing more of your awesome work published soon!
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Hi Todd,
Long-time fan of all your planar work. I was curious if you have ever done design work on planar-themed spells for PF (or 3.5). If so, I'd love to see them ... and perhaps you could list your published work on said spells?
On a related note, if you were to create any new Pathfinder spells, what type would interest you? I'm guessing that spells with a Golarion-specific focus on summoning/binding/planar thematics would be in that mix?
Thanks and best wishes! I look forward to seeing more of your awesome work published soon!
I wrote all of Book of the Damned 3 (including the spells therein), and the spells for the tiefling and fetchling sections in the Advanced Race Guide.
While I've done a number of spells, writing new rules bits have never been my primary focus. They've always been more difficult for me to come up with stuff that's new and inventive, so I've never sought out that sort of work when assignments have been divvied out. Monsters on the other hand I have tons that I'd love to make (primarily more proteans, daemons, new types of axiomites, and more types of both sceaduinar and jyoti, just to name a few).
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Shameless bump
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Proteans are wonderful (and terrifying), forces of somewhat mad creation that bring forth all sorts of things, some beautiful, some dangerous, many both at the same time. They remind me of some interpretations of Brahma, of the Hindu gods, or the 'Wyld,' from White Wolf, beings of raw creation so caught up in their endless acts of creation that they don't always (or often...) pause to think whether or not any specific creation is going to 'play well' with what they've already created.
Daemons are dark, dark, dark, existing in a world where souls are quantifiable and immortal and recyclable and all that, and they just eat them and take them right out of the cycle. And, seemingly necessary, as the positive energy plane is just pumping out endless souls, and it seems like the outer planes would be choking on the excess if *something* wasn't trimming the fat... Again, somewhat similar to Shiva the Destroyer, or 'the Wyrm,' in that some sort of drain needs to exist under the spigot, or the world is going to flood (but instead of being a properly mindless or selective 'pruning' force, the daemons are malevolent and hateful and destroy whatever souls they can get their hands on, not just 'the ones that need culling').
Which of these babies with which you are associated is your favorite, proteans or daemons?
Would the Axiomites perhaps fit the middle of this paradigm, being the 'preservers' or 'architects' who measure and look at the big picture and try to figure out where individual creations can fit into the tapestry, and sort of nudging 'stuff that doesn't fit' to the destroyers, occupying a Vishnu/Weaver role?
(The comparison is sketchy, in that the proteans, all by themselves, seem to be both creators and un-creators, unraveling their own creations to make new creations, liberating whatever matter or energy they've temporarily bound up into their colorful creations. Perhaps the daemons don't really fit into this paradigm at all...)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
How do the outsider races other than the big nine rank for you? You've said before that your top three are proteans, daemons, and demons, I believe, so do any of the rest break into your top five? top ten? If so, which ones, and where do they rank?
(So, Asuras, Coatls, Fear Babies Sahkil, Axiomites, Oni, and so on.)
To what extent do these races feature in your campaigns?
Of all the fiendish demigods in the hardcover BotD, who is your favorite of each fiendish race?
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Proteans are wonderful (and terrifying), forces of somewhat mad creation that bring forth all sorts of things, some beautiful, some dangerous, many both at the same time. They remind me of some interpretations of Brahma, of the Hindu gods, or the 'Wyld,' from White Wolf, beings of raw creation so caught up in their endless acts of creation that they don't always (or often...) pause to think whether or not any specific creation is going to 'play well' with what they've already created.
Daemons are dark, dark, dark, existing in a world where souls are quantifiable and immortal and recyclable and all that, and they just eat them and take them right out of the cycle. And, seemingly necessary, as the positive energy plane is just pumping out endless souls, and it seems like the outer planes would be choking on the excess if *something* wasn't trimming the fat... Again, somewhat similar to Shiva the Destroyer, or 'the Wyrm,' in that some sort of drain needs to exist under the spigot, or the world is going to flood (but instead of being a properly mindless or selective 'pruning' force, the daemons are malevolent and hateful and destroy whatever souls they can get their hands on, not just 'the ones that need culling').
Which of these babies with which you are associated is your favorite, proteans or daemons?
Would the Axiomites perhaps fit the middle of this paradigm, being the 'preservers' or 'architects' who measure and look at the big picture and try to figure out where individual creations can fit into the tapestry, and sort of nudging 'stuff that doesn't fit' to the destroyers, occupying a Vishnu/Weaver role?
(The comparison is sketchy, in that the proteans, all by themselves, seem to be both creators and un-creators, unraveling their own creations to make new creations, liberating whatever matter or energy they've temporarily bound up into their colorful creations. Perhaps the daemons don't really fit into this paradigm at all...)
It's worth noting also that because souls are eventually absorbed by the various planes, and as those planes are eroded by the Maelstrom, that raw quintessence from souls is sent back to the Positive Energy Plane to be made into new souls and keep that cycle going. Daemons seem to be a breach in an otherwise closed system. They're an existential threat to all of the planes and potentially all of reality (with the Maelstrom and Abyss potentially being the exception since they seem to predate the existence of souls in the first place).
It's incredibly difficult for me to pick between the daemons and proteans as my favorite, but as I haven't gotten to write as much official material for the proteans (since the daemons got a whole book of their own), I'd have to say that my desire at the moment is to write a whole hell of a lot more about the chaos wyrms in all their myriad whimsy, showing every aspect of their Chaos, from rampant destruction to beautiful creation.
So it's possible that the proteans at the moment, are my favored children.
I'd love to do more with the axiomites, or at least see more done with them even if I'm not the one writing it. The way I viewed them when I made them was that they possess a driving desire to know everything. They want to neatly categorize reality, have everything organized and set in its proper place, but there's a problem. There's chaos in the universe. And what the axiomites can't understand (and I'd argue that they cannot -ever- understand a protean's manner of seeing and interacting with reality because the latter break the rules by their very nature) the axiomites try to control, and what they can't control, they destroy. There's a decent amount of allusion to the axiomites being incredibly expansionist and their focus being on the Maelstrom almost to the exclusion of anything else, so it'd be cool to see that duality played up to an extent at some point. Who knows! :)
Any sort of symmetry you see between two alignments might just be a local thing, because the Great Beyond isn't dominated by a CE vs LE conflict like in the Great Wheel. It's much more complex, with a lot of multi-polar conflicts going on, and a whole lot of allies of convenience and enemies of circumstance.
I do love me the proteans something fierce. <3
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Shameless bump
I think we've all had those days where we just wanted to jump on the Boards and talk gaming; I for one didn't even know about this Thread and am glad to have it.
.
Todd, can you discuss some differences, both specific & generic, tonal & thematic, between Sigil and Galisemni? Assuming Both extraplanar metropolises existed in the same cosmology (read: Intellectual Property), how would they coexist?
If you were to advise a DM who was using both cities in the same campaign and campaign cosmology, what differences in setting would you highlight or illustrate so the Players -- and DM -- could really tell the difference?
Thanks!
(I think Sigil would focus more on tangible Alignment vs Galisemni (and have Dabus) where Galisemni may not concern itself with citizen's Alignment.). What else could differentiate them in the same game?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
How do the outsider races other than the big nine rank for you? You've said before that your top three are proteans, daemons, and demons, I believe, so do any of the rest break into your top five? top ten? If so, which ones, and where do they rank?
(So, Asuras, Coatls,
Fear BabiesSahkil, Axiomites, Oni, and so on.)To what extent do these races feature in your campaigns?
Of all the fiendish demigods in the hardcover BotD, who is your favorite of each fiendish race?
Because I'm back in school, I don't have the time to run a campaign at the moment sadly, but my previous one was rather daemon and protean heavy. I did have some limited use of asuras and some axiomites in the background.
Of the races you listed, I really like the Fear Babies Sahkil, Axiomites (I made them so I'm biased there), and Asuras. The others I've actually never used.
Of the fiendish demigods my favorites:
Devils: Tie between Eiseth and Mammon
Demons: Tie between Nocticula and Jezelda
Daemons: Trelmarixian
Fear Babies Sahkil: Nameless
Asuras: Onamahu
Oni: Inma
Kyton: Vevelor
Qlippoth: Yamasoth
Rakshasa: Caera
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Shameless bumpI think we've all had those days where we just wanted to jump on the Boards and talk gaming; I for one didn't even know about this Thread and am glad to have it.
.
Todd, can you discuss some differences, both specific & generic, tonal & thematic, between Sigil and Galisemni? Assuming Both extraplanar metropolises existed in the same cosmology (read: Intellectual Property), how would they coexist?
If you were to advise a DM who was using both cities in the same campaign and campaign cosmology, what differences in setting would you highlight or illustrate so the Players -- and DM -- could really tell the difference?
Thanks!
(I think Sigil would focus more on tangible Alignment vs Galisemni (and have Dabus) where Galisemni may not concern itself with citizen's Alignment.). What else could differentiate them in the same game?
Galisemni the City of the Celestial and the Damned as presented in published, canonical Pathfinder material as of the moment is limited to a name on a map, a portal destination from the cauldron in Baga-Yaga's dancing hut, the location of Mara Ytrellian a Riftwarden, and a few other sporadic name drops I've worked in over the years.
I cannot guarantee that the Galisemni you played through in my one-shot game at PaizoCon will have any relation to what might or might not appear in print at some point in the future. Likewise I'm in a position of I really shouldn't talk about it in depth at this juncture.
Without going into detail, I'll point out the obvious: no dabus, no Lady of Pain clearly. In atmosphere though, Galisemn in the Maelstrom is going to have a subtle chaotic tone, though not an exclusive one, versus a much more balanced situation that you'd find in Sigil. Sigil seems to desire Balance, while Galisemni abhors stagnation. Make of that what you will.
I might or might not get back to you on this one. Since the city hasn't appeared in print I don't want to go crazy on detail (or really at all into it online). Bring the question back up here should that change in the future. :)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I did mean all the non-big nine races, eheh. I suppose it's only fair to list the rest if I want an answer, though. So the ones I neglected to fully list were... Demodands, Div, Garuda, Kami, Kyton, Peri, Psychopomps (if you count Aeons as the 'big nine' representative for TN), Manasaputra, Qlippoth, and Rakshasa.
Do you count night hags as fiends?
Do you think there's room for more than one race of CN outsiders in Golarion's cosmology or do you feel Protean fills all/any potential needs?
What have been some of Il'setsya Wyrmtouched's favorite and/or signature spells?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I did mean all the non-big nine races, eheh. I suppose it's only fair to list the rest if I want an answer, though. So the ones I neglected to fully list were... Demodands, Div, Garuda, Kami, Kyton, Peri, Psychopomps (if you count Aeons as the 'big nine' representative for TN), Manasaputra, Qlippoth, and Rakshasa.
I'll get back to you on this one later today or tomorrow.
Do you count night hags as fiends?
Do you think there's room for more than one race of CN outsiders in Golarion's cosmology or do you feel Protean fills all/any potential needs?
What have been some of Il'setsya Wyrmtouched's favorite and/or signature spells?
In Golarion where they're native to the Ethereal Plane rather than one of the evil, outer sphere planes, no I don't consider them fiends. They're horribly evil but they're not formed of the substance of metaphysical evil itself. However if future material on the Night Hags provides a more convincing rationale as to why they should be considered actual fiends I'm open to changing my opinion. [For what it's worth I'd consider the night hags from D&D to be fiends since they're native to the Gray Waste as evolved hordelings]
The Maelstrom is infinite, so yes, there's room for more than one race of CN outsiders (just as there's room for multiple TN outsiders for instance, psychopomps and aeons, who both occupy entirely different metaphysical niches within that alignment). Of course different types of proteans could fill most any niche I think, and the more myriad the proteans the better.
Looking at her character sheet from when I played her in RotRL, and based on what I remember using, her favorite spells were: magic missile, fireball (acid substituted usually), confusion, black tentacles, a custom spell called protoplasmic burst (fireball but acid substituted and if you failed the save you're stuck to the ground as if by a tanglefoot bag), baleful polymorph, disintegrate, energy hammer, prismatic ray, and maze. She was an arcanist so by the end of the game at level 17 she hadn't gotten level 9 spells.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
On the other side of the Maelstrom (or perhaps surrounded by it on all sides, with the tides of chaos always breaking against it's shores, attempting to re-absorb it), there's Axis.
Do you think Axis, as written, has potential to be a multiplanar 'nexus' city, like Sigil was, or is the dedication to law perhaps too limiting? (So that, while there might be devils and archons walking the streets or flying the skies, there won't be demons or azata, as much, making it less 'cosmopolitan' than a purely neutral planar city like Sigil could be?)
Axis, Shadow Absalom and the City of Brass seem to be the three largest 'planar metropoli' out there, as of yet, and while the City of Brass has been detailed by diverse other rules systems or iterations of d20, and Shadow Absalom is limited by being a literal 'shadow' of Absalom (which we've already had detailed), Axis is still kind of wide open for new and fresh ideas.
And now I want a plot in which someone goes into Shadow Absalom to the point at which it is co-terminus with the Starstone Cathedral and attempts to reach across the planes to the 'shadow of the Starstone' and become a shadow of a god... :>
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
On the other side of the Maelstrom (or perhaps surrounded by it on all sides, with the tides of chaos always breaking against it's shores, attempting to re-absorb it), there's Axis.
Do you think Axis, as written, has potential to be a multiplanar 'nexus' city, like Sigil was, or is the dedication to law perhaps too limiting? (So that, while there might be devils and archons walking the streets or flying the skies, there won't be demons or azata, as much, making it less 'cosmopolitan' than a purely neutral planar city like Sigil could be?)
Axis, Shadow Absalom and the City of Brass seem to be the three largest 'planar metropoli' out there, as of yet, and while the City of Brass has been detailed by diverse other rules systems or iterations of d20, and Shadow Absalom is limited by being a literal 'shadow' of Absalom (which we've already had detailed), Axis is still kind of wide open for new and fresh ideas.
And now I want a plot in which someone goes into Shadow Absalom to the point at which it is co-terminus with the Starstone Cathedral and attempts to reach across the planes to the 'shadow of the Starstone' and become a shadow of a god... :>
Axis could be, but its alignment certainly makes it less attractive to a good number of potential inhabitants, and the presence not only of the axiomite Godmind but the presence of Abadar, Milani, and Norgorber certainly limits the ambition of many beyond a certain point. Additionally it isn't a portal hub like Sigil was. I see Axis as highly cosmopolitan but without whoever the axiomites would label as the generically other'ized 'those people'.
Now I really truly want to write a 'Revelers' and Renegades' Guide To Axis' written by an imentesh protean. I've actually written some fanfiction about a devotee of the protean lord Ssila'meshnik drinking in a bar in Axis (the 'Clever Endeavor' from Sutter's novels). Said character is canonically a native of the Maelstrom's trade city Galisemni, though it hasn't been fully detailed in print at this stage.
One thing about Shadow Absalom is that the shadow reflection of the Starstone Cathedral exists, but the interior is a giant natural (unnatural?) portal that doesn't have a set destination, but rather it puts you back onto the plane and point therein where you first jumped to the Shadow Plane. So little room for wonking your way around the Starstone test. ;)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'll get back to you on this one later today or tomorrow.
In Golarion where they're native to the Ethereal Plane rather than one of the evil, outer sphere planes, no I don't consider them fiends. They're horribly evil but they're not formed of the substance of metaphysical evil itself. However if future material on the Night Hags provides a more convincing rationale as to why they should be considered actual fiends I'm open to changing my opinion. [For what it's worth I'd consider the night hags from D&D to be fiends since they're native to the Gray Waste as evolved hordelings]
The Maelstrom is infinite, so yes, there's room for more than one race of CN outsiders (just as there's room for multiple TN outsiders for instance, psychopomps and aeons, who both occupy entirely different metaphysical niches within that alignment). Of course different types of proteans could fill most any niche I think, and the more myriad the proteans the better.
Looking at her character sheet from when I played her in RotRL, and based on what I remember using, her favorite spells were: magic missile, fireball (acid substituted usually), confusion, black tentacles, a custom spell called protoplasmic burst (fireball but acid substituted and if you failed the save you're stuck to the ground as if by a tanglefoot bag), baleful polymorph, disintegrate, energy hammer, prismatic ray, and maze. She was an arcanist so by the end of the game at level 17 she hadn't gotten level 9 spells.
Thank you for the answers and the patience.
By your definition of fiends, then, do oni, rakshasa, and sahkil not qualify as fiends to your mind?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
By your definition of fiends, then, do oni, rakshasa, and sahkil not qualify as fiends to your mind?
Those qualify as fiends to me. They're [Evil] and they're formed from souls, even if they don't gravitate to one of the evil planes. Sahkil are a bit of an edge case since they're neutral outsiders fallen to evil rather than starting that way, but they still qualify as fiends in my opinion. Night hags' origins in Pathfinder have yet to be fully explored, and at this point it's unclear if they derive from the souls of material planar hags, if they create more of their kind from stolen mortal souls, if they breed in some capacity, if they birth spontaneously, or if they arise from a subclass of evil mortal souls. Unlike in prior editions where night hags originated as evolved NE hordelings (who were themselves evolved NE larval souls - compared to the NE yugoloths who predated mortal existence and thus emerged from the NE planes without need of mortal souls), Pathfinder night hags don't have a definitive origin in print to my knowledge, and so at this point I wouldn't call them fiends (though as evil as they are the difference might be purely academic).
Now to answer your earlier question in full:
Demodands - there aren't any unique demodand demigods, as they serve the thanatotic titans
Div - Ahriman is the only unique, demigod Div so he's it by default, but he's pretty damn cool
Garuda - To my knowledge they don't have any demigod level members
Kami - I know that Kami lords exist, but I don't know enough about them
Kyton - answered earlier
Peri - I don't know enough about them to say
Psychopomps - Ceyanon, purely because of their appearance in Sutter's Pathfinder Tales novels
Aeons - not enough information on them at present
Manasaputra - as of the moment there isn't enough detail on them to really pick a favorite unique member
Qlippoth - answered earlier
Rakshasa - answered earlier
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Ceyanon is awesome. :)
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Interestingly, Blood of the Coven actually touches on this...according to the book, most night hags come from the souls of powerful hags after their deaths, though sometimes night hags also perform terrible rituals on a pregnant non-outsider covenmate's child to create a changeling that can become a night hag after death if sufficiently evil in life.
Thank you! I generally pour over new campaign setting books (and search for keywords for specific topics) and keep a running list of references regarding certain topics that I'm more likely than not to end up writing about in the future as a freelancer. However I don't do this for player supplement books (and I haven't read many of the player supplement books actually, sadly), so this was a bit of flavor text that I missed.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Do you have any advice for freelance writers, both for those trying to get started and experts in the field?
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Do you have any advice for freelance writers, both for those trying to get started and experts in the field?
Create, create, create, create. It doesn't matter what you write, so long as you keep writing and keep practicing to better your skill. Keep putting stuff out there and eventually you'll get noticed. I actually got my foot in the door by writing Planescape fanfiction (which I'm still writing for fun mind you). I seriously cannot go more than a few days without writing fiction in some capacity, and so if you enjoy it that much and habitually practice it, you'll get better, you'll enjoy it, and you'll even get paid for it! :D
Also, you'll need to curate your online presence and reputation. I cannot stress this enough. This is a small industry and it's very easy for people to hold grudges or hold misconceptions, and the lack of tone in online speech doesn't help. So seriously, don't edition war, don't talk smack about products that you don't like, and above all else don't insult another writer because those things will haunt you and you will lose work because of it. I wish I could go back in time and delete every one of the massive amount of edition-warring flame-ridden posts I made during the early years of 4e, but yeah I'm stuck with having been an opinionated loudmouth acting out of deep adoration of a specific game and game style. People eventually forgive and forget, but it's best to keep yourself free of such things.
Additionally, don't talk politics in public, and I'd even go so far as to suggest that you don't even let it be known what your politics even are. Be known for your work and for being personable. You'll attract the wrong kind of attention from every possible side and there are people who will openly call for you to never get writing work if you hold the "wrong" opinions about political issues, so seriously just sidestep the issue in gaming venues if you can. You never know when you'll bump into someone with a diametrically opposed view on an issue and they take it personally and you lose work because of it. Best to just not let your own politics and your writing intersect IMO.
Todd: if you could eat donuts, how many would you eat and why?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Todd: if you could eat donuts, how many would you eat and why?
In no order of preference any of the following: Krispy Kreme plain glazed donuts, Dunkin Donuts chocolate cake donuts, and something called a 'Wimpy' made by a hole in the wall place in my hometown called Granny's Donuts (they've been around longer than I've been alive). The whimpy was a glazed donut filled with chocolate cream and topped with whipped cream, chocolate sprinkles, and a cherry.
That is... extraordinarily fair.
So Folca has been receiving some extremely negative attention, especially in regards to his fiendish obedience. Basically, it's incentivizing child abuse for a bonus to charisma checks and some SLAs that suggest unsavory use. The entire thread is pretty much on its head over whether Folca should be removed or not, and admittedly, while I wasn't too big on him before, I can't stand him now due to what he brings to the table.
I know I can simply avoid him, but right now, Folca is becoming a huge issue in the paizo community for a plethora of reasons. So... what's your take on this?
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
So Folca has been receiving some extremely negative attention, especially in regards to his fiendish obedience. Basically, it's incentivizing child abuse for a bonus to charisma checks and some SLAs that suggest unsavory use. The entire thread is pretty much on its head over whether Folca should be removed or not, and admittedly, while I wasn't too big on him before, I can't stand him now due to what he brings to the table.
I know I can simply avoid him, but right now, Folca is becoming a huge issue in the paizo community for a plethora of reasons. So... what's your take on this?
Here's my statement on the topic that I posted over on RPG.net and later on Enworld.
For the record, I wrote all of the daemon content in the hardcover 'Book of the Damned', including the write-up for Folca. While Folca originated in the original Book of the Damned 3 softcover, which I wrote, they were added in to the appendix of harbingers after I provided my turnover and I only actually created maybe a third of those, with the remainder and much of the abbreviated detail added during development. I don't know who on staff* made Folca, but as unsettling daemonic adversaries go, they're memorable and disturbing. While I didn't create Folca in the first place, I was assigned to provide them expanded detail and description in the hardcover BotD.
Folca is a horrific, hideous entity, and I tried to present it as such. I actually included a disclaimer in my turnover (the first time that I've ever done so) that amounted to 'This thing is supremely messed up and I'm honestly, genuinely uncomfortable having written the messed up flavor text of this supremely messed up creature, so if I've stepped over a line, please edit it down accordingly'. I tried to produce an unsettling abomination of a villain, shades of slenderman included in the appearance. Most of the harbingers are niche concepts and intended to be the utter worst of beings, made even more terrible by the fact that every single one of them was once a mortal. They're self-loathing monsters obsessed with oblivion and the paradox of their own origins, and they're utterly alone in the cosmos with no greater power to guide them through the nihilism of their own existence because the one being who could have done so, the Oinodaemon, their current leaders the Four Horsemen in the only expression of love that they could fathom, they killed them and ate them (and seem to have both not succeeded and only made things much, much worse).
I've written a bunch of messed up, horrific stuff over the years, but Folca is an uncomfortable creature. I personally would hesitate to use them or their followers in a game outside of brief reference because the PCs would likely ignore any other plot to go kill any followers of Folca.
*someone who is actually no longer with Paizo
I'll add on to the above that the rules elements of the obedience for Folca changed considerably during development. As for what portions that I did write, as a freelancer I'm really not in a position to just go off the road and write as I please when I'm given an outline. I wrote according to what was requested, and I'm upset to see Folca potentially overshadowing everything else in the book that I'm proud of. Whatever Paizo decides to do with the book is their decision and I'm behind them in their public statements on the issue. Obviously it was not my intention to upset anyone, and it's worth noting that the book includes an explicit content warning and a pointed note that the use of themes such as those in the book do require the consent of everyone playing at the table. Much of the moral concerns with the book, both Folca and otherwise, that I've seen on social media seem to have been unaware of that part of the book which is unfortunate.
I personally run games that are deeply immersive and often, by virtue of my using fiends as major antagonists a lot, run with darker themes. However I make certain that I don't go places that my players are uncomfortable with. That's important and there's a social compact in play between GM and players alike to abide with. I think that people picking up BotD are aware of the content therein and it's not especially different compared to content in the game in years prior. The insinuation of sexual violence inherent in Folca's original description was probably a mistake and arguably Folca should have been quietly dropped, but that's wholly out of my hands and I will respect whatever decision Paizo makes regarding what to do moving forward.
One last thing that probably the most important thing for me to say on the issue: I like and respect my developers and editors and I hate to see any of them harassed or attacked on social media about anything. Please, anyone upset about Folca or about Paizo's statements on Folca, please for the love of God don't harass any of them.