Though the announcement talks about re-imagining the system, which may imply something rather more extensive than "Move it to Pathfinder, the latest incarnation of the original system."
Very good news indeed! The Scarred Lands was my campaign for 12 years. Like to return to it!
This was my favorite 3.0 setting that I never got to play it can't wait for this
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I still have all my Scarred Lands stuff. Whenever I come across an evil god, I always mentally compare them to Vangal and Chardun.
I used this for my setting for 3.0 and 3.5.
I still have all my Scarred Lands stuff. Whenever I come across an evil god, I always mentally compare them to Vangal and Chardun.
Ooooh, Chardun.
Man, he captured my imagination. Which resulted in me doing the open call entries that became R&R2's Chardun's glory, Chardun's presence, Chardun's consecration, morningstar of the Black Thorns, sword of divine prowess, and warscepter of pain. (And a few other things not related to Chardun, but.) It was a real kick to see the Order of the Black Thorn become more than a name in the Guide to Rangers and Rouges.
I should read up on Scarred Lands when I have the time.
What are Vangal and Chardun like?
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I still have all my Scarred Lands stuff. Whenever I come across an evil god, I always mentally compare them to Vangal and Chardun.Ooooh, Chardun.
Man, he captured my imagination. Which resulted in me doing the open call entries that became R&R2's Chardun's glory, Chardun's presence, Chardun's consecration, morningstar of the Black Thorns, sword of divine prowess, and warscepter of pain. (And a few other things not related to Chardun, but.) It was a real kick to see the Order of the Black Thorn become more than a name in the Guide to Rangers and Rouges.
The Order of the Black Thorn was my inspiration for Asmodean Druids! Great stuff! (And very cool to have an evil Ranger-friendly group, exploring and developing on the 3.0 option to play non-good Rangers. The Scarred Lands setting was great for that. 3.0 introduced the idea that Dwarves could be Wizards, for instance, but none of their setting material seemed to more than touch that potential, leaving it to Burok Torn to go in-depth into dwarven rune-wizardry. Similarly, they really ran with the new-at-the-time concept of Sorcerers, folding them into the setting at the get-go, rather than as an afterthought!)
Chardun was crazy awesome as an evil god. An entire subrace of dwarves following him in the Empire of Chains, as well as the nations of Calastia and Dunahnae! Given the nature of the setting, it made sense that entire nations would crave the security provided by the tyrant. It added to the darker nature of the setting that good gods like Corean and Madriel and Tanil had such small power centers, by comparison to Chardun, who, as totally befits a god of tyranny and strength and war, had swept into power over some pretty substantial parts of the setting, unlike some previous settings LE tyrant gods, who were... less successful at the 'evil tyrant' thing.
Even Vangal felt more plausible as an evil god that people might actually be willing to follow, than many chaotic evil gods.
That said, Urgathoa feels far more 'sane-friendly' than Belsameth, for NE gods. :)
I think my fondness for Sarenrae stems from how much she pretty much is Madriel the Redeemer, First Angel of the Morning, only with some Middle Eastern flavor and a scimitar instead of a spear.
I should read up on Scarred Lands when I have the time.
What are Vangal and Chardun like?
Chardun A much scarier and more competent version of FR's Bane or Greyhawk's Hextor.
Vangal If the name sounds like 'vandal,' that's intentional. He's the god of the setting's equivalent of the Mongol hordes. Indeed, if the Reavers of the Serenity/Firefly universe had a patron god, it would be Vangal.
Oh, wait. It's coming back to me now.
This is the setting I read up on ages ago.
With that said, I still have more research to do.
Also, is it always assumed in other campaign worlds that evil gods are not as active as the good or neutral ones?
Because really, that's the only difference I see between Chardun and the other Lawful Evil gods such as Hextor or Bane.
Interestingly, the setting looks overly bleak on the surface, but it seems to give the players the job of "fixing" things gone wrong.
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I LOVED the setting - I own ALL books. But I really hope that if the go PFRPG, they'll implement a tight control of crunch-balance (with some established crunch-designers) - some of these books were as broken in their crunch as they were superb in their fluff.
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They will have to redo any of the races with level adjustments for pathfinder. My favorite race for NPCs was the Asaathi. I would not allow players to play them of course, nor Slarcians nor anything with more than a +1 level adjustment. Asaathi were just too cool with their feats though.
I played in a long running campaign set in Hollowfaust, the city of bureaucratic and(mostly)Lawful Neutral necromancers - the setting is great.
The scary Carnival of Shadows and ancient Slarecians are just a few highlights we encountered.
I loved Hollowfaust, they were the ultimate in civic recycling, and the Alien nature of the Slarecians suited Psionics perfectly.
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Asaathi were just too cool with their feats though.
Scarred Lands feats development made it sometimes seem like the farm team for WotC feats development.
They introduced their Locus feats in the Assaathi book, and, three years later, WotC offers up the Reserve feats in Complete Mage, which are a much streamlined (and more powerful!) version of the same concept, spellcasters being able to tap into the energies of spells they haven't cast yet to do magical stuff. Thematically, I liked the interconnected nature of the Locus feats a lot more, but, mechanically, the Reserve feats were just flat out easier to access, easier to use and more powerful!
Then there were the Sorcerer Scion feats, in the Players Guide to Wizards, Bards and Sorcerers, which WotC also one-upped later, making more powerful versions.
The Assaathi Technique feats, on the other hand, seemed a bit more over-the-top, and more suitable for an Exalted type game, where fighters could have truly cinematic / Wuxia style abilities. For a race that combines swordplay with arcane magic as heavily as the Assaathi (or some sort of Magus or Paladin or Psychic Warrior or Soulknife), sure, but I don't think I'd want them generally available.
I've never played in the setting before but the Relics & Rituals and Creature Collection books were ones I used a fair amount. I recently started picking up some other Scarred Lands materials.
Has there been any more word recently on what form new products might take with regards to this setting? It would be great to see a new single high end Scarred Lands core book that covered the setting, prestige classes, spells, etc. for the Pathfinder rules.
A "best of" creature collection volume with the iconic setting specific monsters would be awesome too.
It was for that reason and many others that I never allowed The Complete Mage or anything from PHB II onwards. The power progression got way too ridiculous IMHO. Any more word on this btw?
I haven't heard anything and doubt we will hear anything at least until the Demon W20 stuff is finished.
Also it's a shame that you'd ban the PHB 2 as it was among the best balanced books in 3.5 internally at least. You just need to calibrate expected power levels to have everyone on the bard's same level. It's a lot like the APG in that regard, as (summoner aside) the APG is much better balanced that the core rules.
I like this setting it had some great flavor. But the development, in the World with that elf god coming back and stuff, i think was a bit on the week side.
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I echo the general sentiment of wanting to see SC return. I get that they possibly want to make a newer system. Yet imo they should do a PF version. More of a fanbase with fans who liked the 3.5 version. Myself I don't disallow 3.5 material. Just to lazy to convert. So if someone else can do the converting for me so much the better.
Well, I would only be interested in it if it is Pathfinder. I am not changing systems again.
EndZ,
Please give them a review for their free adventure, the Gauntlet of Spiragos. I'm going into it and holy hell, I think I wanna totally put my Golarion on hold for a moment while I reassemble a broken campaign (so fitting, isn't it?).
FIFY
Glad to see there is still some interest in this. I love the setting & would love to see a pathfinder version. Especially if they update things for the new classes & rebalance. If this is going to be done they have to use Dreamscarred press rules for psionics though. The setting wouldn't be the same without the Slarecians & their "strange" powers.
The new Scarred Lands has been kickstarted (and released) as "Scarred Lands Player's Guide" for Pathfinder and 5E. There are lots of options for characters in this setting (i got the PF version) plus some background on the setting, plus a bunch of unique beasties published earlier under 3.0/3.5 .
They are talking about a new Creature Collection to be kickstarted next.