I was poking around the Pathfinder wiki to see if there were a few bits from Golarion I could use in my campaign setting, and it seems Tian Xia is so close to what I want to see for Asia that I could just pick up the Dragon Empires book, modify it to fit the technology and lore of my setting, drop the continent in, and go build something that doesn't exist in a form I like yet.
The conversions are what I need help with. Here's the necessary info:
We do have demigods, who helped kill the gods, but they stay in the mortal world. They are jaw droppingly powerful, but they have strict treaty requirements not to directly go into combat against anything short of an apocalyptic threat to the world, because that would wreak nuclear war levels of destruction. They use mortal agents to do their work instead, which is allowed. There is no prohibition on demigods directly ruling over nations. They do not actually give power to their agents, however. The divine spellcasters get their power by knowing how to manipulate the energy of the planet itself [a rare skill you must be born with], while arcane casters tap into the pools of eldritch magic that the death of so many gods released into the world [A skill you can learn], and arcane casters have only existed for a little over a century, with the exception of Witches, who used what little eldritch power there was before the gods died [Divine casters have been around for as long as can be remembered].
The release of eldritch magic is what allowed the magitech revolution to occur, but it also is causing problems. The monster population has exploded to such a degree that governments can't keep up, and constantly have to put up bounties so adventurers can pick up the slack. In fact, fighting this huge monster population is one of the main themes of the setting. It is constantly causing problems. Also, these pools of magic are causing some creatures to mutate into Aberrations, causing undead to be spontaneously created, increasing the fey population [yes, they do kidnap mortal children] and doing all sorts of other crazy stuff that the players get to deal with.
Minkai has a large white minority (culturally, think Central Europe) which is pretty well assimilated into society. It is still on the brink of civil war, however. Tianjing also received many of these immigrants, but is took a more multicultural than assimilationist attitude. The immigration wave occurred soon after the gods died, so these minorities have been in the countries for a little over a century now. So, the ones you meet today were pretty much all born and raised in Minkai and Tianjing.
I want to keep the current political systems and relations, geography, and culture of Tian Xia as close to what's written as possible (Minkai's and Tianjing's demographic changes aside), while having the continent fit the setting details listed above. How would you guys, who know much more about the continent than me, go about these changes?
Also, are their any books I should buy besides the Dragon Empires Gazetteer? I'm very hesitant to buy the adventure path, because it's a caravan trek, which doesn't work when you can just buy a train ticket.
You could always adapt it. I haven't read the adventure path but you could make it about a very long train trip. Specific locations are stops along the way and any encounters attacking the caravan are now train robbers or something like that. If they're more official then they could be government officials inspecting the train or an assassin hired to kill someone on the train. Just an idea.
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You could always adapt it. I haven't read the adventure path but you could make it about a very long train trip. Specific locations are stops along the way and any encounters attacking the caravan are now train robbers or something like that. If they're more official then they could be government officials inspecting the train or an assassin hired to kill someone on the train. Just an idea.
I don't know, that sounds like a really railroady campaign.
I am not seeing much in your description that would require heavily reworking the dragon empires setting. You could probably run it as is, just add in the trains and magitek