Is an underlying cosmic mythology like the one from Spelljammer.
After checking the various Occult classes, monsters and occult related setting books I noticed Golarion and its universe need charismatic races like Illithids, Githyanki, Githzerai and the underlaying myths linking them togheter. Occult menaces in Golarion feel tame andmuch less well integrated. For example, things like intellect devourers can never compete with those races in complexity or interest they cause imo.
And then another thing I feel I miss in Golarion is the blood war between Hell and the Abyss. Yes, it could become a bit tiresome after a while but it always gave me great inspiration for convulted cosmic plots. Personally I think the conflics and alliances of extraplanar beings, gods and demigods should be more central to the setting.
That said, while dealing with the multiversal aspects of the setting Paizo certainly did one thing better than the the D&D version of the multiverse: the 4 Horsemen and Daemons are bounds and leaps better than yugoloths.
This is not to say the cosmic side of Golarion and the multiverse are bad, but I would like Paizo to work in some cool occult races significat to the setting and make the machinations of gods, demons and devils more central to the setting, especally for high level play.
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1. Cosmic mythology is great comic book fodder but it's hardly neccessary.
2.Between Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms, I've had enough of the Blood War. Having it hear would only be repititive. (and possibly invite a lawsuit from WOTC)
1. Cosmic mythology is great comic book fodder but it's hardly neccessary.
2.Between Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms, I've had enough of the Blood War. Having it hear would only be repititive. (and possibly invite a lawsuit from WOTC)
1. Perhaps so, but if done right it also gives crafty GMs all kind of ideas for entertaining players.
2. It doesn't need to be the Blood War but some overeaching cosmic event linking various entities togheter. I don't know, something like the Eldest of the first world working to invade the material plane and being locked in conflict with axiomites and proteans both for example.
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1. Cosmic mythology is great comic book fodder but it's hardly neccessary.
2.Between Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms, I've had enough of the Blood War. Having it hear would only be repititive. (and possibly invite a lawsuit from WOTC)
1. Perhaps so, but if done right it also gives crafty GMs all kind of ideas for entertaining players.
2. It doesn't need to be the Blood War but some overeaching cosmic event linking various entities togheter. I don't know, something like the Eldest of the first world working to invade the material plane and being locked in conflict with axiomites and proteans both for example.
I suspect the reason that Paizo did not put this into Golarion is that devs want the main agency of events to be mortals, not Cosmic beings.
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Aye, there's no reason all that can't be running in the background, but mortals simply don't know about it because it had nothing to do with them.
The thing with the Blood War was, out on the planes, it overshadowed everything, right from level 1. The PC's were not heroes that mattered, they were little squibs that weren't going to do anything that would affect a War that had raged through most of eternity.
Golarion has a smaller stage, but the PC's can be large upon it. By the end of the Worldwound, they will literally be the most powerful mortals alive on the planet. That's saying something!
==Aelryinth
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You're also ignoring the planar conflicts that do exist. The qlippoth and the daemons, for example. Then there's the part where Golarion is both a physical and metaphysical cage for Rovagug, who would completely devour the multiverse if he were to escape.
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You're also ignoring the planar conflicts that do exist. The qlippoth and the daemons, for example. Then there's the part where Golarion is both a physical and metaphysical cage for Rovagug, who would completely devour the multiverse if he were to escape.
There's also the conflict between the kami and the oni, along with the inevitable/protean war. Yet another is the psychopomps versus the daemons, and the aeons against pretty much everyone.
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Nay, what Golarion lacks is a good Irish/English/Scottish analog (ignoring the Welsh of course).
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By the way, adding Illithids, Githyanki, or Githzerai (or for that matter Beholders) would also invite a lawsuit from WotC -- these were among the few monsters that WotC declared as Product Identity (non-OGL) in D&D 3.x days (might have been a few other non-Unique monsters, but I can't remember any, except maybe Neogi).
Frankly I don't miss any of those elements at all. Well, maybe beholders, but the rest can go the way of the dodo as far as I'm concerned. I was tired of going down into the underdark and finding out the big bad was either mind-flayers or drow in some fashion. Its time for other ideas to flourish.
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Brood War is also WotC IP, by the way.
What? Blizzard Entertainment would have a serious disagreement about this . . . Maybe you meant Blood War?
(By the way, I think Kuo-Toa might be another instance of WotC Product Identity.)
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Brood War is also WotC IP, by the way.What? Blizzard Entertainment would have a serious disagreement about this . . . Maybe you meant Blood War?
(By the way, I think Kuo-Toa might be another instance of WotC Product Identity.)
Yes...I got my Bood Wars mixed up :)
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By the way, adding Illithids, Githyanki, or Githzerai (or for that matter Beholders) would also invite a lawsuit from WotC -- these were among the few monsters that WotC declared as Product Identity (non-OGL) in D&D 3.x days (might have been a few other non-Unique monsters, but I can't remember any, except maybe Neogi).
Critters from the Monster Manual removed from the OGL, IIRC, consist of;
Beholder (and gauth)
Carrion Crawler
Displacer Beast
Umber Hulk
Githyanki / Githzerai
various Slaad
Mind Flayer
Kuo-Toa
various Yuan-ti
Neothelids, Intellect Devourers, Skum, Proteans, Serpentfolk, Urdefan, etc. replace most of them kinda/sorta, although I do miss me some Displacer Beasts.
I prefer Proteans and Serpentfolk to Slaad and Yuan-Ti, but Mind Flayers were cool-ish, and I liked to use Carrion Crawlers as pre-sapient larval Neh-Thalggu, just waiting for that first taste of brains, and particularly spellcaster brains, to make the leap to the next level... I do not miss the Gith races, or Beholders, at all!
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Thanks for the list. By the way, I could have sworn to seeing at one point that Pathfinder does have some sort of wimpy replacement for the Beholder (more like a Floating Eye), but I can't even remember what it is called or what Berstiary it came from, and the only similar thing I can find on www.d20pfsrd.com is the Frog God Games Eye of the Deep, which I don't think is what I saw.
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Oh I figure with Strange Aeons and some other APs that are coming, we will see the introduction of more critters and races for the Ethereal and Astral planes. They writers are pretty adept at coming up with some unique critters. I am guessing you are missing the psionic critters in DnD 3.5 that had an epic effect on us all.
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Thanks for the list. By the way, I could have sworn to seeing at one point that Pathfinder does have some sort of wimpy replacement for the Beholder (more like a Floating Eye), but I can't even remember what it is called or what Berstiary it came from, and the only similar thing I can find on www.d20pfsrd.com is the Frog God Games Eye of the Deep, which I don't think is what I saw.
Note that an Eye of the Deep does appear in Legacy of Fire. Could that be what put the idea in your mind?
Creative Director
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Didn't pathfinder have 3.5 version of the licensed creature that Displacer Beast was based on?
Pity that since its licensed creature they can't update it to current rules :'D That'd be awesome if I only remember what was name of that creature
Coeurl.
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Huh. Googling that reminded me of the sad fact that while Pathfinder can't have Coeurl updated to current game due to copyrights, Japanese can copyright infringement as much as they want :'D
(Google shows up pictures of Final Fantasy version of Coeurl which isn't honestly much different from description/displacer beast pics :'D)
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uM, Mariliths are based on representations of the demon goddess Kali. Six armed snake bodied demonesses were around a lot longer then D&D.
Likewise, octopi-headed space alien bad guys been around a long time, too.
==Aelryinth
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Yeah, early FF games had mind flayers and mariliths as well.
...Wait, what you mean with "early" final fantasy games? xD Marilith is in nine as well
@Aelryinth: Umm, have you played final fantasy? Some of final fantasy monsters have exactly same appearance and name as D&D monsters. Including things like Tiamat and Bahamut being dragons instead of what they are in mythology
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Creative Director
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uM, Mariliths are based on representations of the demon goddess Kali. Six armed snake bodied demonesses were around a lot longer then D&D.
Likewise, octopi-headed space alien bad guys been around a long time, too.
==Aelryinth
IIRC they actually called them mariliths and mind flayers, though, and THAT'S where the sketchy illegal stuff comes in.
Whether or not a company chooses to poach another company's intellectual property is a choice that company gets to make for themselves. It's not something we at Paizo are fond of though, and the fact that other companies do it is not an excuse for us to do it as well.
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uM, Mariliths are based on representations of the demon goddess Kali. Six armed snake bodied demonesses were around a lot longer then D&D.
Likewise, octopi-headed space alien bad guys been around a long time, too.
==Aelryinth
First off, the condescension is not appreciated.
Secondly, while you are correct that those ideas have come up before, the fact that Final Fantasy specifically named them mind flayers and mariliths suggests that this was not an accident.
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Yeah, early FF games had mind flayers and mariliths as well....Wait, what you mean with "early" final fantasy games? xD Marilith is in nine as well
Wow... I didn't know they were still doing it. That's pretty brazen.
I didn't get far with anything past 7... the SNES and early PlayStation was my era. ^_^
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Also, wow, Mind Flayers aren't even mostly early Final Fantasy, they appear in older and newer titles ._.
According to that article, they have piscodaemons as well...
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uM, Mariliths are based on representations of the demon goddess Kali. Six armed snake bodied demonesses were around a lot longer then D&D.
Likewise, octopi-headed space alien bad guys been around a long time, too.
==Aelryinth
First off, the condescension is not appreciated.
Secondly, while you are correct that those ideas have come up before, the fact that Final Fantasy specifically named them mind flayers and mariliths suggests that this was not an accident.
At this point they've established precedent, and the monsters probably weren't copyrighted by TSR in Japan back then...or maybe FF did the copyrighting, who knows? So, they're basically just porting over 'their' monsters at this point.
'Might' be paying an intellectual property license under the table, too.
Wouldn't be surprised if some programmer used the Monster Manual as their source of 'exotic' Western Mythology monsters. After all, chimera, pegasi and hydras are as exotic to Asians as pan lung, ki-rin and foo creatures are to us. I mean, seriously, in the early 1980's, was there ANY resource of Western fantastic monster illustrations that could be used as a resource better then the MM? Especially Western Style Dragons?
Note that Tiamat and Bahamut are middle eastern in Origin, and so asians aren't likely to know that they weren't exactly as in the MM without doing in depth research into early Persian mythology.
I've been reading a lot of xanxia and wuxia lately, and fantastic beasts in Asia seem to have a lot less strangeness and weirdness then you find in the west. They seem to like adding random elements to beasts to make more powerful versions of them (add scales, fire wings,lightning breath, etc), and the four great animals are the Blue Dragon, the Black Tortoise, the White Tiger and the Vermillion Bird (with the Monkey King being his own thing, and an outlier). Pan Lung, the lowest version of oriental dragons, seem almost incredibly common, and there's plenty of creatures that can manhandle them. Indeed, the more powerful Bird creatures can ravage Dragons, and Tigers are the Kings of Beasts.
So things like octopus headed purple men that eat brains and six armed half-snake demonesses are incredibly exotic to chinese and japanese mythology (probably not so much to Indian!)
==Aelryinth
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We interrupt this thread for a brief terminology break;
Copyright - Grants control over the use and distribution of an original creative work. A song, book, painting, or even photograph can be copyrighted. An individual character, fictional race, artificial language, et cetera cannot. This is because you can only copyright a specific creative work of art (e.g. The Lord of the Rings). None of these fictional races are copyrighted.
Trademark - This is a symbol, term, image, or other identifying material which is associated with a company and/or its intellectual property. When Saul Zaentz purchased the rights to The Lord of the Rings he attempted to trademark pretty much every named thing in the book. Thus, when an entertainer called himself 'Gandalf the Wizard Clown' Zaentz sued for trademark infringement and the clown had to settle and enter into a licensing agreement. Note that 'Gandalf' is not an original creation... Tolkien took the name from the Prose Edda, written hundreds of years ago. Unlike copyright, trademark does not require invention... only association with your brand. That said, Zaentz also attempted to sue D&D over the use of Balrogs, Treants, Hobbits, Nazgul, et cetera in the earliest edition. TSR quickly renamed these Balor, Ents, Halflings, Wraiths, and so forth and thus neatly side-stepped the trademark issue... they couldn't be trading on the reputation of Zaentz's intellectual property if they used different/untrademarked terms.
Patent - Rights to control the sale of an invented machine or process. Originally, this was limited mostly to actual physical inventions and things like an assembly line construction process. However, recent interpretations of 'process' have widened it to include a sequence of steps in computer code or even game play. Wizards of the Coast patented the 'tapping' process in their Magic the Gathering game and then was able to collect royalties from every other company which had used a similar mechanic while the patent was pending. So far as I know, no one has tried to argue that the particular stats of a fictional race constitute a patentable process, but it wouldn't be outside the bounds of possibility.
Licensing agreement - An agreement between two or more parties allowing some intellectual property to be used provided specific requirements are met. This used to be mostly a simple financial arrangement... you pay me some money and I let you use my stuff. However, it has also evolved into mutual sharing agreements like the Open Gaming License... which is the real issue at hand here. The OGL allows companies to use gaming material published by others PROVIDED they agree to certain terms and conditions. Amongst those conditions is that they respect the 'product identity' materials of the other companies. So, 'Golarion' is part of Paizo's 'product identity' and Displacer Beasts are part of the 'product identity' of D&D. The companies can't use those materials because doing so would violate the OGL and potentially make all their 'shared' materials subject to intellectual property infringement. Essentially, they cannot use that stuff because they have agreed not to in exchange for the right to use other stuff.
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Neat summary. The subtleties often get missed in these sorts of discussions.
("Why did Wizards copyright beholders but not the spell magic missile?" is a hard question to answer, given the many nested errors).
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1. Cosmic mythology is great comic book fodder but it's hardly neccessary.
2.Between Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms, I've had enough of the Blood War. Having it hear would only be repititive. (and possibly invite a lawsuit from WOTC)
1. Perhaps so, but if done right it also gives crafty GMs all kind of ideas for entertaining players.
2. It doesn't need to be the Blood War but some overeaching cosmic event linking various entities togheter. I don't know, something like the Eldest of the first world working to invade the material plane and being locked in conflict with axiomites and proteans both for example.
Nothing is stopping GMs from putting such elements into their home campaigns on their own. Putting elements in isn't going to turn an uncreative GM to a creative one... anyone than handing a brush and paint would turn someone into Da Vinci.
When you're doing world building, everything you put into the world sets up a constraint. Putting in Cosmic Manipulators means that you have a world without default mortal agency. That's why you use restraint on how much ingredients you put into your stew.