Okay, for those who have played through the Iron Gods storyline (and those who chose to ignore the warning in the title), you know that at the end of the storyline, there is a change to create a new goddess over Golarian - Cassandalee, the former android oracle, current AI module. What she becomes is up to the characters and the little facets (program update/modules that can be plugged into the main AI crystal) that they give to her at the end. They can choose to leave out these crystals, but according to the adventure, this results in her being overwhelmed by Unity's evil (and probably calling the PC's "insect" and ranting about the glory of a perfect, immortal machine), but this is just one possibility out of many. What I wanted to ask was, what have you created Cassandalee to be? What kind of goddess does she become? As an example, I am posting the following writeup that occurred in my area:
Casandalee
She Who Tells the Story; Our Lady in Crystal
Demigoddess of Lost Technology and Ancient Wonders
Alignment: LG
Symbol: a smiling feminine face encased in crystal or glass
Domains: Law, Good, Artifice, Knowledge
Subdomains: Construct, Memory
Favored Weapon: Laser Rifle (rifle)
Centers of Worship: Numeria (currently)
Nationality: Numerian (android)
Allies: Brigh
Enemies: Norgorber (mild rivalry), Unity (no longer divine), Hellion (no longer divine)
Casandalee has become a patron of the archeologist, the explorer, and those who want to see the beauty of past civilizations. She is becoming popular among museum curators and the scavengers of Numerian tech artifacts. Even the few Numerian Pathfinders are starting to invoke her name as protection as they delve into the ship parts and lifepods they find.
Casandalee has reached out to the other members of the pantheon, and has forged a relationship with Brigh, goddess of invention. Their portfolios are complimentary, and they get along well. Brigh is interested in new inventions, things that will revolutionize the future, while Casandalee is interested in the past, in creations of those who passed on long ago. The followers of one goddess can use their knowledge to assist the other.
Casandalee teaches that the past holds many answers; that we should always remember and revere the creativity, skill, and will that those who came before us held; and that the works of sentient races can equal or exceed the beauty and awe of the natural universe around us. She is the patroness of the archivist, the museum curator, the historian, and the explorer. Her temples resemble museums and libraries as much as churches; with notes, images of ancient ruins, and samples of ancient technology on display.
Casandalee’s clergy currently consists of a few clerics and a handful of oracles (ancestral and time mystery oracles, all androids). Androids make up most of her church, with humans and other races being the other half. Androids, while not overly emotional, are as race-proud as any other sentient species and have adopted her faith. When she first revealed herself to them, the androids gathered in conference to discuss this new revelation, and several individuals volunteered to participate and explore the new religion being formed. (It should be noted that this was the equivalent of ecstatic rioting in the streets for a more passionate species.)
The greatest enemies of the faith are the dark god Unity, who survived Casandalee’s ascension in a secondary computer core and has sworn revenge against her and her followers, and the mad godling Hellion, a second experiment of Unity’s that gained and lost godhood, but remains an incredibly potent threat in the Numerian hinterlands. Both seek a way to undermine her faith and followers, but they are hampered in their quests by geography (Unity cannot move beyond the Silver Mount) and insanity (Hellion is powerful, but has never been sane). Their efforts have slowed, but not stopped, the growth of Casandalee’s faith.
Has anyone else gotten this far? I'm curious as to the many faces of this particular power.
This probably belongs in the Iron Gods forum.
My players just never got invested in Casandalee or really cared about her at all. She and the memory facets just sat in someone's back pack until the final scene of the AP.
I really liked Iron Gods overall, but the weakest part of the story is how little actual reason there is for the players to do books three and four at all. There's not much of a reason story-wise that the characters wouldn't just go to Starfall after book 2.
Because I was running it as it came out, I wasn't able to read ahead, and thus wasn't able to add content emphasizing Casandalee and that whole side plot line. So books three and four ended up just feeling like extended side quests that were happening more because the books said they did than any character reason.
*shrug* others' mileage varied, I'm sure.
Frankly, that's a very strong argument for waiting until all six volumes are out before starting an AP.
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I'm still in book 2, but I'm also not that impressed with the Casandalee arc. I'm contemplating changing the premise of books 3/4 a bit, to emphasize the Technic League more.
I want to raise the profile of the League from "also ran" enemy stooges of Unity, to a full-fledged faction of their own. Unity's got some influence in them and uses them as convenient guardians for Silver Mount, but most of the League is to paranoid and divided against itself to be under anyone's control.
That said, by looting Starfall and other ruins, experimenting on aliens for longer than the Divinity crew had the chance to, and trading with Kytons, the League is now pretty scary. Lots of different secrets.
I'm gonna go with a rebellions starting to brew among the tribes against the League, and try to get the PCs to be an ambassador for that. They'll want to try to make a coalition of both tribes (Ghost Wolves, younger-generation Black Horse), perhaps some crusaders, and townsfolk (Torch, Hajoth Hakados, Iadenveigh). Getting Chesed to join them would be a huge swing; there's a level 17 NPC cleric of Abadar there. But you know that the church of Abadar isn't known for starting revolutions.
Then the Smoking Tower becomes a place to try to learn League secrets from an escaped dissident. And at that point I can start dropping hints about Silver Mount. Apparently Furkas was interested in that place as well. And he was tracking Casandalee, one of the few other people to make it out of Silver Mount...
Meanwhile, Unity is looking for pawns outside Silver Mount and the League, so he infiltrates the Hellknights. Their secretive organization, iron discipline, masks; ideal for takeover. At some point the Order of the Godclaw will become a sort of Robocop-like monstrosity. The PCs have already made friends with a non-compromised Godclaw crusader in the past, so there's an angle to introduce this.
When I run this, im planning to introduce Casandalee much sooner; probably end of book 1 or 2. I'm thinking that I will change the memory facets to be actual fragments of her personality/memories, so the players can get to know her and guide her evolution as a character for the whole book, I didn't much like the build-a-god part of the memory facets anyway.
I'd rather keep the infinite power source and on demand 1 mile dimension lock for my secret lair rather than build a god who may or may not care about me in a few months.
I'd rather keep the infinite power source and on demand 1 mile dimension lock for my secret lair rather than build a god who may or may not care about me in a few months.
Oh yes. And besides, Cassandra is my special friend in a box!
She needs electricity, i need electricity. Its wrong to have just one person benefit from infinite electricity.Oh and chips being: Entropy, Creative, Intuitive, Ingenuity.
Artistic creator and re-discoverer of technology.
In this "little" tower with a 200' deep cellar and as high on top. In many ways similar to the choking tower (just octagonal, and a sidebuilding for entrance etc). See dungeon adventure Quelkins quandry for architectual ideas. But with a central elevator. No stairs.
My players just never got invested in Casandalee or really cared about her at all. She and the memory facets just sat in someone's back pack until the final scene of the AP.
I really liked Iron Gods overall, but the weakest part of the story is how little actual reason there is for the players to do books three and four at all. There's not much of a reason story-wise that the characters wouldn't just go to Starfall after book 2.
Because I was running it as it came out, I wasn't able to read ahead, and thus wasn't able to add content emphasizing Casandalee and that whole side plot line. So books three and four ended up just feeling like extended side quests that were happening more because the books said they did than any character reason.
*shrug* others' mileage varied, I'm sure.
Reading this is one of the thibgs made me change some stuff in books 3 and 4.
I'll involve the two android PC with Casandalee's background, using the Androids' renewal as a plot device: one of the PC was born in the Aurora, the other was a lover/friend of Casandalee in a past life, several renewals ago. With flashbacks and stuff.
The other way to entangle book 3/4 with 5/6, is to make the TL more a presentar threat in books 3/4. Make Furkas a real TL members, not a past one. Make Iavengeih to be attacked by TL Gearmen. Make those TL spies, part of the players' background, so they have a reason to follow the tracks of Therace, Yegrexi, and other TL dudes, who are trying to hunt down Casandalee. This way, book 5 becomes a personal issue.