In The Great Beyond Formians are mentioned as living in the lawful neutral plane of Axis, and as forming from the souls of mortals like outsiders tend to do.
But when we finally got more information on Formians in People of The Stars and Bestiary 4, we were told they're aliens who, having fully settled every inch of their home planet, started fervently colonizing other worlds using massive asteroid ships.
So are there two completely different "species" with the same name or has there simply been a retcon?
I'm mostly asking because there have been such retcons in the past and this seems like one that's gone under the radar, as the wiki still talks about the Formians of Axis in its Axis article but mentions nothing of Axis in its Formians article.
There are formian-like creatures on axis, but not formians per se.
Keep in mind that the The Great Beyond is a 3.5 product and predates the actual Pathfinder system.
So formians were outsiders at the time it was written, and they've since been changed into monstrous humanoids.
I'd assume Axis has a substantial population of mortal formians living it. A LN bug-people race with a hivemind just seems a natural fit for the plane.
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Keep in mind that the The Great Beyond is a 3.5 product and predates the actual Pathfinder system.
So formians were outsiders at the time it was written, and they've since been changed into monstrous humanoids.
I'd assume Axis has a substantial population of mortal formians living it. A LN bug-people race with a hivemind just seems a natural fit for the plane.
This is correct.
Since formians are now not outsiders (we chose to go back to their real-world pulp roots as aliens), them having a major role on Axis makes less sense. If we do decide to keep them there the next time we do anything there in print, the formians there will likely become axiomatic formians or something like that... but there's just as good a chance we'll just retcon them out of Axis entirely, sicne their role there hasn't really been built upon.