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I know nothing about Byzantium.
Read the books by John Julius Norwich. Well written and fascinating.
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I know nothing about Byzantium.It's not Istanbul. Or Constantinople.
Even old New York was once New Amsterdam.
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I know nothing about Byzantium.Read the books by John Julius Norwich. Well written and fascinating.
Or for a quick and dirty (and rose-colored, and dismissive of certain centuries and dynasties, and...) read, Lars Brownworth's Lost to the West is an acceptable introduction.
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The book I used for my homebrew AP is called Encyclopedia of the Byzantine Empire by Jennifer Lawler.
It gives you a great description of titles and such as well as some of the forms of government they had during the empire. Lots of nomenclature of the empire, and key figures. Also goes over some of the noble houses.
As for titles - if you've ever wondered why the Grand Prince is simply not the King of Taldor or Emperor of Taldor, as apposed to being his primary home title, it may be because even though Taldor follows male primogeniture, any male member (i.e. Prince) of the royal house is eligible to become the 'Grand' (primary) Prince. It does not have to be direct male primogeniture.
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As for titles - if you've ever wondered why the Grand Prince is simply not the King of Taldor or Emperor of Taldor, as apposed to being his primary home title, it may be because even though Taldor follows male primogeniture, any male member (i.e. Prince) of the royal house is eligible to become the 'Grand' (primary) Prince. It does not have to be direct male primogeniture.That doesn't in itself explain why he's not styled Emperor, though. Kingship and Emperorship isn't always limited to direct male primogeniture.
My interpretation on why the use of Grand Prince, is probably that as Taldor formed that was the most senior title of the land.
As Taldor tries to adhere to its traditional ways, and archaic forms of address, the title of emperor was added later during an expansionistic period and thus would rank lower at home in terms of prestige and cultural pride, especially among The Bearded and other Royal families. So it is not commonly used inside of Taldor when speaking about the emperor as it is outside of Taldor.
I also agree that kingship and Emperorship are not limited to direct male primogeniture, just that as written Taldor does follow that route as best as it can.
So much for them "having stories to tell for years without advancing the time line"
It will have been 10 and a half years before the timeline got advanced. You don't feel like that qualifies as "years of stories to tell"?
Developer
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One thing to remember about Taldor is that in many cases, titles don't have a lot of meaning. They're as much status symbols as they are a true representation of political or social hierarchies. That their head of state has a title that seems ill suited to his duties is just par for the course. That said, I plan to address this as much as my word count will permit in Taldor, The First Empire.
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One thing to remember about Taldor is that in many cases, titles don't have a lot of meaning. They're as much status symbols as they are a true representation of political or social hierarchies. That their head of state has a title that seems ill suited to his duties is just par for the course. That said, I plan to address this as much as my word count will permit in Taldor, The First Empire.
Oh gods... they're all Xbox players O.O
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So I guess from reading all this, a part of the world of pathfinder will be permanently changed?
You mean like Ravounel leaving Cheliax, or that new kingdom in the Stolen Lands, or the Worldwound being closed, or Xin-Shalast being rediscovered, or the new state of affairs in Korvosa, or the drow no longer being a gigantic secret kept by the Winter Council, or...
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Creative Director
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Adventure Paths have ALWAYS changed the setting. Adventure Paths that do not have significant impacts on the campaign, be it at a local level or a world level, are not very compelling ideas for Adventure Paths. The timing of when these changes occur and in what order is largely left to individual groups, as has been from the start, and as will remain with War For The Crown.
This is nothing new, folks.
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Having now read through this thread, my big takeaway is that I wish people would provide links to back up what they think people said.
There seems to be many cases, both on this forum and others, where people claim that Paizo lied about something and even use quotes to back up their paraphrased version of a statement. It's a pain to track down quotes, but it's way better to see what actually got said than to play a game of telephone.
On Paizo's end, the only way for them to avoid having customers accuse them of lying would be to decrease the amount of interaction they have with their fans, and I personally would prefer not to see that.
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The book I used for my homebrew AP is called Encyclopedia of the Byzantine Empire by Jennifer Lawler.
It gives you a great description of titles and such as well as some of the forms of government they had during the empire. Lots of nomenclature of the empire, and key figures. Also goes over some of the noble houses.
As for titles - if you've ever wondered why the Grand Prince is simply not the King of Taldor or Emperor of Taldor, as apposed to being his primary home title, it may be because even though Taldor follows male primogeniture, any male member (i.e. Prince) of the royal house is eligible to become the 'Grand' (primary) Prince. It does not have to be direct male primogeniture.
Nice, wish I knew about THAT book back when I ran Constantinople by Night back in the 90's! I will check it out.
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I know nothing about Byzantium.Read the books by John Julius Norwich. Well written and fascinating.
Or for a quick and dirty (and rose-colored, and dismissive of certain centuries and dynasties, and...) read, Lars Brownworth's Lost to the West is an acceptable introduction.
The book I used for my homebrew AP is called Encyclopedia of the Byzantine Empire by Jennifer Lawler.
It gives you a great description of titles and such as well as some of the forms of government they had during the empire. Lots of nomenclature of the empire, and key figures. Also goes over some of the noble houses.
Thank you, always good to grow the reading list :D
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Hmm. Maybe I'm being a bit pessimistic here but I wonder if Brevoy's ever going to get its own intrigue/civil war theme AP given that this one seems to take a lot of those themes already.
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^It probably will -- if many of the PCs were expected to be rebels among the nobility, for instance, it would be different from both Hell's Rebels and War for the Crown. Looking forward to an eventual Kingslayer AP . . . .
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Sounds like someone needs a visit from a few Dragonscale loyalists.
(Just to... explain the situation, of course. Very delicate politics, and all that.)
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^It probably will -- if many of the PCs were expected to be rebels among the nobility, for instance, it would be different from both Hell's Rebels and War for the Crown. Looking forward to an eventual Kingslayer AP . . . .
If they have Choral assume the throne for "Kingslayer the AP", that would be awesome.
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I must say, an intrigue-based adventure path would be interesting.
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All of you n00bs can believe you're winning this AP all you want, but when I play it, there will be only one true KING OF TALDOR!...
You must do as you see fit, of course...
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On Paizo's end, the only way for them to avoid having customers accuse them of lying would be to decrease the amount of interaction they have with their fans, and I personally would prefer not to see that.
I hope Paizo will never consider that the only way to deal with dissatisfied customers is less communication
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Looking for the dead Emperor's blessing is so much like JR which I am currently running that I will be changing the rationale behind going into the wells of demons there
Because I am 100% sure our other GM will love an urban and intrigue-heavy AP set in Taldor and I do not want the rest of the players feeling this kind of scenaristic déjà vu
I thought the Princess' proponents could steal from what the English kings did to establish a claim to the throne of France : exhumate a long-lost law that can be interpreted as legitimate ground for the crown to be inherited through the mother's side (or in the AP's case to be granted to a daughter)
BTW Louis XIV is not medieval at all ;-)
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One thing to remember about Taldor is that in many cases, titles don't have a lot of meaning. They're as much status symbols as they are a true representation of political or social hierarchies. That their head of state has a title that seems ill suited to his duties is just par for the course. That said, I plan to address this as much as my word count will permit in Taldor, The First Empire.
I thought if anything the titles have a lot of meaning, just not a lot of worth in terms of land and value. I see Taldor as steeped in tradition and the titles of old hold more weight than newer titles. Yet the problems of Title inflation occur as successive Emperors have attempted to outdo another and/or appease otherwise rebellious nobles with grandiose titles acknowledging their place in the Emperor's hierarchy. (This actually was real problem during the Byzantine Empire) As 47 centuries have passed some titles have lost their value while others have increased. It makes the job that much harder for the sages in the Primogen Library to keep it all together. Imagine after almost 300 Emperors have had their say.
At some point before 37 AR what we now know as Taldor was probably a collection of princely domains/Lesser fiefs that all stemmed from the initial founding of Oppara in -1281 AR. Eventually these lesser governments united around the largest and strongest of the city-states to form an Empire and that Emperor (circa 37 AR) kept his original title to appease his fellow nobles until such time he was politically and militarily powerful to outright declare himself emperor to the lands in Avistan.
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Looking for the dead Emperor's blessing
This is one of the aspects of the AP that I am definitely not fond of, could it just be that Taldor has a set of Immutable Laws that were promulgated during its founding by the founding members of the empire that they are seen as unchangeable, given the traditionalist nature of the empire. It just makes the Princess' attempts that more suspenseful and fraught with failure, it creates added tension.
I thought the Princess' proponents could steal from what the English kings did to establish a claim to the throne of France : exhumate a long-lost law that can be interpreted as legitimate ground for the crown to be inherited through the mother's side (or in the AP's case to be granted to a daughter)
Princess Eutropia has tried this, using the Arch-Exarch Gregorious to send allies to search through the Library of the Lion and acquire the Lines of Succession scrolls for her. It is known that the Primogen Crown has changed hands several dozen times as some houses have had no male heirs. The most recent example is Beldam II making Micheaux the Crown Prince in 4498, so there has to be a mechanism other than a civil war, but hey you never know.
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I think this was a feat decision. They have spent lots of APs in Cheliax and none in former glorious Taldor. Ultimate Intrigue ideas are perfect here, in Taldor, in Galt and Andoran. So, big props to the team on moving forward to do this path, even to the disgust of some of the loyal fans
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Looking forward to this one.
Right now all the PCs are Taldans. And all the players are GoT fans. Eventually they'll return home from their current adventure(s). And it'd be pretty cool to have them walk into a fight for the crown. "Hey, look what's been brewing while you were away! :)"
I'll probably have to adjust something as they won't be 1st lv.... But that shouldn't be a problem.
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Looking forward to this one.
Right now all the PCs are Taldans. And all the players are GoT fans. Eventually they'll return home from their current adventure(s). And it'd be pretty cool to have them walk into a fight for the crown. "Hey, look what's been brewing while you were away! :)"
I'll probably have to adjust something as they won't be 1st lv.... But that shouldn't be a problem.
They could be umpteenth level walking into this. If they're fairly typical murderhobo adventurers, there's a good chance they'll be almost completely lacking in social skills beyond "stab it/spell it to death".
Sure the combats'll be a cakewalk. That's okay. I usually use combat xp from (less than one-half) APL / character level / ECL as not awarding any xp at all. Story-based XP is still awarded, but at the higher levels it can take 3 chapters of a typical AP to advance a single character level. If they're not earning any XP from combat, they won't advance in XP much at all before chapter 4, depending on the AP. The loot is pretty minimal by comparison, so they may wind up using it to curry favor with NPCs and stock up any mini-onions.
grins
I've always been a fan of multiple campaign continuity characters.
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I'm looking forward to the really dumb and inappropriate character ideas for this one, people will have to be a little more creative than usual.
I'm thinking a half Ulfen, half Qadiran CE Vigilante (Brute) who worships Kostchtchie and has infiltrated the Ulfen Guard nominally on behalf of his Qadiran masters, but really because he hates the idea of a female ruler and wants to assassinate Eutropia if she ever gains the throne. Edgy!
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Hopefully the other players in such groups have bought into the campaign premise. Under the apparent circumstances of play here, I suspect a dead-of-night soap party (by way of flails instead of socks loaded with soap) will address such issues swiftly.
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Vigilantes should do very well. Interesting.
Pretty sure, unless there is a super-powerful reason not to, with stuff we've set up in "our" Golarion, one of my PCs will actually be the Princess... as a vigilante in her own campaign...
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Vigilantes should do very well. Interesting.Pretty sure, unless there is a super-powerful reason not to, with stuff we've set up in "our" Golarion, one of my PCs will actually be the Princess... as a vigilante in her own campaign...
Come to think of it, Eutropia's game-mechanical class has not yet been defined . . .
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That's quite a rollercoaster of emotions you're experiencing there... But at least you end as happy as you started!
(^_')=b
Carry on!
--C.
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@ Mark Moreland,
Can you put in a Spoiler Tag what upcoming product will reveal Eutropia's build?
Could you also, hopefully, put in a separate Spoiler Tag her Alignment & Class (maybe Level)?
We recently finished a Taldor campaign with a 'Temple of Elemental Evil' redo (The remaking of Eutropia into Prince Thrommel of Furyondy -- the vampire sarcophagus scene -- was special.),.... and we're getting ready to start another, in preparation for the upcoming AP. It would be really helpful to have some more info on her and her build. And Grand Prince Stavian's, for that matter.
Thanks if you're able, obviously it's understandable if you can't.
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Come to think of it, Eutropia's game-mechanical class has not yet been defined . . .Vigilantes should do very well. Interesting.Pretty sure, unless there is a super-powerful reason not to, with stuff we've set up in "our" Golarion, one of my PCs will actually be the Princess... as a vigilante in her own campaign...
The thought alone that Princess Eutropia may be running around in a bat-costume and beating the crap out of criminals just made my day. ^^
Then what about the Adventurers Guide. It seems like that book assumes EVERY adventure path it touches has happened.
And if that ends up being something folks HATE, we'll take that into account in the future.
My perception is that, to a certain extent, people DO assume that the APs and everything we publish advances the world's metaplot, though.
We'll certainly be observing how folks react to the Adventurer's Guide in this way, but so far, concerns about it assuming APs have taken place seem pretty minimal, with AP-related concerns being mostly about spoilers and not so much about assumptions.
For the record, I kind of thought this was super cool.
(I was vaguely miffed, at first blush, that I couldn't use the CoT stuff in, you know, CoT... but then I realized I've already run CoT, so I quickly realized that was a really dumb way to feel. XD)
So, I went to the Adventure Path Q&A at PaizoCon, and much of it was about War for the Crown. I *think* I'm OK posting these spoilers, but I apologize if not.Thanks for posting those! It sounds like it will be great. :)
I can not wait run this with Heroes of the Streets and Heroes of the High Court supplements . Will this involve the Loin Blades from Taldor?Loin Blades? Those guys are crazy! ;)
Hey! Just because it's true doesn't mean ya've gotta rub it in...
>.>
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That's quite a rollercoaster of emotions you're experiencing there... But at least you end as happy as you started!
(^_')=b
Carry on!
--C.
More like a giddy hopping circle on the carpet... XD
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@ Mark Moreland,
Can you put in a Spoiler Tag what upcoming product will reveal Eutropia's build?
Could you also, hopefully, put in a separate Spoiler Tag her Alignment & Class (maybe Level)?
We recently finished a Taldor campaign with a 'Temple of Elemental Evil' redo (The remaking of Eutropia into Prince Thrommel of Furyondy -- the vampire sarcophagus scene -- was special.),.... and we're getting ready to start another, in preparation for the upcoming AP. It would be really helpful to have some more info on her and her build. And Grand Prince Stavian's, for that matter.
Thanks if you're able, obviously it's understandable if you can't.
Tomb of the Iron Medusa has very juicy info on Stavian.