EDIT: Also, the fact that atheists are either A. Fed to Groetus or B. Left to linger until their soulbodies disintegrate is rather lame. Why can't she *recycle/reuse/reclaim* like EVERY OTHER FREAKING DEITY?I had assumed it was because their souls couldn't be broken down into quintessence due to the atheism. Their souls literally reject the system so hard they cannot be incorporated.
This, also it's not all atheists, the average atheist just goes to the appropriate plane. It's the hard core screw the whole system types that just sort of sit there.
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I think Pharasma really gets lot of unfair rep from people who misunderstand lot of the details
Also reading this thread is sometimes depressing when people dislike something you like(qlippoths my fav sadface)
(also ALL souls eventually turn into quintessence, nothing is eternal in Golarion's multiverse. Well except quintessence itself I suppose)
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Faced with multiple claimants, some Chelish nobles take one side or another, while others reject House Thrune completely (as this disputed succession undermines their main claim to power after the prior Chelish civil war).
Spare me. The Chelish nobility today is described as made up of ruined pre-Civil War holdovers and parvenu Thrune flunkies bribed with fictitious titles. It is not a site of actual power that could sustain a revolt, nor is it possessed of a rebellious spirit.
I mean, the French Revolution's reign of terror lasted about 13 months. Galt keeping this up for decades isn't healthy. I find if hard to believe anyone is trying to undermine the Galtan republic from within, and you're running out of people from the pre-revolutionary days who have it coming.
I read Galt as having a cycle of coups and counter-coups in the ongoing revolution, each coup inciting its own Terror using the ready-made state machine. The important thing isn't the periodic Terrors, it's the ongoing revolution. That is what's promising, and "restoring order" would be a shame. It also situates Galt (and Avistani political culture more broadly) in the much more realistic framing of the "long French Revolution," considered from 1789 to 1871.
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Since Cheliax came up, I remembered another thing that always sorta bugged me.
In general, Cheliax/Devils/LE outsiders do a really poor job feeling actually lawful. Sure, they're organized and regimented, but they lie, cheat, steal, betray and usurp almost as much as demons do which all kind of fly in the face of loyalty, honesty, commitment, tradition and duty that are supposed to form the backbone of the L side of alignment.
I feel like they'd be much more interesting characters and organizations if they held to the tenants of their alignments a bit better instead of just being... generic badguys with the trappings of organization.
To a lesser extent you could do the same with Outsiders of every alignment better, I think, but devils always stood out to me as the most egregious.
Faced with multiple claimants, some Chelish nobles take one side or another, while others reject House Thrune completely (as this disputed succession undermines their main claim to power after the prior Chelish civil war).Spare me. The Chelish nobility today is described as made up of ruined pre-Civil War holdovers and parvenu Thrune flunkies bribed with fictitious titles. It is not a site of actual power that could sustain a revolt, nor is it possessed of a rebellious spirit.
I agree, resistance would be mostly passive. But with multiple claimants claiming to be the successor to Abrogail, few of the current nobles would be likely to provide active support to any of them unless one of them marches an army into their domain or has already secured their loyalty in some manner. Otherwise, the odds are that the nobles would eventually be punished for supporting a rival usurper once the succession is settled.
Of course, that means that all of the actual claimants to House Thrune would be equally weak in the short run. I could easily see the "true monarch" of Cheliax being considered to be whichever House Thrune noble controls Egorian, but with that ruler having greatly reduced or no power beyond their immediate reach, as most people in the country would have to answer to somebody who does not recognize the claim of whoever is sitting on the throne in Egorian.
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Since Cheliax came up, I remembered another thing that always sorta bugged me.
In general, Cheliax/Devils/LE outsiders do a really poor job feeling actually lawful. Sure, they're organized and regimented, but they lie, cheat, steal, betray and usurp almost as much as demons do which all kind of fly in the face of loyalty, honesty, commitment, tradition and duty that are supposed to form the backbone of the L side of alignment.
I feel like they'd be much more interesting characters and organizations if they held to the tenants of their alignments a bit better instead of just being... generic badguys with the trappings of organization.
To a lesser extent you could do the same with Outsiders of every alignment better, I think, but devils always stood out to me as the most egregious.
A lawful person will gladly lie to you. He'll just do it as part of an organization that all works together.
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I read Galt as having a cycle of coups and counter-coups in the ongoing revolution, each coup inciting its own Terror using the ready-made state machine. The important thing isn't the periodic Terrors, it's the ongoing revolution. That is what's promising, and "restoring order" would be a shame. It also situates Galt (and Avistani political culture more broadly) in the much more realistic framing of the "long French Revolution," considered from 1789 to 1871.
I feel like the continuity of the Grey Gardeners suggests this is not the case. Like the same organization, with the same iconography, doing the same thing has persisted for at least 40 years. One would imagine one of the revolutionary movements would be "let's get rid of those guys", but perhaps that is the next coup needed in Galt.
Since as a noble minded Galtan revolutionary, the first thing I would want to get rid of after assuming power is the secret police organization used by the previous regime to terrorize my compatriots.
I feel like the continuity of the Grey Gardeners suggests this is not the case. Like the same organization, with the same iconography, doing the same thing has persisted for at least 40 years. One would imagine one of the revolutionary movements would be "let's get rid of those guys", but perhaps that is the next coup needed in Galt.
Since as a noble minded Galtan revolutionary, the first thing I would want to get rid of after assuming power is the secret police organization used by the previous regime to terrorize my compatriots.
Well, that's until they get brought to the Grey Gardener Leader Indoctrination Centre and showed the secrets of the Great Beyond and realize that they need to maintain the status quo.
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I feel like the continuity of the Grey Gardeners suggests this is not the case. Like the same organization, with the same iconography, doing the same thing has persisted for at least 40 years. One would imagine one of the revolutionary movements would be "let's get rid of those guys", but perhaps that is the next coup needed in Galt.
Since as a noble minded Galtan revolutionary, the first thing I would want to get rid of after assuming power is the secret police organization used by the previous regime to terrorize my compatriots.
The real Long French Revolution belies this idea. Louis XVIII laid in the bed Napoleon made for him. Louis Phillipe took up Louis XVIII's administrative machine. Louis Napoleon took up Louis Phillipe's. And so on. "All revolutions perfected this machine instead of smashing it."
So too in Galt. Being able to sic the Grey Gardeners on your enemies is the great prize of political power. Noble-mindedness has nothing to do with anything. The preexisting conditions generate their own imperatives (see also: War for the Crown, Hell's Rebels, Curse of the Crimson Throne).
{. . .}
(This wouldn't rule out the all-but-confirmed daemon involvement... )
{. . .}
Even if Daemons weren't initially involved in the revolution in Galt, after seeing just a bit of how it was going, they would make it a point to get involved.
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Also the end of the AP can end diplomatically, the story doesn't automatically assume the PCs kill General Azaersi. So if I were to guess it's more she gets a pass rather than the Ironfang Legion as whole, which the PCs do a good job of dismantling.
Since Cheliax came up, I remembered another thing that always sorta bugged me.
In general, Cheliax/Devils/LE outsiders do a really poor job feeling actually lawful. Sure, they're organized and regimented, but they lie, cheat, steal, betray and usurp almost as much as demons do which all kind of fly in the face of loyalty, honesty, commitment, tradition and duty that are supposed to form the backbone of the L side of alignment.
Between devilish double-dealing and paladins acting against the more rigid and cruelly impersonal structures of social hierarchies because they're good, I think you get to see how the other alignment axis corrupts pure lawfulness.
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Also the end of the AP can end diplomatically, the story doesn't automatically assume the PCs kill General Azaersi. So if I were to guess it's more she gets a pass rather than the Ironfang Legion as whole, which the PCs do a good job of dismantling.
I mean
Plus they generally went with whatever ending for each AP that they thought was most interesting.
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Also the end of the AP can end diplomatically, the story doesn't automatically assume the PCs kill General Azaersi. So if I were to guess it's more she gets a pass rather than the Ironfang Legion as whole, which the PCs do a good job of dismantling.I mean
** spoiler omitted **
Plus they generally went with whatever ending for each AP that they thought was most interesting.
Also also
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Nah, I just meant Geb and got 'em mixed up again. I always think "Nex" is the evil one.
That would be fascinating and so, so different than anything seen before.
A *good* necromantic kingdom (or, at least, a neutral one), beset by an evil 'anything goes' magical dictatorship that, among other things, breed armies of magical mutant hybrid monsters to fling at their enemies in vast 'fleshforges,' that are responsible for, among other horrors, the existence of creations like owlbears and perytons and gibbering mouthers and all sorts of nasty beasties that have gotten out and bred and now plague the world. (While treating anyone who *isn't* a spellcaster, and, to a lesser extent, 'weaker' spellcasting Adepts, as a servant underclass to their spellcasting elite, who have full rights of citizenship, with everyone else laboring under oppressive 'guest laborer' status, and subject to being hauled off for magical experimentation at the fleshforges for breaking any of hundreds of byzantine and oft-contradictory rules that are published nowhere useful...)
It won't happen here, because of Golarion's 'all undead are evilbadnaughtywickedZoot' mandate, but it could be an interesting variant.
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an evil 'anything goes' magical dictatorship that, among other things, breed armies of magical mutant hybrid monsters to fling at their enemies in vast 'fleshforges,' that are responsible for, among other horrors, the existence of creations like owlbears and perytons and gibbering mouthers and all sorts of nasty beasties that have gotten out and bred and now plague the world.
Isn't that just Thassilon?
They didn't have the Good necromantic adversary though.
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I do not like that humans can become gods.
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The focus on the familiar European-y parts of the world. That some Ancestries get coded as always-evil. That Osirion literally just has the Egyptian gods.
Thankfully, the first two are being fixed, but I fear there's no hope for the incredibly tacky third issue.
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This might be an unpopular opinion but my group hasn't really made use of the Pathfinder Society, they are widely a group of people who want to work together, and not be in various lodges, and groups, which works for my game. So I guess you can say as a whole its not widely liked.
^The Pathfinder Society does have an unsavory touch to it (which is even canonically mentioned by some in-world characters). But rather than disliking it, I want to balance it and the far-more-unsavory Aspis Consortium with a Good-aligned competitor. Andoren Geographic Society, anyone?
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^The Pathfinder Society does have an unsavory touch to it (which is even canonically mentioned by some in-world characters). But rather than disliking it, I want to balance it and the far-more-unsavory Aspis Consortium with a Good-aligned competitor. Andoren Geographic Society, anyone?
Andoren is a brutal colonial power in Azlant (with Arcadian ambitions) and towards anything fey. This is so because it is in competition with other powers, and competition drives the development of best practices. This would also be true in the world of plundering pulp-archaeologists. Put another way, any such organization will come to resemble the Pathfinders in short order. Put a-further-nother way, a "Good-aligned" pulp-archaeologist cartel is a utopia.
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I'm not a big fan of Golarion having elves as a race in declineThis isn't actually a thing. Elvendom is thriving in Garund and under the seas. The group in decline are the hyper-Aryans who abandoned the world for their own gated-community refuge, and good riddance to them.
I feel that Pathfinder 2 missed the memo, since the entry for elves say, "Elven culture is deep, rich, and on the decline." Even if they are back and rebuilding, the flavor texts says that they have already peaked and on the decline. Telling me about elves elsewhere that aren't doesn't really work for me when the flavor text for all elves without reference to Kyonin say that elves are on the decline.
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Re_the Conqueror Worm in Galt:
It's more of a VERY popular fan-theory that has received some sly "Hmm... Now that would explain some things, ne?" kinda comments from some of the developers. (Enough to solidify as almost canon among many... )
(This wouldn't rule out the all-but-confirmed daemon involvement... )
A Galt AP would be a great way to confirm this!
;)Carry on,
--C.
@ Psiphyre and Rysky (who got ninja'ed by Psiphyre): Thank you both for your explanation!'
(And sorry about the late reply.)
@Bellona
You're welcome.
(& No worries.)
^^
Carry on,
--C.
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I feel that Pathfinder 2 missed the memo, since the entry for elves say, "Elven culture is deep, rich, and on the decline." Even if they are back and rebuilding, the flavor texts says that they have already peaked and on the decline. Telling me about elves elsewhere that aren't doesn't really work for me when the flavor text for all elves without reference to Kyonin say that elves are on the decline.I'm not a big fan of Golarion having elves as a race in declineThis isn't actually a thing. Elvendom is thriving in Garund and under the seas. The group in decline are the hyper-Aryans who abandoned the world for their own gated-community refuge, and good riddance to them.
That memos get missed at Paizo is a long-running and well-documented problem. For instance, Sarenrae's church in Qadira and Taldor's reactions to it were contrary to the intent of the creative director. There are other examples that don't spring immediately to my mind.
Organized Play Developer
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That some Ancestries get coded as always-evil.
Just wanted to note that this wasn't something that needed "fixing"; ancestries in Pathfinder have never been "always evil". "Always X" isn't a construction used in Pathfinder monster stat blocks, and the very first Bestiary notes "While a monster's size and type remain constant (unless changed by the application of templates or other unusual modifiers), alignment is far more fluid. The alignments listed for each monster in this book represent the norm for those monsters-they can vary as you require them to in order to serve the needs of your campaign. Only in the case of relatively unintelligent monsters (creatures with an Intelligence score of 2 or lower are almost never anything other than neutral) and planar monsters (outsiders with alignments other than those listed are unusual and typically outcasts from their kind) is the listed alignment relatively unchangeable."
Non-evil examples of traditionally evil creatures such as goblins or trolls go back to the earliest days of Pathfinder and Golarion, even predating the Pathfinder rules system.
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Most of the 1e factions in PFS were blah in my opinion.
I, along with many other people, don't like how the afterlife works, namely how petitioners have their memories erased as it raises a bunch of philosophical and moral issues (is such a petitioner the same person as before? If not, is rewarding or punishing them justified?)
I have a concept, when you achieve a nirvana your memories are not erased and your soul goes further, beyond the planes, beyond this world. So you can achieve a better endgame then just end up in some other plane.
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I'm interested in seeing what they do with witches in 2e. I loved the 1e witch but hated the way Blood of the Coven solidified certain aspects of the witch/patron relationship; in particular that the witch was basically given all their powers (which I don't think fits well with them being int based) and could now "fall" if they went against their patron in some way (I for the most part view the patron as part power source but mostly teacher). I feel this should have been left vague and up to the player and GM to determine.
I would have liked to of seen some more clarification as to why the witches tended to be viewed with suspicion, lurked on the fringes of civilised society, misunderstood, feared etc. There was even a number of archetypes with witch-hunting as a specific theme. Explanations tended to go along the lines of "people don't quite understand where witches get their power so don't trust them", like your average commoner has a perfect understanding of where wizard, arcanists, sorcerers, oracles, summoners, occultists, psychics, bards, clerics druids and so on get there powers and thus are happy to except them.
In my own headcannon the negative reputation of witchcraft is, for the most part, based on socioeconomic and political factors. To my mind witchcraft is predominately "peasant magic". As such ruling classes, be they aristocratic or of some other sort would predictably be uncomfortable having access to magical power. Wizardry and clerical magics are often subjected to "gate-keeping" by institutions that likely have ties to the ruling elite and benefit from maintaining a degree of magical exclusivity. Having access to witchcraft means there's less need to attend and expensive wizarding academy. If the village has a witch providing remedies then there's little motivation to attend or donate to the local church and the priest's influence is lessened. Many bards are more then happy to propagate tales of wicked witches, in part because a witch can represent competition in providing certain services but most because art and entertainment is often closely intertwined with and operates in service to power.
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I don't like how in a world with many deities, the game rules nonetheless assume people are not polytheists. Like there's no reason someone who isn't directly affiliated with a church or deity, wouldn't say prayers or perform rites for whatever deities are appropriate to their immediate concerns.
Like it shouldn't be weird for the same person to say a prayer to Desna and Gozreh before an ocean voyage; to say a prayer to Erastil for a good harvest; say a prayer to Irori that the tax collector is honest; and say a prayer to Iomedae, Gorum, and Torag before a battle.
But the character sheet just has one spot for deity.
THIS! This has been nagging me for AGES! Hell most common folk wouldn't even have a single preferred deity, unless it's one tied to their profession like Posiedon was for greek fishermen.
It's only when you get into the hardcore clergy that you started having Seers following Apollo and priestesses of Athena and so on.
Yet in this you're expected to follow 1 special god more so than the others by default, they're treated more like individual religions than a pantheon coexisting.
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There's a clear double-standard here.Is there? Chaos as an alignment represents capriciousness, a disregard for the concerns of others and a general antipathy toward organizations and hierarchies in general. CN in particular is an alignment that exemplifies not giving a damn about anything other than your own interests, although not to the same extreme as a CE character.
That they'd come across as problematic in relation to species' that define themselves around complex societies seems kind of a given. Chaos is, well, chaos.
Chaos opposed to Law instead of Order is inherently weird, to be honest.
Although, it does provide a clear and uncommon place for a few societies which would be most similar to modern anarchism/anarcho-communism.
Order, but through a concerted effort towards equality and freedom, and a constant effort to maintain that and prevent unjustified hierarchies for emerging. (Which is more complex than it looks and gets into ideas like, yes trust the doctor in matters of medicine, but that authority doesn't carry over into other situations unless they have earned it there too.)
Unfortunately, what we GOT instead of an interesting attempt at a medieval society following those ideals without the same advancements that enable it in the modern era, was Galt. And Galt was shallow, confusing and ultimately just kind of a rubbish place nobody would want to live in.
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Order, but through a concerted effort towards equality and freedom, and a constant effort to maintain that and prevent unjustified hierarchies for emerging. (Which is more complex than it looks and gets into ideas like, yes trust the doctor in matters of medicine, but that authority doesn't carry over into other situations unless they have earned it there too.)
Unfortunately, what we GOT instead of an interesting attempt at a medieval society following those ideals without the same advancements that enable it in the modern era, was Galt. And Galt was shallow, confusing and ultimately just kind of a rubbish place nobody would want to live in.
Galt's an intentionally bad place. Nirmathas is a much better example of the sort of society you're talking about.
That's because they are more like individual religions than pantheons. Unlike real-world polytheistic pantheons, they're not organized groups of deities. They don't share family ties or common backgrounds. Some have connections to a few others and occasionally cooperate or oppose each other, but mostly they're completely independent. There's no ruling sky god and his wife and brothers and children living on Olympus or in Asgard or wherever.
It's not just the religious attitudes that are different, it's the very nature of the gods themselves.
While this is true, you're overstating its effects a bit. In-setting, the Gods are real people who interact, so even though they lack a common pantheon and origin for the most part they're more connected than they can seem at first glance, with various interesting and specific personal relationships both real (such as Shelyn, Sarenrae, and Desna being in a romantic relationship together) and in their worshipers mythologies (worshipers of Torag often portray Cayden Cailean as his comedic sidekick). Which is neat, in context.
There also are a few real pantheons in-setting (the Dwarven Pantheon is basically Torag, his wife, and their children).
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I don't like how in a world with many deities, the game rules nonetheless assume people are not polytheists.
Which is hilarious in the context of how it's balls-out crazytalk to be like someone from Rahadoum, who shuns anything to do with the deities, when they are all demonstrably powerful and pretty much define the term 'gods,' but every other person on the planet treats all but ONE of these gods with the same level of disinterest.
The Rahadoumi venerate exactly *one* less god than *everyone else on the planet.* And for that, they are deemed nuts.
Meanwhile, in real world mythology (hah!), it didn't matter if Athena was your jam, scrimping on an offering to Poseidon before a sea voyage was asking for a good shipwrecking. You made prayers to whoever the hell was appropriate. You're a soldier, and Ares is your boo? Doesn't matter, home on the farm, it's Demeter who governs the harvests, and gets the proper respect, or it's no crops for you!
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I'm curious where people get the notion that the majority of the populace only worships one deity. Surely it cannot be solely because of the limited space on a character sheet? Said character sheets also only have space for one character name, but that doesn't mean a character cannot have nicknames or aliases.