Are there any Earthlings on Golarion?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


Other than Baba Yaga that is.

Has anyone stumbled through a portal and found themselves in a land of magic and almost no modern tech.

If there are, have they done anything noticeable in the world?

Thanks,
N

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Reign of Winter has the potential to have someone come through. The forthcoming 2nd Edition World Guide should tell us one way or the other. (I'm going with yes.)


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There is also the Worldscape comic which includes several Earthlings (which I would very much like a supplement book for thank you very much). The default of the Worldscape is they go back where they came from and don't remember anything but special circumstances (IE: DM said yes) could get one to Golarion. Or a Martian for that mater.


I suppose the designers didn't want to have to deal with players using/bringing modern tech knowledge into Golarion.

Then again there's a nation that uses crashed spaceship tech and androids wander about so...


Well there is Empedocles in the city of Stethelos located in the Plane of Time. But he's technically anima mundi chow, so I doubt that really counts. There's that one chick from Reign of Winter 3: Maiden, Mother, Crone that speaks Russian eventhough she's not from there. Some influence on Golarion that way, but still very limited because I don't think she can leave the cave.

However, nothing says that somebody couldn't use the Scepter of Ages in conjunction with a Well of Many Worlds, or a Codex of the Infinite Planes, to transport people from Earth to Golarion. If you include D&D 3.5 material from Dungeon #143 the Mask of Diamond Tears could also draw in people from alternate Material Planes, but that would require including the Mirror Plane as well. Also, the spell Interplanetary Teleport could probably accomplish this as well.


Natan Linggod 327 wrote:

I suppose the designers didn't want to have to deal with players using/bringing modern tech knowledge into Golarion.

Then again there's a nation that uses crashed spaceship tech and androids wander about so...

Well keep in mind in Pathfinder it's only 1921 on Earth. That said, they could still bring more advanced technology, as Golarion seems to be mostly medieval except a few places that are more Industrial Revolution age.


CloudCobra wrote:
However, nothing says that somebody couldn't use the Scepter of Ages in conjunction with a Well of Many Worlds, or a Codex of the Infinite Planes, to transport people from Earth to Golarion. If you include D&D 3.5 material from Dungeon #143 the Mask of Diamond Tears could also draw in people from alternate Material Planes, but that would require including the Mirror Plane as well. Also, the spell Interplanetary Teleport could probably accomplish this as well.

You could definitely use Interplanetary Teleport to get to or from Earth, though you would need some prior knowledge of it. Earth does not exist in an "alternate Material Plane" from Golarion; it's just very far away. The biggest connections to Earth Golarion has is that Baba Yaga is from there and Cthulhu lives there.


It's funny. When you put it like that, Earth sounds like a nightmarish place. A world that spawns terrible demi-gods.


Bloodrealm wrote:
CloudCobra wrote:
However, nothing says that somebody couldn't use the Scepter of Ages in conjunction with a Well of Many Worlds, or a Codex of the Infinite Planes, to transport people from Earth to Golarion. If you include D&D 3.5 material from Dungeon #143 the Mask of Diamond Tears could also draw in people from alternate Material Planes, but that would require including the Mirror Plane as well. Also, the spell Interplanetary Teleport could probably accomplish this as well.
You could definitely use Interplanetary Teleport to get to or from Earth, though you would need some prior knowledge of it. Earth does not exist in an "alternate Material Plane" from Golarion; it's just very far away. The biggest connections to Earth Golarion has is that Baba Yaga is from there and Cthulhu lives there.

Well, there are also the Yithians from Strange Aeons: The Whisper Out of Time. These things can project themselves forward in time and also into the past. They actually went to Earth. These things effective magic jar people to take over their bodies and the hapless victim ends up being shunted into theirs. A Yithian could conceivably transport Earthlings to Golarion if it was deemed of necessity for knowledge, to fight the Flying Polyps, or for another purpose to save their race.


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Wait, Earth is in the same universe? Who's stopping us from using magic then >:(


Natan Linggod 327 wrote:
Wait, Earth is in the same universe? Who's stopping us from using magic then >:(

I think that's left up to GM discretion. Personally, I go by Dragon Magazine's articles "The Wizards Three" (technically Paizo content) which say that people from Earth have never actually cast a spell (Rasputin Must Die is an exception here due to external influences from Baba Yaga).

#ShillAlert: You can find my old D&D 3.5/Pathfinder assemblage as "CloudCobra's Guide to Non-magical Characters" under the Homebrew section. With all the new splatbooks that have come out since then it's outdated by only 6 years.


Natan Linggod 327 wrote:
Wait, Earth is in the same universe? Who's stopping us from using magic then >:(

Nothing's stopping us. Just pick a caster class next time you level up, instead of Commoner or Expert like most people in our world do.


Matthew Downie wrote:


Nothing's stopping us. Just pick a caster class next time you level up, instead of Commoner or Expert like most people in our world do.

My DM is apparently being stingy with caster classes...

Earth being in the same universe brings many other questions with it. Like, why don't we have gods like Golarion does? The ones here either don't exist or don't give anything for worship (like spells), which makes me wonder why more active gods like Iomedae or Asmodeous don't show up to poach some believers.
I mean, there are already people here who believe magic is a thing that works, so imagine the following you'd get if you could prove without a doubt that worshiping you gave real, physical benefits.


Perhaps we're in a no-mana zone for some reason.

Or perhaps we just don't. We used to, apparently, but magic and gods went away long ago. Doesn't really matter.

Their cosmology is one infinite Prime Material plane with room for everything in it, rather than multiple alternate Prime Material planes like D&D uses. This doesn't really change the basic questions, since gods can usually travel planes more easily than mortals.
The whole point is to have some way for people and influences to travel between the "real world" and the fantasy world and that's going to raise those questions.


IIRC, Earth is in a different galaxy than Golarion. (And the crashed spaceship in Numeria is from a third galaxy. Also humans.)

In my version of Golarion, I've limited Interplanetary Teleport a bit - not that it's been an issue yet. Originally it was going to be just to the same galaxy as the caster's current location, but now I'm wondering if it should be just to the same star system. For magic that goes further (either same galaxy, or to another galaxy), one needs more magical "oomph", possibly either with a ritual or some kind of epic-level spellcasting. (Yes, I've hung onto the ELH from 3.5., particularly as I am not enthused by the Mythic ruleset.)


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I just thought of a reason why we couldn't use magic, speak with gods etc. We'd be able to except that C'thulhu being here 'taints' the 'magic field' of our solar system to such an extent that natives are unable to 'connect' to the magic anymore. likewise, communications from gods/spirits/etc can't get through the mental and spiritual 'static'.
Visitors from Golarion can still use magic since they sort of carry it with them. Likewise, earthlings can use magic elsewhere, once they've left the interference field.

Shadow Lodge

Check out book 5 of RoW. We absolutely can. But this is alternate Earth, where all of the fairy tales and urban legends are real, but almost everyone is still an expert or commoner.


By the way, I'm flagging this thread so that it can be moved to the PF Campaign Setting General Discussion sub-forum, as it's more of a lore issue than the actual game itself.

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