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I intend to write up a homebrewed campaign that exists within Pathfinder's world, and I need help finding the right location to set the story. For the campaign idea, I need an area where, on two sides directly opposite of each other, across a large expanse of open ocean. The countries that oppose each other both need to be fairly advanced, enough that both countries could conceivably build something akin to a superweapon within 100 years, perhaps with one being built by mechanical means while the other is based in magic, they need to have fairly well-known figureheads, and they need to have enough reason to go to war with each other. I would greatly appreciate any help you can offer.
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An obvious large expanse of open ocean on Golarian with developed countries on both sides would be the Inner Sea between the continents of Avastian, Garund, and Casmaron. The Chelish Empire on the shores of Avastian is warlike; unfortunately, they seem to indulge only in land wars. The others have little history of war across the the Inner Sea. The Arclords of the island of Jalmeray once had a war with Vudra.
The oceans between the land masses of Avastion-Casmaron, Arcadia, and Tian Xia are so big that the peoples on them barely know about the others. That means no war.
One possibility is the Xidao Gulf between the peninsula of Minkai and the mainland of continental Tian Xia. Due to the Jade Regent adventure path, Minkaian government was recently freed from the corrupt Jade Regent and a secret oni conspiracy. That would make the oni-ruled nation of Chu Ye hostile to it. But the two nations are separated by a strait rather than the full width of the Xidao Gulf, so it would not be as good for ocean adventure.
South of Minkai is the Minata Archipelago. That group of islands has many different rulers, so it would not be difficult to find an island nation hostile to Minkai, except maybe had an evil alliance with the Jade Regent. The stretch of ocean between them looks like a good place for an ocean adventure. In addition, Minkai is fantasy Japan and Minata is fantasy Pacific Islands, so you could steal stories from Earth's World War II.
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There is a world map in the Core Rulebook.
If you're seriously interested in mapping Golarion, check out this thread
Mapping Golarion
And here's the resulting global map
Global Golarion
Use the interactive maps there to get a closer look
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Cheliax and Rahadoum face each other across the Inner Sea.
Cheliax is ruled by the devil-worshipping tyrants of the House of Thrune. Rahadoum is governed by atheist fascists under the Laws of Mortality. Cheliax has long held a foothold on the southern shore which has been a sore point between the two countries. They have no love for each other.
I think that checks all your boxes.
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Cheliax and Rahadoum face each other across the Inner Sea.
Cheliax is ruled by the devil-worshipping tyrants of the House of Thrune. Rahadoum is governed by atheist fascists under the Laws of Mortality. Cheliax has long held a foothold on the southern shore which has been a sore point between the two countries. They have no love for each other.
I think that checks all your boxes.
Since when are the Rahadoumi fascists? Other than their ban on religion being enforced, they really don’t seem all that repressive, given that they’re famous for their universities.
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It could also be read that the Rahadoumi universities are as famous as they are given both their relative progressiveness and permissiveness with regards to the rest of Rahadoum.
(The text in the LOWG is quite neutral in its presentation of Rahadoum though, thereby allowing for a number of different takes on the nation. I do think that 'fascist' might be just a little extreme of a view. )
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There is a world map in the Core Rulebook.
If you're seriously interested in mapping Golarion, check out this thread
Mapping GolarionAnd here's the resulting global map
Global GolarionUse the interactive maps there to get a closer look
Upon taking a look at the interactive maps and looking at the official map of the Inner Sea area, it appears to be just a bit too small, and any attempts to place a new continent in there would skew the map and all projections way out of wack; are there any maps that detail the Obari Ocean that it lets into?
Is there a specific reason it needs to be Golarion?
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Is there a specific reason it needs to be Golarion?
Well, I don't wanna try dealing with alternate plane shenanigans, at least not near the beginning, and I want to let my players use some things from the other books, so setting it in a different world altogether would cause issues. Additionally, since the campaign proper is based around chasing down the parts for one of the super weapons, I'd like to have some external conflicts to misdirect the players as to who is chasing down the parts for the other one.
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Does it have to be an ocean ?
Because that sure sounds like a rekindling of the Nex/Geb war, with the Mana Wastes in between.
With Arazni gone, Geb's back to actually having to rule, so if you have Nex hinting at his own comeback, the region will erupt into total war. And those figureheads are so well known their countries are the named after them.
I can't really think of powerhouse nations on opposite sides of a sea in Golarion, at least not without neighbors that would absolutely interfere in your scenario.
Although, scaling it down around Lake Encarthan could work.
But really, I'd just make stuff up. If you want to steal things from Golarion, that's fine.
Edit : or, OR... Go full-on crazy and scale way up, make it intercontinental, Avistan versus Arcadia.
That's a big sea in between, and it's full of Azlanti things for all your doomsday devices needs.
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Is there a specific reason it needs to be Golarion?
Well, I don't wanna try dealing with alternate plane shenanigans, at least not near the beginning, and I want to let my players use some things from the other books, so setting it in a different world altogether would cause issues. Additionally, since the campaign proper is based around chasing down the parts for one of the super weapons, I'd like to have some external conflicts to misdirect the players as to who is chasing down the parts for the other one.
So, there's a lot here, but I can see where you're coming from.
That said, as a fellow GM, if you'll allow, I'm going to make some recommendations.
First and foremost, you're either going to have to compromise on your ideas, you're going to have to alter the world, or you're going to have to put it in a different setting. This is not a bad thing, it just means you need to make adjustments.
There are lots of things in Golarion that almost work for what you want, but nothing that works exactly for what you want.
As Nyerkh noted, your conceit is very similar to the concept inherent in the Nex/Geb war. They lack an ocean between them - it's a magic-poor desert instead. Or maybe Geb v. the Sarenrae-focused Qadira (Sarenrae being a sun goddess; Qadira revers her handily, but as a nation can misinterpret or misunderstand her creed and be more warlike: and the power of a sun goddess should come in quite handy against all those horrendous undead...).
On the other hand, again as Nyerkh noted, you could scale it down and posit something "across Lake Encarthan" instead of "across the ocean" - Ustalav v. the elves of Kyonin, for example (an inability to cross through Razmiran for "reasons" means going by lake - or scale it up ("go big or go home") and have the continent of Arcadia v. the continent(s) of Astivan (and/or Garund) - perhaps as a part of a repudiation of the chaos created by Aroden's (mis?)use of the Veins of Creation - either Cheliax starts something and stirs up a hornets' nest, or Arcadia unifies and begins a "counter-invasion" against the side of the world that literally ruined everything (and made things much worse after Aroden's death).
Mathmuse gave the Inner Sea (the narrow upside-down "L"-shaped sea between Avistan, Garund, and parts of Casmeron) giving you Cheliax v. various others; Jalmeray v. Vudra. Minkai v. Tian Xia. The lower archipelago.
Basically, a ton of good ideas have been posited and you're at the point where something's got to give.
Here is a pretty decent map of Golarion, though it sometimes lacks details.
Here is a world map with the continents labeled, but little else.
The thing is, you'll want to either start rewriting setting elements or just put it in a world "suspiciously similar" to Golarion, or simply make your own world, but incorporate specific elements that your players want by inclusion. Now, this does make more work for you (and, as a fellow GM, I understand not wanting to do this), but it ultimately gives you the freedom to write the conflict you want to create.
Like, let's take your original idea:
I intend to write up a homebrewed campaign that exists within Pathfinder's world, and I need help finding the right location to set the story. For the campaign idea, I need an area where, on two sides directly opposite of each other, across a large expanse of open ocean. The countries that oppose each other both need to be fairly advanced, enough that both countries could conceivably build something akin to a superweapon within 100 years, perhaps with one being built by mechanical means while the other is based in magic, they need to have fairly well-known figureheads, and they need to have enough reason to go to war with each other. I would greatly appreciate any help you can offer.
So, to start, take Pathfinder map.
Then take, say, Arcadia and Tian Xia.
Cut the countries you want on one side (if they "tech" side, say Ustalav, Geb, Rahadoum, Taldor, et. al.) and paste them (figuratively) onto one continent; then do the same thing to the other (say, the elves of Kyonin, Cheliax, Nidal, Quadira, Jalmeray, Last Wall, whatever).
Re-adjust the position on the map of those two continents, in a way that works for you.
This lets you have a big continent that leans slightly more toward tech (the former), and another that leans more toward religious or pact-style magic (the latter; that said it's different religious magic), allowing two distinctive "super weapons" developed by opposing countries. Arcane magic is either evenly split, or perhaps spread around a third continent. This third continent could act as a "buffer" between the two (being a costly war) or perhaps the only real spot where land is overlaying between the two is so heavily ruined (ala the Mana Wastes) that they don't have any way of crossing well.
Of course, you conceit was country v. country, not continent v. continent. To that end, you select two countries that reasonably share a heavy beef.
Geb v. Nex or Geb v. Last Wall.
Cheliax v. Taldor or Cheliax v. Rahadoum.
Taldor v. Quadira or Taldor v. Cheliax.
Or you can make one up that seems reasonable.
Sample Countries chosen Semi-Randomly: Nidal, Rahadoum, Geb, Quadira, Taldor, and Molthune
Nidal v. Rahadoum. (LE religious darkness/torture fanatics v. LN "kill all religions" maltheists "atheists")
Geb v. Quadira. (LE undead aristocratic monsters v. N sun-worshiping warmongers)
Taldor v. Molthune (CN decadent bureaucratic empire-in-decline/used to rule the relative world, but now reduced to a fragment nation among many v. LN former vassal of a former vassal conquest-focused warmongers who seek to conquer a realm - any realm - of their own for the betterment of their people, to fortify their position against dark powers)
Quadira v. Rahadoum (N sun-worshiping warmongers v. LN "kill all religions" maltheists "atheists")
Geb v. Nidal (LE undead aristocratic monsters v. LE religious darkness/torture fanatics)
Quadira v. Nidal (N sun-worshiping warmongers v. LE religious darkness/torture fanatics)
Geb v. Rahadoum (LE undead aristocratic monsters v. LN "kill all religions" maltheists "atheists")
Taldor v. Quadira (wait, this one's canon)
Molthune v. Quadira (LN conquest-focused warmongers who seek to conquer a realm - any realm - of their own for the betterment of their people, to fortify their position against dark powers v. N sun-worshiping warmongers)
Molthune v. Nidal (this one only doesn't happen in-canon because Cheliax and Nidal are allies, and Molthune can't afford war with both; Cheliax and Nidal being the canon neighbors Molthune wants to become powerful enough to defend against/conquer)
Taldor v. Nidal (CN decadent bureaucratic empire-in-decline/used to rule the relative world, but now reduced to a fragment nation among many v. LE religious darkness/torture fanatics that are a thrall nation to a former thrall nation ())
Molthune v. Rahadoum (LN conquest-focused warmongers who seek to conquer a realm - any realm - of their own for the betterment of their people, to fortify their position against dark powers v. LN "kill all religions" maltheists "atheists")
Geb v. Taldor. (LE undead aristocratic monsters v. CN decadent bureaucratic empire-in-decline/used to rule the relative world, but now reduced to a fragment nation among many)
Molthune v. Geb (LN conquest-focused warmongers who seek to conquer a realm - any realm - of their own for the betterment of their people, to fortify their position against dark powers v. LE undead aristocratic monsters: )
(Those are purely conceptual ideas and just to illustrate the potential, not to limit your choices.)
The other neighboring countries may have problems of their own, but still be inconvenient to conquer (because they have enough power to pose a threat, or provide a convenient buffer against a nation that might pose a threat, are nominal allies or peaceful neighbors but may be busy with their own war, or whatever), leaving the two nations you've chosen to go to war.
Otherwise, you're going to have to either go really big (changing Golarion's entire landscape), go mildly small (changing the size or scope of the conflict or sea or whatever), or otherwise alter things.
Otherwise, I do hope all that helps!
Pathfinder Wiki is a fantastically useful resource for all your world-lore questions. They don't have everything, but that's a pretty solid first look.
There really aren't any other specific locations that meet all your criteria already, otherwise.
Personally, I understand not wanting to change things about the original conceit, or the setting, but by aping the setting (or tearing it apart and putting it together again, renaming everything and occasionally faking things - maybe Ustalav is bordered by weird shadow creatures and a planar thinning instead of orcs, or whatever) means that you can get closer to your original conception, but still make use of the base materials.
Pathfinder Society? Never heard of it! Might be real close to the Wayfinder Society, though...
Anyway, good luck! And please keep us apprised of how it's going or any ideas that you like or dislike!
(One final concept is just putting two groups that have a local sea, but are otherwise quite separated - like, say, Cheliax and Quadira - and forcing them to sail long distances to wage war, despite having hypothetical direct land-bridges, because they simply can't afford war "right now" with all those land neighbors, but need to end that upstart jerk, like, right now. Or whatever.)
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Ok, seeing as how I the lack of other information on my concept seems to leave a little too much ambiguity, I'm going to post a little more about it;
1. I am intending to make a large change, by inserting another continent. That's why I said the Inner Sea was a little too small, as any insertion of a 0-through-20 campaign setting would require a large amount of map distortion
2. This war is mainly for the session zero leg of the campaign, starting about 50 years before campaign proper. The war itself is what forces the hidden continent to reveal themselves, creating an uneasy truce that results in the parts of the superweapons being scattered across the continent
3. While the countries involved in the precursor war are going to be involved in the story, they are more or less sidequests and misdirects toward the other(NPC) party chasing the other superweapon parts
Ultimately, I only need to know if there's any established powers on that southern end of Casmaron or if I have free license
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For Southern Casmaron look into the Kelesh Empire. Its western most province is Quadira, which is in the inner sea region. You can start with https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Kelesh.
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If everything else fails, you could always just use Sarusan.
I mean whole point of that continent is "Nobody in character remembers what is there because there is some sort of effect that causes everyone who enters the place and succesfully leave it forget what was there" lore wise and "Here be the GM free to do whatever they want" zone meta wise.
Your new continent could replace Sarusan easily. Who they could be in war with?*shrugs* Presumably nation that doesn't remember currently they are in war with Sarusan, but it would funnily enough free you to use any of other plausible super weapon nations :p
Plus if you make new continent appear(or always to have been in Golarion) then Sarusan would also make sense as the opponent nation to them since, well, of course the people from "nobody remembers what is there" land are equal to "Continent that we didn't even know existed because it appeared out of nowhere" magical bs levels wise.
Honestly surprised that nobody mentioned Sarusan since that is the "GM lore wise free to do whatever" zone
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For Southern Casmaron look into the Kelesh Empire. Its western most province is Quadira, which is in the inner sea region. You can start with https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Kelesh.
The country itself appears to be perfect for this campaign; due to their superstitions and history of wishcrafting, they'd be a perfect candidate to create the magical superweapon and incite the war as a "blessed conquest" by misinterpreting their seers words. However, I need a territory a little more southern than Qadira, as I don't want to put Jalmarey in the crossfire. Are there any sources for more southern territories of Kelesh or do I need to bulls**t one?
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We have little info on Casmaron as a whole, so you won't find much.
There's Kelesh, Vudra and Iobaria, Iblydos and what's peft of Ninshabur, and... That's about the extent of what we know. Well, there's bit and pieces.
Still, the wiki has some stuff.
But that's a massive continent, full of terra incognita. Here be dragons. Maybe ?
Also, legendary kingdoms fallen to ruin and surely full of stuff that could be used in the makings of doomsday devices, yes ?
Speaking of, there's also an absolutely massive landlocked sea in there as well. And I don't think we know who and what's on the shores all that precisely, so it's free real estate if you want to create stuff and still be in Golarion. If you're okay with a less european vibe.
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Good point, actually, the Castrovin Sea could work pretty well for this idea. You could have Kelesh be on once side and Kaladay (which we know so little about that you could more or less make it whatever you want) on the other.
Your idea seems like enough to make your own setting from, though, it seems like you know exactly what you need. If you have the time, that is.
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Good point, actually, the Castrovin Sea could work pretty well for this idea. You could have Kelesh be on once side and Kaladay (which we know so little about that you could more or less make it whatever you want) on the other.
Your idea seems like enough to make your own setting from, though, it seems like you know exactly what you need. If you have the time, that is.
I mean, I certainly COULD, but ultimately, I want my players to be able to use other Pathfinder resources as guides to building their characters(if they choose NOT to use the new class, which I hope at least some of them don't, for party balance's sake) without too many lore contrivances to allow this.
Granted, if they use stuff too far outside of the Inner Sea region, there'll still be issues to deal with, but I'd rather have some basis to qualify this as a Pathfinder game as opposed to a game running the Pathfinder system
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Well, I think I have the issues with using Kelesh straightened out, but now I need stuff about Garund; any and all powers on this continent could work, but I'd prefer one that's already pretty technically advanced, for the sake of not pushing my campaign too far into the future.
Any resources you could provide would be greatly appreciated as well
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Garund, eh? I don't know squat about the southern two thirds. I think lizard folk, cat people, and dinosaurs hang out there. The top third is inner sea, and the two uber powered nations are Geb and Nex. Neither one is expansionist, but with Geb being back on the scene, that could change. And I could see Sarenrae worshipping Kellish forces provoking Geb. Other than Geb himself, I don't see much of a reason for anyone to tangle with Nex.
For details, see the wiki, or better still the ISWG.
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Just south of Geb is the nation of Holomog, there aren't a ton of details but the wiki has some here.
Other than Geb himself, I don't see much of a reason for anyone to tangle with Nex.
There are a few that could become problematic. Arclords of Nex have multinational influence as advisors, they have dragged the country to war in the past and currently have their leader in one of the three most powerful seats in the country. Anyone taking issue with the Arclords could target the leader and the nation would be roped in, and the arclords could spark the hostilities for whatever reason as well. There is a big temple to the demon lord of forbidden knowledge in Quantium as well as open torture practices in Oenopion (fleshwarping) which could be a moral problem to motivate a nation to war with them. It has advanced golem technology and arcane magic, though not noticeably advanced technology otherwise (though it could have an edge over other nations regarding clockwork tech smuggled out of Alkenstar). Most of this is from the wiki and ISWG.
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Though I have left this thread cold for a while, now that I have some time, I'd like to fill in everyone on how the campaign development has gone so far. As of... a week or so before "Spring Break" started, which would later turn into quarantine, I ran the Session 0 of my campaign. I settled on Kelesh being the country starting s**t with Geb, and the "proto-party" was working with Chancellor Kemnebi, guarding him on his ship as they pass through the Death's Eye. (the party is not aware of this name, and I kinda slapped this one together as I couldn't remember the names of any storm gods, basically think of this as Pathfinder Bermuda Triangle) The chancellor attributes most of the "disappearances" to pirates utilizing the dense fog and superstition of the area to get around the issues of the whole "selling stolen goods" thing. I'll continue in another post, as this one is lengthy.
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At the start, I had Kemnebi administer a test of sorts to the players after explaining what the mission was. In the great hall they were speaking in, there were 12 chalices on display, all of equal size, but varying in ornamentation. Each member of the 3 person party (audience was kinda cannibalized by an ongoing D&D campaign run in the same tabletop club) was asked to examine the chalices and choose one. The barbarian came across one with a depiction of a skeleton wearing a top hat taking off its head in greeting, liked it and chose it based on that alone. The druid got lucky with a perception check and found the correct chalice, which was adorned with the emblem of Geb. The bard decided to try Detect Magic, which revealed to him that the one Bubbles (yes, that is what the druid's name was) was holding had magic properties as well as one of the stained glass windows. After all, why the f**k would a vampire have windows when sun can kill them? Behind the one the bard revealed was a sword embedded in a pedestal. Cursed to polymorph anyone who holds the hilt into a bunny rabbit, but with a +1 to strength and dex at a cost to reach. Continued in next post.