Holomog is great and I hope Paizo will go back there

[Douglas Muir 406]

Holomog hasn't had a lot of attention. So far there's only been a single six-page article in Distant Shores, written by Crystal Frazier back in 2015 or so. But it's different and interesting and I really hope Paizo returns there.

1) Holomog is the mirror image of Nidal -- it's a human land that survived Earthfall by making a deal with the good-aligned Empyreal Lords. So Holomog is a capital-G Good-aligned land, but (as far as we can tell) not in a stupid way. And it's ancient -- like Nidal, it should have lore and records going back thousands of years.

2) Holomog is a matriarchal society with a very different social structure from anything else on Golarion. At the top, it's run by the omwa -- a handful of people with near-godlike powers who rule (as far as we can tell) wisely and well. (Those people are all women, mind... apparently there was one male who reached that level, and all we're told is that it didn't work out well.)

3) Holomog is plugged into the Geb-Nex rivalry; they border Geb and have warred with it (unsuccessfully), while Nex is as friendly as an evil undead kingdom can possibly be.

4) Holomog has an unusual ethnic mix (a society of humans but with significant minorities of aasimars, catfolk, grippli, and ganzi) on top of an unusual religious mix (almost everyone worships an Empyreal Lord, except for some Green Faithers). Oh, and there are some people who worship Asmodeus as a Lawful Neutral female deity... and some of them can be LG and still be clerics of Asmodeus... and somehow that seems to work. I suspect that last bit may get retconned out, because 2E seems to be more rigid about that sort of thing. But it's the sort of cool weird detail that is sprinkled across the whole writeup.

5) Finally, Crystal wrote a bunch of interesting mysteries into the setting. What caused the Paroxysys, the mysterious detonation that destroyed Old Anuli? Who was the one man who passed the Crucible, and why didn't it work out well? Why does a neutral good-aligned land produce so many ganzi? What's going on at the bottom of Crater Lake? These were well done, and left at least this reader eager to know more.

Did anyone else find this stuff interesting? Are there other Holomog fans out there?

Doug M.

[James Jacobs]

I hope so. It's one of the regions I exported from my homebrew, and Crystal knocked my rough notes for the place out of the park with the six pages of expansion she did with the original pretty sparse ideas. It's pretty much the main nation on all of Garund, with the possible exception of Droon, that I'd like to some day see us do more with.

[Isabelle Thorne]

I would also love to see more of Holomog! ^_^

[Rysky]

Count me among those wanting more Holomog as well.

[vagrant-poet]

#HoloMore

All for it, it's right off the map and that's stuff I want to know more about. Holomog, just south of Vidrian, and East of Taldor and Qadira are all areas I want to know more about, and Holomog very high on that list.

[Amber_Stewart]

How about a big book of Central/Southern Garund, picking up on a bunch of yet-to-be-explored ancient history elements from 'Heart of the Jungle'? :D

[Set]

Amber_Stewart wrote:

How about a big book of Central/Southern Garund, picking up on a bunch of yet-to-be-explored ancient history elements from 'Heart of the Jungle'? :D

Slightly below Heart of the Jungle, that would be, I guess, Spleen of the Jungle? :)

[keftiu]

I'd be over the moon for a full Garund book!!

[Steelfiredragon]

keftiu wrote:

I'd be over the moon for a full Garund book!!

not me. I'd want two. One for northern Garund and one for southern Garund.

Just like I want one for eastern and western Avistan.

Two books each area and a little more lore for each area....

[zimmerwald1915]

Steelfiredragon wrote:

keftiu wrote:

I'd be over the moon for a full Garund book!!

not me. I'd want two. One for northern Garund and one for southern Garund.

Just like I want one for eastern and western Avistan.

Two books each area and a little more lore for each area....

Going by land area, Garund ought to have something like three books to every one about Avistan. Going by worthwhileness, Garund ought to have about a hundred to every one about Avistan.

[Darth Game Master]

My preference would be for there to be a book for each of the Inner Sea meta-regions in the LOWG, then books for central and southern Garund. Realistically though, what'll probably happen is one book for all of Garund south of Geb and Vidrian.

[Steelfiredragon]

zimmerwald1915 wrote:

Steelfiredragon wrote:

keftiu wrote:

I'd be over the moon for a full Garund book!!

not me. I'd want two. One for northern Garund and one for southern Garund.

Just like I want one for eastern and western Avistan.

Two books each area and a little more lore for each area....

Going by land area, Garund ought to have something like three books to every one about Avistan. Going by worthwhileness, Garund ought to have about a hundred to every one about Avistan.

I disagree. Two setting books as a whole for GArund, Two for Avistan, to for Tian xia, two for casmarond. Setting books, not adventure paths.

and there is more than just the humanoid settlements that you can put into them....

and 3 for each of the other planets

[Darth Game Master]

What's the point of new setting books about Avistan and northern Garund when they're already covered in books about the Inner Sea? I could understand books covering smaller regions of those in detail, but they already have broad setting books for the Inner Sea region (in 2nd edition, the LOWG and LOCG).

Zimmerwald has a point, it doesn't make much sense to have the same number of books for continents of different sizes (though Paizo might not care about that since Tian Xia was covered in one book). Also, there are more than 3 other planets in Golarion's solar system.

[Steelfiredragon]

because the inner sea 2e(lowg) read like a travel brochure. IT didnt really show alot in my opinion either. two books for each content past the lowg could show more than it did.( one for eastern and one for western avistan)

also I said 3 for each of the other planets, not a single book for 3 different planets.( well for the inhabitable ones anyway unless Paizo hasnt put alot of thought into them)

yeah ok, I could buy into 3 books for Garund as well as Casmaron ( cant spell it from memory) . Tian Xia should get 3 books as well.

Still its Paizo IP, and if they have enough stuff for 2 or 3 books per continent and chose to do it, they will do it.

edit: and since we're on the topic, how many books for the darklands would take?
one for each level??

[Darth Game Master]

Steelfiredragon wrote:

also I said 3 for each of the other planets, not a single book for 3 different planets.( well for the inhabitable ones anyway unless Paizo hasnt put alot of thought into them)

Oh, okay, that makes sense.

[Paradozen]

With catfolk, aasimar, ganzi, and grippli I think it would be great to have a holomog-set module released around the same time as a book that gives ganzi and grippli character options after the APG (which has aasimar and catfolk already) so players can play characters of those ancestries without being out of place in-setting. Gives a chance to detail the setting and use uncommon ancestries at the same time.

[Douglas Muir 406]

The earliest Holomog could appear in an AP would be the back of 2020. However, since that AP is probably already in the planning stages, I'd guess we won't see anything until 2021 at the earliest.

What we can do is keep the idea in the air: "Hey, that's a cool piece of your IP that we'd love to see more about."

Doug M.