So, what ever happened to the Forsaken?

[Yqatuba]

For those who don't know, the Forsaken are pantheon of demigods worshipped by the Caligni aka dark folk, that were from the plane of shadow but disappeared one day with no explanation. Here is some more info https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Forsaken They seem similar to the Kyton Demagogues, but are NE and CE instead of LE. Is there any connection and will we ever find out the truth?

[Gisher]

Correct Link

[Pope Uncommon the Dainty]

I am super curious, as well, especially considering their rather intense and surprising portfolios ~ hell, one of them has the tick as a sacred animal. THE TICK.

I swear there must have been something interesting going on in the Shadow Plane right after Earthfall. We have Zon-Kuthon busting out of Xoviakain, the Azlanti of Calignos escaping into the Darklands and getting adopted/changed by the Forsaken before they blow up (and maybe become the owb?), the Widow (whom we know less about than the Forsaken) taking some Azlanti into the Shadow Plane and turning them into the kayal, Count Ranalc ceasing to try to influence the Material Plane, and the wayang migrating to Tian Xia.

The forsaken had some plot to steal the souls of the caligni to fuel some sort of apotheosis (maybe? There's some wiggle room in the description, I think) and may have become the owb...

[Paradozen]

I'm curious to know when "long ago" is specifically, cause there are a few different times that all might fit and relate to different events in Golarion's past.

If it was shortly after Earthfall, I'd suspect Zon-Kuthon. He'd just escaped the shadow plane and plausibly spent a good bit of time away from home enjoying freedom. In that time, some uppity fools called the Forsaken planned to escape the shadow plane and grew much more powerful in the meanwhile. He returns, sees what the Forsaken are up to, doesn't like it, and imprisons them in his nightmare labyrinth never to be seen again.

Maybe it happened in 166AR when Count Ranalc disappeared. Ranalc may have even been involved in their plan. Ranalc is rumored to have been disposed of by Nex the same year Nex used shadowy creatures to assault Absalom. Maybe Nex stole power from the shadow plane including that which Ranalc was using to interact with the material world and that which the forsaken were using to escape, and they never managed to get it back. Or

Worldscape Comic spoiler, more related to Nex than the shadow plane:

The worldscape comics reveal that Nex has personal demiplanes he imprisons great warriors across different planets and timelines within and then copies and uses as an army. This plane connects to the Spire of Nex and was used in the 166 AR siege. It also reveals that he is collecting minor gods as part of this scheme. If Ranalc were among the collection (the comics don't allude to this, but it's my personal theory on where Ranalc went since all I can find is he disappeared and was an enemy of Nex), maybe the Forsaken were taken from the shadow plane too.

Maybe it happened around 4606AR. A lot went wrong when Aroden and prophecy died. The most mundane speculation connecting these is that earthquakes could have disrupted the process the Forsaken were involved in and some backlash has caused them to disappear. More magical and interesting side affects could have been involved, maybe the Forsaken were involved in some prophecy which went horribly wrong or the death of a god created a disruption in planar fabrics that disturbed them.

Last bit of wild speculation here, maybe they just gave up after failing. Not the most interesting explanation, but maybe they saw that the whole use Caligni souls to escape the shadow plane gambit was a fools errand and moved on to darker pastures. Perhaps the failure was immense, or it showed a possible side-effect of making Pharasma genuinely upset (not something people do lightly), and in the face of it they just gave up.

[Yqatuba]

Any chance we will get an official answer?

[James Jacobs]

Yqatuba wrote:

Any chance we will get an official answer?

Eventually, yes, but not here and not in this thread. I was one of the architects of the Forsaken as part of my work on "Cradle of Night," and I've got a lot more in my head about them and what they are and who they are and where they are now, but a fair amount of those ideas are still half-baked and I've not had the chance to talk things over with other folks here at Paizo.

In time, I do hope to explore them more, but I'm not sure where or when that will happen... and until it does, it's kinda irresponsible of me to start spouting off more info beyond what we've said in Cradle of Night. At this point, that really IS the bulk of what we've done with them.