As it happens, Return of the Runelords does propose a "canonical" answer to what happens to the Rise of the Runelords and/or Shattered Star PCs, who become known as the Sihedron Heroes. Long story short...
The Return of the Runelords Player's Guide has more info.
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That said, since this is the starfinder forum. I'd imagine a lot of them have died of old age or the powerful enemies they made in their career.
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Alcoholism, gambling debts, and paternity fights.
I've got one that I'm planning to bring back if a specific one of my friends ever runs a Starfinder campaign. The character was for a Carrion Crown campaign my friend ran and was a human fighter that was simply impossible to keep down. He ended up rather infamous in my group. Having him show up in the Pact Worlds as a level 1 soldier would be worth it just for the look on the DM's face.
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You either die a PC or you live long enough to see yourself become an NPC.
That sounds like a campaign idea, They've been disappearing, nobody knows why
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Well the kingmaker ones are probably busy ruling a kingdom, the jade reagent ones are likely somewhere in the east, my WotR one withdrew to her own private demiplane to conduct her research wothout being bothered by people. I imagine a lot just settled down to enjoy not having to fight eldritch horrors from beyond the stars or the dawn of time.
Well the kingmaker ones are probably busy ruling a kingdom, the jade reagent ones are likely somewhere in the east, my WotR one withdrew to her own private demiplane to conduct her research wothout being bothered by people. I imagine a lot just settled down to enjoy not having to fight eldritch horrors from beyond the stars or the dawn of time.
How many of them were immortal, and how well do you think they got through the gap though?
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Probably not many even if my character was, not sure what you mean by gap? I assume its been more than the elf 700 year lifespan. Still I assume they wanted more than a 90% died of old age, 5% died to an enemy, 4% died to experimenting with things beyond their power and 1% is still around living their life as extremely powerful beings who are enjoying the wealth and perks that come with a few millenia of careful financial investment.
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By the time the Ptolus campaign I played years ago was done, the minotaur barbarian, elf invoker, and human druid were all dead. My rogue/fighter/bard was also dead after a Retributive Strike that ended the BBEG.
The dwarf necromancer, half-drow ranger/cleric, and my former character, a rogue/fighter/sorcerer, were all corrupted to Chaotic Evil; the necromancer started her own undead army in the necropolis, the ranger/cleric went back to the underdark, alone to murder as many drow as possible, and my former character was locked in a convent her entire life while nuns prayed for her salvation.
Heroes don't always get happy endings.
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Probably not many even if my character was, not sure what you mean by gap? I assume its been more than the elf 700 year lifespan. Still I assume they wanted more than a 90% died of old age, 5% died to an enemy, 4% died to experimenting with things beyond their power and 1% is still around living their life as extremely powerful beings who are enjoying the wealth and perks that come with a few millenia of careful financial investment.Yeah. Essentially everyone who participated in a Pathfinder AP is dead, because its been several thousand years. Even people who are CR 20+ and absolutely immune to aging and mundane causes of death will have a seriously non-trivial time living that far into the future. If the enemies you accumulate in a heroic career don't get you, a disaster might ( note that on a time scale of millenia, disasters range up to stuff like "an asteroid obliterates a continent and devastates life across the entire planet" ). If you somehow evade murder, mischance, or misadventure, you might *still* leave behind the mortal coil voluntarily, through ascension to some form of otherworldly status ( recruitment as proxy, or outright divine ascension, say ).
Really, the only Pathfinder APs with a chance of meaningful impact on the Starfinder era are Iron Gods ( and not for the players, but for the origins of Casandalee ), and *maybe* Return of the Runelords ( if the PCs do something *remarkably* unwise with time ).
Don't forget wrath of the righteous lvl 20, mythic 10 only die to a crit with an artifact + immortality + private sanctumn demiplane gives you pretty good odds of making it. Bab Yagas beem around for close to a millenium by this stage.
Probably not many even if my character was, not sure what you mean by gap?
There's a much more detailed description in the CRB, but here. Essentially mass amnesia, plus any records of what happened during were scrambled or erased.
Basically the ability of an immortal end of AP character to survive to starfinder times comes down to a few factors:
A) Were they eventually killed/passed on/ascended in some manner after millenia of time passed?
B) Were the events of their lives during the gap, or before the gap?
If before, I remember a blurb about Eoxian bone sages at the end of the gap slowly realizing they had centuries to millenia suddenly and inexplicably missing from their memories, something of a major shakeup.
If the events that led a PC to their immortality was during, then they likely reacted to the gap much like the elves... sudden amnesia. I'm pretty sure most characters post gap kept their power and skills, but they might not remember how to use all of it until they try, or they might not remember that they can plane shift, etc.
So, that WoTR character experimenting in their own demiplane, might still be in that demiplane, wondering why all these notes are written in gibberish, and why there's no exit to wherever they are.
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Oh that gap thanks. I doubt the chaeacter i had in mind was affected. She made a deal with Baba Yaga (A powerful mythic staff in exchange for the way to earth she wanted to get right away from Golarion and anyone who might come looking for a hero). Her demiplane/Sanctum are tied to that so since as far as I can tell the gap only applies to Golarion and only for that period I doubt her memories are affected as she'd have left well before it occured and not been back since. In fact i suspect earth isnt even part of Starfinder so she may not even realize there was a gap.
The Gap is tied to the Universe or at the very least the galaxy apparently not just Golarion.
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my AGAINST THE AEON THRONE character was a Mystic Mindbreaker with an incredibly dark past. She was going to have a story of redemption, which turned into one of damnation after the captain was killed in Book 1 and she became captain.
The party chafed under her increasingly erratic and violent command, but made it through the AP. I decided at the end to have her jump ship after they returned to the Pact Worlds, leaving a cryptic remark to the last survivor of the original ship's crew before vanishing into a crowd on the docks of a Liavaran floating city.
Long story short, I hope she comes back as a villain in a future AP, but her ultimate fate remains to be seen.
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The Gap is tied to the Universe or at the very least the galaxy apparently not just Golarion.
Hmmm so it is I'd not realized it was all memories of that period rather than being Golarion specific. Still general sentiment remains she spent most of her time in her private demi-plane and can only be killed by being taken into an antimagic zone and crited with an artifact so decent odds of being around still if rather confused by her memories.
In our group we have a house rule I call 'Use it or lose it'. If you stop adventuring and evolving you don't just sit there at your current level - you devolve. This also means PCs.
We have no hard rules for this but it goes a little something like this: If you don't use your abilities in real, tough situations in more than one year you slowly start losing levels. You can lose as many as two thirds before you level out (hoho).
The ex-pcs from prior APs exist in our Golarion. But pending on what the players decide at our epilogue session they range from plane-hopping 18th level archmages to retired 6th level fishermen/fighters in Sandpoint ("I used to be a great adventurer you know! This swing I used to call the Great Cleave. Aoouch! My back!" "Sure dad. You know, mom's said we're not allowed to take that sword down from the mantlepiece. I think that means you too.").
This explains both the lack of high level NPCs in Golarion from an in-game perspective, and helps us accept how e.g. a 18-year old kid attains the highest powers in about 6 months time: they're blessed by fate to rise up and combat great evil. When the evil is defeated, fate moves on. Unless the heroes continue the struggle.
So use it or lose it.
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I ended a Rise of the Runelords campaign in summer 2012 and began a Jade Regent campaign in fall 2012. The heroes from the RotR had several cameo roles in the Jade Regent campaign. I have chronicles of the Jade Regent campaign at [/url="https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2q4z3?Amaya-of-Westcrown#1"]Amya of Westcrown[/url], but let me summarize.
One of the RotR characters, the wizard Corvin, was dating Ameiko Kaijistu, an innkeeper and retired adventurer in Sandpoint. Corvin and the other party members were often away from Sandpoint, but once he learned Teleport, he visited more often. Finally, when the party finished the 6th module, Spires of Xin-Shalast and found themselves ruling the lost city of Xin-Shalast, they invited Ameiko to Xin-Shalast. As an innkeeper, she had more meaningful experience for running a city than the adventurers had.
I extended that campaign with The Witchwar Legacy, a standalone module that took the party to Irrisen. After that, they returned to the Runeforge from RotR's Sins of the Saviors, a hidden military laboratory in the Astral Plane. I had elaborated on the Warriors of Wrath in the Runeforge, making them a lost colony of humans rather than artificial humans. The party had promised to help them return to the Material Plane. They did so after investigating all the paths from the Runeforge to the seven nations of ancient Thassilon and pulled the Runeforge to the underwater Bakrakhan portal, so the Runeforge became an island in the Varisian Gulf. The portals to the other six Thassilon nations became a transit network for the party. The portal to Bakrakhan was mysteriously reassigned by a Pleroma Aeon wordlessly aiding them. (I did this in case I needed a future plot hook. I had no plans for it.)
In Jade Regent, Ameiko Kaijitsu was the lost heir to the throne of Minkai. I decided to sideline her and rewrote the beginning of the 1st module, The Brinewall Legacy. First, it was now set concurrent with Rise of the Runelords. The trouble with goblin raids began when the RotR party was out of touch in the Runeforge during Sins of the Saviors, so Ameiko Kaijitsu had to handle matters herself without the aid of her powerful friends. Second, I added Ameiko's half-sister Amaya to Sandpoint. She had recently traveled to Sandpoint to help with the Kaijitsu Glassworks after the death of their father Lonjiku Kaijitsu. This was Amaya at 2nd level from Bastards of Erebus, not the higher level version from the not-yet-published Song of Silver.
In the middle of The Brinewall Legacy as the party was traveling from Sandpoint to Brinewall, the RotR party appeared. They were at 17th level having just finished conquering Xin-Shalast. They asked Ameiko to help them govern that city. Thus, I removed her from the Jade Regent campaign temporarily, because she was too high level to tag along, and I disliked how the module itself marginalized her. Most of the Jade Regent players had also played in the Rise of the Runelords campaign, so we had fun with their old characters meeting their new characters. For example, my wife's RotR lyrakien bard Moonrider introduced Will Sinex's JR goblin alchemist Sprig to hot cocoa, which inspired Sprig to invent goblin coffee.
Next at 9th level at the beginning of Forest of Spirits, the RotR people returned Ameiko to the Jade Regent party. They were heading off to Irrisen for The Witchwar Legacy and did not want to leave Ameiko without them in Xin-Shalast. Amaya had learned Sending and was in regular touch with Ameiko, so the party knew where to find her. Though the Jade Regent party had needed 3 months to cross the northern ice cap called Crown of the World, Moonrider did it in just an hour by riding on her moon with Ameiko (the moon was 3 meters across and had its own private gravity and atmosphere. It was a gift from Desna).
The final crossover between the two parties occurred at the end of the 5th Jade Regent module, Tide of Honor. The JR party was using the fortress Seinaru Heikiko in Amatatsu territory in northern Minkai as their base of operations. The oni decided to wipe out the fortress. However, while the module used a tiny handful of high-level oni, I had the oni build up an army of 250 oni. The 14th-level partty killed half the army far away from Seinaru Heikiko, faced the first two waves of the other half at Seinaru Heikiko, and then decided that they were tiring while a hundred low-level ja-noi and kuwa oni approached as the third wave. Amaya cast Sending and asked the 19th-level Rise of the Runelords for help.
Suddenly, a Pleroma Aeon appeared in the vault at Seinaru Heikiko and set up a portal to the Runeforge island. (I had waited over two years to use that spare plot hook. <grin>) Not only did the RotR party come thrugh the portal, but the Warriors of Wrath and their queen Highlady Athroxis came, too. The oni army was soundly defeated.
At the end of the Jade Regent campaign, 17th-level Amaya was Empress of Minkai. 17th-level Ameiko was governor of the northern territories and regularly visited her 20th-level boyfriend Corvin through the intercontinental portal between Varisia and Tian Xia. The Jade Regent party was busy helping rule Minkai, and the Rise of the Runelords party was busy ruling Xin-Shalast and the Runeforge.
I would assume that the fate of these former heroes would be determined by the player's actions at the end of the previous campaign.
When I wrapped up Runelords last year, I ran an epilogue wherein each player described what their character would do with the rest of their lives. I've copy+pasted that section below;
Karack Goblinfriend decides to stay in Xin Shalast and mediate a lasting peace between the yeti and the dryads. He later returns to Varisia to report to his superiors at Windsong Abbey, warning them of the catastrophe so narrowly avoided by the death of the re-awoken Runelord. If Karzoug survived Earthfall, it is possible that one or more of the other six Runelords have managed to survive, in some fashion. Karack is tasked with investigating this worrisome probability. Before he embarks on this new quest, Karack returns to Sandpoint to spend time with the friends he has made over the last few years.
Rast Sternhammer retires from adventuring to help his wife run the Rusty Dragon and raise their young daughter. He turns his alchemical knowledge to the brewing of dwarven craft ales and Sternhammer Special becomes a favoured tipple up and down the Lost Coast.
Ben Kotek is promoted to commander of the Black Arrows. He dedicates his life to keeping Hook Mountain and the people of Turtleback Ferry safe from ogres and other threats. He marries Shalelu Andosana and the two are often seen ranging together.
Nobody really knows what became of Solaris.
After driving the giants from Xin Shalast, Grogg the Smasher decides to track down the stolen piece of his brain and exact his vengeance on the gnomish artificers who lobotomised him in Magnimar. Fans of gladiatorial combat eagerly await his glorious return to the arena.
Asha the Fire Princess returned to Absalom to report to the High Priestess of Sarenrae. Concerned by what the rise of the Runelords might portend, she is dispatched on a top secret mission, across the Crown of the World, to the distant land of Tian.
Andor Drake kicks his drinking and whoring habits and becomes Commander of the City Watch in Magnimar.
The Faresight twins load several wagons full of gold from Karzoug's treasury and return to Varisia to retire in luxury, their every need attended by a host of yeti servants.
Silas Vekker is buried alongside his brother Karivek. When the sun rises over the Kodar Mountains and strikes the golden spires of Xin Shalast, a beam of bright, golden light illuminates the two cairns.
Snot the goblin returns to Hope and becomes Mayor of the goblins!
So, based on this, I have a pretty shrewd idea of what these characters are doing and where they might be encountered as NPCs in the future.
We've only had 2 sets of high level heroes in the past 10 years or so of gaming on Golarion, but they are mostly still around. Having seen horrible things and fought off death on more than one occasion, most retire to a pretty cushy life.
One of our old characters even tried to take the Test of the Starstone. Some have gone on to die heroically off screen as climactic events happened in Golarion since that campaign ended, and a few have gone plane hopping to pursue special interests, but most are still around and make cameos in later campaigns.