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Well from James Jacobs' ask thread:
"What do serpentfolk call themselves? Catfolk are amurren, lizardfolk iruxi, ratfolk ysoki.
Sekmin. (Although they are only very rarely called that today.)Sekmins are further split into the zyss (the ones who retain their magic and intellect) and the aapoph (the ones who are mutated and degenerated)."
So I correct myself: While zyss make more sense to not be playable, I don't really see reason why aapoph couldn't be playable unless xulgaths, charau-kau, gnolls and boggards are just as well off the table ;D
I did not know this!
Thanks!
Aapoph is much better than "degenerate serpentfolk".
Carry on,
--C.
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So I correct myself: While zyss make more sense to not be playable, I don't really see reason why aapoph couldn't be playable unless xulgaths, charau-kau, gnolls and boggards are just as well off the table ;DAll four of those you mention are on the so-called table. The serpentfolk are in a different room from the one with the table, and there's a closed door or three between the rooms. :P
I suppose this thread exists to then say “I wish that wasn’t the case.”
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Games like Pathfinder benefit from having some badguys that are just irredeemable obstacles for players to overcome. There are dozens and dozens of options of things PCs can encounter to wonder about taking prisoners and negotiations and the nature of evil and all that, and tons of options for playing something "weird". But all that gets tiring, eventually, and sometimes you need a more straightforward sort of conflict. There has to be something in the toolbox for GMs that can talk, has a society, can make plans, doesn't have to be from another plane, and that can just serve as a no-questions badguy. I'm glad that serpentfolk are this sort of thing, given their literary and gaming heritage. They're alien enough to get away from uncomfortable real-world parallels, but not *so* alien that you have to put them in weird environments or get very strange in your evil monologuing. They're a perfect villain in a lot of ways.
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So I correct myself: While zyss make more sense to not be playable, I don't really see reason why aapoph couldn't be playable unless xulgaths, charau-kau, gnolls and boggards are just as well off the table ;DAll four of those you mention are on the so-called table. The serpentfolk are in a different room from the one with the table, and there's a closed door or three between the rooms. :P
DAMN, AND WE CAN'T BLOW UP THE DOORS WITH FIREBALL BECAUSE WE STILL DON'T KNOW WHETHER IT DAMAGES CHAIRS, IT WAS RIGGED FROM THE BEGINNING *SHAKES FIST*
XD, jokes aside you are super passionate about them not being playable-- would you be as opposed to making the Nagaji more related to the serpentfolk to justify a similar appearance?
or is that off the table as well, because that would be too similar to implementing good serpentfolk? or would that separate them too much from the Naga?
it occurs to me I know nothing about Nagaji origins, are they unrelated to serpentfolk or are they a product of the serpentfolk's once massive empire, somehow.
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...Would you be as opposed to making the Nagaji more related to the serpentfolk to justify a similar appearance?
or is that off the table as well, because that would be too similar to implementing good serpentfolk? or would that separate them too much from the Naga?
it occurs to me I know nothing about Nagaji origins, are they unrelated to serpentfolk or are they a product of the serpentfolk's once massive empire, somehow.
The nagaji have a pretty key role in the setting already that doesn't tie them to serpentfolk, so ret-conning them to be serpentfolk-related isn't something I want to do. Reworking their appearance to be more snake and less bulky IS possible though. As I've said before in this thread, we've got a wide range of looks for nagaji, from bulky to slender, from snake-themed to lizard themed, and we could stand to take the time to drill down and standardize the look to make sure they have their own look. We may or may not get to that some day.
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Well from James Jacobs' ask thread:
"What do serpentfolk call themselves? Catfolk are amurren, lizardfolk iruxi, ratfolk ysoki.
Sekmin. (Although they are only very rarely called that today.)Sekmins are further split into the zyss (the ones who retain their magic and intellect) and the aapoph (the ones who are mutated and degenerated)."
So I correct myself: While zyss make more sense to not be playable, I don't really see reason why aapoph couldn't be playable unless xulgaths, charau-kau, gnolls and boggards are just as well off the table ;D
I did not know this!
No one outside of Paizo did, as far as I know, since we first mentioned these words, as far as I know, in the about-to-be-relased Bestiary 2.
(Note: Sekamina was the name of the Serpentfolk empire back in the day, which is where the word "sekmin" comes from.)
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I suppose this thread exists to then say “I wish that wasn’t the case.”So I correct myself: While zyss make more sense to not be playable, I don't really see reason why aapoph couldn't be playable unless xulgaths, charau-kau, gnolls and boggards are just as well off the table ;DAll four of those you mention are on the so-called table. The serpentfolk are in a different room from the one with the table, and there's a closed door or three between the rooms. :P
I've certainly heard that, loud and clear, from some folks. We may get to a point some day where this reverses and serpentfolk become a PC option, but that day isn't going to be soon. (AKA when we launched 1st edition, no one was planning to eventually make goblins a core PC ancestry; a lot can change as time goes on.)
Also... by setting aside some monsters as not PC appropriate from the start, it's not like we're going to do fewer ancestries overall than we'd planned in the first place. We've got a LOT of ancestry plans going forward... some of which we might get a chance to chat about during the upcoming Paizocon Online stuff!
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Games like Pathfinder benefit from having some badguys that are just irredeemable obstacles for players to overcome. There are dozens and dozens of options of things PCs can encounter to wonder about taking prisoners and negotiations and the nature of evil and all that, and tons of options for playing something "weird". But all that gets tiring, eventually, and sometimes you need a more straightforward sort of conflict. There has to be something in the toolbox for GMs that can talk, has a society, can make plans, doesn't have to be from another plane, and that can just serve as a no-questions badguy. I'm glad that serpentfolk are this sort of thing, given their literary and gaming heritage. They're alien enough to get away from uncomfortable real-world parallels, but not *so* alien that you have to put them in weird environments or get very strange in your evil monologuing. They're a perfect villain in a lot of ways.
I’m fundamentally uncomfortable with anyone being born “irredeemably evil” or the idea that some peoples are okay to murder on sight. Hell, getting away from that mindset is one of the main reasons I’ve been excited about the writing in 2e.
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"Born irredeemably evil" is not a core element of our philosophy for Pathfinder. That's different than "here's the alignment for the typical thing" of course...
Not wanting there to be a PC ancestry for serpentfolk in no way should imply that we'll never have non-evil serpentfolk in the game or in adventures.
(For folks reading in between the lines, yes, we've got some tentative plans for a serpentfolk-themed something MAYBE happening at some point some time in the future... but for now, they're also going to be one of the 3 cover creatures on Bestiary 2, so that's another reason from a brand perspective to try to keep them rooted in the monster category for now.)
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Games like Pathfinder benefit from having some badguys that are just irredeemable obstacles for players to overcome. There are dozens and dozens of options of things PCs can encounter to wonder about taking prisoners and negotiations and the nature of evil and all that, and tons of options for playing something "weird". But all that gets tiring, eventually, and sometimes you need a more straightforward sort of conflict. There has to be something in the toolbox for GMs that can talk, has a society, can make plans, doesn't have to be from another plane, and that can just serve as a no-questions badguy. I'm glad that serpentfolk are this sort of thing, given their literary and gaming heritage. They're alien enough to get away from uncomfortable real-world parallels, but not *so* alien that you have to put them in weird environments or get very strange in your evil monologuing. They're a perfect villain in a lot of ways.I’m fundamentally uncomfortable with anyone being born “irredeemably evil” or the idea that some peoples are okay to murder on sight. Hell, getting away from that mindset is one of the main reasons I’ve been excited about the writing in 2e.
Same, my own world dodges away from it hard, heck I even moved away from Good and Evil and re-framed them as Creation and Destruction (and then by default made them exclusive to spirits, though mortals can achieve them to fuel spells.)
I'm of the opinion that "Serpentfolk as a culture have a deeply supremacist worldview" is plenty to make them villains, without precluding exceptions, so while I'm liable to be happy with whatever the design team actually does, I strongly support abandoning the "This race of mortals has to be evil and non-player to justify de facto genocide against them as an expected feature of a fantasy setting" thing, which to fair to them, is a traditional feature of the fantasy milieu.
Maybe things would be different had Tolkien been able to write his planned book about the redemption of Orcs.
My own world solves it by allowing Spirits (like Outsiders! but including Giants and Dragons) to step into the role of "un-ambiguously ok to kill" and embraces reincarnation, so death is a bit different.
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I think it's important to be able to ratchet down the emotional/intellectual tension sometimes at the table for a game that's ostensibly supposed to be an escape, and IME everything being shades of grey eventually grinds players down. YMMV, obviously!
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I feel like "irredeemably evil" should be reserved to things like mindless undead, fiends, things which become what they are via evil, and things that are fundamentally alien (like aboleth or mindflayers.) The extent to which someone can empathize with a thing, the less they should be treated as "a thing which is, by nature, evil".
There is, after all, no shortage of humans who the PCs can feel justified in killing due to the what those humans are doing rather than what they are.
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I think it's important to be able to ratchet down the emotional/intellectual tension sometimes at the table for a game that's ostensibly supposed to be an escape, and IME everything being shades of grey eventually grinds players down. YMMV, obviously!
And I think that maybe our escapism shouldn’t be genocidal, but again, YMMV.
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I feel like "irredeemably evil" should be reserved to things like mindless undead, fiends, things which become what they are via evil, and things that are fundamentally alien (like aboleth or mindflayers.) The extent to which someone can empathize with a thing, the less they should be treated as "a thing which is, by nature, evil".
There are, after all, no shortage of humans who the PCs can feel justified in killing due to the what those humans are doing rather than what they are.
Even in the case of undead and fiends, there's no such thing as "irredeemably evil" (or the inverse of "irredeemably good or lawful or chaotic") in Pathfinder. As for how each table handles things like combats in adventures... that's best left to each table of GMs and players to settle on. For our adventures, we have to assume a midline stance to a certain extent... but we do try to include a LOT of background info on named NPCs in our adventures precisely for the reason that if any one of them gets a change of heart in a game, the GM will have some info to build from in making their role in the campaign more significant.
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I feel like "irredeemably evil" should be reserved to things like mindless undead, fiends, things which become what they are via evil, and things that are fundamentally alien (like aboleth or mindflayers.) The extent to which someone can empathize with a thing, the less they should be treated as "a thing which is, by nature, evil".
There is, after all, no shortage of humans who the PCs can feel justified in killing due to the what those humans are doing rather than what they are.
Well, sure. I just think serpentfolk slot right in on the edge of that aboleth/mind flayer category perfectly. Aboleth are hard to use, because underwater adventures are, generally, hard to adjudicate and often kind of unfun, and mind flayers have the problem of being unavailable intellectual property.
And I think that maybe our escapism shouldn’t be genocidal, but again, YMMV.
I don't think that's an especially apt way to describe the way a party interacts with a monster I'd have them run into maybe a handful of as the final villains of a story, but maybe there are tables that want to play 'let's murder the serpentfolk shopkeeper', I guess. If there are serpentfolk shopkeepers innocently hanging around then you've already diverged way, way far away from how I would expect them to be used in a campaign.
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I think the specific distinction I want to cleave is that for an orc, or a gnoll, or a goblin, etc. being "not evil" just requires the individual to just internally decide to value other things and make different choices. This can be difficult in the context of enculturation and a society that discourages this sort of thing, but it's entirely self-directed.
For a fiend or a lich or something like that to be redeemed it's going to require some sort of external intervention or a truly extraordinary set of circumstances.
Jim the Xulgath can just wake up one day and with absolutely no prompting decide "from now on, I'm going to try to be kind to everyone I meet" and become good in sticking to that. This is not an option available to all things.
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I think it's important to be able to ratchet down the emotional/intellectual tension sometimes at the table for a game that's ostensibly supposed to be an escape, and IME everything being shades of grey eventually grinds players down. YMMV, obviously!
It's not much of an escape if you're making the players uncomfortable now is it?
This isn't a shade of grey situation. Shades of grey is when someone does a mix of good and bad. Not having things be genetically evil beyond redemption so I don't have to think about killing them doesn't automatically make things be shades of grey.
"I just want to kill stuff because of how they look" is what you're asking, in which case you're the shades of grey in the game.
"I want to kill those bandits that have been attacking the village" is not a moral quandary. The GM can build from there of course with the why's but just having human bandits attacking cause they chose to be evil is perfectly legitimate.
You don't need fiends or undead or utterly alien mindsets to have irredeemable villains that you wanna put down. That animosity comes from what they do, not what they are.
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It's not much of an escape if you're making the players uncomfortable now is it?
This isn't a shade of grey situation. Shades of grey is when someone does a mix of good and bad. Not having things be genetically evil beyond redemption so I don't have to think about killing them doesn't automatically make things be shades of grey.
"I just want to kill stuff because of how they look" is what you're asking, in which case you're the shades of grey in the game.
"I want to kill those bandits that have been attacking the village" is not a moral quandary. The GM can build from there of course with the why's but just having human bandits attacking cause they chose to be evil is perfectly legitimate.
You don't need fiends or undead or utterly alien mindsets to have irredeemable villains that you wanna put down. That animosity comes from what they do, not what they are.
In my experience, my players tend to be more uncomfortable when they have to second guess every fight they have with 'could we have avoided this / redeemed them / found a non-combat solution' etc. There absolutely should be some of that in a game, I think, but too much and the campaign can start to feel like an exercise in 'does the paladin fall' gotchas. Heck, I very frequently sand down uncomfortable elements in the published stuff - most recently I cut the Grey Maidens out of CoCT in favor of more unambiguously evil opponents, precisely because I think asking the party to repeatedly fight a bunch of brainwashed, abused women was not going to be any fun for them or me. Same for some of the Logue stuff in other early APs, etc. I am not a stranger to being accommodating.
"Sentient-being-eating shape-shifting reptile overlords" is not a demographic that I can see any of my players really getting upset about, or one that I think benefits from giving them any extra nuance. It's easy enough to not put a clutch of eggs or non-combatants in an adventure if you don't want your players to have to debate what to do with them, you know?
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And "sentient-being-eating shape-shifting human overlords" should provoke the same reaction, not "oh they're human so we have to try and reason and redeem them".
Humans being whatever alignment they want doesn't automatically make the utter villains less evil and give them shade of grey. Have they done anything to make your players second guess themselves or are they holding back solely because they're humans and for no other reason?
You yourself said you already did this with the Grey Maidens, give your players actuals villains, not just antagonists, if you don't want them to second guess everything. Having Sekmin not be inherently evil doesn't take away from the Sekmin villains. They're villains because they've done and are doing evil things.
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The takeaway here, is that the humanoid villains shouldn't be "by race" it should be by action, so if the serpent-folk empire are basically fantasy nazis or whatever, then murdering their soldiers without a second thought isn't a complex situation. But not being able to play Serphent folk because we don't want to ever portray them as heroes or having a non-evil side, to retain them always being villains... has unfortunate implications.
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Eh… "not being able to play" is too strong. Paizo just isn't going to be the ones publishing it in the foreseeable future. Anyway, I'll write up a serpentfolk homebrew once I've got Bestiary 2.
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What does happen when you fireball a chair anyways? Chairs can't make saves!
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So I correct myself: While zyss make more sense to not be playable, I don't really see reason why aapoph couldn't be playable unless xulgaths, charau-kau, gnolls and boggards are just as well off the table ;DAll four of those you mention are on the so-called table. The serpentfolk are in a different room from the one with the table, and there's a closed door or three between the rooms. :P
Still thinking that Zyss and Aapoph are different, but I'm really hyped about the four other oens listed being on the table :D
(on sidenote about the "always evil" conversation: civilization being playable has nothing to do with them being "always evil", it on otherhand has to do with "how familiar they are from player perspective". Since most players don't read through every bit of lore and bestiary stats. Ancestry not being playable isn't "racist" or "specieist", that is bit of rabbit hole to claim so.)
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I recognize the baggage (though I feel like that's not the correct word in this instance) of trying to fulfill ancestries from 1e coming into 2e. In a starting from scratch type situation, I would think a good solution would be to have a general reptile ancestry that then has a snake person heritage, a more naga focused heritage, etc. So you could have 1 ancestry that then covers nagaji, serpentfolk, vishkanya type characters.
For my not asked for 2 cents on an "always evil" race discussion, I recognize the value of having games where you are forced to question whether your enemies are actually evil and if they truly deserve death; but I do this hobby to unwind with my friends on the weekend, and my idea of a relaxing time is not having a philosophical discussion about the nature of good and evil. Sometimes I just want to fight a bunch of mooks and beat an unambiguously evil group of villains. So for that purpose of making the gm's life easier, their needs to be a certain amount of always evil, or at least confrontational, enemies. And there needs to be a wide varieties of enemies at that. Serpentfolk are just some more of those types of enemies.
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That wouldn't work though since it would kinda imply that all reptilians are same species and have same stats and abilities meanwhere the human variants are still their own thing :p
Like that would only work for me if dwarf, elves, gnomes and halflings were human heritages.
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It would work in a different setting, but I had something in mind where we had all those different aasimar and tiefling heritages in 1st edition, or also now a handful of differing plant types for Leshy heritages. But replace plant type with reptile type.
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So... in hopes of shifting this thread's topic to a more positive light, I'd love it if folks talk about what they DO want in a snake-themed player ancestry. Not serpentfolk. Not nagaji. I want to know what it is about snake-themed PC ancestries folks want. Is it a sleek, serpentine body for your PC, perhaps one with no legs or even no arms? Is it the ability to use a poison bite? A forked tongue that grants scent? Links to real-world snakes? Or is it merely the desire to play a member of an ancestry against type thematically—the same sort of thing that's attractive about playing a good drow or a redeemed demon or the like?
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Personally, I don’t really have a dog in this fight, but the idea of playing a Serpentfolk descendant who could unlock parts of their heritage, up to and including the big-ass tail instead of legs, is neat.
As for viable, I dunno. Drow and a lot of the other races like them at least have the excuse that they’re known to interact with other races on a sometimes peaceful level. Serpentfolk... kinda don’t have that. Like, at all.
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So... in hopes of shifting this thread's topic to a more positive light, I'd love it if folks talk about what they DO want in a snake-themed player ancestry. Not serpentfolk. Not nagaji. I want to know what it is about snake-themed PC ancestries folks want. Is it a sleek, serpentine body for your PC, perhaps one with no legs or even no arms? Is it the ability to use a poison bite? A forked tongue that grants scent? Links to real-world snakes? Or is it merely the desire to play a member of an ancestry against type thematically—the same sort of thing that's attractive about playing a good drow or a redeemed demon or the like?
In my case its simply because serpents are most aesthetically beautiful animals if you ask me ;D Like sure, spiders are cute, cats are adorable, wolfs are majestic, reptiles in general are cool, but snakes are art. Like you've seen black mambas mouth? The whole "they have grayish/white scales with black mouth" thing is just really cool aesthetic. And thats not getting me into gushing about patterns.
Snakes also have fascinating symbolism with reincarnation, immortality, healing, etc etc that I really like and often gets ignored in west.
...In other words, I just really like snakes and they are my favorite adorable animals :p
Like I wouldn't be interested in playing aapoph for the factor of "good serpentfolk" or such, I just like to have snake option instead of just iruxi or kobold option. Nagaji and vishakanya are too human in comparison.
Sleekness is definitely on the desired side since I already can play bulky reptilian character as iruxi and kobolds fill the smoll cute niche. (wyvarans would fill the "something draconic" niche better than kobolds :D). I'm fine with both "snake head without eyelids, but has limbs"(despite that being close to Anguis fragilis simply because I know artists will at some point give them eyelids :p) and "snake tail, humanoid torso"(xcom chimera squad made vipers playable, that was pretty cool I have to admit) or even "just full snake body and they use something else for arms" version.
And yeah, abilities inspired by real life snakes would be cool :3 Spitting venom, constricting, incredible speed, unhinged jaws, all that stuff is cool and you can't do all of that with existing serpent ancestries.
(on sidenote since I haven't actually spoken of my nagaji opinions much, I don't have super strong opinion on nagaji, but I actually do lean on liking them. But my issue with them is that they are hard to use in player context due to being really specifically about serving nagas and aesthetically they remind me of turians rather than snakes, but they have cool potential when used in context of Nagajor and Nagas. Outside of that I think wanting to play nagaji in context unrelated to nagajor doesn't really work thematically well due to how tied they are up with Nagajor. So I don't really think Nagaji needs to be reworked, just that they don't work as primarily snake themed option unless nagajor's influence in tian xia is increased. Nagaji would really need more Nagajor content in 2e to be interesting.)
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I'd want a snake-themed ancestry to make a character that acts snake-like. The specific details of sleekness or limbs really don't matter to me that much for that regard, though playing a literal snake without any arms or legs sort of hits a different character idea (and would probably be better as just an awakened snake of some sort).
I think part of people's attractions to snake-themed ancestries is that snakes are pretty interesting for different reasons. Snakes are a source of fear to some and their natural abilities are pretty impressive with their poison, crushing strength, stealth, etc. A character with these traits fits naturally into classes like ranger and rogue, but there's plenty of room for these traits to interact with other options that also make it interesting. And then there's the movements that snakes make as they hunt and interact with others that are sort of mesmerizing.
Lizards are cool, but the behaviors of snakes seem just a bit more human-like and easier to get into for role-playing a character.
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So... in hopes of shifting this thread's topic to a more positive light, I'd love it if folks talk about what they DO want in a snake-themed player ancestry. Not serpentfolk. Not nagaji. I want to know what it is about snake-themed PC ancestries folks want. Is it a sleek, serpentine body for your PC, perhaps one with no legs or even no arms? Is it the ability to use a poison bite? A forked tongue that grants scent? Links to real-world snakes? Or is it merely the desire to play a member of an ancestry against type thematically—the same sort of thing that's attractive about playing a good drow or a redeemed demon or the like?
Playing a character from a more alien background that’s mostly unknown to outsiders + playing against a villainous type/having the excuse to be an arrogant jerk naive to the ways of the world + I like my animal-y ancestries to look more like an animal than an animal-themed human, so the more “monstrous” appearance of a serpentfolk is more interesting than the more subtle “snake person” look of something like a nagaji.
The appeal is more in playing the specifics of a weirder, stereotyped-as-evil and somewhat storied ancestry than specifically a snake ancestry, though I am glad to see most “furry” ancestries. I do think the explosion of love for the snake alien in the new XCOM speaks to a broader hunger for some kind of snake option.
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Like I said before a no-legs variants, ideally with some constricting themed ancestors feats would be a huge boon to me! As mentioned above snakes have a lot of mystical symbolism regarding life, death, rebirth, water, ect and I would love a more mystical (not magical) aspect to their design and culture, in general non spellcasting mysticism is something I would like to see more of in relation, supersticians and symbolism that speak more about a veiw of the world than some desire for magical power to change it.
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I feel like the biggest issue with Nagaji as the sole 'snake' Ancestry, for me, is that they're a +Str/-Int race. I definitely enjoy the symbolism and aesthetic elements other people are talking about here, but when I think snakes I usually think 'clever and quick' not 'strong and stupid' It really doesn't fit the desired thematic archetype at all, at least for me.
Vishkanya suit the actual thematics I'd be interested in with a snake species much better, but they basically look human with a few flourishes, not full-on snake people.
So...I'd want a snake people Ancestry that look like, well, snake people (possibly including a tail instead of legs...tails instead of legs are neat, and would make a good Heritage), but without an Int or Dex penalty (a Str bonus at least plays into the 'constrictor' thing, and combined with no Dex penalty can work fine...the Int penalty not so much).
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Not just visually, but they need to be separate in terms of feel from Iruxi. Lizardfolk have bonuses to strength and wisdom with a flaw in intelligence. I don't want to say they should be directly opposite, but bonuses in dex and intelligence make sense to me. So yeah, not just artwork but feel and flair would need to be completely different between those two. Otherwise they're just both reptiley ancestries with teeth feats.
They need to be very clearly reptilian. Not just weird eyes and a snakish aura. Give them weird-ass snake-people heads, even throw on some different snake types (hooded heritage that does something). It hasn't been done yet, but couldn't you generate a heritage that tweaks the base stats? Like a more constrictor-type where you can replace dex with str in your ancestry bonuses? I think that would be a fair way to build.
Monstrous races can be fun but in my experience, players pick them without any regard for the societal or personal baggage such a character would bring. Throw on a truly alien ancestry like troglodyte, mindflayer, apparently serpentfolk, whatever... and they'll still try to play them mostly like humans with neat heritage abilities. Things like mental powers and magical resistance can be dangerous to toy around with--if they're balanced for PCs, then most actual enemies they meet will be stronger with those abilities, and that doesn't feel great.
Honestly, snake people are somewhere on the list of something I'd like to see added to the game, but not that high. What I really care about is that they continue to create completely new ancestries while adding back in old Pathfinder and D&D favorites. Yeah, I'm new to Pathfinder with this edition but boy do I not want to feel like I'm rebuying existing material that's had only its math updated.
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Since we already having iruxi, we will have nagaji and kobolds, and we may have vishkanya and xulgath in the future, then it's important to me that all are physically and thematically distinct from one another.
In terms of art and character design, it should be easy to tell apart iruxi, xulgath and nagaji from just their character design. I like that currently iruxi have different hues and the xulgath are flesh-colored. I don't like they both have tails and dorsal frills. I think nagaji should look serpentine, since no serpentfolk ancestry, which could mean stripes or no legs. They were created by the nagas, so maybe nagaji are morphologicalIy diverse. I would leave their faces the same, since they're unlike those of the xulgaths or iruxi.
Thematically, I would like the Ability Boosts and Flaws of each to be different. Since both iruxi and xulgaths had larger empires than they do today, I would like it if that part of the iruxi backstory was de-emphasized in favor how well the lizardfolk of Droon and Ekkeshikaar fare today versus the continued antagonism of the Terwa Lords.
In general, I would like more information about why and how each ancestry would become adventurers and cooperate with members of other ancestries, as well as where populations of each exist on Golarion.
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Since we already having iruxi, we will have nagaji and kobolds, and we may have vishkanya and xulgath in the future, then it's important to me that all are physically and thematically distinct from one another.
In terms of art and character design, it should be easy to tell apart iruxi, xulgath and nagaji from just their character design. I like that currently iruxi have different hues and the xulgath are flesh-colored. I don't like they both have tails and dorsal frills. I think nagaji should look serpentine, since no serpentfolk ancestry, which could mean stripes or no legs. They were created by the nagas, so maybe nagaji are morphologicalIy diverse. I would leave their faces the same, since they're unlike those of the xulgaths or iruxi.
Thematically, I would like the Ability Boosts and Flaws of each to be different. Since both iruxi and xulgaths had larger empires than they do today, I would like it if that part of the iruxi backstory was de-emphasized in favor how well the lizardfolk of Droon and Ekkeshikaar fare today versus the continued antagonism of the Terwa Lords.
In general, I would like more information about why and how each ancestry would become adventurers and cooperate with members of other ancestries, as well as where populations of each exist on Golarion.
Art is gonna be inconsistent no matter what though.
Like xulgath in some art have really off(I won't to use word ugly since I dislike the word, but they are definitely creepy or uncanny at least) looking flat faces(kinda resembles a human skull now that I think about it...) while in other ones they have reptilian snouts and such. The flat faced version seems to be overally most common variation in both 1e and 2e probably to distinguish them from lizardfolk but you can still see the crocodile head shape in some of 2e art in Extinction curse even if its overall in minority of art.
Either way, outside of the few art with them having actual reptilian snouts, xulgaths are pretty easy to tell apart from iruxi
(I myself prefer the reptilian snout version in that it looks cooler, but flat face version is creepier and more distinct both from iruxi and D&D trodgolytes)
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My preferences:
- Leaning towards a sleek or scrawny build.
- Arms
- A tail (either in addition to or replacing legs)
- Access to venom
- Access to ancestry illusions or enchantments. (Something relevant- PF1 had HD limits, and PF2 has the incapacitation tag on low-level innate spells that don't scale.)
- (Optional) Cool/weird snake stuff- unhinging jaws, for instance. I loved that Iruxi did this with things like parthenogenesis.
One other thing:
The main appeal of serpentfolk for me is the at-will disguise spell, since I'm a fan of shapeshifters. It's not something I'd expect on different snake ancestries, though, because that's part of serpentfolk's schtick and other ancestries have it covered.
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Art is gonna be inconsistent no matter what though.
Perhaps, but consistent character design is an important principle, and one that Paizo follows. I've been told that Paizo prefers artists who follow art direction over those who don't. For example, elves should look like Pathfinder elves and not Orlando Bloom.
It is important to me that different ancestries actually look different. Pathfinder made is name by making goblins cool and memorable, and Wayne Reynolds' work was a huge part of that. The 2E hobgoblin redesign is amazing.
Either way, outside of the few art with them having actual reptilian snouts, xulgaths are pretty easy to tell apart from iruxi
I agree, but others in this thread think they look too similar.
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Art is gonna be inconsistent no matter what though
Speaking as the Visual Communications Specialist of my company, that's total hogwash. If you've got a good art director with a handle on things, it totally doesn't have to be inconsistent.
In regards to Jason's request, I would love to see non-humanoid elements, such as a snake tail instead of legs, or lack of arms. Such dramatic differences would undoubtedly need mechanical support of some kind, and I'm keen to see how it would be done, as it can inform similar cases.
For example, having a playable Naga race might inform a GM how to handle a player who wants to play a humanoid character without arms (from injury or circumstances of birth, perhaps).
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Art is gonna be inconsistent no matter what thoughSpeaking as the Visual Communications Specialist of my company, that's total hogwash. If you've got a good art director with a handle on things, it totally doesn't have to be inconsistent.
You can have a great Art Director, but if the artist sends you their piece 3 days before the deadline and the snakeperson looks more like XCOM Viper and less like what you wanted to have, you just roll with it, because you don't have the time and money for a second take. All their other pieces were on time, they're popular, just this one didn't work, what are you gonna do? Roll with it, that's it. You're not a video game company that can throw a mountain of cash on some Bulgarian gal to draw take two in 3 days, after all. There, inconsistency.
Paizo has excellent art directors, but it has inconsistency because that's how things sometimes happen in this industry.
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I'd like to see a heritage or ancestry feats geared towards grappling and constricting foes. Also options that make them better at crawling through spaces smaller than they would normally be able to as they contort their bodies to slither through gaps.
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Definitely the sleek body is one thing, what you guys have in the B2 for Serpent Folk artwise is so ideal the proverbial finger wag hurts. The one with the sword and bow just *feels* like PC art. If there's any chance at all we could have that, like maybe some kind of exile or seperatist, it'd be rad.
They should be cunning (Int) and sneaky (Dex) with relatively weak bodies (Strength or Con flaw?) and be one of those ancestries that have some degree of suspicion leveraged at them for what they are, ideally for good reason in terms of history-- the Eddings take on snake people, the Nyissa, come to mind, as do things like Slytherin house. Supremacy seems likely in their past, but the takeaway should be a tension between the elements of society that want to go back to it, and the elements that believe it was their downfall.
They should have a predilection for occult magic, so they can emphasize ensnaring the mind-- snakes are supposedly able to paralyze and hypnotize with a gaze, and that should be represented. Someone up thread brought up shspeshifting, that should be an option. Deception could stand to be prominent in their feats.
Their society should have an Indian style caste system, or if you prefer a caste system based off something less well known, but that kind of stratification with warrior and priest castes feels important here. Actually it'd be neat to see the caste system determine access to ancestry feats, e.g. shape shifting snake people are one caste, warrior snake people are another caste. Heritage would be a great mechanic to express a physical caste system like this, it would make them feel very alien, which is a good thing.
You probably want them to have ancient origins, and maybe a cultural relationship with the empire of the Iruxi? I feel like it might be an antagonistic one because that would be a fun tension to see come up in a party or when exploring ruins. I'd love to be embroiled in a centuries long war between the two.
I also think that maybe giving them an antagonistic relationship with Lovecraft entities is the way to go, I feel like they would be the kind of people used by them, and any social collapse they're now experiencing is a result of such entities manipulating them. Maybe the physical caste system and occult magic is a remnant of that influence, maybe the whole race was once engineered to serve their purposes.
These are all thoughts, and some of them may not fit, but overall it's the well of traits I see desirable in a Serpent people.
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B2 cover art for serpentfolk isn't actually to my taste since something about shape of head feels less serpentlike to me, but I haven't but my finger to it yet. Like it feels they have less of snout(to boop) and more of flat face like xulgath do maybe?
If you've seen it from the gaming gang preview, how do you feel about the interior art for them? Does it apply to those images as well?
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Even in the case of undead and fiends, there's no such thing as "irredeemably evil" (or the inverse of "irredeemably good or lawful or chaotic") in Pathfinder.I feel like "irredeemably evil" should be reserved to things like mindless undead, fiends, things which become what they are via evil, and things that are fundamentally alien (like aboleth or mindflayers.) The extent to which someone can empathize with a thing, the less they should be treated as "a thing which is, by nature, evil".
There are, after all, no shortage of humans who the PCs can feel justified in killing due to the what those humans are doing rather than what they are.
IDK, the specifically mindless undead as PossibleCabbage mentioned do seem like they'd be less redeemable.
So... in hopes of shifting this thread's topic to a more positive light, I'd love it if folks talk about what they DO want in a snake-themed player ancestry. Not serpentfolk. Not nagaji. I want to know what it is about snake-themed PC ancestries folks want.
Personally, the main thing I'd really like is legless. Keep the arms IMO, but slithering rather than walking is nice. Beyond that, venom as a heritage is great, maybe a constricting tail (something like a tail-slap natural strike with the Grapple tag, as is at least implied to exist by the recent Dhampir magazing preview would be nice), stuff like that.
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B2 cover art for serpentfolk isn't actually to my taste since something about shape of head feels less serpentlike to me, but I haven't but my finger to it yet. Like it feels they have less of snout(to boop) and more of flat face like xulgath do maybe?If you've seen it from the gaming gang preview, how do you feel about the interior art for them? Does it apply to those images as well?
What preview? I wanna see!
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Can we do non-bipedal ancestries as a batch? We can do hypothetical snake people, centaurs, merfolk, and cecaelias all at once if we figure out how "nonstandard legs" works (for the cecaelias those are technically arms).
People in this thread want slithery folks, I know in the past a lot of people have been interested in centaurs, and I very much want my doofy octopus people back.