| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If we set the time machine back to the heady days of 2009 and the Council of Thieves AP, we get this tidbit from the introduction of Iomedae:
"Though born in Cheliax, she is worshiped by many people outside that land, and once the direct threat of the Worldwound is ended she plans to wipe her homeland free of its diabolical trait."
Twelve years later, with Second Edition and the Worldwound safely sealed... is it time?
And if so, how would it work? It's not like Asmodeus led the legions of hell in conquering Cheliax. Rather, as far as we know, he supported the Thrunes, but it was still their free will that led them to Him, and it was still their direct actions as mortals that won them the country.
So how actively can She act in wiping Cheliax free of the Thrunes and their Hellish allies? Sending her Herald to Egorian seems rather... blunt, as does a dream to all her paladins to see Abrogail removed from the throne.
And if she did, how would Hell respond? Is Cheliax really so important to Asmodeus that he would dangle the key to Rovagug's prison and say "They asked to be Mine, and they are, and if I can't keep them, you can't have them either?" in reponse? Would it be the Crusade all over again, but against devils instead of demons?
What about the bordering nations? Especially Nidal and Andoran? If Iomedae truly tried to "wipe the diabolical clean out of Cheliax", would it plunge the enter Inner Sea into war?
Of course, this is the same AP that gave us the infamous paladins of Asmodeus, so if it's something Paizo wants to chalk up to 'early installment wierdness' and leave safely in the sands of time, that's understandable, but it got me to thinking. Would this be fertile ground for a truly epic Adventure Path? Or would such a conflict and the aftermath be too much of a change to the setting?
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Isn't this basically the plot of Hell's Vengeance? Obviously the effort doesn't work out too well for the Paladins in that one.
Isn't this basically the plot of Hell's Vengeance? Obviously the effort doesn't work out too well for the Paladins in that one.Pretty much, yeah. From a national point of view it worked out OK, Ravounel is its own country now, and a pretty goodly one, but from the paladins' point of view it didn't go so hot. My guess is that if such a crusade was going to happen it would need to wait a few decades to remove the sting of the previous failed attempt from the collective consciousness of the faithful.
As well as from the memories of Asmodeus's faithful. I'm going to guess that since Cheliax is still a bit on the hellish side the official party line is not going to be too kind to crusading do-gooders. They may ... tolerate their presence, as long as they swear to play by certain rules on their honour, but they're going to watch out.
Iomedae may WANT to clean up her hometown, but now might not be a good time ...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Isn't this basically the plot of Hell's Vengeance? Obviously the effort doesn't work out too well for the Paladins in that one.Pretty much, yeah. From a national point of view it worked out OK, Ravounel is its own country now, and a pretty goodly one, but from the paladins' point of view it didn't go so hot. My guess is that if such a crusade was going to happen it would need to wait a few decades to remove the sting of the previous failed attempt from the collective consciousness of the faithful.As well as from the memories of Asmodeus's faithful. I'm going to guess that since Cheliax is still a bit on the hellish side the official party line is not going to be too kind to crusading do-gooders. They may ... tolerate their presence, as long as they swear to play by certain rules on their honour, but they're going to watch out.
Iomedae may WANT to clean up her hometown, but now might not be a good time ...
From Asmodeus' point of view, HR/HV went really well. The duchy of Ravounel was a hotbed of anti-Thrune sentiment. The nation of Ravounel is unable to directly act against Cheliax under threat of conquest. House Thrune had become a little too complacent in regards to their position, and too many potential traitors had acquired too much power. Those traitors are now dead or in exile, serving as examples either way, and House Thrune got quite the wakeup call. They aren't going to do anything rash like risk an armada just to take out a mangy pack of pirates. Their neighbours are in no position to take advantage of Cheliax's temporary weakness, not with Tar-Baphon on the loose. Quite the opposite; their power may well be called upon in time to come, and Hell's favours always come with a steep price.
From Asmodeus' point of view, HR/HV went really well. The duchy of Ravounel was a hotbed of anti-Thrune sentiment. The nation of Ravounel is unable to directly act against Cheliax under threat of conquest. House Thrune had become a little too complacent in regards to their position, and too many potential traitors had acquired too much power. Those traitors are now dead or in exile, serving as examples either way, and House Thrune got quite the wakeup call. They aren't going to do anything rash like risk an armada just to take out a mangy pack of pirates. Their neighbours are in no position to take advantage of Cheliax's temporary weakness, not with Tar-Baphon on the loose. Quite the opposite; their power may well be called upon in time to come, and Hell's favours always come with a steep price.Isn't this basically the plot of Hell's Vengeance? Obviously the effort doesn't work out too well for the Paladins in that one.Pretty much, yeah. From a national point of view it worked out OK, Ravounel is its own country now, and a pretty goodly one, but from the paladins' point of view it didn't go so hot. My guess is that if such a crusade was going to happen it would need to wait a few decades to remove the sting of the previous failed attempt from the collective consciousness of the faithful.As well as from the memories of Asmodeus's faithful. I'm going to guess that since Cheliax is still a bit on the hellish side the official party line is not going to be too kind to crusading do-gooders. They may ... tolerate their presence, as long as they swear to play by certain rules on their honour, but they're going to watch out.
Iomedae may WANT to clean up her hometown, but now might not be a good time ...
I've never had a chance to play the AP and probably never will, and I'm curious; is it possible for the PCs of Hell's Vengeance to backstab the Thrunes and take the throne of Cheliax for themselves?
Asmodeus is doing what deities do- letting worshippers worship him. He's Evil, but he's actually primarily a deity of Law.
Good deities (like, say, Aroden) let whole populations worship them. That's all the big devil is doing. Sure.. it's creepy. But it's willing.
Council of Thieves was about getting Westcrown away from the clutches of bad folks. And we had two other APs in Cheliax. So, not sure how soon they'd wanna revisit that region. I love it. Just not sure when it'd be.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Iomedae's beef with Tar-Baphon is probably more pressing and relevant than her beef with the powers ruling Cheliax for the moment.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Asmodeus is doing what deities do- letting worshippers worship him. He's Evil, but he's actually primarily a deity of Law.
Good deities (like, say, Aroden) let whole populations worship them. That's all the big devil is doing. Sure.. it's creepy. But it's willing.
Aroden was LN.
Iomedae's beef with Tar-Baphon is probably more pressing and relevant than her beef with the powers ruling Cheliax for the moment
This I think is spot on. The Crusaders can turn their attention to Cheliax where most people are doing ok, even if they are under the thumb of Asmodeus, or they can turn and fight the greatest existential threat to life on Golarion since the Earthfall.
Additionally, given that fully half of the "Acts of Iomedae" that lead up to her achieving divinity involve her heroic deeds the last time the Whispering Tyrant made a bunch of noise, there's a more direct line to "we gotta fight TB" for the faithful of Iomedae than "we gotta enact regime change in Cheliax".
In the near term, Cheliax should be trying to play nice with their neighbors to unite in common cause anyway, since they do kinda need to regroup after taking so many Ls in the last decade.
Aroden was LN.
Well, Good-ish then.
Point was Asmodeus is doing what deities do. Getting followers. That's not so wrong.And that actually makes it more not as bad.. going from LN to LE isn't such a huge leap.
Problem with a straight out attack on Cheliax would be the collateral damage.
Not sure how one would unseat Thrune. That's a hefty endeavor.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Aroden, a Lawful Neutral deity, most accurately reflects the natural beliefs of the people of Cheliax. After his death, two deities of slightly different alignments (both one step removed from Lawful Neutral) competed for the loyalty of the people of Cheliax. The people of Cheliax were not completely comfortable with either of them, as they both wanted to pull Cheliax away from its natural beliefs. Asmodeus won that contest because he was the better strategist and was able to convince the nobility that submitting to House Thrune was a better idea than continuing the civil war.
Iomedae doesn't really have a strategy for taking over Cheliax. In the Glorious Reclamation, her followers attacked when Queen Abrogail was at the height of her power and naturally got clobbered. They failed to take advantage of any of the periodic succession crises, when Cheliax had just been taken over by a weaker member of House Thrune who had just killed off the previous monarch and was scrambling to secure his or her position. At such a time, anyone wanting to overthrow House Thrune would need to move quickly to seize power -- and the time window for doing this could easily expire before any enemy of House Thrune realizes that the window was open.
They aren't going to do anything rash like risk an armada just to take out a mangy pack of pirates.
Um, they've done exactly that in adventures past. Lost a whole armada to a mangy pack of pirates.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think their point is that they aren't going to do anything quite that stupid in the near future, as they are no longer feeling as spunky as they were in the recent past.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Cheliax took L after L in PF1. What's largely saving them from the next seven catastrophes is that "the Whispering Tyrant is up and about" lets Cheliax say "we're Diablolists, sure, but that just means we want to stay alive!" and play nice with their neighbors and lick their wounds and rebuild Cheliax. You can, after all, attribute a lot of Cheliax's failures to "incompetent people ended up in charge just because of their birthright" and nobody outside of Cheliax is really going to mind when Thrune purges the aristocracy.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think their point is that they aren't going to do anything quite that stupid in the near future, as they are no longer feeling as spunky as they were in the recent past.
Thank you. That was exactly my point.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
They aren't going to do anything rash like risk an armada just to take out a mangy pack of pirates.Um, they've done exactly that in adventures past. Lost a whole armada to a mangy pack of pirates.
Even more reason to not do it. 'We know the Admiralty isn't made of armadas. We checked. Internally.'
And I'd agree. With some of the fluff I've seen suggesting that BELKZEN is getting worried about the Whispering Tyrant, I can imagine Asmodeus adjusting The List. As well as Iomedae adjusting her hit list.
Now, what those two decide to do about the Hold of Belkzen AFTER Tar-Bathon's dealt with might be fun to see ...
And I do recall reading in one of the Lost Omens books (Legends, maybe?) about the Church of Iomedae making a deal with Queen Abrogail to ally against Tar-Baphon. In typical diabolical fashion, she found a technicality by which she could charge them with treason and backstabbed them.
They aren't going to do anything rash like risk an armada just to take out a mangy pack of pirates.Um, they've done exactly that in adventures past. Lost a whole armada to a mangy pack of pirates.Even more reason to not do it. 'We know the Admiralty isn't made of armadas. We checked. Internally.'
And I'd agree. With some of the fluff I've seen suggesting that BELKZEN is getting worried about the Whispering Tyrant, I can imagine Asmodeus adjusting The List. As well as Iomedae adjusting her hit list.
Now, what those two decide to do about the Hold of Belkzen AFTER Tar-Bathon's dealt with might be fun to see ...
Well, Abrogail has a nice wall of buffer states between her & Tar-Baphon. The orcs don't.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
>Cheliax took L after L in PF1. What's largely saving them from the next seven catastrophes is that "the Whispering Tyrant is up and about" lets Cheliax say "we're Diablolists, sure, but that just means we want to stay alive!" and play nice with their neighbors and lick their wounds and rebuild Cheliax.
Yeah, TB is the best thing ever to happen to Cheliax. Otherwise, it would have been a prime target for all the now unemployed crusaders against evil extra-planar creatures as well as all the anti-slavery nations and organizations.