With the release of the Ancestory guide, I've noticed some of the language around the Duskwalkers has tied them to the Samsara, is this deliberate? Should we expect the Samsarans in the future?
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I sure hope so; they’re my most-wanted Ancestry now that I know gnolls and androids are accounted for.
Definitely an idea. Perhaps there will be an article for them during the upcoming AP; have they said what all the article topics are already?
Edit: they have, and it doesn't look like any of them approach that topic. But with it set in Tian Xia, they might touch on them even if they don't fully go into it.
Fascinating that they're linked to Duskwalkers. It makes sense; and Duskwalkers even look a bit like Samsarans. I can't wait to get my hands on LO:AG!
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Notably, one character in the Pathfinder Society Guide is explicitly stated to be a samsaran, so there's definitely still a future for them probably.
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I think we haven't seen Samsarans yet because they're mostly in Tian Xia, and they're not as well traveled as the Tengu or as popular with the fans as Kitsune.
With the release of the Ancestory guide, I've noticed some of the language around the Duskwalkers has tied them to the Samsara, is this deliberate? Should we expect the Samsarans in the future?
I hope they aren't retconning away their connection to the Manasaputras.
Ancestry or Heritage, you think?
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With the release of the Ancestory guide, I've noticed some of the language around the Duskwalkers has tied them to the Samsara, is this deliberate? Should we expect the Samsarans in the future?I hope they aren't retconning away their connection to the Manasaputras.
I've been concerned about that since Manaputras was not included in Gods and Magic.
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Ancestry or Heritage, you think?
What would a human Samsaran be like vs. (for example) a dwarf Samsaran?
If that question makes sense, Samsarans should be a heritage.
If it doesn't make sense, Samsarans should be an ancestry.
I would think ancestry, based on their PF1 lore. They were a separate race entirely, though had human children, which is unlike how the versatile heritages were presented in lore (whatever mechanics each had).
Beastkin are the only heritage I can think of that would have been, by lore, an ancestry in PF1 if those had been separate categories. But given how they expanded the themes beastkin cover, it made a lot of sense to move. Samsarans are a lot more specific from what we know about them so far.
Ancestry or Heritage, you think?What would a human Samsaran be like vs. (for example) a dwarf Samsaran?
If that question makes sense, Samsarans should be a heritage.
If it doesn't make sense, Samsarans should be an ancestry.
I'm not sure if it boils down to such a dichotomy as you assume.
Samsarans could be implemented as restricted heritage not open to every ancestry, like Half-Elf/Orcs are only Humans.AFAIK the lore is Samsaran children are all humans, which seems strange if Samsarans were derived from all ancestries.
(not that non-Human equivalents can't exist somewhere in multiverse, but AFAIK Samsarans as known in Tian Xia are all human based)
That seems pretty equivalent to situation with Humans re: Half-Elfs/Orcs, so a symmetrical treatment seems pretty reasonable, personally.
Leaning into a connection with Duskwalkers as OP suggested, it's easy to see Samsarans as parallel type of Duskwalkers with distinct creation/lifecycle (that defaults to their individual reincarnation as Samsarans whereas Duskwalker death allows 'birth' of new Duskwalker reincarnated from non-Duskwalker soul).
So if Samsarans were implemented as Ancestry, I could imagine them "counting as Duskwalkers" and qualifying for most Duskwalker feats... or just creating Feats that both Duskwalkers and Samsarans both qualify for. In that case, it wouldn't make sense for such Samsaran Ancestry to qualify to take Duskwalker heritage, since they already have it in a sense... And there likewise seems a reasonable case to disallow plenty of other Versatile Heritages which may not be appropriate to their nature/lifecycle.
On the other hand, they could be implemented as Heritage, plausibly with "Human only" restriction like Half-Elf/Orc. This could "count as" Duswalker, or share specific Feats with it, as above. Or, it could be handled like subtype of Duskwalker Heritage, similar to Planetouched subtypes or Elven Heritages via Elf Atavism... i.e. would use the 1st Ancestry Feat in addition to actual Duskwalker Heritage Feat. Possibly allowing for multiple distinct Feat options to qualify as Samsaran? (given this approach doesn't have room for multiple Samsaran Heritages as such)
I should correct myself on my previous post.
If a Samsaran can be of any ancestry, then Samsaran should be a Versatile Heritage.
If Samsarans have a special connection to humans, they should be a Human Heritage.
If they are their own thing with no particular connection to any ancestry, then they should be an Ancestry themselves.
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Do keep in mind that they aren't afraid of doing some retconning when it comes to this. Dhampirs in 1e were very explicitly only half vampire, half human, & they changed their minds on how that worked.
I've been concerned about that since Manaputras was not included in Gods and Magic.With the release of the Ancestory guide, I've noticed some of the language around the Duskwalkers has tied them to the Samsara, is this deliberate? Should we expect the Samsarans in the future?I hope they aren't retconning away their connection to the Manasaputras.
I wouldn't be that concerned. Gods and Magic had to cut a lot of deities out just for page count reasons and the Seven Manasaputra Kumaras weren't ever fleshed out in Pathfinder 1e to my knowledge. They'll probably get included at some point when they make the follow-up book with all the other deities that didn't make the cut.
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Do keep in mind that they aren't afraid of doing some retconning when it comes to this. Dhampirs in 1e were very explicitly only half vampire, half human, & they changed their minds on how that worked.
That's fair. I'd forgotten that they were human only, because that restriction never made sense to me so I elected to ignore it.
This is what happens when you get your writing start in the fan-fic mines. "I do not acknowledge your canonical lore and will substitute it with my own."
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Yay!
Personally, I'm hoping for Samsarans to be a human heritage.
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Samsarans should be their own ancestry. You don't have to be a human to reincarnate into a samsaran, after all. Since they come about not through biology but through supernatural/spiritual methods, there's some interesting things we can explore for this ancestry when/if we get to them.
I think the almost all of ancestries they've done so far aren't really specific to one part of the world, and this is deliberate. The Shoonies are, but they're in AP backmatter.
Like the core ancestries are all over, obviously, but Leshies can animate plants anywhere someone can do the ritual, Hobgoblins have population centers in both Kaoling and Oprak with access to a teleportation network and a mandate to "build the brand", the Iruxi schtick is "we're survivors" so whatever remote place they were i 10,000 years ago they might still be, Catfolk are explorers, Tengu are sailors, Orcs and Kobolds are all over the place (just generally not where humans also are), and Ratfolk are often merchants who travel and thrive in dense urban areas anyhow.
I think when we do get ancestries for "you really only find these here", that's either going to be in a region book (like the Mwangi book that's coming) or in the backmatter of an AP that takes place in that part of the world.
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Samsarans are located all over the world. They do have their own nation in Tian Xia, but so do Tengu, for example.
We haven't done a samsaran ancestry yet not because they're limited in where they live, but because we can't do everything at once and have to pick and choose whenever we do a selection of ancestries. So far, folks have chosen other options to fill ancestry selections, but hopefully we'll get to samsarans at some point.