It might be quibbling, but Taldor is more Byzantine and Cheliax fills a more Late Roman niche, at least to me, with Taldane/Common equivalent either to Vulgar Latin or Koine Greek. The Romans and Byzantines were great civilisations in their own rights, with history and culture ripe to draw inspiration and influence from, but very different from the world of the Hellenistic kingdoms and colonies.
Yes, great examples, and I'm sure you can find more ...and that's exactly the problem. It's more of the same. City states can be a great part of Iblydos identity, an empire, another empire honestly bore me. Classical era Greece was a place politically and phyletically divided but culturally united. A place of many unique settlements/islands each with their own flare and indigenous populations, some vastly different than most like Centaurs or Amazons. Also among the thousand of islands strange and mythic inhabitants like the ones Odysseus finds in Odyssey await.
As far as inspiration for mythic content and mythic adventure paths, I can't think of something more fitting than Argonautica. A mythic voyage with many islands to explore and many ports to visit.
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Taldor has a senate, so I’d definitely read them as Roman over Greek.
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Taldor has a senate, so I’d definitely read them as Roman over Greek.
Constantinople inherited the Senate of Rome, and although its powers diminished as it became more autocratic it lasted until the 14th century, by which point it had become little more than a title. But the Byzantine Senate was still active at least until the 12th century, when its last known act was to confirm an emperor. But Taldor also has a bunch of tropes from High Medieval France, Tudor England, and (I think) modern America, so it can be versatile. Cheliax continues to strike me as an unholy (heh) combination of Western Rome, the Holy Roman Empire, Imperial Spain and the Third Reich.
This is what I mean when I suggest that the parallel to a Hellenistic world around Iblydos doesn't have to take the same route it did on Earth, or manifest in the same ways. I think, archetypically, you just need a bunch of culturally diverse states with their own agendas and histories across a wider chunk of the known world, which can be quite versatile. But that really seems outside the scope of a hypothetical Lost Omens: Casmaron or an Iblydos Gazetteer, something maybe to hint at the possibility of in the distant future (one established by players who want to create that world) than to actually flesh out.
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What if the "Iblydian Alexander" was actually a proponent of the political and social theories you like, galvanizing true revolution in the old dusty empire and its colonies ?
"The most extravagant idea that can be born in the head of a political thinker is to believe that it suffices for people to enter, weapons in hand, among a foreign people and expect to have its laws and constitution embraced. No one loves armed missionaries; the first lesson of nature and prudence is to repulse them as enemies."
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What if the "Iblydian Alexander" was actually a proponent of the political and social theories you like, galvanizing true revolution in the old dusty empire and its colonies ?"The most extravagant idea that can be born in the head of a political thinker is to believe that it suffices for people to enter, weapons in hand, among a foreign people and expect to have its laws and constitution embraced. No one loves armed missionaries; the first lesson of nature and prudence is to repulse them as enemies."
A pacifist hero-god philosopher then. I look forward to creating such a PC with the PF2 Mythic rules.
What is the ethnicity of Iblydan humans? Are they an offshoot of Taldan or Kelesh, or something else?
Pathfinder’s take on Ancient Greece, a land of hero-gods and monsters; we’ve seen one of its cities in Distant Shores, and a few more of its hero-gods at the final 1e AP backmatter - how do folks like the region? Is it somewhere you’re eager to see more of?
I like the region from what little I know of it but it is weirdly placed in terms of geography as one would assume from its real world inspiration it would be geographically closer to the inner sea than it is- but I guess one could argue it’s as close as it can be given how crowded the inner sea already is.
I enjoy the Theros setting from magic the gathering.
Casmaron itself is a little less historically accurate than other continents in terms of the conglomerate handful of nations upon it. I think they have to do a better job in the region in making it their own and taking seriously the consequences that each real world inspired culture and civilization would experience from their closer proximity to one another than in real life. This might create some dissonance from the real world inspiration, but at least the setting would be more reflective of what the traffic and sharing of goods and ideas would look like according to their fictional set up.
I like that Iblydos is the best remaining place where cyclops peoples can still practice a less-marred (less fiendishly/evilly-influenced) and noble version of their culture.
Everywhere else where they exist(ed) no longer reflects the once-great civilization that they were. I could see this being a place where cyclops are akin to sphinxes and Norns in their relationship with humans
Concerning classical antiquity elements, many ideas to consider, just making a brief list.
Olympic Games. Tournaments are always great background for adventures.
Philosophers. Not all heroes are warriors or kings, the likes of Aristotle, Socrates, Plato and of course Diogenes are great mythic npc figures. Also Epicurus's Garden or the Pythagorean religious cabal are great stuff for an rpg setting.
Mysteries. I'm talking of course about the secret religious rites of ancient Greece.
And lastly I wonder if the god fearing Ancient Greeks make any sense for Iblydos setting without a dedicated Pantheon? I don't think so.
I think Paizo could absolutely have an Iblydos-specific pantheon that draws from Classical inspiration without necessarily importing the Greek gods wholesale, and the Hero-Gods offer a way to justify it. Just because a Hero dies, that doesn't have to mean their cults end - the soul persists after death, and can return as Outsiders which, if powerful enough, can become Empyreal Lords, Infernal Princes, Psychopomp Ushers, etc. At least one Movanic Deva claims to have been the Hero-God Zdokirae in life and has made appearances. They could easily have their own Capital G Gods that they worship alongside the living Hero-Gods who were famous historical heroes whose cults survived and endured while others' faded and were forgotten.
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I feel the hero-gods of Iblydos should be descendants of their deities, even if the filiation is in truth more symbolic than blood.
I think having the Hero-Gods be descendants of gods, even symbolically, kinda defeats the purpose of Myth-Speaking where anyone can become a living god if they fulfil the prophecy. And I think the reverse - the pantheon being home-grown, and original to Iblydos - would make them feel different to the neighbouring pantheons, and explain why they haven't spread beyond Iblydos. Iblydos can have their own gods, who protect and care for them and fill the same niches gods like Abadar or Gozreh or Sarenrae fill elsewhere, and the fact they haven't spread beyond their own shores is because they're reluctant to look beyond their ancestral homeland, where they themselves once walked as living mortals.
Conversely, the Iblydans might be reluctant to worship foreign gods because they already have their own gods who fill those niches, whose mythologies are far more relatable to them than distant eternal figures. Though I could certainly see people like Iomedae, Kurgess, Nethys, Cayden - those gods who themselves were also once living and whose lives are recorded - getting some respect in parts that trade with Garund and Avistan.
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Myth-speaking is indeed very far from the Greek myths about heroes.
Now, those "greatest mortals" who could be guided to mythic power, what made them so ? Chance, Fate, being the hidden progeny / mortal favorite of some deity ?
And how much of Myth-speaking was known to the average Iblydan ?
I like the idea of a place where deities are a part of everyday life and their will and power is felt everywhere, even in small acts and events. And where mighty heroes surely have divine ancestry or divine / spiritual sponsorship. So that there is a feeling of a continuous line from mortals to deities, rather than the mortals dwell in the Universe, separate from deities and outsiders who dwell in the outer planes.
But maybe Iblydos is not that place.
The prophecies of the oracles was an integral part of every classical antiquity myth. It was the will of the gods and even though the gods didn't have precognition (that only the Fates had), they had power, so prophecies were as good as truth. The gods of Golarion are not that different with the exception of Pharasma the goddess of fate.
However what was really important for mortals was legacy. The Greek word for ambition, φιλοδοξία means literally love for glory. Iblydans should similarly love the idea of becoming legends at any cost. Achilles in Iliad knows he will die and is willing to for eternal legacy. This was depicted quite accurately in the movie Troy.
On another note divination as a school of arcane magic is wrong. For starters it has the word divine in it. Arcane precognition should be quite different from divine divination (lol). I hope to see this change in PF2e 2.0.
Forgot to mention in my previous post the sacrifices to the gods. Mainly animal but in rare occasions human or something else entirely like Berenice's Hair. I doubt Iblydos will include something like this though.