The story that I most want to see...

[Ian G]

is Arazni learning to heal. Loving herself again and patching her soul back together. Maybe with friends, maybe with subordinates who support her. I'd want to play that.

I mean granted that's nearly every story I write (angry superpowered woman with mental health issues and trauma patches herself back together with support from friends and family), but it's something I want to see more of and roleplay.

What about you guys? What's the story you most want to see out of Pathfinder?

[keftiu]

Whatever is going on in Fallen Razatlan: Xopatl, Nalmeras, Innazpa, and modern Razatlan. As a gal who’s never lived outside the Southwest, the idea of seeing fantasy that whole-heartedly embraces Latinx and Southwestern/Central American indigenous inspirations makes my heart sing. Show me these nations, vibrant and awesome - and then show me what menaces them, and let my players make heroes from the region who thwart them.

Nothing else could make me happier.

I’m also keen for an Iron Gods follow-up, that algollthu Golden Road plot teased hard in LO: Legends, anything about Sarkorians cleansing and reclaiming their homeland, an extended trip to Castrovel, any non-colonization Arcadia plot, some love for Arazni, and a journey across Southern Garund - not necessarily in that order.

[Oragnejedi42]

Two votes for an adventure just seeing Arcadia. Seems like a fertile ground to do new things without having to lean hard on the other game's tropes as hard. Something with local folks, local problems, and no connection to the Inner Sea region. The little we've had so far has me hungry for more.

An adventure (maybe a PFS scenario) explaining how Druids became legal in Rahadoum between editions. It's nation that has an interesting concept but all the subtlety of a ranty youtuber. The setting seems to treat the nation as "these people are bad for kicking religious people out" while also having lots of examples of "look at all the bad things these religious people get up to given the chance."

[Tender Tendrils]

An honest to goodness Western adventure path(I believe the Deadshot Lands is the place for this?) complete with train robberies, becoming the sheriff because the previous sheriff died and you where the next person to walk into town, ankhegs (they feel appropriate for a fantasy Western), a mysterious undead gunslinger, duels at high noon and bounty hunting.

[keftiu]

Tender Tendrils wrote:

An honest to goodness Western adventure path(I believe the Deadshot Lands is the place for this?) complete with train robberies, becoming the sheriff because the previous sheriff died and you where the next person to walk into town, ankhegs (they feel appropriate for a fantasy Western), a mysterious undead gunslinger, duels at high noon and bounty hunting.

Any thoughts on Outlaws of Alkenstar? I feel like that’s probably taking the slot for a Western AP permanently.

[Tender Tendrils]

keftiu wrote:

Tender Tendrils wrote:

An honest to goodness Western adventure path(I believe the Deadshot Lands is the place for this?) complete with train robberies, becoming the sheriff because the previous sheriff died and you where the next person to walk into town, ankhegs (they feel appropriate for a fantasy Western), a mysterious undead gunslinger, duels at high noon and bounty hunting.

Any thoughts on Outlaws of Alkenstar? I feel like that’s probably taking the slot for a Western AP permanently.

I was unaware of that as I generally don't find out about APs ahead of time :) But yay! Though it would be nice to have one set in the Deadshot Lands instead of confined inside a large city in the mana wastes.

[Perpdepog]

Tender Tendrils wrote:

keftiu wrote:

Tender Tendrils wrote:

An honest to goodness Western adventure path(I believe the Deadshot Lands is the place for this?) complete with train robberies, becoming the sheriff because the previous sheriff died and you where the next person to walk into town, ankhegs (they feel appropriate for a fantasy Western), a mysterious undead gunslinger, duels at high noon and bounty hunting.

Any thoughts on Outlaws of Alkenstar? I feel like that’s probably taking the slot for a Western AP permanently.

I was unaware of that as I generally don't find out about APs ahead of time :) But yay! Though it would be nice to have one set in the Deadshot Lands instead of confined inside a large city in the mana wastes.

I think it's going to explore outside the city, too? I really hope it does; I want to hang out with some of the groups living out in the Wastes.

Also, small thing but I hope they convert the Pale Stranger to PF2E. I really, really wanna duel one.

[Tender Tendrils]

Perpdepog wrote:

Tender Tendrils wrote:

keftiu wrote:

Tender Tendrils wrote:

An honest to goodness Western adventure path(I believe the Deadshot Lands is the place for this?) complete with train robberies, becoming the sheriff because the previous sheriff died and you where the next person to walk into town, ankhegs (they feel appropriate for a fantasy Western), a mysterious undead gunslinger, duels at high noon and bounty hunting.

Any thoughts on Outlaws of Alkenstar? I feel like that’s probably taking the slot for a Western AP permanently.

I was unaware of that as I generally don't find out about APs ahead of time :) But yay! Though it would be nice to have one set in the Deadshot Lands instead of confined inside a large city in the mana wastes.

I think it's going to explore outside the city, too? I really hope it does; I want to hang out with some of the groups living out in the Wastes.

Also, small thing but I hope they convert the Pale Stranger to PF2E. I really, really wanna duel one.

That was the undead I was trying to remember the name of. Honestly for me a Western AP really needs to spend time in tiny towns in the middle of nowhere and in the desert/scrublands/etc. The freedom of wide open spaces is a big part of the genre.

[keftiu]

Tender Tendrils wrote:

Perpdepog wrote:

Tender Tendrils wrote:

keftiu wrote:

Tender Tendrils wrote:

An honest to goodness Western adventure path(I believe the Deadshot Lands is the place for this?) complete with train robberies, becoming the sheriff because the previous sheriff died and you where the next person to walk into town, ankhegs (they feel appropriate for a fantasy Western), a mysterious undead gunslinger, duels at high noon and bounty hunting.

Any thoughts on Outlaws of Alkenstar? I feel like that’s probably taking the slot for a Western AP permanently.

I was unaware of that as I generally don't find out about APs ahead of time :) But yay! Though it would be nice to have one set in the Deadshot Lands instead of confined inside a large city in the mana wastes.

I think it's going to explore outside the city, too? I really hope it does; I want to hang out with some of the groups living out in the Wastes.

Also, small thing but I hope they convert the Pale Stranger to PF2E. I really, really wanna duel one.

That was the undead I was trying to remember the name of. Honestly for me a Western AP really needs to spend time in tiny towns in the middle of nowhere and in the desert/scrublands/etc. The freedom of wide open spaces is a big part of the genre.

You would /really/ like Luis Loza’s actual play, Valiant.

[Ian G]

keftiu wrote:

Whatever is going on in Fallen Razatlan: Xopatl, Nalmeras, Innazpa, and modern Razatlan. As a gal who’s never lived outside the Southwest, the idea of seeing fantasy that whole-heartedly embraces Latinx and Southwestern/Central American indigenous inspirations makes my heart sing. Show me these nations, vibrant and awesome - and then show me what menaces them, and let my players make heroes from the region who thwart them.

I would be into some Flower Wars stuff or a deep dive into Puebloan or Dine mythologies, or maybe "white people show up and try to conquistador, get used as proxies in a war, humiliate themselves and look like morons" just to point and laugh at the dumb white people.

Mexica mythology is pretty well-attested and there's some good stuff to work with there. Their chief god, the "left-handed hummingbird" Huitzilopochtli, is inherently cool. I'd prefer anything taking place in Arcadia to be pre-contact focused, and yes I'm not a big fan of what I've heard about Wild West stuff taking place in the region.

Mayan peoples' mythology has an advantage in terms of drawing from it--there are a lot of Mayan language-speakers still around. Probably easiest to ask Yucatec people, there are more of them than of other Mayan peoples. Pay a consultant, put in a prologue talking about real-life marginalization of Mayan peoples and maybe a call to action?

The Dine are very well-studied by linguists, and they've been pretty politically active and relevant recently, asking them for advice and consultation in exchange for consulting fees and advertising for their struggle to secure water rights would be a neat way to go.

With Arcadia in general I want some reasonably accurate representation--I'm not culturally Native American in any way (though my mother's grandmother was Neshnabe, I'm as culturally white-bread American in just about every way except that I'm an atheist) but I'm sick and tired of stereotypes and mashups of Native societies and cultures, because the REAL societies are often really fascinating.

I wouldn't mind a renaming of the Mahwek to accompany a Haudenosanee-style worldbuilding chapter or something for them--the name sounds a lot like and is probably meant to deliberately evoke "Mohawk", an Anglicization of the Mahican (Algic-speaking) exonym for the Iroquoian-speaking Kanien'keha:ka people (lit. "people of the land of flint", the easternmost people of the Haudenosanee confederation, and traditionally the militarized guardians of the confederation against rival Algic-speaking peoples that dominated New England and coastal NY and NJ), and I'm always leery of using exonyms for people since exonyms can be super offensive. (e.g. the Ancestral Puebloans are commonly known by the Dine pejorative exonym "Anasazi", meaning "ancient enemies", possibly referring to some kind of conflict between Na-Dene speaking proto-Dine coming south from the northern Rockies and ancestral Puebloans during the later days of Ancestral Puebloan society; the Lakota and Dakota peoples are known as "Sioux" (likely derived from an Algic word roughly meaning "foreigner"); and the Numunuu are known as "Comanche" (from the Ute "kimantsi", lit. "enemy", "stranger", which is darkly hilarious because the cultures speak languages from the same damn family, it's like if the Norwegians and Swedes hated each other and called each other "enemy" in Norwegian and Swedish))

It might be neat to portray Haudenosanee-Erie, Haudenosanee-Wendat, and Haudenosanee-coastal Algonquian turf wars, but the problem is that a lot of the political and conflict history we have of early contact-era/pre-19th century Native American cultures is from when they were already being severely impacted by the economic insanity caused by European trade throwing the local economies way out of whack (not so much because of
direct occupation and ethnic cleansing early on, but because of insane price of pelts and the tech the locals didn't have the base to make themselves being offered as payment for fur). Perhaps delving into Algic and Iroquoian mythologies would be a better way to go? There's some cool stuff in there, you could have a sort of re-enact the legends kind of adventure?

Also Kanien'keha names are freaking cool, they have a beautiful rhythm (IMO all iroquoian languages have a beautiful rhythm in general, tbf) and cool meanings. So I would love an excuse to have characters with names like "Kanahstatsi" or "Onerahantsokon". A challenge there though would be that you're not supposed to have two people with the same name in Kanien'keha, and I don't know if using a repeated Kanien'keha name for a fictional character name would be offensive, so I'd have to do a bunch of research. Though a Kanien'keha:ka actress who was in one of the Assassins Creed games did apparently consent to having her character in the game (also Kanien'keha:ka) share her name, so it may be permissible.

Ooh, and the Cherokee/Tsalagi (they have multiple endonyms, it's weird, and I can only remember the transliteration of the one) have an oral tradition recounting their origins as a probable rebel movement that apparently overthrew a Mississippian priesthood they lived under and abandoned Mississippian city life for a more egalitarian tribal existence (TBF this is based almost entirely on their oral tradition but I'm inclined to believe it because Native Americans tend to be very, very good at remembering where they came from for extended periods, to the point that I've seen a convincing case made for the Anishinaabe culturally remembering ancestral journeys through the gap between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets in the uppermost Pleistocene). Mississippian societies, though likely linguistically heterogenous, seem to have shared religious human sacrifice of locals (based on analysis of Cahokian mass graves and records of the Natchez remnant), so you could play it as the population getting tired of a corrupt priesthood that sacrifices them arbitrarily with nothing to show for it. It could be like Hell's Rebels but with civilizational collapse/economic stress themes to go with it! Democratic revolution against a corrupt elite!

Unrelated to the above, can you please not use the term "Latinx"? It's considered an offensive term by about 40% of Hispanic Americans, and Hispanic Americans overwhelmingly (>90%) prefer other terms, probably because "Latinx" sounds ridiculous in Spanish.

(source: https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000017d-81be-dee4-a5ff-efbe74ec0000)

[Darth Game Master]

I don't think "Latinx" is offensive, per se; I believe it was originally devised by a Latin American person. But I do think "Latine" is preferred as a gender neutral term because, as you pointed out, it sounds much less awkward in Spanish and Portuguese.

More to the point though, I'd actually rather Arcadia didn't pull from Latin American inspiration given that those cultures formed due to European colonialism which the central/south American, Mexican, and Caribbean inspired parts of Arcadia never would have faced. I suppose if one wanted that form of representation Anchor's End could maybe work, though it's a bit off geographically.

All that aside, I am definitely going to have to second Sarkorian reclamation efforts. Some stuff with Razmir would be fun or something that explores the ancient Shory Empire (maybe an adventure path set in the Mwangi Expanse and Impossible Lands, with a detour to Shaguang in one adventure?). I hope the mystery around Jaha gets an adventure sooner or later. And something with Droon would be awesome.

[keftiu]

Darth Game Master wrote:

More to the point though, I'd actually rather Arcadia didn't pull from Latin American inspiration given that those cultures formed due to European colonialism which the central/south American, Mexican, and Caribbean inspired parts of Arcadia never would have faced. I suppose if one wanted that form of representation Anchor's End could maybe work, though it's a bit off geographically.

I want to contest this pretty strongly. While the cultures and nations of Central and South America are indelibly shaped by the impact of colonialism, it's nonetheless the culture of millions of people alive today, going back several centuries at this point. I think post-colonial identities are worthy of representation, whether divorced from the events of the real world (see: Vidrian) or simply existing because fantasy can be what we want (see: the Mariachi psychopomp from 1e).

Mexico is cool! Mexican-inspired content deserves just as much time to shine as those of indigenous peoples, and chasing some hazy threshold of cultural purity-from-external-context is foolhardy, IMO.

Quote:

All that aside, I am definitely going to have to second Sarkorian reclamation efforts. [...] something that explores the ancient Shory Empire (maybe an adventure path set in the Mwangi Expanse and Impossible Lands, with a detour to Shaguang in one adventure?). I hope the mystery around Jaha gets an adventure sooner or later. And something with Droon would be awesome.

Underlining all of these. Part of me hopes that both the increased appearance of airships (four across different 2e books this year) and the introduction of a post-Shory nation, Eihlona (down in Southern Garund - mentioned in G&G) means we're building to some Shory love someday. Jaha feels like it begs for an interesting standalone Adventure.

Droon is only one of many sights I'm curious about in Southern Garund! I love dinosaurs, but I love devout catfolk just as much, to say nothing of empyreal cults and Casmari outposts. I'm keen to hopefully see some new dangerous spots on the map - like the Worldwound or Gravelands - that fit the apparent planar theme the region has.

[Ian G]

Darth Game Master wrote:

I don't think "Latinx" is offensive, per se; I believe it was originally devised by a Latin American person. But I do think "Latine" is preferred as a gender neutral term because, as you pointed out, it sounds much less awkward in Spanish and Portuguese.

More to the point though, I'd actually rather Arcadia didn't pull from Latin American inspiration given that those cultures formed due to European colonialism which the central/south American, Mexican, and Caribbean inspired parts of Arcadia never would have faced. I suppose if one wanted that form of representation Anchor's End could maybe work, though it's a bit off geographically.

All that aside, I am definitely going to have to second Sarkorian reclamation efforts. Some stuff with Razmir would be fun or something that explores the ancient Shory Empire (maybe an adventure path set in the Mwangi Expanse and Impossible Lands, with a detour to Shaguang in one adventure?). I hope the mystery around Jaha gets an adventure sooner or later. And something with Droon would be awesome.

I'm going by what is statistically considered offensive. I have heard positive things about "Latine" as a gender-neutral term but I also don't know what people outside of my far-left social circle think about it. And Hispanic people are SUCH a diverse group, the legacy of colonialism, mestizaje, and the ongoing waves of societies trying to deal with the Spanish Imperial caste system are rarely if ever talked about in Anglophone media despite being critical to understanding Latin American societies--it's borderline criminally oversimplifying to put the entire spectrum of Latin American people into one category.

(also, '30s racist Mexican "hybrid vigor" propaganda is a TRIP. Some of
the political cartoons from that era are fascinatingly weird, look them up!)

The thing I actually want the MOST most out of Arcadia is a Tawantinsuyu analogue, warts and all. The Tawantinsuyu was a fascinatingly weird empire, to the point that their recording system was developed to keep track of the empire rather than for religious purposes like most early writing systems were. They independently figured out state-sponsored forced resettlement for population control and refined it way beyond anything the Romans did, they set up a road network comparable in logistical effectiveness to that of the Romans, and they did it all without practically implementing the wheel, having an abjad, abiguda, logographic, or alphabetic recording system, or domesticating grain (their closest equivalent is an amaranth).

Sarkorian reclamation efforts sound cool! They basically have to rebuild their society and probably large elements of their religion (I bet that a lot of Sarkorian Kellids have converted to Iomedae or Sarenrae over the years due to social pressure if nothing else, to say nothing of the witch hunts likely killing lots of their religious leaders) from scratch.

[Darth Game Master]

keftiu wrote:

Darth Game Master wrote:

More to the point though, I'd actually rather Arcadia didn't pull from Latin American inspiration given that those cultures formed due to European colonialism which the central/south American, Mexican, and Caribbean inspired parts of Arcadia never would have faced. I suppose if one wanted that form of representation Anchor's End could maybe work, though it's a bit off geographically.

I want to contest this pretty strongly. While the cultures and nations of Central and South America are indelibly shaped by the impact of colonialism, it's nonetheless the culture of millions of people alive today, going back several centuries at this point. I think post-colonial identities are worthy of representation, whether divorced from the events of the real world (see: Vidrian) or simply existing because fantasy can be what we want (see: the Mariachi psychopomp from 1e).

That's definitely a fair point, and I do think all of those places deserve representation. For me it's more that the intended historical inspiration for Arcadia being (mostly) pre-colonial that makes me hesitate to describe it as Latine/Latin American. Kind of like how it'd be odd to describe a fantasy equivalent of precolonial Aotearoa as "based on New Zealander culture" rather than "based on Maori culture". Bad analogy, I know, but still.

Actually kind of funny that you mention Vidrian, as I feel like the Vidric ethnic group described in The Mwangi Expanse is kind of coded as African Diaspora despite being in something more akin to postcolonial African nations. And with Sargavans having come from a region based on Southern Europe, that might make Vidric humans the closest thing Golarion has to Afrolatin people.

[Ian G]

keftiu wrote:

Darth Game Master wrote:

More to the point though, I'd actually rather Arcadia didn't pull from Latin American inspiration given that those cultures formed due to European colonialism which the central/south American, Mexican, and Caribbean inspired parts of Arcadia never would have faced. I suppose if one wanted that form of representation Anchor's End could maybe work, though it's a bit off geographically.

I want to contest this pretty strongly. While the cultures and nations of Central and South America are indelibly shaped by the impact of colonialism, it's nonetheless the culture of millions of people alive today, going back several centuries at this point. I think post-colonial identities are worthy of representation, whether divorced from the events of the real world (see: Vidrian) or simply existing because fantasy can be what we want (see: the Mariachi psychopomp from 1e).

Mexico is cool! Mexican-inspired content deserves just as much time to shine as those of indigenous peoples, and chasing some hazy threshold of cultural purity-from-external-context is foolhardy, IMO.

Mexico is cool, and crazy diverse, but it's something that came about from a very specific set of historical events and its history is irrevocably linked to its origins as a brutally-conquered Spanish colony, one that came to be well after the period that inspired the vast majority of cultures and societies on Golarion.

It'd be hard to juxtapose it, IMO, with the untouched vastness of indigenous Arcadia.

It's kind of like...there is no USA analogue in Golarion. There are two separate countries that include major elements of America (Andoran is the ideal of a free and equal democracy, Varisia is the real colonial and early-USA era's colonialism, invasion, and marginalization of the natives), but neither of them have America's history. Molthune and Nimrathas can be interpreted as satires of two trends on the American right wing, but they are even less linked to America.

I can see countries that include elements of Mexican history, internal diversity, weird crap (like that period when a bunch of prominent Mexicans were going on about breeding a superior hybrid race to solve lingering tensions from the old imperial caste system, which was bonkers complex), and culture, maybe, but not a straight up fantasy counterpart.

[AceofMoxen]

Honestly, Blood lords is pretty close to the story I want to see. I really love fantasy versions of the cold war. The situation between Geb and Nex is very interesting and the mana wastes between them is also cool. (Reminds me of Eberron, with counties in a cold war standoff, separated by the mournland.)

[MindFl*yer98]

Paizo made me happy when they announced an AP in the Realm of Mammouth lords, as i find prehistoric fantasy to be both beautiful and way underused. I simply love the idea of vast, untamed expanses of land where humans are still subjected to the harsh law of nature and need to rely on each other against an hostile world.

Other than that, i would love a planar-hopping adventure, something that makes the PC planar travel from the very start. This is a fantasy game, i want to be dazzled by the most fantastical and impossible locations from the start, without having to wait until later levels.

Lastly, and i know this is not going to happen, a story about a group of Darklands natives climbing from the Vault of Orv to the surface could be an interesting inversion of a clichè.

[Perpdepog]

MindFl*yer98 wrote:

Paizo made me happy when they announced an AP in the Realm of Mammouth lords, as i find prehistoric fantasy to be both beautiful and way underused. I simply love the idea of vast, untamed expanses of land where humans are still subjected to the harsh law of nature and need to rely on each other against an hostile world.

Other than that, i would love a planar-hopping adventure, something that makes the PC planar travel from the very start. This is a fantasy game, i want to be dazzled by the most fantastical and impossible locations from the start, without having to wait until later levels.

Lastly, and i know this is not going to happen, a story about a group of Darklands natives climbing from the Vault of Orv to the surface could be an interist inversion of a clichè.

I'd love that last one myself. Call the AP Lightseekers or Sunseekers and have it be all about having to go through various Darklands cultures to get to the surface to find the macguffin, or meet with another nation, or stop the big bad from doing something to the Darklands from above, or from starting a Third Darkness on the surface.

That last would be especially cool because it would lead into some fun unsung heroes tropes, which I enjoy.

[Ian G]

MindFl*yer98 wrote:

Paizo made me happy when they announced an AP in the Realm of Mammouth lords, as i find prehistoric fantasy to be both beautiful and way underused. I simply love the idea of vast, untamed expanses of land where humans are still subjected to the harsh law of nature and need to rely on each other against an hostile world.

Other than that, i would love a planar-hopping adventure, something that makes the PC planar travel from the very start. This is a fantasy game, i want to be dazzled by the most fantastical and impossible locations from the start, without having to wait until later levels.

Lastly, and i know this is not going to happen, a story about a group of Darklands natives climbing from the Vault of Orv to the surface could be an interist inversion of a clichè.

All I want for Christmas is gay cavemen.

Like that Darklands idea, too!

[the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh]

Rahadoum, because "the vehemently anti-religious nation is to some extent supported by a cabal of outsiders of various alignments who want neutral ground in the material world where they can do realistic political negotiation without having to worry about upset or dispirited believers" is a direction I am very strongly drawn to there. I believe it is canon in the Golarion multiverse, frex, that when demons first erupted out of the abyss Celestials and devils worked together to contain them, and both more or less deniable intelligence-sharing arrangements persisting from that era, or simple cross-ideological-lines friendships, seem like notions with much potential. Wrath of the Righteous presents its anti-demon crusaders with a devil as a potential passing ally at one point, and I would like to see more such. Likewise, I think it is also canon that all outsiders, even demons, will work together when it comes to opposing daemons.

[MindFl*yer98]

the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh wrote:

cross-ideological-lines friendships,

Should one of the devils in question be named Crowley?

[the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh]

MindFl*yer98 wrote:

the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh wrote:

cross-ideological-lines friendships,

Should one of the devils in question be named Crowley?

Why stop at one? That way you can play it as David Tennant arguing with Mark Sheppard.