| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Leafing through LO: Legends for a quick citation on Kevoth-Kul, and found an interesting note hidden in his writeup that I hadn't previously considered: the idea of Kellid nationalism.
The Black Sovereign himself has always wanted to properly unify Numeria, but twice the text goes further, implying that he (and his consort, Kul-Inkit) seeks a great Kellid empire that reaches beyond Numeria's borders. This has me wondering - how many Sarkorian Kellids fled east to Numeria, and might hold to the ideals of an explicit Kellid nation? Their homeland is deeply blighted and impossible to disentangle from foreign crusaders, but a Numerian banner might prove a deeply tempting rallying cry.
Of course, just as many Kellids are quite content with traditional nomadic lifestyles in Numeria, the Sarkoris Scar, and the Realm of the Mammoth Lords, and many of those think Kevoth-Kul has lost his way behind Starfall's walls... but the Sarkorians built great cities of their own, and so might look on this more kindly. The folk who spoke to all the planar spirits of Old Sarkoris might likewise welcome artificial life, merely another thread of many in the cosmic tapestry.
He is immortal, so the thought of building something to justify that would be pretty tempting.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I picked up the Wrath of the Righteous videogame on a steep sale, and after agonizing over the character creation screen, settled on something that builds off the lore talked about in this thread: a Dwarf Inquisitor of Nethys, a Jormurdun-descended Pahmet come to seek Jormurdun! With that strange single mention of that Sky Citadel being afflicted with time magic, I figured it makes a fun excuse to play out the Aeon Mythic Path - I’m a sucker for playing LN in videogames.
While I wish their Rogue Trader game all the best, part of me does wish Iron Gods was in the works instead…
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Realized I'd actually missed several Jormurdun-adjacent scenarios from PFS Year 6, so I rectified that tonight, and found some interesting stuff - namely, that the folk of Jormurdun are really, really unlucky. The Society is touching their story because they seek the Sky Key, a Numerian relic the Jormurdun dwarves prized as a treasure of theirs; when the Sky Citadel fell to the duergar, King Gutheran split it into five, giving pieces to his four heirs. Each of these heirs - known as the Scions of Jormurdun - had a number of their people with them as refugees, and most met with considerable misfortune.
Gutheran remains behind with the "core" of the Sky Key, and resolves to die defending his throne room with a handful of loyalists. As mentioned, a single line we don't really have context for establishes that an activation of the Key during Jormurdun's fall trapped "hundreds in a bubble of time" - maybe a flawed usage of the piece Gutheran had left with him?
Toggrim, his eldest son, stays close; his people settle across Mendev, Numeria, and Sarkoris. He believes the best thing for the Sky Key is to take it home, so he... accidentally feeds it to an AI. It's mentioned that post-Worldwound, most of this branch now live in the slums of Chesed, a Numerian city, in poverty.
Logyra and Sigrin, his daughters, both went all the way to Garund instead. Logyra's people are welcomed by the Pahmet dwarves of Osirion; she ends up being a major early figure in the Ouat tradition of monks.
Sigrin's folk found a city in the Mwangi Expanse, Ashkurhall, and make friends with both a local gargoyle and a local tribe of grippli. Plague eventually devastates Ashkurhall, and the survivors seek out the Taralu, who agree to adopt them on the condition that they abandon all their prior ties and fully commit to becoming Taralu themselves. (Interestingly, Ashkurhall is in the hands of a tribe of Kobolds now - one scenario paints them as terrible little monsters who do human sacrifices, while another has them as friendly and seems to expect Pathfinders to deal with them diplomatically).
Naldak, Gutheran's youngest, fared the worst of them all; he took his people to the Lands of the Linnorm Kings and founded a settlement there... in a region that became Irrisen after Baba Yaga moved in. Hao Jin offered the settlement safety inside her Tapestry, but when that demiplane started falling apart, they almost entirely fell to Droskar, becoming duergar slavers.
What's really exciting is the characters this all opens up. A bitter Rogue (or technological Inventor!) from Numeria, a stoic Ouat Monk, a wandering Taralu Bard, and an unflinching Droskarite Tyrant all could have equally valid ties to this fallen dwarven culture.
The Sky Key seemingly ends its story broken beyond repair (it gets a very climactic use!), but Jormurdun's liberation is counted as a major, massive victory for the Pathfinder Society in the Society Guide. I'm holding out probably-misguided hope that with the major dwarven focus coming in 2023, this Sky Citadel - now safe for nearly a decade - can get some recognition, and that strange "time bubble" might finally get resolved.
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
The Sky Key seemingly ends its story broken beyond repair (it gets a very climactic use!), but Jormurdun's liberation is counted as a major, massive victory for the Pathfinder Society in the Society Guide. I'm holding out probably-misguided hope that with the major dwarven focus coming in 2023, this Sky Citadel - now safe for nearly a decade - can get some recognition, and that strange "time bubble" might finally get resolved.
Season 6 was my first year of PFS, and I think it's safe to say that it was a very climactic use of the Sky Key there! This plotline was a wonderful introduction to PFS. I'd forgotten about the time bubble (if I ever knew) until you first brought it up, but you raise a very interesting point about it being a more dwarf-focused 2023. I'm fascinated with what can be done with the Sarkoris Scar - it needs a deft hand, but it could be a really fascinating exploration of a wide variety of social issues. Starting it with an 11-20 AP (or better yet, a 6-15 AP - but I know that's asking a lot!) involving the reclamation of Jormurdun could be a really interesting starting point. Dwarves in Avistan have tended to be pretty insular and that has affected my ability to get invested in dwarves in the area, but if this hypothetical AP ended up with Jormurdun being a safe haven in the Sarkoris Scar from which a wide variety of other Sarkorian peoples fought to reclaim their ancestral lands, that'd be amazing. It both gives dwarves a more active role in Avistan, and a reclaimed Sarkorian culture that has a bit of dwarf syncretism in it would be fascinating too. You've definitely sold me here!
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
It's probably no surprise to hear I would eat that up - Jormurdun's become a pet obsession of mine, and a Reclaimer AP is tied with an Iron Gods sequel for the story I want most in Avistan. The Kellids (and specifically, the Sarkorians) are fascinating!
Imagining the Sky Citadel acting as a hub for Sarkorians, the dwarven diaspora, and potentially even settled agents of the various groups who served under the Army of the Open Road's banner (the Riftwardens, especially!), but also hosting New Thassilonian scholars of time displacement?
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Chasing down info on the aiudara network led me to the writeup of Timal, the Pillar City, an old Kellid site in what is now northern Mendev. In the time before Earthfall, it hosted a population of Kellid, Elf, and Half-Elf people who lived in harmony, the elves drawn in by fascination with the practice of god-calling. Its aiudara was sealed after the folk of Timal essentially tried to rush the Sovyrian Stone (an understandable response to only their elves being offered sanctuary).
This would be interesting enough, but there’s a mention of who inhabits the ruins today - namely, an eidolon who claims to be a reincarnation of the city’s old Sarkorian god, and a tribe of maftets who serve it and keep the peace among other ‘monstrous’ inhabitants. It’s probably nothing, but this is one of like half a dozen random instances in 2e of maftets you could hypothetically have a conversation with… I hope it bodes well for them as an Ancestry someday!
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Agreed. I'd also be intrigued to learn more about pre-crusade Mendevian culture, and the way those two groups relate to each other and to the (remaining) crusaders and their descendants...basically, the social impacts of the Worldwound and its closing, in addition to the more tangible ones.
Beyond that, a deep dive on the culture of the dispersed Sarkorian people would be a delight - their broad-strokes premise is great and I bet that some Paizo folks would also like to focus on them, but right now they're a little light on specific cultural customs and player options. (Give us more on god calling! And on things that are not god-calling, or that involve cleansing the demonic taint of the Scar! What are some cultural bits that were lost with the Worldwound's opening, and what is firmly kept onto and cherished? I wanna know!)
I also find it interesting how for years, the 4th Crusade basically turned to "cleansing" Mendev itself. The way they went after the refugees from Sarkoris reminds me of the Medieval English made it basically illegal to be Scot in Scotland. Even going so far as to call bag pipes "a weapon of war" and made them illegal. Maybe can have something on the internal strife caused in Mendev by the 4th Crusade.
|
|
I know! Sarkoris has probably been my all-time favorite part of the lore, as it drew on a lot of Celtic inspiration and with Mendev acting as a Kellid land with kind of a colonising Taldan presence made it feel VERY much like Arthurian Britain, both things I'm an absolute SUCKER for, and I was a tad disappointed things started in 1e after Sarkoris' apocalypse, so when Wrath of the Righteous rolled around I was like "This is my chance! I can play a descendent of Sarkorian survivors in Mendev looking to rediscover his heritage and reclaim his ancestral home!"
So Arloric Dziergas-Highbough was born after a bunch of revisions, and I'm still playing him to this day! And I'm looking forward to revising him again for the PC version of the AP...
I've personally enjoyed the bits of PNW native cultures we've seen creep into the 2e Sarkorians, but you're totally right that the druidic focus of the 1e materials lends itself well to that post-Roman British feel that's so rarely done in fantasy!
I think it's silly that the notion of Sarkorian descendants living in Mendev never seems to have come up, with its pre-Worldwound past instead being vaguely Iobarian. You could get some interesting character tension there - what does it mean to be of Sarkorian heritage, when the Worldwound opened over a century ago and your family's been Iomedean for three generations? 2e has gestured some at Mendevian folks adopting Sarkorian traditions, but that bleed over happens both ways.
Part of Mendev's identity crisis is that it feels like a vaguely Taldan, classic crusader kingdom, but between how diverse the ranks of the Mendevian Crusades were and the fact that people lived in Mendev before the Worldwound, there should be more variety and texture there. The nation's current ruler is from Thuvia, and the local Pathfinder Society venture-captain is Garundi - those cultural influences should come through a little more.
EDIT: Arloric sounds great! What class is he?
I agree. Would love to see more of Sarkorian culture. I am of Scots-Irish Celtic decent myself and ever since I started in about Season 6 of 1e, I had been told to try Brevoy as Highlander culture. I would love to see more of it in Sarkoris and like you and others have said, maybe something to do with these noble Clans finally being able to start returning to re-establish themselves once more in their homeland.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Kellids were pretty obviously Cimmerians, up to Crom/Gorum being a Kellid deity.
I hope this has not completely disappeared.
I had some hope Celtic culture could have a place among the Kellids and in Sarkoris. TBT, I see no Celtic culture in Golarion, which, as a Breton myself, makes me a little sad.
I know what you mean. I am Celtic (Scots-Irish) descent myself and would love to see more representation of such a robust culture. I would love to see the Celtic cultures represented more in Sarkoris, since you had the Druidic culture and the spiritual nature of them in the history of Sarkoris before the Worldwound.
Location of Fort Feilong in Riverkingdoms. Ironfang Invasion Fangs of War
page 72.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I've finally grabbed a copy of Firebrands, and through it we get some fun peeks at some Numerian adventuring parties. There's not much new here - the Black Sovereign still wants Technic League holdouts dead, there's still laser guns and annihilator robots, Casandalee's church is on the rise - but it's nice to see things trucking along. The mention of a 'glitch hexer' and 'strange mounts cobbled together from remnants of fallen starships' are tantalizing, however. Tyen-Ra, a Tigerkin NPC in the book, is very hunky in a kind of He-Man way.
It reminded me to peek back at the Knights of Lastwall book, and I caught something there that I'd missed before - namely, that the Knights are trying to get Kevoth-Kul to share sovereign steel with neighboring Mendev and Sarkoris Scar. Success there furthers my idea upthread of the immortal Kellid king being an appearing leader to some Sarkorians, assuming he ever does decide to lend aid.
Following this trend... is there any canon Hellknight presence in Numeria? Firebrands mentions one group with a Numerian robot as a mobile home base has beef with the Order of the Rack, but it's not clear if the feud ever reaches into that land.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Following this trend... is there any canon Hellknight presence in Numeria? Firebrands mentions one group with a Numerian robot as a mobile home base has beef with the Order of the Rack, but it's not clear if the feud ever reaches into that land.
There is not. Fire's Finest roams far afield, feckless dilettantes that they are.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think the plot for Iron Gods 2 all but has to be “the Dominion is invading the fragile Numeria the first PCs helped build.”I would love to see JJ be able to do Iron Gods 2The Electric Bugaloo.
Just kidding, I'd love to see Return of the Iron Gods. With the PCs from Iron Gods as villains.
A Dominion AP has been one of my greatest wishes for a long time now.
I could see some other options. With the Technic League no longer in power, what does that mean for all the dangerous technology that is left laying around? Might be interesting to see an AP deal with the ramifications of that. Imagine a bunch of "medieval" warlords suddenly getting there hands on super tech, and either invading the surrounding countries or creating chaos in Numeria.
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
It reminded me to peek back at the Knights of Lastwall book, and I caught something there that I'd missed before - namely, that the Knights are trying to get Kevoth-Kul to share sovereign steel with neighboring Mendev and Sarkoris Scar. Success there furthers my idea upthread of the immortal Kellid king being an appearing leader to some Sarkorians, assuming he ever does decide to lend aid.
Glad you caught that li'l tidbit! <3
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
It reminded me to peek back at the Knights of Lastwall book, and I caught something there that I'd missed before - namely, that the Knights are trying to get Kevoth-Kul to share sovereign steel with neighboring Mendev and Sarkoris Scar. Success there furthers my idea upthread of the immortal Kellid king being an appearing leader to some Sarkorians, assuming he ever does decide to lend aid.Glad you caught that li'l tidbit! <3
The Black Sovereign is one of my favorite NPCs in Pathfinder! I'm always glad to see him get some love, he's a really fascinating figure.
Forever crossing my fingers for an Iron Gods follow-up :D
|
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
If it gives you any insight, this song was my go-to when writing for Kevoth-Kul! <3
|
I honestly feel kinda bad our Iron Gods playthrough saw him abdicate in favor of one of our PCs as a way to allow her player to exit the game smoothly. He was still around, but when I saw the cool stuff that got written for him for 2e I was like, "Shoot, I kinda like the canon outcome better than ours!"
|
|
I honestly feel kinda bad our Iron Gods playthrough saw him abdicate in favor of one of our PCs as a way to allow her player to exit the game smoothly. He was still around, but when I saw the cool stuff that got written for him for 2e I was like, "Shoot, I kinda like the canon outcome better than ours!"
The PC might have gotten bored or killed, and Kevoth-Kul got the throne back.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
My niche prayers have been answered: Highhelm briefly mentions Jormurdun, in basically the exact role I’d been hoping for it!
Time-lost dwarves of the time of the Sky Citadel’s original habitation coexisting with Sarkorians returning to the region… here’s hoping we can pay them a visit soon, but I’m just glad to have everything confirmed as canon.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I am not sure Sarkorian religion would have changed that much. The opposite rather.
People who had to leave their country behind tend to cling very tightly to "the faith of our ancestors".
I mean, there’s both, right - diasporas are fuzzy things, and the Sarkorians were displaced for over a century. Even the traditional Sarkorian faith expects you to get along with the local spirits, so their practices would have to shift during migration, but a century of Iomedaean intervention and foreign living likely had some effects.
Did you flee west to the Mammoth Lords? Your clan may well have picked up some prayers to Giant deities. East, to Numeria? Kevoth-Kul, who dreams of being the king of all Kellids, champions the young faith of Casandalee. South into Mendev?
|
|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Lastly I'm pretty sure that if Razmir was killed, there'd be serious unrest in Razmiran because of the simple fact that it proves that Razmir was never a living god in the first place. It wouldn't be "someone no better takes their place". It'd be "oh, whoop, you better stick around and make sure you don't cause any more problems, because this place is on the verge of a complete societal collapse without its divine ruler". "The systems of power are too entrenched" is a plotline that would make complete sense if those systems weren't based around the literal invulnerability of its ruler, but that's not Razmiran.
Razmir the living god is just a mask. He can be forever, even if the wearer changes.
There's a brief mention in War of Immortals that a faction in Brevoy believes Choral the Conqueror is due to return within the next four years.
Pencil that in on the calendar, I suppose!
Lastly I'm pretty sure that if Razmir was killed, there'd be serious unrest in Razmiran because of the simple fact that it proves that Razmir was never a living god in the first place. It wouldn't be "someone no better takes their place". It'd be "oh, whoop, you better stick around and make sure you don't cause any more problems, because this place is on the verge of a complete societal collapse without its divine ruler". "The systems of power are too entrenched" is a plotline that would make complete sense if those systems weren't based around the literal invulnerability of its ruler, but that's not Razmiran.Razmir the living god is just a mask. He can be forever, even if the wearer changes.
Would anyone in Razmiran or the rest of the Inner Sea even know if this has already happened?
|
|
Would anyone in Razmiran or the rest of the Inner Sea even know if this has already happened?Lastly I'm pretty sure that if Razmir was killed, there'd be serious unrest in Razmiran because of the simple fact that it proves that Razmir was never a living god in the first place. It wouldn't be "someone no better takes their place". It'd be "oh, whoop, you better stick around and make sure you don't cause any more problems, because this place is on the verge of a complete societal collapse without its divine ruler". "The systems of power are too entrenched" is a plotline that would make complete sense if those systems weren't based around the literal invulnerability of its ruler, but that's not Razmiran.Razmir the living god is just a mask. He can be forever, even if the wearer changes.
I would love to see Razmir's mask becoming an actual deity.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Razmir the living god is just a mask. He can be forever, even if the wearer changes.
What would be really funny is if the current Razmir do manage to ascend to divinity but leave golarion as he ascend to the outer realms, just for someone else on golarion to pick up the mask and declare that the Razmir that ascended is an impostor because Razmir was already a god and wouldn't leave his country behind.
So there would be an actual god Razmir with no follower because all of "Razmir" follower are actually worshipping the guy who picked up the mask after he left, not him.
PFS#1-24 and Quest #8 both make mention of Hajoth Hakados' Lady Altouna trying to make talks happen with Kevoth-Kul via the Pathfinder Society, and Lost Omens: Legends mentions that she's hoping to secure his protection instead of the Blood Gars clan the city currently depends on. With 5-6 years having passed since those publications, I feel pretty good about the odds of that diplomacy succeeding - I wonder how much Numeria's cohered into a single nation by the time we see it again?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Knowing absolutely nothing about Sarkoris other than it's a formerly demon-infested realm once populated by the vaguely-Celtic kellids that has finally been liberated through the actions of knights, it would be neat to get some Arthurian influence there. Not the High Medieval Arthur of the Romantic epics, I mean the original Arthur of Welsh mythology, the warband chieftain who rode a talking salmon to free the god Mabon so he could help his retainer slay a cursed giant boar and win the hand of the giant Ysbaddadon's daughter. Not an importation like in Osirion, but something inspired by it could be extremely cool. Maybe some of the knights who stood against the demonic horde have passed into folklore and become local saints or Heroes, and their desperate stands to hold them back become the stuff of myth and legend? And since modern Sarkoris is undergoing such radical changes, that gives a bit of a blank slate for that.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Knowing absolutely nothing about Sarkoris other than it's a formerly demon-infested realm once populated by the vaguely-Celtic kellids[...]
It's worth saying that they've been pretty significantly PNW Native-coded in a lot of PF2 material.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Knowing absolutely nothing about Sarkoris other than it's a formerly demon-infested realm once populated by the vaguely-Celtic kellids[...]It's worth saying that they've been pretty significantly PNW Native-coded in a lot of PF2 material.
Yea that was something I noticed as well. I thought that the kellids were more celtic inspired at least that is what I got from WOTR.
Yea that was something I noticed as well. I thought that the kellids were more celtic inspired at least that is what I got from WOTR.Knowing absolutely nothing about Sarkoris other than it's a formerly demon-infested realm once populated by the vaguely-Celtic kellids[...]It's worth saying that they've been pretty significantly PNW Native-coded in a lot of PF2 material.
The Sarkorians were more Celtic in PF1, which is what Owlcat's games are based on. We've also seen Kellids play the parts of Neolithic hunter-gatherers in the Realm of the Mammoth Lords and as wasteland barbarians in Numeria, complete with a Conan-type warlord as king... the Kellids have a pretty broad nomadic/Indigenous/"folk in touch with the land" palette, and a lot of regional variety.
They've also become pretty far-flung in their exile, with some clans making it as far as Ustalav, Iobaria, or even down into Garund, which means those returning to the Sarkoris Scar bring a lot of different traditions back with them.