Two recent forum posts alluded to Khari being back in Rahadoumi hands nowadays, something I had no concept of. I came into Pathfinder with 2e, and while I can't find much of any mention of Khari in 2e sources, the LOWG presents it as part of the Old Cheliax meta-region and within Cheliax's borders. Some digging revealed to me that the idea of a Rahadoumi recapture of the city is part of an article in the back of Hell's Vengeance #5, which presents the following:
As House Thrune moves its army into the heartland and its navy to defend its vital southern coast, the city of Khari is left with only a token force to protect it. Malduoni and the other members of the Rahadoumi Council of Elders quickly meet and decide on a plan for action, calling in the warriors from the numerous nomadic tribes and raising the armies in the closest cities of Azir, Botosani, and Manaket. These forces march upon Khari, and take it in less than a week of sieging. The Chelish navy stationed at Corentyn is alerted, but without sufficient ground troops to retake the town, can only bombard the Rahadoumi positions from their ships.
The Council of Elders briefly discuss launching a marine invasion of Corentyn in order to gain complete control of the strait, but in the end decide against it, concluding that the Rahadoumi fleet is no match for the heavy warships of the Chelish navy, and that their ground troops are predominantly light desert raiders who don’t have the patience or expertise to conduct an extended siege.
None of this is hypothetical, mid-AP action - the article it's in presents the canonical responses to the outbreak of the Glorious Reclamation from surrounding nations. The section does end with two potential outcomes, and I'll share the one that matches canon history here:
If House Thrune emerges victorious after the rebellion, it reinforces Corentyn but cannot immediately retake Khari because of the losses it sustained.
HV seems pretty open-and-shut about the whole thing, so was this just missed? I'd welcome some semi-official clarification on it. My preference would be for Khari to be in Rahadoumi hands, grappling with centuries of Chelish rule and infernal influence - and culture clash with their atheist 'kin.' It also opens up the strait some, which enables more sailing stories!
EDIT: Further strangeness - the 2e map of the Inner Sea presents all of northern Garund as being within the Golden Road, with Old Cheliax ending on the Chelish side of the strait, but the zoomed-in Old Cheliax map shows Khari as still being Chelish-controlled. The zoomed-in Golden Road map has no missing land... but Khari isn't labeled at all! Not helping matters is the fact the the only time "Khari" appears in the book is on that map of Old Cheliax.
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That article from Hell's Vengeance is confirmed non canon by creative director unfortunately. I think I actually mentioned in cheliax thread because I thought Isger's development in article was cool x'D
It was really cool article on international politics as result of war, but I guess they thought it was bit too complicated to adapt to 2e because it had wide effects on multiple countries? That or maybe it included some assumptions paizo didn't want to follow. As said I'm not sure what was reasoning, would have to dig up the post and see if it was mentioned
That article from Hell's Vengeance is confirmed non canon by creative director unfortunately. I think I actually mentioned in cheliax thread because I thought Isger's development in article was cool x'D
It was really cool article on international politics as result of war, but I guess they thought it was bit too complicated to adapt to 2e because it had wide effects on multiple countries? That or maybe it included some assumptions paizo didn't want to follow. As said I'm not sure what was reasoning, would have to dig up the post and see if it was mentioned
I think I found it! From November 2020, in the old Ask James Jacobs thread:
The 'Beyond the Borders' article in 'Pathfinder #107: Scourge of the Godclaw' presents how the nations of the Inner Sea react to House Thrune's war with the Glorious Reclamation. For instance, Rahadoum retakes Khari, the Gray Corsairs of Andoran disrupt the slave trade, etc.
Which, if any, of thopse events came to pass?None of them. They're potential events meant to spur GM creativity, should a GM want to keep going with their own game.
We've got other plans still in the works for Cheliax that are their own thing and may or may not be revealed in the years to come.
Which feels like a shame to me (I want Khari back in Rahadoumi hands, and I think the developments with Andoran and Isger were interesting), but that seems to pretty conclusively be it.
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I think it might be cool to list in forum what those were though because lot of people are unlikely to buy AP just for non canon article, but it really was pretty inspiring:
Andoran's politicians didn't want to follow Codwin's idea of joining the war, but they were fine with absolutely demolishing Cheliax's navy and slave trade when opportunity to came. (in a way, very weird this wasn't canon considering further evolution of abolition status in 2e) If Thrune won war, tensions with Andoran reach all time high since they still view Andoran as tacit allies of Glorious Reclamation and Codwin I was paladin of Iomedae. If they lost, Andoran immediately recognized Glorious Reclamation's new government and send further assistance to them and liberated slaves.
In case of Isger, locals start dreaming of independence, but current Steward is too cowardly to do anything about it, but does still have good enough justifications for not sending troops to war. If Thrune wins, Isger's steward just hopes queen doesn't hear about seditious nobles who started to make preparations for Isgeri independence without his approval, if they lose, Isgeri immediately replace puppet steward and try to get alliance with reclamation or one of governments they secretly petitioned.
Molthune tries to make alliance with Cheliax, but troops they send to Cheliax gets devasted by the Daughter of Urgathoa and her army of wights she is building on Isger's border(as result fastening her timetable of building undead army to invade Isger by several years). Thrune renegades on their promises due to never getting said army from Molthune.
Nidal is mostly nervous and extra isolationist during war and after war returns to status quo post Thrune victory, weird things happening if Reclamation wins.
Rahadoum's thing was taking Khari yeah and thrune doesn't get it back even if they win.
Sargava is happy to remain neutral during entire thing.
Aspis Consortium supports bothsides during war being opportunists they are and either way both sides discover this and heavily sanction them after war making them move their operations elsewhere.
Bellflower network gets new opportunities, but if Thrune wins they just restart their old operations.
Pathfinder Society does the both sides thing much more successfully(to chagrin of Libery's Edge and Silver Crusade) and gets rewarded by either winner of the war, especially since they are likely ones discovering Aspis' duplicity and exposing it :p
And on slave trade it notes that slave trade gets majorly hurt by gray corsairs and war and Thrune fails to make new alliances or rebuild its
slave trading fleet to its former glory. Again its kinda weird this aspect isn't canon considering how well it fits new situation in 2e x'D It also helped to realistically build consequences of major civil war, now only consequence really seems to be hell's rebels happening.
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I think it might be cool to list in forum what those were though because lot of people are unlikely to buy AP just for non canon article, but it really was pretty inspiring:
I prefer to treat the article's events as having been begun, but having been reversed or, where appropriate, deepened by the counter-revolution that was given the tocsin by the Rape of Westcrown (that is to say, its reconquest, sack, and subjugation by Thrune) and the resurgence of Tar-Baphon. To wit:
The bit about Andoran, as you point out, is basically canon by other means. Andoran society generally rejected revolutionary solidarity with the Glorious Reclamation (this is not exceptional, so did Ravounel society and basically everywhere else relevant), and trusted instead in its burgeoning imperial power, embodied by its navy. Codwin's replacement by Marusek manifested this turn (Codwin, despite being a paladin of Iomedae, was never a military man unlike Marusek; he had been a proletarian and trade unionist, if a conciliatory one, before entering politics, and likely drew his support from the trade unions), as the new regime embraced the navy's police power both to disrupt the slave trade and to protect Andoran's colonial expansion in Azlant towards Arcadia which ramped up in 4717. The turn towards militarism came with a foreign policy that abandoned export of revolution (e.g., in Thuryan and Pezzack, which both remain under the Chelish boot) and common rule (e.g., in Ravounel, which remains an oligarchic confederation rather than a democratic republic) and embraced the building of an alliance system around the Sellen River, where the regime is not terribly picky about its putative allies (which include reactionary absolute and constitutional monarchies in Iadara and Oppara). With Codwin's defeat, his labor party (which while in power had basically abdicated any role in leading the class struggle between the northern laborers and the Lumber Consortium) is facing a crisis that might prompt a more radical turn, or a split between the radicals and the moderates desperate to get back into power.
Isger's portion actually includes a bit where Cheliax incorporates it into its system of direct rule from Egorian to compensate itself for the loss of Ravounel (they're about the same size, about as populated, about as strategically located if in different areas, and if anything Isger is more valuable trade-wise even if neither province is terribly productive), but this doesn't scan with the LOWG and Age of Ashes both of which present Isger as remaining a client state with a weak steward and only occasional oversight by Egorian. I imagine that Egorian began to implement a program of integration, but that this would necessarily take some time (and would involve redactions to obscure Isger's prior nonincorporated status a la those that obscured Ravounel's status) and would be interrupted by and put on hold after Tar Baphon's rise. Suddenly the idea of a buffer state in the northeast (and one more politically reliable than Druma) became more appealing than compensation for the loss of Ravounel.
Molthune's bit doesn't contradict anything and can probably be considered canon a la Andoran's. The loss of its army in the Menador Mountains as well as the Ironfang Legion would have weakened the state, but any social-democratic or anarchist opposition to the militarization of labor was likely too weak to take advantage of the opportunity, and defanged by reforms toward an expansion of the citizenship-through-service program's throughput.
Nidal is status quo in 2E.
Rahadoum's liberation of Khari is easily squared with Cheliax's current possession of it: ultimately Cheliax is still the stronger military and economic power and some time before 4719 they either recaptured it or bribed Rahadoum to return it. Rahadoum has priorities other than restoring its territorial integrity, after all - including combatting the environmental degradation of the bulk of its territory. Nidal exports bound velstrac labor (and as of Age of Ashes Ravounel is even considering importing such slaves, which ick); Cheliax likely does the same with devils, which as long as they're bound with wizardry or sorcery I'm sure can be useful enough for Rahadoum to stomach. And it fits Thrune's post-Reclamation, post-Tar-Baphon policy of protecting itself from its neighbors by making itself indispensable to them in insidious ways.
The Sargavan regime's neutrality is not contradicted by its overthrow, and may have enabled it, since it would have come off as isolated and weak. Scans with canon.
The Bellflower Network's betrayal by every ostensibly progressive force (particularly Andoran's and the Silver Ravens' f$&#-you-got-mine policies) would have reinforced their determination to rely on none but themselves, thus their anti-political-action line and continued organizational separatism that we see in 2E, and can be considered canon.
PFS and Aspis both scan with canon (in particular Liberty's Edge no longer being a faction or having a factional descendent), and also I do not care about either of them.
As you point out, the smashing of Cheliax's slaving fleet scans with the canon - disrupting the slave trade means slave-exporting countries like Katapesh no longer have a way to export their slaves, and slave-importing countries like Absalom no longer have a ready source of supply (to say nothing of Cheliax itself, which was both an importer and exporter while also being an internal slave market and facilitator of the trade with its fleet). None of the exporting or importing countries is timber-rich enough to quickly replace the Chelish fleet with one of their own - the only state that could have, Taldor, was embroiled in civil war in the short window of opportunity before the Andoren fleet established its supremacy. This forces reforms on the exporting countries since they're left with a surplus of slaves they can't sell abroad due to the collapse in the trading fleet and can't keep bonded in their countries due to a lack of demand (and also the potential that the growth in the slave class could lead to social unrest), and in the importing countries where the demand isn't served by any more supply. Even without social revolution (though you likely saw compensated emancipation and no social assistance to the freedmen, thus the creation of a new permanent proletarian underclass and the base for social-democratic or anarchist movements down the line). Chelish slave merchants, having been locked out of their overseas markets both for supply and of customers, likely turn to the domestic market and begin a program of slave-breeding for internal customers. Thus leading the country down the path of stagnation as cheap bonded labor displaces both industry and wage labor (and hampers the possibility of social-democracy and anarchism, the latter of which imports itself from outside in the form of the Firebrand movement and in the meantime leaves the political field to be contested by the monarchy and the Hellknight orders).
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One interesting thing to consider - as hierarchal, cruel, racist, slaving, and downright Evil as Cheliax is, it still has more religious freedom than Rahadoum. Khari has been Chelish for nearly 600 years. Those two factors may well mean the folk of Khari are in no hurry to rejoin their estranged cousins to the south, for fear of losing their faiths and what's probably a pretty firmly-cemented identity now.
Apparently LO: Firebrands has Cheliax losing Khari after all? I don't have the book yet, I don't know the specifics.
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I like to think Khari is yo-yoing back and forth between them, vacillating between renouncing their devil-god and shamefacedly returning to the fold when Chellish troopers set foot ashore and Explain The Error Of Their Ways. People in the region have reasons to be wary of both sides, and I could see them trying to go independent with some Firebrand help to beat back forces from both. Rahadoum may even settle for that, if it gets Cheliax off their soil.
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Apparently LO: Firebrands has Cheliax losing Khari after all? I don't have the book yet, I don't know the specifics.
Subscriber PDFs are an annoying beast, yes.
But take heart! Only ten days remain.
I like to think Khari is yo-yoing back and forth between them, vacillating between renouncing their devil-god and shamefacedly returning to the fold when Chellish troopers set foot ashore and Explain The Error Of Their Ways. People in the region have reasons to be wary of both sides, and I could see them trying to go independent with some Firebrand help to beat back forces from both. Rahadoum may even settle for that, if it gets Cheliax off their soil.
I rather doubt Rahadoum would willingly tolerate a Firebrand base on their border, since according to the 2017 Adventurer's Guide, Rahadoum is actually one of the major targets of the Silver Ravens (now a Firebrands affiliate). And not as a matter of anti-slavery, either - the SRs want a turn away from state atheism and toward religious toleration. Chelish colonialism in Khari is probably a preferable alternative to the Rahadoumi elite if they can't control the city themselves.
LO: Firebrands suggests Khari is in Rahadoumi hands, but under threat from Cheliax once more!
Talks are ongoing between members of the ruling council over whether the Firebrands should be treated as a zealous ideological movement akin to faith, though complications have arisen recently when a captured Firebrand confessed that they were looking into rumors of Chelaxian plans to retake Khari.