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In the spirit of Paizo's recent announcement of Lost Omens: Highhelm, giving a dwarven cultural enclave its own treatment separate from the wider meta-region, and having seen some discussion of Golarion elves and the ways they can be/should be tinkered with to fit with 2e, I thought it would be interesting to see a separate threat just for Kyonin itself. I know very little about it, other than that it's the elf kingdom, insular, and that it patronised secret campaigns against the drow until recently.
Off the top of my head, I'd like to see:
* An expansion of the capital city, Iadara, and its connection via the Aiudara to Sovyrian - are they actually two different cities, or one city astride two worlds? How frequent is trade and travel between Golarion and Castrovel?
* Some expansion on High Elf culture, and the ways they engage and interact with other elves, like the Wild Elves and Drow. With the redemption of Nocticula, who many drow revered, has that changed Kyonin's relationship with the Darklands? Are there Drow enclaves of refugees who want to worship Nocticula in peace and find an unexpected, if reluctant, place in Kyonin? How different are the Lantern Bearers with those events? Do Wild Elves want anything to do with Kyonin, and vice versa?
* How fares the elves' eternal war with Treerazor? Has the closing of the Worldwound freed up a bunch of outsiders with demon fighting experience, and are the elves willing to admit they could use the help? Most of the Mendevian Crusaders seem to have switched their focus to the rising threat of Tar-Baphon, but just how many sellswords and veteran Champions are willing to keep the fight against chaos going, and how happy are the elves about outside help?
* Are there other elven enclaves across Golarion with embassies, maybe even connected via Aiudara gate, in Iadara? We know that Jinin exists in Tian Xia, but are there elven nations in Casmaron or Arcadia who are interested in reconnecting with the ancestral homelands they once held before Earthfall? We know that there are other gates in the world that can transport people - Voradni Voon used one to march his army from Iblydos to Absalom. Are those also Aiudare, left behind when the elves abandoned the world, or are they developed in parallel by someone else, or even predating the Aiudara and served as a model the elves innovated on?
* We know bits and pieces of some very interesting culture - the Vourinoi's fluid approach to gender, and belief in the Brightness. How common are these among other elves? Is this unique to the Vourinoi, to Wild Elves, or do elves as a whole have similar or different beliefs?
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You might like this adjacent thread from a few months back, hypothesizing on a Kyonin/Treerazer AP, and I still think that's my preference over a Lost Omens book. We've also yet to see a book for one nation in 2e, so while it's not impossible, it does feel unlikely to me.
I want Kyonin to feel like the extension of Sovyrian it is - this is the bastion of an ancient nation on another planet, in contact with and fully cognizant of their heritage as an alien people from a psychic world. Lean on traditional elf tropes where you must, with moonlit glades and crystal spires, but all of it should show through the lens that these are near-immortals from not!Venus. Behind the veiled illusions, Kyonin should be weird. Knights of Lastwall briefly mentions an elven lich who originally hailed from Sovyrian, served by a trio of lashunta vampires, and *that's* how bonkers Kyonin should be.
"Embassies" for the three Mualijae peoples, the Ilverani, the Mordant Spire's folk, the Aquatic Elves, the Vourinoi, and so on would make my heart sing - how does this distant queen try to hold together such a patchwork diaspora, or speak to and for them on anything? That's already such a vibrant and volatile mix before considering the trickle of redeemed Drow I expect any such visit to involve. Kyonin's past in Pathfinder is stained pretty deep; redeeming it is a key part of any 2e presentation, IMO.
How does an average lifespan of centuries shape a culture? What about instant access to distant lands, continents, and realms? Eberron does a great job of defining elven identity around their profound fear of death, as much-longer elf lives are seen as an especially great loss, and so each of the three main elven cultural branches in that setting reflect their responses to that - a similar understanding of what's core to a Golarion elf would be a blast, given the building blocks of "we're psychic aliens who are really, really good at making Stargates."
As to your question about non-elven outside help: the Knights of Lastwall book has some fascinating insights on Kyonin - though sadly, our undead friend above lairs in the Gravelands, not the elven nation, though I imagine she came through the aiudara at some point.
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I want Kyonin to feel like the extension of Sovyrian it is - this is the bastion of an ancient nation on another planetThat's a colony. You know that's a colony, right?
Modern Kyonin is over 2,000 years old, and was built over the site of territory held by elves in the age before Earthfall; anyone they displaced is further in the past than Pontius Pilate is to us. There’s nothing in print that says Kyonin answers to any authority on Castrovel, so if they’re an extension of empire, they’re one with an exceptionally long leash.
The nation has plenty of genuine flaws and interesting facets without “Did you know they came from somewhere else, a very long time ago?” being presented as some kind of gotcha. Between this and your completely spurious, non-canon “the retreat to Sovyrian left tons of elves to die” tangent in a recent thread, I really don’t know what you’re aiming for in these conversations.
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You might like this adjacent thread from a few months back, hypothesizing on a Kyonin/Treerazer AP, and I still think that's my preference over a Lost Omens book. We've also yet to see a book for one nation in 2e, so while it's not impossible, it does feel unlikely to me.
I like the idea of a Treerazer AP, but I see no reason why Paizo can't give the Elves the same amount of attention they're giving the Dwarves. I will concede that it's more likely to be called Lost Omens: Iadara, City of Mists, but as the capital of a nation at least some fleshing out of the wider country would be appropriate.
I want Kyonin to feel like the extension of Sovyrian it is - this is the bastion of an ancient nation on another planet, in contact with and fully cognizant of their heritage as an alien people from a psychic world. Lean on traditional elf tropes where you must, with moonlit glades and crystal spires, but all of it should show through the lens that these are near-immortals from not!Venus. Behind the veiled illusions, Kyonin should be weird. Knights of Lastwall briefly mentions an elven lich who originally hailed from Sovyrian, served by a trio of lashunta vampires, and *that's* how bonkers Kyonin should be.
Those sound bonkers, and I'd love to know more about it. It'd be really cool to see a 2e Kyonin really lean into Psychics, give players a Psychic option that isn't either hopelessly random or from distant Vudra.
"Embassies" for the three Mualijae peoples, the Ilverani, the Mordant Spire's folk, the Aquatic Elves, the Vourinoi, and so on would make my heart sing - how does this distant queen try to hold together such a patchwork diaspora, or speak to and for them on anything? That's already such a vibrant and volatile mix before considering the trickle of redeemed Drow I expect any such visit to involve. Kyonin's past in Pathfinder is stained pretty deep; redeeming it is a key part of any 2e presentation, IMO.
If I remember correctly, the Mordant Spire don't set foot out of their tower unless it's to make sure someone isn't messing with Azlanti Nonsense (TM). But it would be nice to see them forced to make more contacts to do that, starting with reestablishing ties to Castravel via Iadara. And while humans, dwarves, halflings etc. might assume elves would stick together, I could see the fact that the Wild Elves and Drow stayed behind to stick it out, while the High Elves didn't and immediately started to throw their weight around when they returned, as points of contention. I imagine the Ilverani, Mualijae, Aquatic Elves and Vourinoi wouldn't respond well to "directives" from Iadara, while the Aiudeen don't understand the stubbornness of the Wild Elves - they're all elves, aren't they?
How does an average lifespan of centuries shape a culture? What about instant access to distant lands, continents, and realms? Eberron does a great job of defining elven identity around their profound fear of death, as much-longer elf lives are seen as an especially great loss, and so each of the three main elven cultural branches in that setting reflect their responses to that - a similar understanding of what's core to a Golarion elf would be a blast, given the building blocks of "we're psychic aliens who are really, really good at making Stargates."
I've always thought 1e's established lifespan for elves...a bit unimpressive. Call me old-fashioned, but I think an elf should be biologically immortal, barring disease, violence or accident. Maybe the established number is just the upper limit before chance dictates that something takes you out, or when elves get bored of Golarion and head to the Gray Havens through the Aiudara to start exploring the rest of the star system? But that's just a personal preference.
I do like that Pathfinder defines its elven culture, in comparison to Eberron, by its aloofness rather than fear of death. Golarion's elves don't cling to life, but when you could live up to 750 years, you can't afford to spare a thought to the minutia when you're thinking about the consequences they will have in decades or centuries, including friends who might live a few decades and then spend centuries after they pass. It's what makes the Forlorn interesting. It reminds me of a Doctor Who quote: "Immortality isn't living forever. That's not what it feels like. Immortality is everybody else dying." A far-sighted conservative streak that humans, flighty and of-the-moment as we are, mistake for apathy or contempt. Knowing they're also thinking on an interplanetary scale, it really puts their foreign policy in perspective. Kyonin isn't one nation among equals, it is but the smallest finger of a much vaster hand for whom Golarion's affairs are distant, both figuratively and literally. Individual elves might have their head in the game, but it sounds like it takes a critical mass to move the elven people, by which point it may be too late. Even the original elves who left only did so once Earthfall was guaranteed, leaving people behind.
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I do feel like it's kind of unusual given how new PF lore has elves maturing at the same rate as humans. Obviously I can understand WHY this change was made, to sidestep the awkward dynamics age discrepancies can bring up in human/elven relationships (a la "jokes" about the elven age of consent being 100).
But that puts Forlorn in an awkward position lorewise now, since an elf living among humans who starts their adventuring career once they hit maturity the way most people roleplay their characters, they can't truly be considered Forlorn because their childhood friends are around the same age they are and they haven't undergone what's assumed to be the default Forlorn experience ("I have watched many friends I played with as children grow up, marry, have children of their own, grow old and frail and die, all before my one hundredth year! Everything I love greys and withers before my very eyes! Oh woe!") unless you're breaking the mold and playing a character who got their adventuring start later in life...
On the other hand it does make a certain amount of sense, as elves being sad they live longer than everything else is meant to be the reason they Sail Into The West when they can't take it anymore, and while you could say Sovyrian KIND of resembles that it's not the specific "melancholic pseudo-death" Tolkien meant Sailing Into The West to be...
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I mostly want to see them treat elves better than they were treated in PF1e and in Starfinder, and not make them arrogant, xenophobic arses. I'm really bitter about how they were depicted in both.
Elves are one of my favorite species, as evidenced by the fact I almost always play them. I want Kyonin to feel like a functional nation, not as a stereotype.
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Forlorn are still in the same position. A human and an elf both born on the same day will mature to adulthood on the same day, but then the elf stops and their aging slows way down, so that they're still the equivalent of a human in their early 20s when their childhood friends are dying of old age. In a way, that makes it even worse, since forlorn elves have to contend with that disconnect happening at a point when they're emotionally aware of it rather than perhaps still being a kid who doesn't fully comprehend the difference.
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Forlorn are still in the same position. A human and an elf both born on the same day will mature to adulthood on the same day, but then the elf stops and their aging slows way down, so that they're still the equivalent of a human in their early 20s when their childhood friends are dying of old age. In a way, that makes it even worse, since forlorn elves have to contend with that disconnect happening at a point when they're emotionally aware of it rather than perhaps still being a kid who doesn't fully comprehend the difference.
Ooh, yeah. That IS rough. And makes a lot more sense. Thanks for the clarification, Mr. Jacobs!
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I mostly want to see them treat elves better than they were treated in PF1e and in Starfinder, and not make them arrogant, xenophobic arses. I'm really bitter about how they were depicted in both.
Elves are one of my favorite species, as evidenced by the fact I almost always play them. I want Kyonin to feel like a functional nation, not as a stereotype.
In my case, elves aren't my personal favorite, but I feel annoyed since I feel like I could really like them more if they were depicted as CG they are supposed to be. And I really dislike the "snobby racists" thing as a species trait.
Like... I would even take "'high' elf, because I'm hippie who smokes, get it?" jokes over xenophobic elves
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I want Kyonin to feel like the extension of Sovyrian it is - this is the bastion of an ancient nation on another planetThat's a colony. You know that's a colony, right?Modern Kyonin is over 2,000 years old, and was built over the site of territory held by elves in the age before Earthfall; anyone they displaced is further in the past than Pontius Pilate is to us. There’s nothing in print that says Kyonin answers to any authority on Castrovel, so if they’re an extension of empire, they’re one with an exceptionally long leash.
The nation has plenty of genuine flaws and interesting facets without “Did you know they came from somewhere else, a very long time ago?” being presented as some kind of gotcha. Between this and your completely spurious, non-canon “the retreat to Sovyrian left tons of elves to die” tangent in a recent thread, I really don’t know what you’re aiming for in these conversations.
Only a consistently-applied standard. Because there is no statute of limitations on decolonization.
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Only a consistently-applied standard. Because there is no statute of limitations on decolonization.I want Kyonin to feel like the extension of Sovyrian it is - this is the bastion of an ancient nation on another planetThat's a colony. You know that's a colony, right?Modern Kyonin is over 2,000 years old, and was built over the site of territory held by elves in the age before Earthfall; anyone they displaced is further in the past than Pontius Pilate is to us. There’s nothing in print that says Kyonin answers to any authority on Castrovel, so if they’re an extension of empire, they’re one with an exceptionally long leash.
The nation has plenty of genuine flaws and interesting facets without “Did you know they came from somewhere else, a very long time ago?” being presented as some kind of gotcha. Between this and your completely spurious, non-canon “the retreat to Sovyrian left tons of elves to die” tangent in a recent thread, I really don’t know what you’re aiming for in these conversations.
How far back does this hold true, then? Would you have every Ekujae, who've been in Garund for over 9,000 years, return to Castrovel because the first of them didn't sprout from the ground there? What's the solution to this problem, or the point in bringing it up? You're in a thread titled "What do you want from a Lost Omens: Kyonin?" - why not contribute anything along that theme?
You clearly have a lot of love for Cheliax-adjacent history, and mostly discuss it in good-faith with well-reasoned, lore-cited evidence; I don't get why your role in every other discussion is just throwing a lot of off-topic firebombs.
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I mostly want to see them treat elves better than they were treated in PF1e and in Starfinder, and not make them arrogant, xenophobic arses. I'm really bitter about how they were depicted in both.
Elves are one of my favorite species, as evidenced by the fact I almost always play them. I want Kyonin to feel like a functional nation, not as a stereotype.
Gatewalkers is going to have a backmatter article on Castrovel and another on Findeladlara, and I'm hoping both of things can provide some novel elven insights.
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I'm oddly commited to Golarion's elfness despite not necessarily being the hugest elf fan hahaha.
Okay! Let's see...
I'd love to know how exactly the aiudara impacts elven culture. As I recall, they don't necessarily have access to every single aiudara gate layind around, and many are essentially forgotten or lost. That said, if they do have general access to it, then it would make long-distance travelling trivial! What are the repercussions of that in a culture? Can any elf walk through any kyoni-secured aiudara? Is it protected? Do they need permission? If yes, from whom?
But I do genuinely love the idea of Iadara being much more diverse than we thought. Connection to Sovyrian can mean a lot of things, and even though lore books of this level don't necessarily include ancestries, it would be the perfect place to introduce any Sovyrian natives... When we ran Starfinder, Lashunta was the fan favorite. Aaaand since I'm planning to run an adventure set in another plane where a group only from Golarion alone woouldn't make the most sense, then count me in the cheer bandwagon that want to see people from outside of our lovely planet.
I will point out, and this is just for the sake of fomenting discussion and it is not something that I personally mind, that with Highhelm being sold as the new york of dwarves — Iadara being framed similarly could feel a little too samey. Even though it would make a lot of sense for that to be the case, especially because of the aiudara.
Eh, who knows! Maybe it's not something that matters that much, really. Or maybe that just means that we wil have to wait a little more for a similar book.
As for the embassies thing — That would make a lot of sense, to be honest! And really, I'd be surprised if that wasn't the case...
There's precedent, then. And if there is an emissary in Crying Leaf, then it does seem logical that there are people in similar role in Iadara from the Spire. And the next logical step is to assume that there are people in a similar role from other elven communities. :B
Also, I'm plenty of curious to what happened to the elves of the Mierani Forest. After everything that happened in Second Darkness, and after what happened after New Thassilon's annexation. Did the thassilonians just... Occupy the forest? Did the elves bend the knee? Or are the Thassilonians saying that the Mierani is under their control, but the elves there just continue to operate unbothered?
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Also, I'm plenty of curious to what happened to the elves of the Mierani Forest. After everything that happened in Second Darkness, and after what happened after New Thassilon's annexation. Did the thassilonians just... Occupy the forest? Did the elves bend the knee? Or are the Thassilonians saying that the Mierani is under their control, but the elves there just continue to operate unbothered?
I would expect the elves of Crying Leaf to transition to determined and persistent guerilla warfare against the occupying power. They are rather perfectly set up for it, being able to receive impossible to interdict supplies and support from Kyonin by aiudara. That was, after all, how they carried on their war with Zirnakaynin.
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The notion of other Castrovelian ancestries being present in Kyonin makes me giddy, as probably the loudest cheerleader for Pathfinder Lashunta. I'd quite like to see both them and Formians in small numbers somewhere within the nation.
I'm unfamiliar with Second Darkness - are the Drow driven from Celwynvian in that AP?
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This is a purely selfish take but . . . I would like to see some more elf (specifially, Kyoninite elf) deities that allow Lawful divine spellcasters. For a society very focused on maintaining its traditions, its only lawful deity is Alseta. I'd like to play an Kyoninite elf Paladin without having to turn to a foreign deity like Iomedae or Erastil to do so.
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I just want cheerful elves. In order to have a pair of cheerful elves in a core Pathfinder 1 campaign, my friend and I played Iovo and Damiar from the 'true' elven homeland - Castrovel. We'd decided to travel via Aiudara and became Pathfinders to explore Golarian. We were a mischievous and chaotic pair of pranksters, and we had a blast.
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Of course, things were not much better in Starfinder, when even the elves of Castrovel became depressed because of the Gap. They were so depressed that they wore masks everywhere not to show their true faces to outsiders.
So... being the quirky player that I am, I decided that if I had to wear a mask anyway, why not wear a mask and fight crime?
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And now that we're in Patfinder 2E, Elves are still depressed. I solved the problem for myself this time by using a versatile heritage on my elven duskwalker so that my five month old character could be cheerful and excited by the world she was exploring!
"I just discovered the most fascinating new food in the local bakery. They're kind of a mix between bread and dessert, and they're called muffins! Amazing what these mortals come up with!"
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But it still begs the question... why so many depressed elves across three different systems? In Starfinder, there are other long-lived races that lost memories to the Gap, and they're not depressed: Witchwyrds, Dragons, Undead.
I want cheerful elves. Give me a culture somewhere filled with cheerful gregarious elves.
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The notion of other Castrovelian ancestries being present in Kyonin makes me giddy, as probably the loudest cheerleader for Pathfinder Lashunta. I'd quite like to see both them and Formians in small numbers somewhere within the nation.
Count me cheering too, right there beside you!
I'm unfamiliar with Second Darkness - are the Drow driven from Celwynvian in that AP?
It's been tons of time... But! From what I remember:
I don't necessarily remember the reason why Kwava recruited the PCs, but they're sent to the Mierani Forest, to Crying Leaf in particular, and there they learn that Celwynvian has been occupied for a long time by the Drow, with the elves of Crying Leaf leading guerrila warfare against them to attempt to keep them at bay and ideally, drive them back from whenever they came from.
If I'm not mistaken, Crying Leaf itself was established by Kyonin (by either the Winter Council or the Queen herself, I don't remember) as to combat the drow in Celwynvian. I think. I'm not too sure of this.
Anyways, book 3 is essentially about participatin on this guerrila effort against the drow and becoming the tipping point that leads them to being drove off. There was also a bit about a mirror dimension from the past thing? Where the drow fled whenever things started to go south, or something. And I also remember an aboleth helping them out.
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I've got myself all wound up over a potential PC from Kyonin I desperately want to play in Gatewalkers, and it's got me reaching back for this thread.
At the risk of parodying myself, I'd certainly enjoy seeing what a group as odd as the Elven Pantheon makes for a society's guiding principles. "Learn elven art and magic, explore yourself and the world, don't over-harm nature, and don't get hung up on things" is a fascinating set of values, both in terms of what it covers and what it doesn't speak to. Revenge is a time-honored part of elven society, as classic as carving beautiful jewelry or going hunting in the woods. And how did the notoriously-superior elves (Findeladlara models this!) ever adopt the human goddess Alseta, anyway?
There's also one obvious wildcard: redeemed Nocticula, who's making inroads with the Alijae and presumably called away much of drow House Misraria. As a patron of art and a friend to other elven peoples, I'm willing to bet she has a presence in Kyonin, too - and I'm sure the traditionalists absolutely hate it.
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I think the problem with Kyonin, and elves in general, is that the public consciousness is still so hung up on Tolkien's Eldar which come across as extremely stoic and conservative, aloof and above matters, whereas what Pathfinder's elves are aiming for is something a bit more messy and chaotic and free-spirited, but they can't escape the Tolkienisms - the insular and high-minded way Kyonin has acted as a nation doesn't really speak to the freewheeling culture Paizo clearly wanted to set their elves apart with, and the inherent nature of a people who think in terms of centuries, rather than years, lends itself to the conservative vibe Tolkien set anyway, which is how you get something like the Forlorn in a culture that's supposed to be less attached to immediacy than "mortal" cultures. I've always thought that for Pathfinder elves, it makes far more sense to embrace the ever-changing world rather than cling to the past, and for other cultures to see that as an almost fey-like lack of attachment easily mistaken for apathy or cruelty. Really fleshing out the elven pantheon and how it affects elven society could help further cement Paizo's elves as their own thing, and I daresay Nocticula would relish shaking the branches of the tree and seeing what falls out as she establishes herself among surface-dweller followers.
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I think the problem with Kyonin, and elves in general, is that the public consciousness is still so hung up on Tolkien's Eldar which come across as extremely stoic and conservative, aloof and above matters, whereas what Pathfinder's elves are aiming for is something a bit more messy and chaotic and free-spirited, but they can't escape the Tolkienisms - the insular and high-minded way Kyonin has acted as a nation doesn't really speak to the freewheeling culture Paizo clearly wanted to set their elves apart with, and the inherent nature of a people who think in terms of centuries, rather than years, lends itself to the conservative vibe Tolkien set anyway, which is how you get something like the Forlorn in a culture that's supposed to be less attached to immediacy than "mortal" cultures. I've always thought that for Pathfinder elves, it makes far more sense to embrace the ever-changing world rather than cling to the past, and for other cultures to see that as an almost fey-like lack of attachment easily mistaken for apathy or cruelty. Really fleshing out the elven pantheon and how it affects elven society could help further cement Paizo's elves as their own thing, and I daresay Nocticula would relish shaking the branches of the tree and seeing what falls out as she establishes herself among surface-dweller followers.
The takeaway really should be that Kyonin's national policies and national tenor should not be taken as typical of elvendom, because it is supposed to play a geopolitical role (a march or military frontier for Sovyrian, protecting the Sovyrian Stone from Treerazer) that no other elven polity is supposed to play, and its policy and culture will reflect this. Other elves on Golarion should behave more like the elves you'd like to see, and should see the aiudeen as unreasonably paranoid, stand-offish, materialistic, and militarized.
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I think mainstream elven culture should be ridiculously individualistic and be paradoxically super focused about being in the now but always remembering the past and planning for the future.
The takeaway really should be that Kyonin's national policies and national tenor should not be taken as typical of elvendom, because it is supposed to play a geopolitical role (a march or military frontier for Sovyrian, protecting the Sovyrian Stone from Treerazer) that no other elven polity is supposed to play, and its policy and culture will reflect this. Other elves on Golarion should behave more like the elves you'd like to see, and should see the aiudeen as unreasonably paranoid, stand-offish, materialistic, and militarized.
Agreed. Kyonin was insular and treated outsiders poorly because of the Sovyrian Stone, probably one of the most powerful artifacts in the galaxy. I've felt that this is the same reason that half-elves were shunted off to Erages. Mistrust of human ancestry.
Any AP involving Kyonin should seriously threaten the Sovyrian Stone.
My questions:
Why are the Treants stirring?
Why is there a wooden Guthallath heading towards Erages?
What is Lethaquel?
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I would love to get the city of Greengold in detail. As the place that has been where 'outsiders' are allowed to trade it strikes me as a gateway (no pun intended) city for Kyonin not just economically but culturally. If the whole country is opening up more, then this city could either be portrayed as the forefront of that change, or paradoxically, on the wane as outsiders go to the capital and other locales more often instead.
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I'm hoping we can get "redeemed" Drow as a proper bloc with a voice in Kyonin, a force for disrupting that stuffy old order - and I don't expect those efforts to go flawlessly, either. Centuries-old biases aren't going anywhere soon... but neither are the Drow, now.
An arts district full of Nocticulans (House Misraria exiles, perhaps?) in Greengold might be a delight, and would infuriate the elders of Kyonin as they became part of the nation's public face.
Of course, things were not much better in Starfinder, when even the elves of Castrovel became depressed because of the Gap. They were so depressed that they wore masks everywhere not to show their true faces to outsiders.
So... being the quirky player that I am, I decided that if I had to wear a mask anyway, why not wear a mask and fight crime?
I was thinking about something like this, but for a Ratfolk/Ysoki Vigilante instead, with a Tatterdemalion Witch Cohort.
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Maybe I am mistaken, but I feel the elves being aliens from another planet does not appear enough in the way they are usually depicted. They could be from Golarion and it would not change much about elves as we see them in the books.
I mean, they're aliens who've been here for 2500 years, so I'd expect some degree of normalcy to have set in... but I'd gladly welcome whatever Castrovelian elements the team wants to give me.
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Maybe I am mistaken, but I feel the elves being aliens from another planet does not appear enough in the way they are usually depicted. They could be from Golarion and it would not change much about elves as we see them in the books.I mean, they're aliens who've been here for 2500 years, so I'd expect some degree of normalcy to have set in... but I'd gladly welcome whatever Castrovelian elements the team wants to give me.
"We may sometimes look like you, but we are not you. Never forget that."
~ Lennier, Babylon 5
Mind you, while most elves only just returned to the planet 2500 years ago, their civilization on the planet rivals and may even predate any human civilization including Azlant. Not continuously inhabited, of course, but then not all elves left even if most of them are living far from their old homes.
In hindsight, it's actually kind of funny that elf gates got their name despite elves being absent from the planet for millenia of post-Earthfall history.
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It's hard to be sure. The Ilverani, Alijae, Ekujae, Kallijae, and Jinin elves, and drow, all stayed on Golarion. There's no real way to guess their population (although we can probably assume the Ilverani population is fairly small), but the LOCG does name Auideen as the most common one in the Inner Sea region (and they seem to be the predominant elven ethnicity throughout Avistan & Absalom, not just Kyonin). We know the Spiresworn also went to Castrovel, and it's probably a safe bet the Vourinoi and aquatic elves did too since the aforementioned groups are presented as exceptions and each have an explanation for their choice to remain.
Unless there are a ton of other elven groups we haven't met yet, I'd say it's plausible enough that the ones who abandoned Golarion were the majority, but they might not've been.
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As far as I know, the Aiudeen and Spiresworn are the only ones who abandoned Golarion. Everyone else stayed. The Vourinoi are an offshoot of the Mualijae, and were still in Osirion during the late First Era. And the whole deal with the aquatic elves is that they had to adapt to Earthfall like the humans who became Gillmen. Kyonin seems to be the Aiudeen's only major stronghold, unless they colonised parts of Arcadia and Casmaron. So I would expect those descended from the elves who left for Castrovel to be vastly outnumbered by descendants of those who stayed.
Yeah, 2e has certainly painted a picture so far that it's mostly Avistan's elves who bailed out through the aiudara. The Ilverani and Mualijae explicitly stayed to help those left behind, if my memory serves.
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If there's anyone the Drow could probably find common cause with, it might be the Ilverani and Mualijae, because all three stayed to tough it out and suffered the consequences of it (the drow being warped by Rovagug's ambient influence, the Mualijae being slaughtered by Dahak and various demon-worshipping cults, etc) while the Aiudeen fled like cowards and then returned pretending nothing had changed. Or so they might consider it. The Aiudeen probably look at it differently.
As far as I know, the Aiudeen and Spiresworn are the only ones who abandoned Golarion. Everyone else stayed. The Vourinoi are an offshoot of the Mualijae, and were still in Osirion during the late First Era. And the whole deal with the aquatic elves is that they had to adapt to Earthfall like the humans who became Gillmen.
I stand corrected! Although, I'd say the Aiudeen probably still make up a decent chunk of the elven population, since most Avistani elves seem to be of that culture as far as I can tell. But probably not the majority, yeah, or at the very most a slight one.
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The Aiudeen have the advantage of urbanisation, whereas aside from a few exceptions most Mualijae, Ilverani, Vourinoi and Aquatic Elves (do we have a 2e name for them yet?) trend towards nomadism or at least heavily scattered rural settlements. But assuming medieval trends hold true for Golarion, and for the nature-loving elves who have access to Druids, for every person who lives in a city there must be about ten who live in the countryside farming or raising cattle to sustain that urban populace. So given how relatively small Kyonin is compared to the Wild Elf heartlands, being urbanised doesn't necessarily mean the Aiudeen outnumber their fellow elves. Plus, if the redemption of Nocticula has dragged even a few Drow houses into neutrality and forced them to improve relations, if only to survive against the other houses who would see them as traitors, Drow cities could offset the numerical difference.
It would be fascinating seeing an international conclave, separate from but hosted by Kyonin, where elves from across the world form the Golarion equivalent of the G8, with each group contributing to an international council to foster better relations, facilitate trade and cultural ties, as well as the kind of tensions that would come up. With Treerazor on one border and Tar-Baphon on the other, can Kyonin actually spare anything to help, say, a Nocticulan drow city being attacked by a demon-worshipping rival house? Can Wild Elf or even non-elf adventurers take up the slack, and would Kyonin's high council accept that or see it as an affront? What's happening with the Jinin, and what do they think of both their distant Aiudeen brethren and their slightly more closely related Drow compatriots who also burrowed down to escape Earthfall but fell into demonic influence? And are the Aquatic Elves equally annoyed by their land-dwelling counterparts' antics when they have Algolthu and Deep Ones and Sahuagin to deal with?
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It's been said around before so I'm sure many are aware, but for those not already in the know: the excessively Tolkienian vibe has been said to be an artefact of earlier days of Paizo when there was less curation of the lore and some writers unfortunately carried over their assumptions about elves from other settings when laying down some of the aiudeen parts of the setting.
In short, I would say the creatives at Paizo are well aware the need to correct some lore about elves, and that the intent is very much to make aiudeen match the CG descriptor as freedom loving people who created the aiudara network to connect distant places and peoples.
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The Aiudeen have the advantage of urbanisation, whereas aside from a few exceptions most Mualijae, Ilverani, Vourinoi and Aquatic Elves (do we have a 2e name for them yet?) trend towards nomadism or at least heavily scattered rural settlements. But assuming medieval trends hold true for Golarion, and for the nature-loving elves who have access to Druids, for every person who lives in a city there must be about ten who live in the countryside farming or raising cattle to sustain that urban populace. So given how relatively small Kyonin is compared to the Wild Elf heartlands, being urbanised doesn't necessarily mean the Aiudeen outnumber their fellow elves. Plus, if the redemption of Nocticula has dragged even a few Drow houses into neutrality and forced them to improve relations, if only to survive against the other houses who would see them as traitors, Drow cities could offset the numerical difference.
Absolutely true, my point there was more that Aiudeen don't only live in Kyonin, since most of the elven communities in the Saga Lands, Shining Kingdoms, and Kortos are of that origin as well . Kyonin's just where they're most heavily concentrated, similar to how there are lots of Alijae around the vicinity of Nagisa but the Muallijae live across the Mwangi Expanse.
The Ilverani, Drow, and Aquatic Elves, and to a lesser extent the Vourinoi, live in regions I presume are more sparsely populated (we don't have Darklands and underwater people in the real world, but I think it's a safe bet they can't support a large population as well as the surface). Obviously magic will mitigate this somewhat, as well as the fact that elves tend to adapt to their surroundings fairly quickly, but it's still a factor. So I would argue the Aiudeen are a plurality (especially if the Alijae, Kallijae, and Ekujae are counted separately), but not necessarily a majority, and certainly not the vast majority.
...and checking the Character Guide, it states the Aiudeen "are the most common elven ethnicity found in the Inner Sea Region" and the opening to the Elves section says "most of the elves departed the planet" during Earthfall. So with that information I figure Aiudeen are the majority (the Spiresworn also left but they're a pretty small group), albeit probably only a slight one.
On an unrelated note, if the people overall are called the Vourinoi, would a single one be a "Vourinos"?
(we don't have Darklands and underwater people in the real world, but I think it's a safe bet they can't support a large population as well as the surface).If anything it's the reverse. Zirnakaynin's as populous as or more populous than Iadara.
Iadara is also a barely populated ghost city and shadow of its former population.
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Iadara is also a barely populated ghost city and shadow of its former population.(we don't have Darklands and underwater people in the real world, but I think it's a safe bet they can't support a large population as well as the surface).If anything it's the reverse. Zirnakaynin's as populous as or more populous than Iadara.
Yes, and? We're discussing what the demographics actually are, not what the infrastructure would support.