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While Horror Adventures and the 1e core rulebook covered print sources fabulously, there has never (to my knowledge) been a Pathfinder equivalent to Starfinder’s video game/tabletop section for inspirational media- and there were some fascinating and obscure picks on that one (Aerannis in particular).
I’m also curious if The Witcher video games would’ve been included in a hypothetical 2e inspirational media, as the original books were never named as inspirations in either of 1e’s sections.
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Golarion can be a little tough to do general inspirations for, because it’s such a patchwork - the Realm of the Mammoth Lords, Numeria, the Mwangi Expanse, and Osirion are all rarically different vibes, just as examples.
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If anything, a fan made list that explores what we as player think of as inspiration for certain parts of Golarion is probably the best way to go.
For example: Some inspiration for Cheliax for me is WW2 era Germany.
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Given the flag of Cheliax, you were meant to make that inference. It's not exactly subtle.
Too unsubtle for my tastes.
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Golarion can be a little tough to do general inspirations for, because it’s such a patchwork - the Realm of the Mammoth Lords, Numeria, the Mwangi Expanse, and Osirion are all rarically different vibes, just as examples.
I don’t think most of the media on those lists were intended as general settingwide inspirations- Doom, Dead Space, Dragonriders of Pern (Starfinder), The Shining, The Hellbound Heart, and The Time Machine (Pathfinder), are mostly reflected in regionalized/specific ways.
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I would certainly include the Witcher, since those games were my primary inspiration for the first version of the alchemist back in the day.
Oh cool! (And the more I think back on the mutagens and bombs of the 1e alchemist, the more that makes sense, haha)
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>Doom
>Shotgunning Devils and Demons
Sounds like Starfinder to me.
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Given the flag of Cheliax, you were meant to make that inference. It's not exactly subtle.
Too unsubtle for my tastes.
To be honest I never paid attention to the flag enough (before) to realize it kind of has a swastika in it.
Cheliax is an out and out team evil and you're meant to hate them. But it's the authoritarianism and racism of Cheliax that spurns me to liken them to WW2 Germany, not iconography.
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Cheliax is an out and out team evil and you're meant to hate them.
I think "hating" a fictional nation-state is a waste of energy and I am skeptical of any author who tries to beat me over the head with that kind of symbolism. Is a character born and raised in Cheliax their entire life supposed to hate it?
You can play them however you wish. I certainly don't portray them as rainbows and puppy farts, but I also like to think that having your God up and die on you on the eve of his prophecied return might mess up a country and I try to reflect that. People who lack a belief system may have trouble understanding just what deicide may do to a person's psyche.
Senior Designer
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Pathfinder 2E is so big and diverse it'd be kind of impossible to do an inspirational media list for it without leaving something/someone out or even-misadvertising the types of content at play. Guns & Gears alone drew inspirations from a laundry list of anime, American shows animated and otherwise, Filipino media, video games, historical events, novels, and the game's own unique history. Consider the number of people credited as writers, designers, developers, creative directors, etc. in any given book and then factor in that they each have their own bucket of inspirations, and the scope of the thing becomes such that accurately listing everything would make the game look much less intentional and specific than it is, while leaving things out could do a huge injustice to a source that had a meaningful impact on the game.
Stephen-Radney McFarland used to say (probably still does, he's not dead, I just don't work with him anymore, lol) "Fantasy is a language." Like a language it grows and evolves over time and with new speakers, and also like a language it has lots of regional dialects influenced by a wide variety of factors. The real source inspiration for Pathfinder2e is that language itself, as understood and spoken by all the people who contribute to the game.
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Valeros and Merisiel at Sandpoint.
Kyra, her arms wide casting Heal.
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Cheliax is an out and out team evil and you're meant to hate them.I think "hating" a fictional nation-state is a waste of energy and I am skeptical of any author who tries to beat me over the head with that kind of symbolism. Is a character born and raised in Cheliax their entire life supposed to hate it?
You can play them however you wish. I certainly don't portray them as rainbows and puppy farts, but I also like to think that having your God up and die on you on the eve of his prophecied return might mess up a country and I try to reflect that. People who lack a belief system may have trouble understanding just what deicide may do to a person's psyche.
The country went through decide about 100 years ago (trying to pull quick references I'm not sure exactly). I'm not saying that losing your deity and the resulting civil war isn't traumatic, but the young generation of people living in Cheliax have only known devilish Thrune and Asmodeus as their leaders and deity. Not to say that there wont be people who won't fall in line and didn't leave but they're likely to be older.
As to the question of will a character born in Cheliax hate it? The answer depends on what kind of person they are. A halfling slave knowing only the horrid conditions of salvery? Yeah, they probably hate it. A young rich Cheliax noble? They're probably happy with everything that's happened. An older person who was taught about Aroden and how Cheliax was prior to his death and aspires to be a good person. They probably don't care for Thrune either. Ultimately it's just going to depend.
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Pathfinder 2E is so big and diverse it'd be kind of impossible to do an inspirational media list for it without leaving something/someone out or even-misadvertising the types of content at play. Guns & Gears alone drew inspirations from a laundry list of anime, American shows animated and otherwise, Filipino media, video games, historical events, novels, and the game's own unique history. Consider the number of people credited as writers, designers, developers, creative directors, etc. in any given book and then factor in that they each have their own bucket of inspirations, and the scope of the thing becomes such that accurately listing everything would make the game look much less intentional and specific than it is, while leaving things out could do a huge injustice to a source that had a meaningful impact on the game.
Stephen-Radney McFarland used to say (probably still does, he's not dead, I just don't work with him anymore, lol) "Fantasy is a language." Like a language it grows and evolves over time and with new speakers, and also like a language it has lots of regional dialects influenced by a wide variety of factors. The real source inspiration for Pathfinder2e is that language itself, as understood and spoken by all the people who contribute to the game.
I understand the line of thinking in this explanation, but I respectfully disagree with the conclusion to remove them.
The way you describe the decision, it comes across as looking inward, not unlike citing sources for a paper. Saying “this is what defines the game”.I don’t think many people interpreted inspirational media this way, unless 1e players legitimately assumed the first edition was built entirely on print inspirations, that included only one Ancient Greek text, and no major Eastern fantasy works.
Looking outward would be treating the inspirational media blocks as sharing key bits of developer inspiration from different aspects of the game; not for the purpose of citing, but better nudging along players and GMs in finding relevant material to find them.
I won’t deny that part of my OCD is a fixation with lists, so I have something of a bias towards these collections; but I also think that there is genuine worth in saying to beginners “here, these are great places to get started in our various subgenres, go get inspired”.
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Valeros and Merisiel at Sandpoint.
Kyra, her arms wide casting Heal.
Lem, when the walls fell!
Seoni, her eyes uncovered!