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Fwiw, the way I have found to get some character/philosophical depth to Zyphus and possible followers of his is to make him the god of "Pharasma's System Is Just Plain Wrong And I'm Going To Persuade People That Things Work Differently" (as opposed to Urgathoa as god of "Pharasma's System Is Just Plain Wrong And I'm Going To Indulge Myself And Ignore It, And So Can You"). There's a lot to be done with how tenable these positions are to your average mortal on Golarion who is told different things by different priests and is unlilkely to bump into something as convincing as direct divine intervention, at least not while they are alive.I've never really seen Zyphus as too too niche. Like, whilst he is going by purely going by "yeah he's the god of accidental death", but really that title just feels like a way of helping to describe his "idea" in the most simple way. If they just said "he's a god of death" that'll tell you pretty much nothing about what outlook on death he actually has, his view on death focusing on a nihilistic take on the pointlessness, unreasonableness of it.
Again, the current problem with Zyphus is that he basically occupies the incredibly awkward role of having this ridiculous little non-domain and yet still being a "god" which serves to cheapen the whole deal. IRL we made up a bunch of little gods like the "goddess of door hinges" because gods IRL had more in common with spirits and folklore (and fwiw, the generic idea of an almighty creator god who is "king" of all the other gods is an incredibly common idea in literally all religion). In PF they are THE cosmic movers and shakers, and having a loser like Zyphus in the mix makes no sense.
This sort of ties into how mythic needs to actually feel and be mythic too.
I think the question of stories that can be told with Mythic if it is a fundamentally different, more narrative-element form of power, and the question of stories that can be told with Mythic if it is a set of ten additional levels after 20, do fairly rapidly run into the same issue of how much change Golarion can plausibly take; I love Golarion as a setting, but the stronger you make PCs, the more egregious "why aren't they teleporting about the place addressing other major issues, resolving mysteries and generally changing things beyond recognition" becomes.
In the case of Wrath of the Righteous, what I have always wanted to do as a GM is end it with "and you are all in the depths of the Rasping Rifts facing off against nigh-endless demonic armies, and that's the last anyone on Golarion sees or hears of what became of you, at least for the duration of subsequent campaigns." I can't realistically see anyone at Paizo signing off on official content that folds, spindles, and mutilates Golarion the way Exalted, for example, pretty much has the baked-in assumption characters will do to their table's instance of its setting, both through massive power levels and through deep investment in the mythically weird, that doesn't feel to me like the genre it is going for. (To my mind genre is basically a contract between creators and audience, so that, for example, romance readers know enough of the basic shape of what to expect from a romance that buing one will be satisfying, and it feels to me like a fundamental part of the genre contract of all Golarion's varied and detailed lore is not chucking the whole thing in a shredder.)
(Also, seriously, if you want inspiration for high-powered character abilities off at interesting and often mythic-feeling tangents to punching the baddies in the face even harder, Sidereal Martial Arts in Exalted get gloriously bizarre.)
Given the above perspective, the options I see for story-types that would work with mythic are either
a)...
Fwiw, the big deal with Exalted is that, relatively speaking, the setting is actually pretty dang small (again, this is considering that the setting is basically only like a few thousands years off from being created from the eponymous big ol' void and that the big ol' void of nebulous stuff tm is very much still there and multiple things in the physical setting actually require manipulation of that void to make otherwise unmakable things), meaning that almost by default the characters (considering who they are as well) are going to change it. It's also almost made explicit that mortals (read: non actual demigods) are useless and will never do anything, which is a contrast to almost every other RPG I can think of. It's honestly based off more shintoism what with the contrast of the weak and tiny "gods" and spirits and the big pantheon chilling in their island paradise plane.
Contrast with Pathfinder where each of the Outer Planes is practically a multiverse unto themselves, the elemental planes exist, the Material Plane is explicitly a cosmologically large universe, and there are almost innumerable other planes in the mix, and the constant focus on Golarion is kind of silly when logically the "next step" is to leave the place and adventure through the universe/multiverse.
Fwiw, I also dislike SF and don't really hold it to be canon, so I wouldn't want to see space stuff in PF being blocked because of SF (tbh, always felt SF tried to get the same kind of success Shadowrun did-- which, to be fair, had a practically equally insane elevator pitch-- but failed and mostly just coasted off their preexisting fanbase).
Completely off topic but I'll interject that Starfinder is my second favorite ttrpg setting of all time, behind only Shadowrun.
Having said that, I'll agree that planar adventuring is the logical step for a mythic escalation. It makes the other planes seem less special to me when we've got a random jungle crawling with native monsters more powerful than abyssal lords a boat ride away.
Completely off topic but I'll interject that Starfinder is my second favorite ttrpg setting of all time, behind only Shadowrun.
Having said that, I'll agree that planar adventuring is the logical step for a mythic escalation. It makes the other planes seem less special to me when we've got a random jungle crawling with native monsters more powerful than abyssal lords a boat ride away.
Yeah you really need to emphasize the Universe and the Multiverse. Never liked Golarion being so arbitrarily important.
Fwiw, for me, it's so painful to see Starfinder be something that just might have been good or at least decent but just kind of got mangled with no theme or tone and thus the system itself being bad. Meanwhile you have Shadowrun which has somehow managed to surpass the actual Cyberpunk rpg in popularity at times despite having an elevator pitch that is arguably even more insane than SF.
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Completely off topic but I'll interject that Starfinder is my second favorite ttrpg setting of all time, behind only Shadowrun.
Having said that, I'll agree that planar adventuring is the logical step for a mythic escalation. It makes the other planes seem less special to me when we've got a random jungle crawling with native monsters more powerful than abyssal lords a boat ride away.
Yeah you really need to emphasize the Universe and the Multiverse. Never liked Golarion being so arbitrarily important.
Fwiw, for me, it's so painful to see Starfinder be something that just might have been good or at least decent but just kind of got mangled with no theme or tone and thus the system itself being bad. Meanwhile you have Shadowrun which has somehow managed to surpass the actual Cyberpunk rpg in popularity at times despite having an elevator pitch that is arguably even more insane than SF.
I mean in a very real way, Golarion should be *the* most important place in the universe, or on that list, because it's where Rovagug is so if anything ever happens to Golarion, everybody dies.
We just get weird inconsistencies like how when a demonic invasion happens & the forces of Heaven, Nirvana, & Elysium don't charge out to meet it because of vague cosmic balance stuff that may be fundamental laws of the universe that the gods can't circumvent or may be a simple case of gods adhering to the MAD doctrine, except either way it only applies sometimes with no stink being raised when Aroden killed Deskari the first time & the celestials mounting a direct defense when the exact same thing happened centuries ago in Tian Xia to the point that it created an entire nation of aasimars.
On the other subject, Starfinder appeals to me as a setting of infinite possibilities. I actually don't find the elevator pitch for either setting to be particularly insane... well, maybe Shadowrun but more so in the specifics than the general concept of "what if standard fantasy setting, but no medieval stasis, advanced to near future(for shadowrun) or space opera(for starfinder)."
Neither of those is a particularly crazy idea, really. Shadowrun perhaps moreso in the incorporation of the mayan calander & the cyclical, ebb & flow of magic, elements, and going with the cyberpunk genre rather than doing d20 modern without the hidden world aspects of it. Fact that it came out when it did instead of a decade or two later makes it more surprising but then cyberpunk as a genre was just really popular back then. It's also not terribly surprising when you think of it in terms of, the cyberpunk genre being so rigid in terms of it's tropes & aesthetics, that the two games to dominate it are one that epitomized the purist vision of it & one that had a very stand out gimmick that set it apart from the others.
Starfinder is really just, we're doing Spelljammer but with actual sci fi elements. It's not particularly out of line with Star Wars or the more cosmic, space sides of either Marvel or DC
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Completely off topic but I'll interject that Starfinder is my second favorite ttrpg setting of all time, behind only Shadowrun.
Having said that, I'll agree that planar adventuring is the logical step for a mythic escalation. It makes the other planes seem less special to me when we've got a random jungle crawling with native monsters more powerful than abyssal lords a boat ride away.
Yeah you really need to emphasize the Universe and the Multiverse. Never liked Golarion being so arbitrarily important.
Fwiw, for me, it's so painful to see Starfinder be something that just might have been good or at least decent but just kind of got mangled with no theme or tone and thus the system itself being bad. Meanwhile you have Shadowrun which has somehow managed to surpass the actual Cyberpunk rpg in popularity at times despite having an elevator pitch that is arguably even more insane than SF.
I mean in a very real way, Golarion should be *the* most important place in the universe, or on that list, because it's where Rovagug is so if anything ever happens to Golarion, everybody dies.
We just get weird inconsistencies like how when a demonic invasion happens & the forces of Heaven, Nirvana, & Elysium don't charge out to meet it because of vague cosmic balance stuff that may be fundamental laws of the universe that the gods can't circumvent or may be a simple case of gods adhering to the MAD doctrine, except either way it only applies sometimes with no stink being raised when Aroden killed Deskari the first time & the celestials mounting a direct defense when the exact same thing happened centuries ago in Tian Xia to the point that it created an entire nation of aasimars.
On the other subject, Starfinder appeals to me as a setting of infinite possibilities. I actually don't find the elevator pitch for either setting to be particularly insane... well, maybe Shadowrun but more so in the specifics than the general concept of "what if standard...
I suppose I just saw SF the setting as written and presented (again, I make no pretensions to assume anything about people’s homebrew) as far more restrictive than it was freeing, mostly because there wasn’t really enough “industrial age” buildup for it to feel convincing and the fact that it still didn’t really have any tone or theme (or even an array of tones or themes) which just negatively impacted literally everything about it, from the science to the stories (the pervasive feeling that it wasn’t really canon/the fact that in retrospect there were many “in development” elements of PF 2e sandwiched in there didn’t really help).
In terms of Marvel/DC “cosmic, space stuff”, I would much prefer to use something like MnM (a “universal” system with a very thin superhero coat of paint). In fact, MnM’s system design has inspired a decent amount of my own design ideas (in addition to revealing the many inherent shortcomings of a system like DnD or PF—although frankly this is more relevant to PF since I feel it is trying and has always tried to do a lot more than DnD, especially currently).
Shadowrun as written has pretty gonzo background lore by any standard. I frankly would have much preferred what you define as “a standard fantasy setting advanced to cyberpunk/etc.” rather than the lore as presented, which is sometimes baffling and a little weird and racist at times.
Again, I actually really like Shadowrun, and I also understand that not a few other sci-fi rpgs crib parts of the “science fiction” parts from it. I just recognize that it is based off of different assumptions as compared to the actual Cyberpunk rpg and apparently that gave it the boost it needed to become more popular (and again, I absolutely do not begrudge this, in fact I welcome it as it shows people any setting can succeed).
(Also, Pondsmith being broke for the entirety of Cyberpunk 3e and literally needing his wife to dress up dolls for the “”art””, as well as 3e’s atrocious writing and setting, certainly didn’t help anything).
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“Starfinder has no themes” and “Starfinder isn’t a game for me” are two different statements, and I do wish the latter wasn’t being presented as the former.
Neither has anything to do with Mythic storylines in PF2, and so I gently ask that discussion go elsewhere.
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Personally, Starfinder isn't for me. It's just... not what I wanted when I heard about Starfinder. I wanted something more like DragonStar, where it was full spellcasting (9 levels) with classic fantasy species, plus high tech. It just wasn't what I wanted.
As for mythic... Kaiju fights feel like they'd fit. I'd like the greek-themed region for it as well. I also feel like having mythic as a concurrent path is no different than something like Free Archetype.
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snip
A slightly more objective take on the subject might be “Starfinder had a lot of ideas that it didn’t have the tools to do well.” It’s less “has no themes” and more “the base chassis couldn’t really follow through at all on the themes it promised or attempted to do, thus making it so that the system could not really fully deal with any themes, making its system feel directionless.” (really this is the basic idea present in my previous post as well). In this I can see why it didn’t “take off” like Shadowrun, which has an initial pitch that is even weirder (so it’s not the fault of a “weird setting”).
Fwiw, the discussion that branched out of this idea of how RPGs can actually enable GMs and players to do well the themes they are trying to present is relevant to mythic. Let me expand on this—“mythic” is a theme, and PF needs to give “mythic” the methods it needs to follow through on the promises of that theme. I note this in my previous comment as something that is so important since PF is trying and has always tried to do more themes and styles of play than DnD, especially currently.
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That is still largely merely couching your dislike of the system in objective sounding language.
Shadowrun is not the gold standard you seem to think it is either.
Not going to engage with this, since it ignores the actual point in favor of attempting to stoke controversy.
In terms of actual mythic stories, that might be done using some kind of theoretical system we’re not going to pay attention to rn, I would think direct involvement in cosmic conflicts and such would fit. Not just “interrupting the critical ritual to break Rovagug free” which is in the realm of “normal” campaigns, but duking it out with Rovagug itself. This is the kind of escalation I think would be important for a “truly mythic” campaign. While also making it so mythic is not just “a big mish mash of statblocks and combat,” but also tackling otherwise impossible skill challenges, to name one possibility.
I'll stop engaging with the Starfinder/Shadowrun talk except to say that yes I am aware that Equinox is a thing, it just doesn't do anything for me in the same way that Starfinder does.
Am I wrong in remembering that at the point at which Aroden disposed of that previous avatar of Deskari he was not all the way to full godhood yet, and might therefore plausibly not come under the scope of whatever physical or political principles restrict gods from direct intervention?
That may or may not have been the intention when the event was first written about & described, though given the current established workings of the Starstone, he was a full god from the moment he pulled the rock out of the sea and it didn't kill him. If nothing else, he wasn't *just* someone with 20 levels, several mythic ranks, & the immortality & divine source mythic abilities.
And even if he was only a demigod, and demigods don't violate the rules in the same way that full gods do, well there's nothing stopping the celestial realms from having a few Empyreal Lords come down and lead the assault on the worldwound.
Other gods contained Rovagug once, they could plausibly contain it again. Not without heavy losses, I would expect, but it would not have to be the inevitable end of all reality unless I am missing something in the lore.
Most presentations of the fight against Rovagug tend to paint it as very close-wrought thing that the other gods could have lost. Yes, in theory, if he got out, they could conceivably contain him again(there's actually a theory going around that the Gap in Starfinder is the result of such a scenario), but almost assuredly not without significant casualties to the point that one has to wonder why they're so laissez faire with his prison. I would personally not be as cocky with the container of a thing that I couldn't kill but who could certainly kill me, and actively wants to do that.
Fwiw, I think the problem of "size" is something that needs to be looked at. Mostly because, rn, apparently, divine minions like Treerazor that even demigods consider challenges are presented as absolute fodder compared to whatever generic Godzilla monster of the week you could lazily point your finger at (kaiju as written).
This plays into the Rovagug problem, which plays into the "is the villain a credible threat?", and can the PCs do anything useful?
To me, Rovagug is less of a "fistfight" situation and more of a "cosmic adventure to get the things needed to beat him".
Because in a lot of video games and such the "destroyer of worlds" gets killed by some medieval dude shooting mundane arrows and that's a dumb example to follow.
I'm a massive Godzilla mark so I'm personally perfectly okay with Mogaru being a demigod-level power who wouldn't notice stepping on Treerazer.
But I do think size & scale are a bit inconsistent in terms of when they're used to justify a monster being unfightable.
In 1e you had the aspidochelone & the bhole, both larger than any kaiju paizo statted up, but as cr 17 enemies. In 2e, the lophiithu is so massive that it can swallow blue whales whole, but is a fightable monster rather than an environmental hazard like the smaller kaiju. Does have the decency of eing cr 21, at least.
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After reading through Impossible Lands, I'm thinking that Nex might actually be the ideal big bad to replace Tar Baphon. The book paints a very bleak picture of the man as a worker of great wonders but also as someone who's arrogance caused incalculable harm.
Would be both a believable threat - I'm actually getting the impression that Geb & Nex are/were each more powerful than Tar-Baphon, at least in his current state. But also, he'd be a distinctly different kind of antagonist where he's not actively evil but is still dangerous to the world at large. Also doesn't repeat the undead gimmick.
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Ooh, Nex would be a real wildcard of a big bad—I've always kind of assumed by the end of the edition we'll see him return but not any actual war between them & Geb (just a more general "things are going to shakedown soon") as I kind of feel like they want the Impossible Lands to kind of just be itself for a while and not have the big "oh no they're going to go to war" event until next edition.
I'm not sure if him as the main antagonist is going to happen (personally my money is on the alghollthu), but it sure would be interesting
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It’d be nice to have a big in-progress setting development in Garund, rather than Avistan, for once.
as I kind of feel like they want the Impossible Lands to kind of just be itself for a while and not have the big "oh no they're going to go to war" event until next edition.
Sort of off topic, but this is one thing I sort of like about the presentation. A lot of media (not just ttrpgs but games and movies and literature and etc.) have a problem of introducing a cool setting and then immediately having some major event take place that fundamentally alters the status quo and means you never really get to appreciate what was there in the first place.
So even with the looming specter of things happening I like having a chance to just admire this chaotic world on its own for a bit.
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It could be fun if Nex comes back and is absolutely out of Geb's league, instead posing a threat to much of Garund and near Casmaron. Pushing the ghost king from a personal rivalry into one of many figures in a deeply uncomfortable coalition against a god-like archmage on a warpath could make for a cute subversion. Pitting much of Nex's populace against Nex the man (who has little reason to care for any of them, as a being of ego and arcane power) could likewise be really interesting - especially if my theory about Nexian agents being behind the big explosion in Holomog pans out. Throw in Drooni dino-riders and Eihlonan airships, and you've really got a stew going!
Pathfinder 3e: a world where the Kelesh Emperor learns that something very, very bad has happened on his westernmost border... and we finally get the full map of Garund :P
It could be fun if Nex comes back and is absolutely out of Geb's league, instead posing a threat to much of Garund and near Casmaron. Pushing the ghost king from a personal rivalry into one of many figures in a deeply uncomfortable coalition against a god-like archmage on a warpath could make for a cute subversion. Pitting much of Nex's populace against Nex the man (who has little reason to care for any of them, as a being of ego and arcane power) could likewise be really interesting - especially if my theory about Nexian agents being behind the big explosion in Holomog pans out. Throw in Drooni dino-riders and Eihlonan airships, and you've really got a stew going!
Pathfinder 3e: a world where the Kelesh Emperor learns that something very, very bad has happened on his westernmost border... and we finally get the full map of Garund :P
This reminds me a bit of how the easy way to solve a "lack of setting space problem" is simply to make the world really big.
But I do think size & scale are a bit inconsistent in terms of when they're used to justify a monster being unfightable.
In 1e you had the aspidochelone & the bhole, both larger than any kaiju paizo statted up, but as cr 17 enemies. In 2e, the lophiithu is so massive that it can swallow blue whales whole, but is a fightable monster rather than an environmental hazard like the smaller kaiju. Does have the decency of eing cr 21, at least.
I'm certainly not, so take that as it is. (Though fwiw Dragon magazine tackled kaiju in one of those issues).
But yeah the size thing is a huge problem (no pun intended). I also don't feel that being big should equal high cr on its lonesome.
I'm feeling Nostalgic for Elder Evils today so I'll say I'd like another Monsters of Myth but with every monster being between level 21-30.