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Eh, we've got Rarity for a reason in 2e, and it puts Dwarves and Gnomes on par with Humans for the Inner Sea. Humans might be the most populous of the bunch, but I quite like that none of the CRB bunch are raising eyebrows most places - and that some regions move other Ancestries down to Common the same way!
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I feel like both ways are good for different things. On the one hand, you can create a really interesting, tightly themed setting where to humans, elves are those strange tall people who live in the giant forest over there, orcs are the mighty warriors of the badlands (and to elves, humans are the strange stocky people who cluster on the fields where they make their own food, and to orcs humans are the little folk who are almost as good beast wranglers as themselves)
On the other hand, it would feel rather strange if these people have been living on the same planet already for millennia but still have barely integrated into each other's societies. I feel like once a place gets large enough, it should be a big enough a deal that any people who participate in this whole civilization thing can plausibly be found there, often in proportionate numbers.
And of course, a city the size of Absalom can be truly cosmopolitan, while maybe a town in a nation where simply due to geographical distribution there is a different proportion of species present. We can have it both ways, even in one setting, if we choose.
I feel like both ways are good for different things. On the one hand, you can create a really interesting, tightly themed setting where to humans, elves are those strange tall people who live in the giant forest over there, orcs are the mighty warriors of the badlands (and to elves, humans are the strange stocky people who cluster on the fields where they make their own food, and to orcs humans are the little folk who are almost as good beast wranglers as themselves)
On the other hand, it would feel rather strange if these people have been living on the same planet already for millennia but still have barely integrated into each other's societies. I feel like once a place gets large enough, it should be a big enough a deal that any people who participate in this whole civilization thing can plausibly be found there, often in proportionate numbers.
And of course, a city the size of Absalom can be truly cosmopolitan, while maybe a town in a nation where simply due to geographical distribution there is a different proportion of species present. We can have it both ways, even in one setting, if we choose.
Oh sure I have no problem with doing things as they would logically turn out. Just too many times the default to human is just because of obvious internal bias.
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1) Any True Elixir of Life drastically slows down your aging speed to a practical zero, for about a month.
2) Monks who unlocked the Timeless Body ability DO potentially live forever unaged (until they "ascend to a higher existence" or do something similar).
3) Your soul doesn't get degraded to building blocks for the Outer Planes if you want so, and no harmful repercussions at all.Those are what I'd immediately change. Others, I might think of in some other free time...
Fwiw this really exhibits the shortcomings of the system (that existed in 1e and SF as well) in failing to reconcile story with mechanics. Or even make a solid benchmark system for that kind of thing.
Yep, Osirion bugs me for this exact reason. What is doubly weird is that Kobold Press’ Midgard Campaign Setting does exactly the same thing with their nation of Nuria-Natal, replete with Egyptian gods et al. I just don’t understand why this region is so compelling to be lifted almost whole cloth..twice.THREE times if you count Mullhorand from Forgotten Realms!
Like I said, twice.
There is a reaso….umm, hundreds of reasons it is called the Forgotten Realms.
Some of y'all didn't have an ancient egypt phase as kids & it shows.
Studied Eqypt in Ancient History all through high school. Loved poring through Desroches and Noblecourt et al back in the day. Happy to leave it as history.
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My biggest gripe with paizos golarion is how human centric it is, a trope that I never liked in any fantasy media with multiple intelligent ancestries. I find fantasy much more interesting were humans are neither especially common nor especially well liked or influential compared to other ancestries. I was especially disappointed when I read that even absalom is like 80% human, when I always imagened absalom as a fantasy metropolis where all kinds of cultures exist right next to each other, where it's normal to see a conrasu barkeeper or a strix courier and small parts of the city are almost entirely controlles by sprites or poppets.
But it's not a big deal, I just add NPCs to adventures to make uncommon/rare ancestries seem more common and slightly change the lore.
This.
I also modify a lot of races/ancestries in many different ways.
For example, there are differences between elves native to Castrovel and elves from Castrovel that now live on Golarion, not to mention elves found elsewhere. I also am a lot more generous with "racial abilities" for lack of a better term, all to fit the setting better.
Incidentally, to clarify this a bit more, I take some inspiration from MnM and generally try to both make ancestries/races more "super" so to speak and allow for more options and possibilities.
Fwiw PF2e has already done a surprisingly decent job of expanding options (unlike, say, DnD 5e where that game's inherent limitations make certain things genuinely a pain to try to work with/homebrew for).
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On the talk of "outsiders" and deities, in keeping with making things more "epic", but also less "cut and dry", I've made it so not only do the "half-outsider/spirit" races (and races in general) have "greater" abilities so to speak, but outsiders and deities in general are things I've been trying to make more "mysterious", while also not being obtuse.
Incidentally, MnM's Warriors and Warlocks supplement gives surprisingly good general advice for worldbuilding in terms of directly making a fantasy campaign-- I vaguely recall a reviewer claiming that its writers could handle DnD better than the current holders of that property.
To note, on ancestries/races, I wanted to give them flexibility/variety in choice as well as actually useful and awesome "racial abilities/powers". Feats/class abilities also got a lot of revision in the same vein.
Also, one more detail: guns and the like are more prevalent in my setting, being "core handbook weapons" so to speak. Because honestly, I don't see why they should be so excluded in a fantasy setting that specifically has support for them, and I think that overthinking their "irl lethality" and other related minutia is pretty ridiculous.
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I don't have much to add here that others haven't, but my major changes:
1) far less humanocentric, in the sense that the major nations of the Inner Sea have waaay more nonhumans in them and this is considered normal because it's always been that way. Giants, kobolds, goblins, firbolgs, and lycanthropes in particular are not random encounter material but often long-established citizens of various nations, or recognized holders of their own fiefdoms that engage in trade/intrigue/conflict with their neighbors like any other polity.
2) Firearms are more common (radiating out primarily from Alkenstar, the Shackles, Irrisen, Ustalav, and Oprak) with clockpunk in particular becoming more and more common in those specific areas. My "pirate party" campaign had a ship that could fly thanks to a genie wish and they weren't subtle about it, so rigid-framed airships are becoming popular as other powerful leaders see the Queen of Disaster and wonder why they don't have a flying ship too! And once one area has them, everyone else gets in on it as well.
3) space-fantasy connections in the sense of witchwyrds with void-capable vessels seeking out trading partners, and Verces is also building their own such vessels. Triaxus is going to have an industrial revolution soon.
4) currently GMing a Reign of Winter campaign, and I'm not at all certain Irrisen's fate will match the Lost Omens canon; I think it was a wasted opportunity not to make a larger change there.
5) I also have Yggdrasil, though it's more fey/First World flavored! I like the concept of the irminsul, but the statblock execution was atrocious--so I use them as living site of connection to the World Tree.
And I reeeeaaaaallllyyy want to run some adventures in southern Garund, the part of the continent Paizo hasn't visited yet. I keep hoping they'll give us more than the bare hints we've gotten so far.
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I don't have much to add here that others haven't, but my major changes:
1) far less humanocentric, in the sense that the major nations of the Inner Sea have waaay more nonhumans in them and this is considered normal because it's always been that way. Giants, kobolds, goblins, firbolgs, and lycanthropes in particular are not random encounter material but often long-established citizens of various nations, or recognized holders of their own fiefdoms that engage in trade/intrigue/conflict with their neighbors like any other polity.
2) Firearms are more common (radiating out primarily from Alkenstar, the Shackles, Irrisen, Ustalav, and Oprak) with clockpunk in particular becoming more and more common in those specific areas. My "pirate party" campaign had a ship that could fly thanks to a genie wish and they weren't subtle about it, so rigid-framed airships are becoming popular as other powerful leaders see the Queen of Disaster and wonder why they don't have a flying ship too! And once one area has them, everyone else gets in on it as well.
3) space-fantasy connections in the sense of witchwyrds with space-capable vessels seeking out trading partners, and Verces is also building their own such vessels. Triaxus is going to have an industrial revolution soon.
4) currently GMing a Reign of Winter campaign, and I'm not at all certain Irrisen's fate will match the Lost Omens canon; I think it was a wasted opportunity not to make a larger change there.
5) I also have Yggdrasil, though it's more fey/First World flavored! I like the concept of the irminsul, but the statblock execution was atrocious--so I use them as living site of connection to the World Tree.
And I reeeeaaaaallllyyy want to run some adventures in southern Garund, the part of the continent Paizo hasn't visited yet. I keep hoping they'll give us more than the bare hints we've gotten so far.
I like this take on the setting. Personally I really lean into the "magic/science" thing and allow a lot of gadgets and devices based on that (mostly because I think "steampunk" is really overdone).
I also really like the decrease of humanocentrism, which has never made sense in these settings.
Golarion is also medium industrial or industrializing across the myriad different parts of the world, though it is different in different places. Magic/science definitely has a major impact on it as well.
Incidentally, as much as I love advanced themes, I've brought all the planets of the system more or less in line with each other since some of them are bafflingly more developed than others, which only gets worse of you use the original way-too-long timescales (something I think the writers didn't really plan out). I've also changed their qualities slightly, in different ways.
Having said that, the nature of Golarion and its system in my setting means that a lot of space-fantasy/scifi stuff can and will happen.
Ps: incidentally, in terms of paizo publications, I really want more Casmaron stuff, so I can adapt it to my "Golarion" setting.
When it comes to running games I think the major things I change are ancestry backstories, particularly with Elves. That's not to say that I dislike the elven lore in Golarian at all, it's just my playgroup is very well-read on the more traditional LotR elves or Forgotten Realms Drow. One of my friends has read the novels and I've also done a lot of research recently for a Menzoberranzan game and I don't like that going to waste. I like trying to use the geography and gods of the main setting a lot though. My players like the deities and are willing to learn about the different regions. Sometimes I'll use the smaller adventures and alter things a bit or find a sandbox and plop it into an established area. Like for example right now I'm using the Isle of Kortos and the Abomination Vaults as a centerpiece for a small sandbox game using an old-school adventure that helps fill out a surrounding area.
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Don't expect any familiar members of the Cthulhu Mythos in my games. I love the setting's unique cosmic horrors, but our old friends from the public domain have worn out their welcome with me.
...except Hastur. I've always got a little room in my heart for Hastur. Who doesn't?
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Don't expect any familiar members of the Cthulhu Mythos in my games. I love the setting's unique cosmic horrors, but our old friends from the public domain have worn out their welcome with me.
...except Hastur. I've always got a little room in my heart for Hastur. Who doesn't?
[Insert rant about how Cthulhu is massively overrated in practically all media involving him; he was bonked and damaged by a low-powered steam/sailing boat and gave up]
Also, I actually like the elf lore, even if I have changed the ancestries as a whole. The idea that "elves are aliens" is a really good one and sets one of the tones of the setting (something I really wanted the setting to play into more rather than just being "bog standard fantasy").
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Don't expect any familiar members of the Cthulhu Mythos in my games. I love the setting's unique cosmic horrors, but our old friends from the public domain have worn out their welcome with me.
...except [REDACTED]. I've always got a little room in my heart for [REDACTED]. Who doesn't?
Something I'd like to see more of and Golarion'd be a great place to do it would be cosmic horrors who aren't hostile to normal beings, just indifferent or maybe even outright LIKE the small insignificant and very fragile creatures, kind of like how entomologists can gush for hours on the cuteness of whatever their favorite bug is.
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My internal logic for so many fantasy settings being humanocentric, was expressed by Ambassador Delenn on "Babylon 5": Humans share one unique quality. They build communities. If the Narns or the Centauri or any other race built a station like this, it would be used only by their own people, but everywhere humans go, they create communities out of diverse and sometimes hostile populations. It is a great gift and a terrible responsibility, one that cannot be abandoned."
-- Delenn in Babylon 5:"And Now For a Word"
Something I'd like to see more of and Golarion'd be a great place to do it would be cosmic horrors who aren't hostile to normal beings, just indifferent or maybe even outright LIKE the small insignificant and very fragile creatures, kind of like how entomologists can gush for hours on the cuteness of whatever their favorite bug is.Don't expect any familiar members of the Cthulhu Mythos in my games. I love the setting's unique cosmic horrors, but our old friends from the public domain have worn out their welcome with me.
...except [REDACTED]. I've always got a little room in my heart for [REDACTED]. Who doesn't?
Fwiw I've heard some serious takes that Desna is some kind of "benevolent Outer God". Between the domains and the non-humanoid "standard appearance" so to speak that theory actually holds some water.
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My internal logic for so many fantasy settings being humanocentric, was expressed by Ambassador Delenn on "Babylon 5": Humans share one unique quality. They build communities. If the Narns or the Centauri or any other race built a station like this, it would be used only by their own people, but everywhere humans go, they create communities out of diverse and sometimes hostile populations. It is a great gift and a terrible responsibility, one that cannot be abandoned."
-- Delenn in Babylon 5:"And Now For a Word"
Tbh that's more of a reason to have humans in a lot of communities, and less "humanocentrism --even the most cosmopolitan areas are 80+% human".
If anything there is more reason to have mixed, cosmopolitan places.
Something I'd like to see more of and Golarion'd be a great place to do it would be cosmic horrors who aren't hostile to normal beings, just indifferent or maybe even outright LIKE the small insignificant and very fragile creatures, kind of like how entomologists can gush for hours on the cuteness of whatever their favorite bug is.Don't expect any familiar members of the Cthulhu Mythos in my games. I love the setting's unique cosmic horrors, but our old friends from the public domain have worn out their welcome with me.
...except [REDACTED]. I've always got a little room in my heart for [REDACTED]. Who doesn't?
Fwiw I've heard some serious takes that Desna is some kind of "benevolent Outer God". Between the domains and the non-humanoid "standard appearance" so to speak that theory actually holds some water.
I see that take a lot, but I don't think I've ever seen where it actually came from. I think I've seen a refutation but I don't remember if that was the thing.
If I understand correctly, Desna's original form might have been something like a giant butterfly entity made of moonlight, much like how Sarenrae was a beam of golden light. Before humans, elves, or even angels existed, they had different forms from the ones they do now, but now they're more likely to appear in this form.
It seems like the strange biology, the ancientness, and the assumption of a Form You're Comfortable With have probably run off with the usual exaggeration that normally comes with describing cosmic horrors and outer gods, but maybe there's something more specific and concrete that I haven't heard of.
Not that I would turn down somebody who really liked the idea and wanted to make that a reality in their home game. Sounds pretty sweet, honestly.
Something I'd like to see more of and Golarion'd be a great place to do it would be cosmic horrors who aren't hostile to normal beings, just indifferent or maybe even outright LIKE the small insignificant and very fragile creatures, kind of like how entomologists can gush for hours on the cuteness of whatever their favorite bug is.Don't expect any familiar members of the Cthulhu Mythos in my games. I love the setting's unique cosmic horrors, but our old friends from the public domain have worn out their welcome with me.
...except [REDACTED]. I've always got a little room in my heart for [REDACTED]. Who doesn't?
Fwiw I've heard some serious takes that Desna is some kind of "benevolent Outer God". Between the domains and the non-humanoid "standard appearance" so to speak that theory actually holds some water.
I see that take a lot, but I don't think I've ever seen where it actually came from. I think I've seen a refutation but I don't remember if that was the thing.
If I understand correctly, Desna's original form might have been something like a giant butterfly entity made of moonlight, much like how Sarenrae was a beam of golden light. Before humans, elves, or even angels existed, they had different forms from the ones they do now, but now they're more likely to appear in this form.
It seems like the strange biology, the ancientness, and the assumption of a Form You're Comfortable With have probably run off with the usual exaggeration that normally comes with describing cosmic horrors and outer gods, but maybe there's something more specific and concrete that I haven't heard of.
Not that I would turn down somebody who really liked the idea and wanted to make that a reality in their home game. Sounds pretty sweet, honestly.
Hey I have no problem with either interpretation, considering I've already done a lot of revisions to "the gods" anyways.
The fact that Golarion Elves are aliens puts me to mind of one of my favorite fantasy comics series "Elfquest".
Fwiw I feel the "fantasy" part of the "Golarion" setting is important too.
I ended up heavily adjusting the second half of fall off plague stone and used my players character creation choices to create an entirely home brew world.
It's not that I dislike golarion,I actually like it. I just did my own thing lol
The idea that "elves are aliens" is a really good one and sets one of the tones of the setting (something I really wanted the setting to play into more rather than just being "bog standard fantasy").
I very agree. I was actually disappointed to find out elves weren't the major race on Castrovel like I'd long thought they were. If there's ever a thread about changes we made to the Starfinder setting, I have some notes.
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The idea that "elves are aliens" is a really good one and sets one of the tones of the setting (something I really wanted the setting to play into more rather than just being "bog standard fantasy").I very agree. I was actually disappointed to find out elves weren't the major race on Castrovel like I'd long thought they were. If there's ever a thread about changes we made to the Starfinder setting, I have some notes.
I mean, they’re just as major as the other two they share Castrovel with (the Formians and Lashunta). Given how many ancestries share Golarion, it would be a little silly if their neighbor was wholly Elf Planet, no?
I mean, they’re just as major as the other two they share Castrovel with (the Formians and Lashunta). Given how many ancestries share Golarion, it would be a little silly if their neighbor was wholly Elf Planet, no?The idea that "elves are aliens" is a really good one and sets one of the tones of the setting (something I really wanted the setting to play into more rather than just being "bog standard fantasy").I very agree. I was actually disappointed to find out elves weren't the major race on Castrovel like I'd long thought they were. If there's ever a thread about changes we made to the Starfinder setting, I have some notes.
Meh. I'm okay with monocultures in sci-fi settings, but that's really a Starfinder thing. I'm just saying I'd imagined Castrovel as being the elf planet, not just a planet where they are hidden recluses, taking a back seat to their antenna friends.
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I had a whole list of things before I took a hiatus from the setting. Off the top of my head, I can recall:
Kobolds being a much more common and "accepted" species, and not so evil. Actually had a kobold paladin to Apsu in one of my games. This is just mostly me liking kobolds, especially what Kobold Press did with them in the Midgard campaign setting.
Orcs are from Akiton originally, where they are a more dominant species, the Golarion branch being accidental immigrants that ended up in the Darklands. Partially this is just me running with the idea of "(not so ) little green men". Also they just sort of seem a species that would evolve in a Pseudo-Barsoom environment. Also I found it amusing to to think of "Elves are from Venus and Orcs are from Mars"
If I wasn't so married to Golarion canon, I'd steal that in a heartbeat - wow! Akitonian Orcs is a really fun pull, especially with it rhyming with Castrovelian Elves.
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I've also set up a number of crossover points with my other settings, through my Planescape Future "nexus" setting.I would very much like to see what you have done! Your input is encouraged.
I don't like and do not use the golarion setting. The rules for PF2e are robust and you can, (and I have), homebrew up your world with no problem.
So, my advice would be to keep whatever is useful for you and your table and throw away anything that is not useful.
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I love Golarion and haven't changed it terribly much, aside from little bits and pieces here and there to make the backstories my players make up fit better in the world (also some Shackles stuff). I try not to change too much because it's nice to have that synchronicity with the gradual world changes that occur on Paizo's release timetable. There is one big thing though that I've been cooking up in my way-too-scarce free time since last year. Just waiting for RollforCombat to come out with their new Eldamon book: but I finally decided what I want to do with Sarusan! Oh the times we will have.
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Definitely not for everyone, but the groups I play with prefer a lot more realistic, gritty strife so in my Golarian there are no matriarchal societies, racial strife runs amok (even defining certain heads of state), slavery is presented as functional pragmatism rather than diabolical evil, etc. Even some "good" nations only allow enslavement of "lesser" humanoid ancestries but are morally opposed to enslaving their own.
My players happen to love it as it gives them a chance to be even greater beacons of good in a dark world and they run into unique challenges that they enjoy overcoming (such as playing an ancestry they know will expose them to bigotry)
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Umm. But matriarchal society is neither unrealistic nor egalitarian utopia ._.
There aren't any historical examples of large matriarchal societies, typically they were smaller on the order of tribal or communal in nature. Golarian has many examples of large orders or whole ancestries which is perfectly fine, just not the way my group prefers their setting.
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When I last run Pathfinder the biggest changes was.
Gods - where more regional. While some crossed over regions they was seen slightly different, sometimes with different names and looks in different regions. As it helped reflect the differences in cultures.
Numeria - was turned into a more traditional fantasy nation. Personally not a fan of scifi/magic mix, same reason i am not a fan of shadowrun game, but love cyberpunk.
magic - low end magic is sorta common, in that alchemy and herbalism mimic many things you might find. Such as herbalism birth control, Alchemy bath heating, airships(expensive but around, yet still fairly rare) etc. While higher magic is a bit more rare than default.
tech - kinda covered in magic above, you might find things you would find from our world from the 1500-late 1800's as far as tech. Not steam punk but borrows some elements from it. (mostly because I love steam punk)
alignment - it was a lot less hard and fast and turned into a gradual scale. Neutral in the middle with the two extremes being good/evil and lawful/chaotic. So if detect evil was cast it could have results of. faint evil traces(some starting down the evil track from neutral), to mildly evil(what is called we had names but I can't find my notes at the moment they are in a box somewhere), fairly evil, to pure evil(for those at the end of the scale) and same for the rest.
As for 2e changes I have read on it some and i like some of the changes, some of it I love and some I don't. So personally I when I next run a game, go with 1e setting while burrowing a fair bit from 2e setting.
As far as the Devil, daemon, and demon discussion the main difference is demons are cool of course. Smarter, better looking, just over all better.
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Which make me actually wonder what feurin meant by saying that there was no matriarchal society in his golarion, because as far as I know, only the drow would qualify as one in golarion lore. Gnoll tribes are sometime qualified as a matriarchy, but only in the sense that religious power is held by gnoll women, not the military one, nor do gnolls especially discriminate against men.
Did he meant that his setting was a lot more patriarchal rather than egalitarian? Did he meant that there are no women head of state (I seriously doubt it's this one, because if it's the case it would be the opposite of historically accurate, women at the head of a powerfull state weren't frequent, but they have been occuring thorought all of history)?
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Umm. But matriarchal society is neither unrealistic nor egalitarian utopia ._.There aren't any historical examples of large matriarchal societies, typically they were smaller on the order of tribal or communal in nature. Golarian has many examples of large orders or whole ancestries which is perfectly fine, just not the way my group prefers their setting.
I wish I could understand suspending my disbelief far enough for aliens, dragons, elves, mammoths, and nanomachines all sharing a setting, but drawing the line at ”women in charge in some places.”
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Also, it's Golarion, not Golarian.
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I wish I could understand suspending my disbelief far enough for aliens, dragons, elves, mammoths, and nanomachines all sharing a setting, but drawing the line at ”women in charge in some places.”Umm. But matriarchal society is neither unrealistic nor egalitarian utopia ._.There aren't any historical examples of large matriarchal societies, typically they were smaller on the order of tribal or communal in nature. Golarian has many examples of large orders or whole ancestries which is perfectly fine, just not the way my group prefers their setting.
Every ancestry in the CRB is a bipedal, two armed, vaguely human-like mammalian creature. They could have just as easily been mammoths, oozes, and animated swords, but as it happens people like settings that resemble the real world to a degree.
Some tables prefer verisimilitude.
Did he meant that his setting was a lot more patriarchal
Yes, generally. Women experience discrimination regularly in the world in most civilizations, with the exception of the Elves due to their alien nature (though there are some notable NPC exceptions among other civs) None of the human civilizations have a female head of state and only a handful of the more monstrous ones do. Things like Anadi matriarchy are rewritten, etc, etc.
I get it's not most people's cup of tea but my group (including my wife) prefers it. They see it as challenges to overcome.
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The vibe I'm getting here is less "we want virisimilitude (sp?)" and more "we want these societies to feel familiar to our own". And to be clear, nothing wrong with that at all! That said, it's not a matter of realism at that point, it's a matter of sacrificing some realism to gain an aesthetic, not unlike matriarchy drow themselves. ;P
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That's the first time I see a mention of the anadi having a matriarchal society, I was under the impression that they were a lot more egalitarian than anything else, where living in small tribes where everyone have to contribute by doing a bit of everything meant that there weren't strictly defined gender role. The only mention I can see of anything ressembling a matriarchy for them is that grandmother spider is seen as their "matriarch"... Which is just a way of saying that she's the top godess of their pantheon, and not an indication that their society is a matriarchy.
As far as I know is what happen in human society in the real world as well, small isolated societies are egalitarian by necessity, because everyone need to participate in every effort, while only larger and more technologically advanced group have the luxury of having a large number of "expert" working in specialised craft, and with them of enforcing stricter gender roles.
It's making me curious tho, I guess this "no female human head of state" apply to cheliax (certainly see how it work, being both the perfect exemple of a country based on european medieval fantasy, and allied to hell, a place that was described in lore as extremely patriarchal), but are you also enforcing this for runelords, who are in their positions because of their "one in a billion" magical prowess? Have you played curse of the crimson throne, and if so, did you genderbend the antagonist?
Presumably, those Runelords would be exceptions to the rule. You can have a female ruler in an otherwise patriarchal society. England's been ruled by queens for a long time.
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[...]I was under the impression that they were a lot more egalitarian than anything else, where living in small tribes where everyone have to contribute by doing a bit of everything meant that there weren't strictly defined gender role.
Can I ask where you got "small tribes" from? LO:ME doesn't say a ton about the shape of Anadi society, but it does talk about many cities in their homeland of Nurvatcha.
Mostly found in their home nation of Nurvatcha, anadi settlements are traditionally built with techniques developed before the discovery of transformation magic. As a result, these cities have often been built upon cliffsides or in dense jungles that can support anadi webs. In the capital city of Domithari[/b], a council of elected officials congregate around the Empty Throne, an honorary seat reserved for Grandmother Spider, though no one expects her to assume the mantle of monarch. In the city of Majabi, the finest scholars among the anadi people make homes above and below the surface. Majabi also houses the First Weave, a tapestry of arcane infused webbing that documents the earliest anadi transformation spells.
It reads to me like the Anadi are a people with a pretty complex culture and an awful lot of architecture going on. There's no mention of them being tribal at all.
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Presumably, those Runelords would be exceptions to the rule. You can have a female ruler in an otherwise patriarchal society. England's been ruled by queens for a long time.
Correct. Any individually powerful person/entity was left untouched (this obviously extends to gods such as Iomedae). Remarkable outliers certainly exist in the world and the PC's are meant to highlight that.
As far as Abrogail Thrune goes I did make them male but I kept the name since it was suitably androgenous. Certain orders are male-only (Chain, Rack, Pyre) while others allow some female staff in limited roles (Godclaw, Scourge) and in the specific case of Gate they are more or less equal in strength excepting that paralictor/paravicar is the highest rank they can attain and there are no Mistress of Blades in any order, only Masters.
[...]there are no Mistress of Blades in any order, only Masters.
You got rid of Maidrayne Vox? I don't buy that a Centaur woman is any weaker than a human man.
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[...]there are no Mistress of Blades in any order, only Masters.You got rid of Maidrayne Vox? I don't buy that a Centaur woman is any weaker than a human man.
Yep, he's Madeus Vox. It was more to be consistent with all of the Hellknight orders restricting MoB and Lictor roles to male-only than anything, I agree that as a monstrous race I could have just as easily left her female.
Interestingly enough my PC's are about to meet Madeus next session or so. Running a modified Age of Ashes wherein the Order of the Nail has finally decided to finish the mess they left behind in Isger and the PC's are working on infiltrating the political ranks of Elidir in order to mount a defense against a looming Cheliax incursion.