For understandable reasons, the kaiju of Golarion are mainly based around Tian Xia.
But what if this wasn't the case? What if, for as long as recorded history, the kaiju had been sleeping and fighting around the Inner Sea region?
Where would they call home? And what would change about the setting?
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I'm not familiar with kaiju as a specific monster of Golarion, but in the field of giant monsters that level cities, there's the Spawn of Rovagug. The Tarrasque and Ulunat and more certainly fit the bill.
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I've often wondered if you could do something with the concept of waking a kaiju, because it's the only thing big enough and mean enough, to take on Rovagug's spawn. Alternatively, we haven't heard much about Spawn who made their way to Tian Xia - if they can travel as far as Garund, then surely Tian Xia isn't beyond them. Perhaps they stay away precisely because the Kaiju are already there? Or perhaps we just haven't heard about some ancient and epic battles between the native Kaiju and the monstrous Spawn, and you could come up with some really Cool Stuff (tm) in a hypothetical Tian Xia setting guide?
https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Kaiju
Most recently they were covered in Monsters of Myth, which is what reignited my interest in them.
So my question, if I didn't make it clear in the original post, is less about giant monsters coming to the Inner Sea and more about how the setting would be different if they were always here.
Kaiju are different from The Spawn in a couple of key ways, the first being that their origins are (mostly) mysterious and they tend not to be actively destructive. Like Godzilla and the monster movies that inspired them they are usually ignorant of human cities they are smashing, because they exist on such a different scale.
But, for example, in our Kaiju Inner Sea I can imagine Taldor being very Anti-Kaiju. They remember the destruction the Tarrasque brought, and people saying "but this giant rampaging monster isn't the same as that giant rampaging monster" is unlikely to convince the empire.
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The more remote parts of the Inner Sea region are a good place to set sleeping kaiju. The Realm of the Mammoth Lords
If they exist in the Realm of the Mammoth Lords, someone's already tamed and riding one.
I'm positive the are kaiju in the Eye of Abendego, too.
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https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Kaiju
Most recently they were covered in Monsters of Myth, which is what reignited my interest in them.
So my question, if I didn't make it clear in the original post, is less about giant monsters coming to the Inner Sea and more about how the setting would be different if they were always here.
Kaiju are different from The Spawn in a couple of key ways, the first being that their origins are (mostly) mysterious and they tend not to be actively destructive. Like Godzilla and the monster movies that inspired them they are usually ignorant of human cities they are smashing, because they exist on such a different scale.
But, for example, in our Kaiju Inner Sea I can imagine Taldor being very Anti-Kaiju. They remember the destruction the Tarrasque brought, and people saying "but this giant rampaging monster isn't the same as that giant rampaging monster" is unlikely to convince the empire.
Taldor's founding myth features its namesake Taldaris slaying the Grogrisant, a huge mythic lion, descendants of which were sometimes slain by Taldan heroes through its history. Other than Varisia's Black Magga, that's the closest I can think of to a kaiju in the Inner Sea. And even they truly pale in comparison to the power and size of true Kaiju.
I think if Kaiju actually existed in the Inner Sea, they wouldn't really be functionally different to the Spawn of Rovagug since the Kaiju spend most of their time slumbering until annoyed or challenged, whereas the Spawn are either slain or bound. To the average person, it doesn't really matter if the big monster is asleep or banished to an extradimensional space as long as it isn't actively wandering the wilds.
Chelish Mechs? These are the ideas campaigns are made of!
I think one of the reasons that there aren't a bevvy of Kaiju around the inner sea is that if you look at the map of Golarion, the Inner Sea region is actually fairly small. It's diverse in terms of biomes, cultures, people, etc. but it doesn't occupy a lot of geographic space. Avistan is the smallest continent and the part of Garund that isn't in the Inner Sea is bigger than the whole Inner Sea region.