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Am I the only one who wants more Razmiran content? And adventure path or setting book even would be great! I love the module Jason Bulmahn wrote "Masks of the Living God" Razmiran is such an interesting and unique place being ruled by a cult, imagine an adventure in the streets of a nation like that where you feel you're being watched by everyone because they are all brainwashed into believing Razmir is a God. So much could be fleshed out about the country in a setting book too. Am I alone in this feeling?
I know others like it, but it's probably my least favorite bit in Golarian; and probably the only book (that I can picture Paizo publishing) that i would unsubscribe to skip.
I know others like it, but it's probably my least favorite bit in Golarian; and probably the only book (that I can picture Paizo publishing) that i would unsubscribe to skip.
Oh wow you feel that strongly about it I'm curious as to why?
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Not alone in the least, truth be told, he is one of the most intriguing and interesting NPCs heading and society and culture that has quite a bit of untapped potential, IMO it's certainly more interesting than yet another region book that focuses on some Paizo-fied real-world nation/culture analogue.
It's a wholly unique splinter of fiction and a corner of the world that doesn't have to draw on existing (and some might say tired) tropes of things like a kindhearted nation of jungle dwellers, rough-nature folk of a coastal country, or aloof and haughty yet highly spiritual monarchs who live on a far east continent.
This and the whole Aroden stuff is Golarion fiction that I feel they're holding way too close to their chest, maybe for sentimental reasons, perhaps for considerations like demographic appeal, or whatever else but I've always felt the really unique stuff like that and to a lesser extent the high-tech stuff ala Iron Gods etc, shines the brightest because it has more spontaneous and creative driven thrust to it versus just trying to fill an "expected setting hook/niche area" hole. Kingmaker is also another example of something kinda like this that hadn't really been done too robustly in popular D&D too and is, I THINK, part of why that IP is so freaking successful and popular... man now that I think about it I really wish they made a PF2 Video Game based off Iron Gods or in Razmir, that would be awesome.
Much of what seems to get the most traction, which I UNDERSTAND, are those kind of things like, oh this is the Pirate area or the Ninja society or the Vikings but also a little different to set OUR version apart from the rest of how it's been done before.
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Not alone in the least, truth be told, he is one of the most intriguing and interesting NPCs heading and society and culture that has quite a bit of untapped potential, IMO it's certainly more interesting than yet another region book that focuses on some Paizo-fied real-world nation/culture analogue.
It's a wholly unique splinter of fiction and a corner of the world that doesn't have to draw on existing (and some might say tired) tropes of things like a kindhearted nation of jungle dwellers, rough-nature folk of a coastal country, or aloof and haughty yet highly spiritual monarchs who live on a far east continent.
This and the whole Aroden stuff is Golarion fiction that I feel they're holding way too close to their chest, maybe for sentimental reasons, perhaps for considerations like demographic appeal, or whatever else but I've always felt the really unique stuff like that and to a lesser extent the high-tech stuff ala Iron Gods etc, shines the brightest because it has more spontaneous and creative driven thrust to is versus just trying to fill an "expected setting hook/niche area" hole.
That is exactly how I feel, iron gods and numeria is a great setting too and we got a setting book for that but I feel like we only got that because it had an adventure path in it. Razmir is so mysterious like how did he get where he is and where did he originally come from? What does the society look like? And we got a glimpse of the society in... an actual play jason bulmahn gm'd I think knights of everflame but I don't remember. It was so creepy and unsettling the way he ran it and the atmosphere was tense, it was the perfect feeling for a whole adventure path.
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The most interesting thing Razmir could do, IMO, is die.
I've seen a cult of personality before, and his 'clergy' have become pretty familiar with a decade+ of their schtick playing out. I wanna see what happens when the house of cards has to endure a swift kick or two!
Unless it's an AP to kill Razmiran, no, I don't want to see more of him.
The most interesting thing Razmir could do, IMO, is die.
I've seen a cult of personality before, and his 'clergy' have become pretty familiar with a decade+ of their schtick playing out. I wanna see what happens when the house of cards has to endure a swift kick or two!
Die, and then deny it ever happened.
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Now, if he did die and come back, seemingly or actually ALIVE or perhaps Undead (but obviously not, I mean come on, that's no ghoul/lich/shade, he's perfect guys, get a CLUE) that could be pretty interesting for sure.
I'd rather see him actually attain his actual goal though and earn his place in the pantheon though, that'd give the setting a bit of shake-up and really sort of validate while also ironically invalidate the cult at the same time.
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The most interesting thing Razmir could do, IMO, is die.
I've seen a cult of personality before, and his 'clergy' have become pretty familiar with a decade+ of their schtick playing out. I wanna see what happens when the house of cards has to endure a swift kick or two!
Yeah you could say the same for abrogail thrune too, best thing she could do is die but that doesn't mean you can't use her to make a great story, or almost any nation in the inner Sea. They are almost all ready to topple like a house of cards.
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Now, if he did die and come back, seemingly or actually ALIVE or perhaps Undead (but obviously not, I mean come on, that's no ghoul/lich/shade, he's perfect guys, get a CLUE) that could be pretty interesting for sure.
I'd rather see him actually attain his actual goal though and earn his place in the pantheon though, that'd give the setting a bit of shake-up and really sort of validate while also ironically invalidate the cult at the same time.
I dont think people see what we see, they aren't seeing the potential for story like we are.
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All Razmir, all the time. :)
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Yeah you could say the same for abrogail thrune too, best thing she could do is die but that doesn't mean you can't use her to make a great story, or almost any nation in the inner Sea. They are almost all ready to topple like a house of cards.The most interesting thing Razmir could do, IMO, is die.
I've seen a cult of personality before, and his 'clergy' have become pretty familiar with a decade+ of their schtick playing out. I wanna see what happens when the house of cards has to endure a swift kick or two!
I don’t mean “he should die for being a villain,” I mean “his cult being decapitated is more interesting to me than anything I can imagine him doing.”
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We've told "infiltrating Razmir's cult". We've told "stop Razmir from getting immortality". That's about all the status-quo stuff that he had in PF1. In PF2, he's got the "selling out to Tar-Baphon" thing going on, so that's new. It also doesn't feel like there's an adventure to be had from that without changing the status quo further. Razmir's just been getting older and putting off problems for a decade, and he started out old and putting off problems. The dude has gotta die, actually get immortality in an interesting way, or be invaded with consequences so dire that helping out a scumbag like him is worth it for the sake of the people in his country.
Razmir is a cool setpiece for the setting, but Razmiran seems harder to adventure in than any of the other evil nations. It's stressful cult oversight top to bottom, and it's even hard to get buy-in from the players for an villain game because everybody knows that Razmir is a fraud.
I am probably biased, or not the target audience. I was a player in Masks of the Living God, and I found it to be one of the most unenjoyably stressful games I've been in. It felt like you couldn't do anything.
I'm plenty interested in "what's going on with Razmiran as the setting progresses", but it's not something I'd want an adventure in as it stands. Neither side would be appealing to me.
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Now, if he did die and come back, seemingly or actually ALIVE or perhaps Undead (but obviously not, I mean come on, that's no ghoul/lich/shade, he's perfect guys, get a CLUE) that could be pretty interesting for sure.
I'd rather see him actually attain his actual goal though and earn his place in the pantheon though, that'd give the setting a bit of shake-up and really sort of validate while also ironically invalidate the cult at the same time.
No, no undeath. Or even coming back. An old man just doesn't get up from bed one morning. Peaceful, natural old age, without any back ups or strings attached.
But "Razmir" still somehow shows up for the morning sermons.
I want the man to die, and the lie itself to live, thrive, and move on without him. The man never lived up to the lie. The truth just held the lie back.
In more plain terms- I want the metaphysical manifestation of his lie to succeed where Razmir failed.
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I believe there's a couple little weird hints in some PFS scenarios about some mysteries regarding Razmir's parentage, and we know he's got his fun little thing going on about his false identity he uses to scope out the Starstone Cathedral. They're definitely building up to SOMETHING involving him,.
Imagine having to kill Razmir (likely because of his ties to Tar-Baphon, perhaps to gain lichdom), but for the sake of the country either having to replace him somehow, prevent others from replacing him, or perhaps another is already poised to replace him as a new, improved "Razmir" who might actually be a god or creature on the edge of apotheosis.
"The Razmir you knew was merely my avatar/disciple/whatnot." (whether true or not, if only for the sake of societal control)
Of course Razmir's a bit high level to begin an AP with killing him, but maybe in the penultimate chapter, and maybe w/ heavy links to the Tar-Baphon arc which many have proposed should take multiple APs to resolve...but would get dull if solely focused on TB & his minions.
And then there's the issue of cult members being well, cult members, so likely unable to process Razmir's death/failure/falsehood. Like many religions & denominations, many would leave, yet many would reconstruct events/prophecies/history so that it all makes sense in light of their cult's teachings and everybody else has misinterpreted it.
So they could remain an active force, albeit diminished and perhaps contrasted with apostates trying to make amends. Meanwhile the PCs get to make a significant impact at least in spirit, taking out a villain that has outlasted his usefulness (at least in his current incarnation).
And then there'd be the question of what's so interesting re: adventuring about the country afterward? Super-nature abhors a narrative vacuum. :-)
I personally want "deal with Razmir" to be something the players actively get to take part in instead of kind of just it being purely natural causes, in large part because once he's dead such stories with him are by nature cut off; though this isn't to say it has to be it's own AP, like many others have said it could act as part of a Tar-Baphon AP (what especially helps as the brevity also doesn't make it feel like ending that storyline with a "tune in to future Lost Omems books to see what happens to Razmiran now!" to not feel like as much as a copout seeing the Razmir plot was never a massive part)
My personal vision would be a part in a Tar-Baphon AP which covers "Razmir's last ditch attempt to become immortal" with it covering Razmir being faced with something terminal and utterly selling out his nation to try and make a deal with Baphon to become a lich, with party having to save the nation and stop the ritual, thus causing Razmir to promptly die from whatever he was facing (probably make it entirely possible for the party to kill him themselves, but make "he died of semi-natural causes" the canonical death as it feels more narratively fitting). Then, after that you can go and have the new chaotic status quo of Razmiran (and all the plot hooks it involves) be included in future publications.
We've told "infiltrating Razmir's cult". We've told "stop Razmir from getting immortality". That's about all the status-quo stuff that he had in PF1. In PF2, he's got the "selling out to Tar-Baphon" thing going on, so that's new. It also doesn't feel like there's an adventure to be had from that without changing the status quo further. Razmir's just been getting older and putting off problems for a decade, and he started out old and putting off problems. The dude has gotta die, actually get immortality in an interesting way, or be invaded with consequences so dire that helping out a scumbag like him is worth it for the sake of the people in his country.
Razmir is a cool setpiece for the setting, but Razmiran seems harder to adventure in than any of the other evil nations. It's stressful cult oversight top to bottom, and it's even hard to get buy-in from the players for an villain game because everybody knows that Razmir is a fraud.
I am probably biased, or not the target audience. I was a player in Masks of the Living God, and I found it to be one of the most unenjoyably stressful games I've been in. It felt like you couldn't do anything.
I'm plenty interested in "what's going on with Razmiran as the setting progresses", but it's not something I'd want an adventure in as it stands. Neither side would be appealing to me.
I thought Razmir is
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I think Razmir's the one on the forums asking "How much does turning into a lich distort the mind?"...for a friend.
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So... Rasmiran adventures that are both interesting and fun?
The problem is that the interesting part about Razmir is the dissonance - the tension between the fact that this country is run by a pack of fanatical priests who assert boldly and forcefully that this guy is a god an the fact that he's actually *not*, and cant' actually do the job, and the strain as they try to fake it. The fact that he's mortal and slowly dying (as all mortals are) is part of the point.
So first of all, the Razmiran situation is an interesting piece for adventures that aren't actually set *in* Razmiran. They're potentially interesting as secondary antagonists in a number of ways... but none of those ways really advance the Razmir Plot or call for a book that delves into the country all that deeply.
Past that...
- Anything that actually gives Razmir the ability to grant clerical powers or otherwise makes him more of a God makes the situation less interesting.
- Anything that makes Razmir legitimately immortal and not-dying makes the situation less interesting, unless the method itself brings in some interest. We already have one Devil-Worshipping Nation and a few Undead Nations, so it's goign to be a serious push to make *those* interesting.
Razmiran themes are all about conspiracy and lies within lies and fanaticism and gaslighting and people doing horrible things to prop up a lie that is constantly decaying. So for the most on-theme thing you could do...? Add on more lies. For this, I really like someone pulling droskarite shenanigans. Droskar in particular has a feat that lets his priests wield divine power while pretending to follow some other deity entirely. Razmiran priests can't use divine power, but Droskarite priests who are pretending to be Razmiran priests can... and Droskar is not opposed to the idea of stealing the fruits of someone else's labors and passing it off as your own.
So basically, we wind up with a situation where the Razmiran cult is being infiltrated by people who are better at pretending to be Razmiran prists than they are. Suddenly the cult has access to clerical spellcasting! This is great for them, because it helps them patch up their lies a lot, but everyone who can do it isn't actually a devout follower of the Living God. Well... how much do they care? I imagine that it differs between priests. There's all *sorts* of opportunities for individual priests and power blocks to embrace this or fight bloody shadow wars against it or whatever as the entire priesthood convulses in little internal wars and everyone involved tries very hard to not let anyone outside realize that anything's actually going on.
But... that's not necessarily so much fun for the PCs, I'm thinking, at least not from the inside. Might be moderately entertaining for PCs who were sent as diplomatic attaches from some other country, trying to figure out what's going on enough to act in ways that benefit themselves and/or their employers. Might work pretty decently as a dwarf-based AP, actually, with a "dealing with resurgent Droskar" theme if we hadn't just had a dwarf-based AP.
Of course, we could also have the "Razmir dies" storyline, but with all the build-up, it would be hard to leave something more interesting in the wake.
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If we need a nation run by a God/'god' and his clergy with an iron fist, with a population who mostly believes in their leader's divinity and rightness while revolutionaries need to be very very careful, Walknea now exists.
If we need a nation where obedience to dark forces and rigid social codes are the cost for stability Nidal is there.
If we need the PCs to deal with a cult - sham or otherwise - running a community, well there are dozens of places that could be (and a bunch of already published adventures showing all sort of variations of it). For a single adventure the difference between the place where you're constantly under watch and need to be on guard amongst a whole populace of 'true believers' and secret police being a town, a city, or a whole nation doesn't really matter. And an entire campaign of just that would get repetitive.
I think Razmir/Razmiran was a solid world-building idea but for me I don't think there's much more meat on the bone that would be both new and make for a good adventure to play that couldn't instead be done somewhere more unique or less already-explored.
So... Rasmiran adventures that are both interesting and fun?
The problem is that the interesting part about Razmir is the dissonance - the tension between the fact that this country is run by a pack of fanatical priests who assert boldly and forcefully that this guy is a god an the fact that he's actually *not*, and cant' actually do the job, and the strain as they try to fake it. The fact that he's mortal and slowly dying (as all mortals are) is part of the point.
So first of all, the Razmiran situation is an interesting piece for adventures that aren't actually set *in* Razmiran. They're potentially interesting as secondary antagonists in a number of ways... but none of those ways really advance the Razmir Plot or call for a book that delves into the country all that deeply.
Past that...
- Anything that actually gives Razmir the ability to grant clerical powers or otherwise makes him more of a God makes the situation less interesting.
- Anything that makes Razmir legitimately immortal and not-dying makes the situation less interesting, unless the method itself brings in some interest. We already have one Devil-Worshipping Nation and a few Undead Nations, so it's goign to be a serious push to make *those* interesting.Razmiran themes are all about conspiracy and lies within lies and fanaticism and gaslighting and people doing horrible things to prop up a lie that is constantly decaying. So for the most on-theme thing you could do...? Add on more lies. For this, I really like someone pulling droskarite shenanigans. Droskar in particular has a feat that lets his priests wield divine power while pretending to follow some other deity entirely. Razmiran priests can't use divine power, but Droskarite priests who are pretending to be Razmiran priests can... and Droskar is not opposed to the idea of stealing the fruits of someone else's labors and passing it off as your own.
So basically, we wind up with a situation where the Razmiran cult is being infiltrated by people...
While this is a good point, I want to point out that the Razmiran cult has already begun to manifest divine spellcasting and clerical powers. I believe this is mentioned in the Gods & Magic, and may have been said on a podcast as well. I will try and find the source and link it in this thread, but it's already beginning to happen and not by infiltrators but long time faithfuls of the church.
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A Ctrl-F for "Razmir" pulls up nothing in Gods & Magic. I'd love a source for that, because I haven't seen it anywhere.
A Razmir adventure path would be an instant buy for me. I'd be cool with a party deposing him, replacing him, or anything in between.
A Razmir adventure path would be an instant buy for me. I'd be cool with a party deposing him, replacing him, or anything in between.
I was mistaken. The quote I heard was from the Deities of Golorion - Pathfinder Fridays stream.
https://youtu.be/OmoXpNvhcAQ?t=3503At 58:23 they talk about it and that an organization wanting to pretend to be divine would seek out divine sorcerers and other such casters who can cast divine spells but do not receive them from a deity.
I must have just completely misremembered it. My apologies.
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You're not mistaken actually, in PF1 there was full support for the Clerics of Razmir who did functionally provide divine power and domains despite him being labeled a false god.
A whole prestige class was built around it, he straight up is able to and does provide Charm, Evil, Law, or Trickery Domains to the most devoted of his priests. Given that Sorcerers (which had a PF1 Archetype specifically for Razmir) now can straight up be Divine from the get-go I figure we are really just waiting on JB to get enough free time to finish whatever plots he has spinning in his head for an adventure featuring this stuff so they can slot mechanical rules in for support of this again.
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You're not mistaken actually, in PF1 there was full support for the Clerics of Razmir who did functionally provide divine power and domains despite him being labeled a false god.
A whole prestige class was built around it, he straight up is able to and does provide Charm, Evil, Law, or Trickery Domains to the most devoted of his priests.
I don't think that's entirely an accurate summary of the prestige class - it requires you to be a powerful arcane caster to take a level, and it advances your arcane casting. It also doesn't give you the whole of the domains, just giving you the abilities of them. I'd say the flavour is pretty clear that it's more about becoming more capable of tricking people into thinking you're divinely empowered - it gives you Channel Energy and Cure Light/Moderate/Serious Wounds, but changes them to not actually heal, but give out temporary hit points that the target thinks are healing until they expire. It's about maintaining the illusion of divine power, not actually getting divine power.
I remember reading about clerics of Sivanah disguising themselves as clerics of Razmir in support of the cult. No idea where I read that though, could be making it up. It's a funny idea, though.
I have to assume there's some idea mulling around about what cool things to do with Razmir. He's basically the reason why clerics of philosophies don't exist (if they did, he wouldn't be a fraud) so he's pretty important to the concept of the setting.
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They could have Razmir die, but have the clergy pretend he is still alive and rule in his stead with illusions/ polymorphs/etc.
AP wise, could be the players are low level priests that work their way up and eventually uncover this falsehood.
Go the other way: it's a 10-20 campaign where YOU are the priests trying to Weekend at Razmir's.
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However, I will remind you that Razmiran, more than any other evil force, can raise a character about the institutional nature of evil, which cannot be defeated by killing the leader of the villains. Razmir is not so much a direct "god" as a mask. Anyone can take his place.
I think an unusual plot could be a political-detective story where the group confronts Razmiran in order to find out that now we are faced with the third Razmir at this place.
A PC must become the Fourth Dread pirate Roberts.