I'm working on something for Osirion and am waiting for some of the first edition stuff to arrive to help me figure out more about the place, but one thing I want to get a jumpstart on is what the most common baddies are.
Like some nations have big problems with goblins or orcs or hobgoblins (until they became nations) and I know Katapesh has a lot of gnolls, and I think neighboring Thuvia has issues with divs, but the wiki isn't helping with Osirion. I know the sphinx are really important to the lore but they're not exactly common. Instinct makes my mind jump to mummies and sand zombies but I figured there might be more, is there?
If you're out in the desert, probably the most common threat is going to be mundane. Despite its reputation, Osirion isn't crawling with undead, though there are some large necropoli you can find them. Your average merchant or adventurer is more likely to be menaced by Gnoll raiders, especially in the south. But once you get into some of the really deep desert, you find nastier things - Death Worms, Giant Scorpions, elementals who were freed from the magical items or structures they were bound to, etc. You might also find the occasional Sha and Serpopard, and hostile hieracosphinxes. And along the riverbank which runs along the vast majority of habitable land, you get crocodiles, hippos, hydras and the massive Hetkoshu crocodiles, even bi8gger than deinosuchus. Cults to the eldtitch Old Gods or Rovagug himself roam beyond civilisation, and since 2e started ancient Thuvian constructs have begun hauling themselves out of the desert sands and struggling to make sense of a world that long ago forgot the culture that built them.
But there are plenty of potentially friendly faces - Desert Giants are intimidating but not innately hostile, and are paid to escort caravans. The Yerbira desert peoples are reclusive, but willing to trade. Mafdets and Girtablilu might look fierce, but if you approach with respect and tact happy to interact peaceably. Sphinxes are notoriously temperamental, especially androsphinxes, but can be placated. And the Vourinoi desert elves are quite friendly, though defend their territory when they have to.
Otherwise, you can have a loot at the 1e CRB's Desert encounter table for an idea.
Thanks for the assist! It's really interesting the lack of a sort of external enemy monster. Though I suppose it pushes the adventure focus on rooting out cults of Rovagug and such and tomb raiding.
I saw another post of yours where you said you were really into Osirion so I'm glad you responded, cause I had another question.
Looking into it, I saw Osirion Pantheon and figured that that would be the dominant one in the area but it looks like they are more of a "vestige of the past" with even the Ruby Prince being a cleric of Abadar. Does the Osirion Pantheon have enough of an impact there that champions and clerics of their gods wouldn't be seen as some sort of throwback? Do they have organized religion and temples?
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Osirion's native gods have seen better days, but the eighteen or so gods listed in Mummy's Mask, who mostly made it to 2e, are the ones whose cults still cling to life, and may be only a fraction of the original pantheon - the real-life Egyptians had a LOT of gods, including some fairly major ones that don't have 1e or 2e equivalents, like the Theban triad of Aun, Mut and Khonsu, the Aten, etc. Tooting my own horn a bit, I statted out a whole bunch of Egyptian gods, including some Greek and Canaanite gods known in Egypt, for 1e and am building myself up for a 2e conversion (converting 69 gods is a daunting idea, and I have only myself to blame). When the Keleshites conquered Ancient Osirion, they set about closing the temples and rooting out their worshippers and priests. But Wati still had functioning temples of Osiris and Thoth when the Plague of Madness devastated it, well into the Sultanate period, Tephu still has a functioning temple to Thoth and Maat and shrines to all the old gods but Set, and Ra and Horus are noted as having small temples in major cities. So the description of Keleshite purges may be a bit of an exaggeration.
How I've been handling it is that the Satraps who were installed originally mistook the gods as demons, maybe Rakshasas, but they very quickly realised their mistake when Sarenite clerics and paladins began falling from grace as they demolished the temples and turned their priests out into the streets, and when the crowds didn't cheer for "freeing" them from their "tyranny." They couldn't undo the damage, and didn't want to prop up gods that weren't their own and which encouraged nationalist sentiment since their grip was still tenuous, but they stopped and left the native lower classes to their own devices while they propped up gods they were more familiar and comfortable with - Sarenrae, Pharasma, Abadar and Nethys (native to Osirion, but so internationally popular even the Keleshites didn't dare touch his temples lest they piss off every wizard in the Inner Sea, even the ones who don't worship him), a policy continued when the last Satrap died and was replaced by the first Sultan. The original religion's decline has been a long, gradual one ever since, cut off from the royal patronage it once enjoyed, and long ago eclipsed by the internationally popular gods who have major temples now, but struggling on through pride and stubbornness. Wadjet thrives still among commoners, a benevolent embodiment of the lifegiving river, and Apep has a few cults too, representing the omnipresent destructive forces that border either side of the riverbanks, but most of the other gods' cults have been struggling without the big temples and state money, losing worshippers with every generation. Southern Osirion has fared better - all the cities south of An - since the Satraps and Sultans mostly let them run their own affairs as long as they paid their taxes and defended the southern border, but in the north you'd be lucky to find a handful of churches with shrines to multiple gods for the remaining faithful or the inquisitive to pay their respects, where once there were vast temple monuments and royally-appointed priesthoods.
But with the restoration of the new Pharaohs, Osiriani culture is enjoying a renaissance, and if some plucky adventurers or wealthy nobles throw enough money their way, some new temples could be built and people able to rediscover and connect to their ancestors' heritage. My players already helped a priest of Osiris build a small church in Wati, and based on their activities in Tephu the Nethysians there look likely for a sharp decline in fortunes and might give the Thoth and Maat clergy room to take back some power.
Interesting, thank you! I thought they were relegated to niche groups but wasn't aware how much, given the little reference material I've seen. Still it is does seem something that can easily be adjusted by the GM or impacted by the PCs like yours did.
Your document is really helpful, too. Good luck on the update!
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
If you're using 1e materials, People of the Sands is a good overfiew of Northern Garund as a while, Osirion: Legacy of Pharaohs is exactly what you want for the setting, and Mummy's Mask book 1 and 3 has gazetteers on the cities of Wati and Tephu specifically. So far, I don't believe Paizo has released any one-shots, adventure paths or setting guides for Osirion of the Golden Road metaregion as a whole, but I'm hopeful that will change eventually, if not necessarily very soon.
It's really interesting the lack of a sort of external enemy monster. Though I suppose it pushes the adventure focus on rooting out cults of Rovagug and such and tomb raiding.
One of the problems with Osirion is that a LOT of it assumes that the players themselves will be external forces, sweeping into a foreign land to uncover its secrets, playing into tropes established by stories like Indiana Jones or The Mummy. Osirion has no external enemies because it IS the external enemy, from the players' (expected) point of view. And I think a 2e revamp really needs to address that, and provide much more localised incentive to adventure. There's a something like 4500 year period of Satraps and Sultans, where you can have Keleshite horsemen crusading against foul Divs who make their homes in the western deserts bordering Thuvia, Genie-Binders negotiating with the elemental clans of the Scorpion Coast, palaces and temples and monuments that don't need to have anything to do with the Pharaonic period, a rich legacy to draw on that hasn't been sketched out, and gets overshadowed by the pyramid stuff. The real-life Mamluk Sultanate was a fascinating time, as was its history as part of the earlier Abbasid, Fatimid and Ayubbid Caliphates, and there is a wealth of (often overlooked) Egyptian history and culture to draw inspiration from there.
I assume this was just a typo, seeing as you're (one of?) the resident Egypt expert(s) here, but for the sake of anyone less familiar with that aspect of history, the Ayyubids (i.e. Saladin and family) were a dynasty of sultans, not caliphs. I shall resist going off on a tangent about who they did recognize as caliph and the religious and political complexities of that...more to the point, I agree, that part of Egyptian history is quite underrated and could serve as a fun inspiration for Osirion as well--the corresponding era in Lost Omens covers a whole three millennia!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I assume this was just a typo, seeing as you're (one of?) the resident Egypt expert(s) here, but for the sake of anyone less familiar with that aspect of history, the Ayyubids (i.e. Saladin and family) were a dynasty of sultans, not caliphs.
Apologies, yes, it was a typo.