Confusion about dates and the AP's time period?

[D3stro 2119]

So excuse me if there's some big twist in a later book that clears up all my issues, but what is the deal with the game's date (is it a different calendar form the Inner Sea one?) and the time period being 100 years before even the 1e APs?

The latter especially confuses me. What is the point of this? This is a four parter that takes place in an isolated region of the world that seems to have nothing to do with the other APs. Why could it not be set in the game's ""present date""?

(minor art confusion as well-- how could Yoon, a child in the time of 1e, be portrayed as a PC in Season of Ghosts as an adult?)

[James Jacobs]

The date uses the standard calendar for Tian Xia rather than the Inner Sea, since it's set in Tian Xia.

The Adventure Path itself is set in the past, only a few years after the start of the Age of Lost Omens, as an experiment we're attempting, and because the story we wanted to tell works best with it being set a few years after the Age of Lost Omens begins.

Also, Season of Ghosts has plot twists, so if folks want to discuss it further please use spoilers.

As part of the edition change, we aged up Yoon to a young adult with the release of Rage of Elements.

When we illustrate iconics in adventures, that's not a presentation of a series of canonical illustrations for those characters. They're just proxies for your PCs, and their appearance in any adventure does not mean they actually went on those adventures... because your PCs do that. For actual stories about the actual iconics, check out the fiction we sometimes publish on our blog or in comic books.

[D3stro 2119]

James Jacobs wrote:

snip

Oh ok. I'm genuinely still confused about why it would be set so far in the past when every other AP was set around a decade of each other, especially since it all seems very isolated in a single small area, but it seems I'll have to wait until all the books are released so I can buy them to make any sense of that.

[keftiu]

The books themselves lay out what's up with that timeline; if you're the GM, the answer you seek is right there in book 1's overview of the entire AP.

As for Yoon, she's aged in real time; introduced as a kid seven years ago, that time has passed for her, too.

[willfromamerica]

Only look at this if you don’t plan on being a player in the adventure.

Spoiler:

The characters in the AP, including the PCs think that they’re living shortly after the start of the Age of Lost Omens, but they’ve actually been stuck in a year-long time loop for over 100 years, and it’s just ended, bringing them to present day.