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(This will be a long post, so there may be errors in the text and lore that I may not notice right away)
My players and I decided to take a break from the protracted pirate campaign and go to another company that we have an interest in. And starting to prepare, reading the general history and "opinions" of other masters, I noticed some aspects that seem strange to me (some of this can be changed and added):
The spaceship fell about 9000 thousand years ago and during this time all the technology was not completely plundered
How the Black Dominion's psycho guns could affect the artificial almost-deity
Hellion as a villain does not have time to reveal himself
The search for Kasandalee without special motivation may not happen
Things that I do not like from the side of history:
Kevoth-Kul is the ruler of Numeria controlled by the techno league and is very passive.
Unity as an archvillain does not have time to interact with the characters, showing them his absolute evilness.
I have some ideas that change the main canon, but in my perception it allows the events to feel logical:
Unity is not an Artificial God who created Hellion and gave powers to Kasandalee. Unity is part of a triple artificial intelligence, along with Hellion and Kasandalee. Unity is a control and order module, Kasandali is a storage module, and Hellion is a defense module. The Black Dominion's cannons did not drive the artificial intelligence crazy, but only divided it into parts, which is why during the crash it already disintegrated into Unity, Hellion and Kasandali. The module that controlled the ship's mechanisms tries to control everything around itself; the module that collected information about various creatures realizes their value; the module that protected, with its actions, strives to destroy the last fragments of what it was called to protect. This gives Unity and Hellion motivation to compete - to fulfill their duty, which was deformed due to the crash.
The Ship itself fell not several thousand years ago, but about 400-300 years from the beginning of the campaign events. This creates a problem that such an event did not attract the attention of the entire, already almost entirely advanced world, but... until I came up with an excuse for this, this may be a convention. This will explain why all the technology from the ship has not yet been plundered, plus in theory connect Unity with the tribes and Numeria, which is below.
The last lore change I am thinking about is the cancellation of a certain "nerf" of Unity. Unity really cannot leave the Silver Mountain without access codes, but it can control a certain number of robots or even people, strongly cybernetizing them and connecting with them.
At the moment, I am working on the second book, having some plans for the third. So far, the rough plan includes the following:
Replace Meyanda with an android controlled by Hellion and give him the ability to annoy players through cameras, starting in the Habitat Dome zone. In the fight with him, he will mention Unity, which will cause him to explode from the nanites in his head. However, he will immediately contact them from Scrapwall, saying that he will send his army to take what he needs. The heroes will have time to get allies, take back the torch with them, and then go after Hellion in Scrapwall.
After the battle with him, and almost victory, they should receive a message from Unity through one of the terminals, who appears as a lawfull good god, asks to spare Hellion and go to Starfall, where they can personally meet the king and get more information on everything that is happening.
I don't like Kevoth-Kul as a drug-addicted puppet of the Technic League, and so I wanted to change him a little, making him, at the time of the meeting in book 3, more menacing and intelligent. Black Sovereign began to appear around the same time that Unity fell according to the new lore. Unity, through some transmitter, after the fall, introducing herself as some strong spirit, influenced the leaders of some tribes, heating up relations between them, but also reinforcing the greatness of the tribe, which it manipulated. As a result of many years of influence, Kevoth-Kul had a true desire to unite Numeria, trusting Unity and the controlled Techno League, but he did not know about the true motivation, which was not to build a correct society. In the end, Kevoth-Kul appears before the characters as a magically and technologically enhanced (including some drugs) King of Numeria, who truly believes that the right Unity, in his eyes, will make Numeria, and then the whole world, better!
At some point, a dead player character, or an NPC important to one of the players, will be heavily cybernetized and through this Unity will appear to the characters, telling them about her "good plans" and telling them what they should do next. At some point, the Kytons from the Chapel of Rent Flesh will appear near the players, and Unity in a cyber body will try to kill the players itself as soon as they are close to receiving the necessary codes.
Regardless of the outcome, it will order the Gearsmen, controlled members of the Technic League and barbarians to collect all the necessary resources to build a satellite with which it, in Unity's opinion, will be able to enslave the entire planet.
What do you think about these ideas and what else can be added/changed?
There's a lot here.
Since you're already looking that the search for Casandalee doesn't happen, how do you plan to replace six levels of experience/treasure? (Lords of Rust ends at 7th, but Palace of Fallen Stars begins at 13th.)
With Unity summoning the party to Starfall upon Hellion's defeat that will become an issue.
There's a lot here.
Since you're already looking that the search for Casandalee doesn't happen, how do you plan to replace six levels of experience/treasure? (Lords of Rust ends at 7th, but Palace of Fallen Stars begins at 13th.)
With Unity summoning the party to Starfall upon Hellion's defeat that will become an issue.
I have no plans to skip books (except perhaps a strong change to Valley of the Brain Collectors, because I don’t really like that everything revolves around aliens, who do not have a key place in the events around Unity). Players will head to Starfall, meet the king, receive certain information and go as planned to search for Kasandalee's body.
edit:
this will allow:
Players will see the inconsistency of Starfall with the promises of Unity and the King to change everything for the good
Unity and the Techic League understand who they need to monitor so that the plans of each of them go as needed and adjust it if necessary
The spaceship fell about 9000 thousand years ago and during this time all the technology was not completely plundered
I had also decided that 9000 years was ridiculous, so I reduced it to 900 years. That had one advantage beyond plausibility: I amused myself by creating a list of all of Casandalee's lives over those 900 years. It had one contradiction that I noticed later: the machine-loving mage Karamoss, mentioned in the Numerian timeline on page 4 of Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Numeria, Land of Fallen Stars and in a paragraph on page 21, invaded Absolom with Numerian high technology in 3637 AR, 1077 years before Iron Gods' date of 4714 AR. If I had to redo the timeline, I would have made the crash of the Divinity Fleet in 3584 AR (1130 years ago) and rewritten Karamoss as a first-generation descendant of Androffan survivors, who combined Androffan technology and Golarion magic.
How the Black Dominion's psycho guns could affect the artificial almost-deity
I had missed that. In my campaign, the Androffan humans had assigned emergency control to Unity because the artificial intelligence was immune to the insanity-causing weapons of the Dominion of the Black. Unity went a little mad with the extra power followed by the frustration of lying broken for centuries before Casandalee fixed its access to repair robots. But mostly, it wanted to control Golarion to build a war machine to stop the Dominion of the Black from ever reaching its homeworld Androffa.
Hellion as a villain does not have time to reveal himself
In my campaign Hellion used the intercom system built into the monitors of the Excavator and the hologram generator in room R1, Temple of Hellion, to repeatedly try to convince the party to join its cause. Itsd explanation about the Dominion of the Black via holograms was useful to the party later in Valley of the Brain Collectors.
The search for Kasandalee without special motivation may not happen
That is a well-known major weakness of the adventure path. I put some notes by Casandalee into Room A14. Nanotech Laboratory, of the Aurora in The Choking Tower mentioning that the attack of Unity's annihilator robots had injured her and separated her from the technological items and weapons she had hidden in the Scar of the Spider. The players could search for the loot even if Casandalee's recorded memories had no interest to them. Then I put Casandalee's excellent loot, such as a plasma thrower, into Cave J, Nemgedder's Folly, in Valley of the Brain Collectors. My players cared more about Casandalee than the loot, but they liked the extra gear and appreciated that Casandalee had had a plan beyond simply running from Unity.
I don't like Kevoth-Kul as a drug-addicted puppet of the Technic League,...
I did not mind that, since a drunken king is a fairly common trope. However, it did not matter in my campaign. The PCs never visited the palace and never met Kevoth-Kul. They did work with Mockery, but only the Dr. Helbroth part.
Unity as an archvillain does not have time to interact with the characters, showing them his absolute evilness.
Heh heh heh. My players derailed the entire plot of The Divinity Drive. I pulled a stunt on them that they managed to contact Unity by radio while still in Starfall. And the technology-loving dwarf Boffin asked Unity for a job, claiming to be a repair crew trained by Casandalee. Unity hired them as a way to get Casandalee back in the Divinity, but the PCs were extremely good at technological repair, so Unity kept putting off killing them. Finally, the party turned against Unity after befriending half of Unity's minions, so it became a civil war inside the Divinity.
Unity is not an Artificial God who created Hellion and gave powers to Kasandalee. Unity is part of a triple artificial intelligence, along with Hellion and Kasandalee.
Canonically in the lore update for Pathfinder 2nd Edition, Casandalee become a god: Casandalee (The Iron Goddess). And in Starfinder lore, the goddess Casandalee merged with Brigh and Epoch to become Triune. This might throw a monkey wrench in any rewrites. However, in my campaign Casandalee chose to instead return to android form (and had a crossover with my Ironfang Invasion campaign), so I wasn't particularly worried myself.
A few threads about my Iron Gods campaign: Iron Gods among Scientists, The Tarnished Halls, Numeria's biggest black market, Inconspicuous PCs Unmotivated in Palace of Fallen Stars, Going Wild with Technology, Make a roll for existential philosophy, and Do I blow up Silver Mount? (Spoilers for a reworked The Divinity Drive)
Mathmuse, thanks for the answer.
Regarding your posts, I saved some for use, but thank you for making links to some interesting ones.
I understand that the ideas I proposed are subjective and may not be entirely suitable. They were formed from my passion as a GM and the players to dilute dungeons with social interactions and stories. Because of this, I had the idea to devote more time to "big" characters, somehow changing them and integrating them into the overall narrative of the story, instead of just appearing at certain moments as hints. For example, I gave the players the opportunity to establish a relationship with Kasandali, making her a sentient datapad that does not remember who she is, but can sometimes help with the discovery of some technological things.
Plus, I got these ideas after I watched the animated series Amphibia, in which a "wild fantasy world" also collides with technological evil:D
Plus, I got these ideas after I watched the animated series Amphibia, in which a "wild fantasy world" also collides with technological evil:D
I am amused at imagining Casandalee in the role of Darcy, AKA Dark Marcy, from Amphibia.
Plus, I got these ideas after I watched the animated series Amphibia, in which a "wild fantasy world" also collides with technological evil:DI am amused at imagining Casandalee in the role of Darcy, AKA Dark Marcy, from Amphibia.
For Darcy, I planned some kind of important NPC for the players or a dead player character, so that the players would have the motivation to save both the body and the world, through the visible distortion of the character’s body and behavior.
Although the option is with Kasandalee's body or control of the player's cyberbody (one of the players is going to go completely into cybernetics). As I said above, this will allow players not to guess about the danger of Unity from some rumors, Hellion or Kasandalee, but also to see for themselves the “arch-enemy” and his danger.
Sounds like some good modifications for your game. My only concern would be in revealing the other menaces too early, as players have a tendency to start heading in that direction to the detriment of the earlier installments. Have fun with it. Good luck!
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The spaceship fell about 9000 thousand years ago and during this time all the technology was not completely plundered.
Consider the timeline:
- Earthfall -5293 AR.- Age of darkness, from -5293 to -4294 AR
The Age of Darkness was a thousand-year period in which the sun's light was blocked by the ash knocked into the atmosphere by the meteoric impacts of Earthfall. It began with the impact of the fragmented Aeon Star in -5293 AR and lasted until the sun's light was restored around -4294 AR. During the Age of Darkness, all major civilizations across Golarion were destroyed, ushering in a time of anarchy and destruction.
- Rain of Stars - 4363
In -4363 AR, a gigantic metal vessel from outer space on a collision course with Golarion broke apart in the atmosphere, creating a meteor-like shower that spread across the land. Chunks of the vessel fell to the earth across Numeria, some the size of fists and others as large as cities. The largest piece impacted in the central plains and is now known as Silver Mount, while the next best-known site is called Scrapwall, located near the Sellen River in eastern Numeria.
So, Divinity fell during an ice age caused by the meteorite. Probably the whole area was covered by a kilometer of ice, like Antarctica.
People living there at the time probably had little or no metal. Cutting a hull made of skymetal with stone and bone utensils isn't feasible.
Then:
Effects on Numeria
Many of the events following the Rain of Stars have had lasting negative effects on Numeria. Thousands of years after its impact, the ship's radioactivity continues to mutate, stunt, or kill the region's flora and fauna.
The local Kellid population explored many of the crash sites soon after the Rain of Stars, a practice that changed soon after an unknown tribal chieftain in the Felldales triggered a catastrophic explosion in -3116 AR. The blast destroyed his tribe, sent a mushroom cloud and shaft of light into the sky, and poisoned the region for miles. Now fearful of the technological items, most Kellids subsequently buried or destroyed any new discoveries.
The Kellid explored what was easily accessible and mostly stopped when they discovered that it was more dangerous than hunting monsters.
The Silver Mount was finally opened in 4512, only 202 years before Iron Gods' date of 4714 AR.
The Technic League traced its history to 4501 AR, when the low-ranking Androffan soldier Sidrah Imeruss, sole survivor of the crash of the starship Divinity, was awakened from a stasis chamber where she had been in suspended animation since the ship crashed on Golarion in the Rain of Stars in -4363 AR.4
...
The Technic League grew as a secret society for several years, accumulating new members and resources as it planned an expedition into the Silver Mount before eventually setting off in 4509 AR. However, shortly after the League arrived and encamped, Sidrah was betrayed and assassinated by her second-in-command, a wizard named Mulrach-Zeer, who then declared himself the new leader of the League.
Following Zeer's betrayal, it took the League three years to cut a passage into the Silver Mount, a period during which they first began experimenting with the intoxicating fluids that ooze from the Mount.
If you look at Golarion's history, most advanced and populous civilizations born after Earthfall were based between the Equator and the Tropics, not in the far north, whose ice cap probably had been slowly receding for millennia. So there wasn't a steady line of ants slowly picking at the mostly buried starship. There were a few exceptional individuals plundering lesser vessels or accessible parts of the main starship and, at the same time, trying to stop other people from doing the same to keep what they discovered exclusive.
Add the other "little" problems the area had in the last millennia: the Whispering Thyrant, the work of Belkzen, a lesser faerie lady who likes to kill civilizations, the recurring plagues from Iobaria, and you see why it is still mostly unplundered.
Citations thanks to Pathfinder Wiki.
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A thing one of my players pointed out yesterday (their characters are currently in the area and I am using some parts of Iron Gods for inspiration): the heat for the reentry should have made the hull searing hot. As the area was covered by ice, it probably melted a hole through the ice till it reached bedrock. But then the ice reformed above the ship, stopping people without magic and a lot of levels from reaching it until the ice started to melt.
It is possible that some of the lesser vessels and especially the smaller debris weren't embedded so profoundly in ice, making them accessible to the ancient Kellid.