Pathfinder needs a “History of Golarion” and “Lost Omens Metaplot” products

[CULTxicycalm]

First of all, they would sell like hotcakes.

But more importantly, they would be terrifically useful to people, especially newcomers. And the more time passes and more products are released, the more this is true.

In addition, Paizo needs an internal tool that connects all mentions of places and people and events, a kind of internal wiki. I read the other day that the guy making an Azlant product had to search the forum for mentions of Azlant or something. That’s commendable on his part, but also very amateurish for a multimillion dollar company.

Obviously the Pathfinder Wiki covers some of these needs, but from what I have seen nowhere near what’s needed. When I was looking for the major connection between RotR and CotCT there was no resource that could help me so I made a thread and even then most people didn’t know until ONE guy happened to see the thread and gave an amazingly long and detailed answer. But if he hadn’t happened to see the thread, maybe I still wouldn’t know the connection and I NEEDED to know it because I am running two parties playing the two APs in the same world and I need to know how far apart in time to place them. “Just make it up” is not an acceptable solution to me. I am fully aware I can also make my own campaigns and settings and rule systems, but I don’t want to: I want to play what Paizo wrote. Problem is when your game weighs in at tens of thousands of non-searchable pages, it’s next to impossible some times to find what that is.

I get it that Paizo isn’t very technically savvy. This charmingly outdated forum and attached store are merely the most obvious proof of that. They are a book publisher after all, not a multimedia company; their expertise is in book publishing. When they do multimedia they partner with multimedia firms, which is part of the reason their multimedia efforts are so much better than D&D’s (lmao at Project Sigil being shut down; sidenote: Paizo should partner with TaleSpire and dominate also 3D VTTs as they now dominate 2D with Foundry). But... they’re still not good enough in some areas, and one of them is managing the scarily fast-expanding worldbuilding that’s probably even threatening to undermine their own worldbuilding efforts at this point and not only mine.

The worst will come when the people like James Jacobs and Erik Mona retire. The new generation will have it very tough at that point. I certainly foresee the collapse of metaplot efforts and lore consistency at some point if this issue isn’t handled. It’s kind of scary to me on how few shoulders this whole gargantuan edifice is balanced. To be sure, it is also at the same time kind of awesome, but it can’t continue like this forever. I just don’t see how it could.

Maybe it’s something that the community can handle. I will probably get there at some point, though it could take five-ten years at the rate I am going. I might start a thread to see if I can harness the community so that many people are contributing. Some efforts have been made in the past, and there have been some results, the greatest of which is the wiki. But I still had to make a thread about one of the biggest and oldest connections between two of the oldest and most famous APs, so imagine how much more subtle stuff is basically unknown to almost everyone. As a perfectionist, this scares me, and I am afraid I WILL have to make up stuff in the end when I end up running two PFS Scenarios in the wrong order just because I didn’t know the order, and then have to edit the connection on the fly to have it make sense.

I know none of this stuff is the end of the world. I know the RPG community’s reaction to any hyper-detailed concerns is “Just relax and make up stuff! You’re just rolling dice with friends, not writing world history!” But then I see how seriously Erik Mona researches his own company’s work in the Casmaron thread by basically asking the community to help him, and I know the people who architected this world are on the perfectionist side and not the “nothing really matters” side. And I believe their work is getting harder every year and will suddenly get 10x harder when people like Erik Mona retire.

Hopefully I’ll have a tool that gets the job done by then, and I can offer it to his successor. But I really think this should be an official job, and the setting will massively benefit from it.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

[Cintra Bristol]

I would happily buy these products.

[Morhek]

I'm not worried about what happens when Jacobs and Mona retire. They're not the only competent people who can maintain an overarching metanarrative, and even if their successors change things, change isn't bad.

But I certainly think having a proper book just for the history is a good idea, and that you can pair that with GM resources by having chapters on the ancient empires as plot fodder. Let that knowledge be cordoned off from knowledge of the modern setting, making it feel like something rare or that needs discovery, and also allow you to go into more detain than a general setting guide can. Let a hypothetical Lost Omens: the Golden Road focus on the modern world, with a few references to the truly ancient stuff to give a sense of antiquity, and then have a hypothetical Lost Omens: Fallen Kingdoms book have full sections on things like the Jistkan Imperium, the Tekritanin League, Ancient Osirion that you can use for plot hooks and story threads. The same applies to other ancient empires, like the Shory of Garund, Taumata Empire of Tian Xia, Koloran and Ninshabur in Casmaron, Old Razatlan in Arcadia, and of course Azlant and Thassilon, plus any others Paizo would like to create for parts of the world we haven't seen much of yet. Add in some archetypes, backgrounds, feats and spells to represent those lost or faded knowledge and skills, and the people uncovering and reviving them, and that would be a fascinating book to read.

[CULTxicycalm]

It’s not an issue of competence. You can be hyper-competent, but if you haven’t read tens of thousands of pages of the lore, you... won’t know the lore.

It’s an issue of experience. We’re getting to the point where the next generation of writers will have to take 4-year classes in Golarion History before they can create stuff that links up well with older stuff instead of ignoring old stuff like D&D does now and just creating random new stuff that makes the world feel dead.

Change in direction is also only possible if you KNOW the current direction. If you don’t know it, it’s not change, it’s bulldozing. Again see Forgotten Realms.

I have not seen this mentioned anywhere but Pathfinder is the biggest fictional setting ever, and it’s not getting smaller. It’s getting even bigger every month. That is awesome, but it also is a problem.

In all honesty I just see the project as imploding the moment a handful of people retire. The new generation just won’t have the drive, just like the D&D worlds are now pale shadows of what they were. It’s in the nature of progress to be a matter of diminishing returns, and Pathfinder has been pushing worldbuilding so hard and for so long that past a certain point it simply becomes too hard to keep pushing further, or to even maintain the current standards. It’s not an accident that no one has written a better novel than Proust: it’s just extremely hard because of how hard he pushed the novel. Maybe he will never be surpassed.

If Paizo means to keep pushing, they will at some point need some advanced tools to help them do so. You can climb a mountain without special breathing equipment, but you can’t go to space without it.

Paizo will need these tools. I already need them, because I am a newcomer. But some day, Paizo will need them too. And judging by the Casmaron thread, they would already be very helpful to them.

[CULTxicycalm]

Btw Morhek’s idea for an ancient history book is awesome, but instead of contributing to the solution it contributes to the problem because it merely creates one more lore-rich book that many GMs won’t read, or even know about. We need a META-lore book that creates NOTHING but merely points to what EXISTS so that EVERY GM can buy this book and get a handle on the lore’s ARCHITECTURE. And it’s best if the product is digital and constantly updated.

It’s the 21st century. I know this is a book-publisher but the book format has limits that our culture has long passed. At some point Paizo will need to think of modernization if it wants to continue growing its world complexity as it has been doing since the start.

[CULTxicycalm]

At the very least we need a timeline with ALL products on it. Figuring out the temporal sequence of one line of products is fairly easy, but figuring out how ALL the lines fit together is practically impossible at this point without constantly begging strangers to help you. Just the other day I found a thread that listed the Korvosa content in order, and I didn’t even know there was an order to it. And that’s just ONE city on one continent!

[Dancing Wind]

CULTxicycalm wrote:

We need a META-lore book that creates NOTHING but merely points to what EXISTS so that EVERY GM can buy this book and get a handle on the lore’s ARCHITECTURE. And it’s best if the product is digital and constantly updated.

That would be the wiki.

Every article in the wiki documents (with links) exactly where in the canon the information comes from.

You could start from scratch yourself, but it seems like you'd be better served by putting your energy into improving the wiki.

[CULTxicycalm]

Okay so the wiki needs an in-lore timeline of products, to start with. I’ll get to working on that.

[keftiu]

Yeah, the wiki still needs a lot of help catching up to 2e canon, especially in places like Garund and Tian Xia.

[zimmerwald1915]

keftiu wrote:

Yeah, the wiki still needs a lot of help catching up to 2e canon, especially in places like Garund and Tian Xia.

Be the change you wish to see in the world.

[Dragonchess Player]

A more comprehensive "History of Golarion" would probably be a useful compilation of all the bits and pieces revealed in the various APs.

However, an official "Lost Omens Metaplot" tracking the NPCs and (expected "canon") effects of the events in previous APs would:

1) Invalidate one of the stated goals of the Golarion setting and APs that groups can run the APs in any order or not at all without having to worry (mostly) about continuity with the "official" setting; only a few APs have (usually limited) reliance on certain events in other APs happening.

2) Go against Paizo's wish to not get into a situation like the Forgotten Realms where they would need to track setting changes for every AP and keep republishing location guidebooks with the updates. Prior to the remaster and the War of Immortals widespread war, the metaplot adjustments have been pretty localized for the most part. Closing the Worldwound in Wrath of the Righteous and the release of Tar Baphon in Tyrant's Grasp were the only "big" changes (IMO) before the fight against Treerazer in Spore War.

[Castilliano]

Most of the APs didn't have a canon finish until much later (if ever). Even then Paizo doesn't present it as authoritative over however events unfolded at your own table. AP-endings-canon acts as a placeholder which as mentioned only impacts a few following APs, sequels or if in the same region. Of course GMs with alternate canon might have to connect the dots themselves to set up the next AP.

PFS has alternate timelines too, especially when there are multiple "win" options. Each PC has their own Golarion history which interweaves with those of other PFS PCs. Different orders of events, different results, different heroes attributed honor, etc.

I've played around with PFS meta, once remarking "Didn't you die?!" to an NPC who very well had died in front of my PC (and with much honor/tragedy). And now she was fine, assigning us a new mission. The GM rolled with it well, having the NPC accept that as fact, act stunned, quip to relieve tension, and move on despite this puzzle she'd have to solve. And there's the common "I don't remember you being there??" to other players when discussing a previous scenario. The PFS special events which have the largest story impact are weighted so nearly all conventions (et al) can succeed even if individual tables might struggle, so there's that for continuity I suppose.

Which is to say, like most everything about PF2, the game & setting serve the narratives of each table above rules, and above some single vision Paizo holds (if the employees could even find consensus!).

[keftiu]

zimmerwald1915 wrote:

keftiu wrote:

Yeah, the wiki still needs a lot of help catching up to 2e canon, especially in places like Garund and Tian Xia.

Be the change you wish to see in the world.

I have been - a number of Mwangi-related pages were updated by me - but there's still work to be done, which is why I phrased it that way!

[Perpdepog]

Dragonchess Player wrote:

A more comprehensive "History of Golarion" would probably be a useful compilation of all the bits and pieces revealed in the various APs.

However, an official "Lost Omens Metaplot" tracking the NPCs and (expected "canon") effects of the events in previous APs would:

1) Invalidate one of the stated goals of the Golarion setting and APs that groups can run the APs in any order or not at all without having to worry (mostly) about continuity with the "official" setting; only a few APs have (usually limited) reliance on certain events in other APs happening.

2) Go against Paizo's wish to not get into a situation like the Forgotten Realms where they would need to track setting changes for every AP and keep republishing location guidebooks with the updates. Prior to the remaster and the War of Immortals widespread war, the metaplot adjustments have been pretty localized for the most part. Closing the Worldwound in Wrath of the Righteous and the release of Tar Baphon in Tyrant's Grasp were the only "big" changes (IMO) before the fight against Treerazer in Spore War.

There's also the formation of the nations of Oprak and Ravounel thanks to the events of the Ironfang Invasion and Hell's Rebels adventure paths, respectively. Oh, and the apotheosis of Casandalee thanks to the events, presumably, of Iron Gods.

Humorously, one of the beneficial qualities of APs, from a storytelling perspective, is that, since they mostly deal with heroes trying to stop some manner of apocalypse, most of the fallout of an adventure concerns things that didn't happen, as opposed to things that did happen. The world wasn't plunged into eternal night, a couple countries weren't squished under another country, everyone wasn't turned into undead/mind puppets/faith batteries, etc.

[zimmerwald1915]

Perpdepog wrote:

There's also the formation of the nations of Oprak and Ravounel thanks to the events of the Ironfang Invasion and Hell's Rebels adventure paths, respectively. Oh, and the apotheosis of Casandalee thanks to the events, presumably, of Iron Gods.

Of these, I'm pretty sure Casandalee's ascension (to which Arazni's ascension as a consequence of Tyrant's Grasp should be added, if the same standard is being adhered to) meets DCP's criteria for "big" changes. The foundation and destruction of nations is nowhere near as. . . let's say "cosmological" for lack of a better word, as the defeat and ascension of setting-central villains or heroes.

[keftiu]

Iron Gods has outsize influence due to Casandalee's ascension being a core part of the scaffolding of Starfinder. It also radically altered the political situation in Numeria.

[zimmerwald1915]

G@~$*%nit, there was supposed to be an "only" between "sure" and "Casandalee's."

[Dragonchess Player]

For clarification, yes my reference to "big" changes are those that affect the setting beyond one nation. The end of the Mendevian "crusade" and the release of Tar Baphon have widespread effects on the entire Inner Sea region; Treerazer's status at the end of Spore War will also have a wide effect, not only on Kyonin but everywhere the "elf gates" connect to.

The formation of Oprak and Ravounel breaking away from Cheliax/House Thrune are "pretty localized." The apotheosis of Casandalee (or even Arazni) is also not anywhere as significant as the death of Gorum.

Castilliano wrote:

I've played around with PFS meta, once remarking "Didn't you die?!" to an NPC who very well had died in front of my PC (and with much honor/tragedy). And now she was fine, assigning us a new mission. The GM rolled with it well, having the NPC accept that as fact, act stunned, quip to relieve tension, and move on despite this puzzle she'd have to solve.

Snake Plissken moment...

[keftiu]

Dragonchess Player wrote:

For clarification, yes my reference to "big" changes are those that affect the setting beyond one nation. The end of the Mendevian "crusade" and the release of Tar Baphon have widespread effects on the entire Inner Sea region; Treerazer's status at the end of Spore War will also have a wide effect, not only on Kyonin but everywhere the "elf gates" connect to.

The formation of Oprak and Ravounel breaking away from Cheliax/House Thrune are "pretty localized." The apotheosis of Casandalee (or even Arazni) is also not anywhere as significant as the death of Gorum.

How is the ascension of a Core 20 goddess not as significant as the death of a Core 20 god?

And again - the Drift travel that essentially makes the Starfinder setting possible is a product of a domino chain that starts with Casandalee's ascension. It feels really odd to minimize that!

[Kevin Mack]

keftiu wrote:

And again - the Drift travel that essentially makes the Starfinder setting possible is a product of a domino chain that starts with Casandalee's ascension. It feels really odd to minimize that!

Stop me if I'm wrong but technically is starfinder not a completly seperate timeline/ alternative timeline from the current golarion one so no quarantee what happens in one also happens in the other?

[keftiu]

Kevin Mack wrote:

keftiu wrote:

And again - the Drift travel that essentially makes the Starfinder setting possible is a product of a domino chain that starts with Casandalee's ascension. It feels really odd to minimize that!

Stop me if I'm wrong but technically is starfinder not a completly seperate timeline/ alternative timeline from the current golarion one so no quarantee what happens in one also happens in the other?

That's broadly true, but "the android-turned-goddess Casandalee is one third of the major technological deity Triune" is Starfinder canon, which scaffolds Iron Gods into it.

[Castilliano]

In the heavens, there's likely parity with a reshuffling of alliances and a dynamic paranoia. I'd say that her ascension hasn't impacted Golarion as much. Yet. Meanwhile Gorum's dropping body parts across the planet that empower peasants with divinity and alien metal which powers likely contend to own and experiment upon.

[Perpdepog]

zimmerwald1915 wrote:

Perpdepog wrote:

There's also the formation of the nations of Oprak and Ravounel thanks to the events of the Ironfang Invasion and Hell's Rebels adventure paths, respectively. Oh, and the apotheosis of Casandalee thanks to the events, presumably, of Iron Gods.

Of these, I'm pretty sure Casandalee's ascension (to which Arazni's ascension as a consequence of Tyrant's Grasp should be added, if the same standard is being adhered to) meets DCP's criteria for "big" changes. The foundation and destruction of nations is nowhere near as. . . let's say "cosmological" for lack of a better word, as the defeat and ascension of setting-central villains or heroes.

Oopse, I can't believe I forgot Arazni, especially after running Tyrant's Grasp.

[Dragonchess Player]

keftiu wrote:

Dragonchess Player wrote:

For clarification, yes my reference to "big" changes are those that affect the setting beyond one nation. The end of the Mendevian "crusade" and the release of Tar Baphon have widespread effects on the entire Inner Sea region; Treerazer's status at the end of Spore War will also have a wide effect, not only on Kyonin but everywhere the "elf gates" connect to.

The formation of Oprak and Ravounel breaking away from Cheliax/House Thrune are "pretty localized." The apotheosis of Casandalee (or even Arazni) is also not anywhere as significant as the death of Gorum.

How is the ascension of a Core 20 goddess not as significant as the death of a Core 20 god?

And again - the Drift travel that essentially makes the Starfinder setting possible is a product of a domino chain that starts with Casandalee's ascension. It feels really odd to minimize that!

Basically, for the Pathfinder Golarion setting the ascensions of Arazni and Casandalee have a pretty limited effect compared to the Godsrain over the entire planet; and beyond, with the release of the Devourer (which drew the attention of Groteus; underscoring the significance of just one part of Gorum's death).

Even for the Starfinder setting, Casandalee is one of three deities that joined to form Triune while the Devourer is singular (even a singularity; slight joke).

[FallenDabus]

CULTxicycalm wrote:

At the very least we need a timeline with ALL products on it. Figuring out the temporal sequence of one line of products is fairly easy, but figuring out how ALL the lines fit together is practically impossible at this point without constantly begging strangers to help you. Just the other day I found a thread that listed the Korvosa content in order, and I didn’t even know there was an order to it. And that’s just ONE city on one continent!

Well, I only saw this topic because I was updating my own, but I have been working on a visual timeline of Golarion for a good chunk of years now. It hasn't been consistent work and I am one person, so its in even less a complete state than the wiki, but I'm trying to pick away at it.

You can find it over here.

[Eldritch Yodel]

I'm somewhat unsure if making "A book which acts as a comprehensive recounting of all of Golarion's history" is feasibly possible. Even if you made it straight up 400 pages and included zero new lore details, it'd still only be a very large general overview (I mean, think about it logically: If it were to cover just APs - so ignoring all the history in adventures, rulebooks, lost omens books, campaign setting books, player companions, ect. - up to Seven Dooms for Sandpoint, then we're looking at only 2 pages per volume which is several times less than the amount of new history each book would introduce).

You could make a book which is themed around being "The history of the world" and that'd be super awesome and I'd love it, but that wouldn't be a "Here's an aid for the devs to go to so they just have one thing to look at instead of having to do a ton of searching", which there's just no way to feasibly do in book form (Well, in a way that's enjoyable for a random consumer. Most folks aren't looking to buy an entire book consisting of one sentence summaries and citations on what book to check to read more).

[James Jacobs]

Honestly... part of why we pay our writers to write is because it's not just fun. It's actual work, and part of that work (part of ALL writing jobs) is doing research.

If you have every PDF of everything we publish (like we do) searching all those PDFs for mentions of things is pretty easy, and more efficient than somehow finding a way to create an immense concordance style book that just repeats all that information.

Looking around online for feedback on things, be it here or on reddit or wherever, is hardly "very amateurish" in my book—for outlines I create for authors I hire, I do that myself. Same whenever I work on a compilation product like Kingmaker or other hardcover reprints—I go through ALL of the messageboards on the originals here and on Reddit at least to gather up content to work with.

And even if we did decide to build some sort of "metaplot" book that would be immediately outdated the next month when we publish something else, the time spent building that book would have to come at the expense of other products that would sell better.

And finally, I'm not worried about what might happen when Erik or I or any of the other old guard move on to whatever's next for us. Turns out we've got a HUGE amount of very talented creatives working at the company, and if you've enjoyed anything we've published in the past 5 years, chances are pretty good that they're the ones you should be thanking, not me or Erik.

[Oznogon Games]

CULTxicycalm wrote:

Obviously the Pathfinder Wiki covers some of these needs, but from what I have seen nowhere near what’s needed. When I was looking for the major connection between RotR and CotCT there was no resource that could help me so I made a thread and even then most people didn’t know until ONE guy happened to see the thread and gave an amazingly long and detailed answer

Any chance you can link to or describe this problem so I can fix it on the wiki? Thanks

CULTxicycalm wrote:

Just the other day I found a thread that listed the Korvosa content in order

Ditto here