Abrogail II or 1. She dies fighting the PCs but uses the Cheliax Covenant and hands the nation over to Asmodeus. Portals open throughout the nation, and it's not a Worldwound 2.0 in the sense that the devils aren't like demons; they're going to engage in "diplomacy" while in their tyranny. So, even if a crusade is attempted, you also have to consider that Tar-Baphon is awake.
2. Abrogail II ascends as a new Queen of the Night using a fragment of Gorum. It seems to be a trend; I won't say who, but those pieces of armor are very useful. She loses her power to rule Golarion, whether due to the actions of the PCs or divine intervention. She becomes the patron of Cheliax, but overall, they lose the conflict; the only one who wins is her, not the country.
3. The PCs go to Hell and have a legal battle with Abrogail II, judged by Asmodeus. This ends (if the PCs obtain enough victory points) with the Cheliax Covenant dissolving. However, the fine print states that all the devils summoned to Golarion don't necessarily have to return, so all the servants, guards, and even energy cores that the devils were been used as become free. Considering what would happen with just one free Nessari, the entire nation descends into chaos. This would be more like the Gravelands than the Worldwound, since the devils aren't infinite and would try to rule, but they would face greater resistance due to their smaller numbers.
For Andoran: 1. They win the war, but Abrogail II uses a weapon that destroys either Almas or Augustana, and the loss of life is so horrific that you have this sadder and more pessimistic Andoran (similar to Ustalav, I guess).
2. Andoran wins, and although they suffer losses, they are at their peak. Militarism's popularity skyrockets because "they were not only right that there would be war with Cheliax, but we won without the help of Absalom, Taldor, or Qadira, just us" (they ignore Rahadoum). The philosophy of interventionism takes shape, and imagine the Gray Corsairs with their fight against slavers and pirates, now add the nobles of Taldor, against Rahadoum's religious prohibition, against Osirion (they have a pharaoh), against Qadira (they have an Emir or something else, I can't remember), but they are going to annoy a lot of people.
Option 3.Would you look at the time! ⏰️<--- Nothing ever happens time
Years will pass before anything happens again, but you do have some developments for the future.
|
For Andoran: 1. They win the war, but Abrogail II uses a weapon that destroys either Almas or Augustana, and the loss of life is so horrific that you have this sadder and more pessimistic Andoran (similar to Ustalav, I guess).
|
Abrogail II is such a key character to the mythos, I dunno if they would ditch her completely.
It being Paizo, it's entirely possible that, as a nigh-all-powerful, irredeemably evil FEMALE character, she redeems herself and becomes a good guy [Sorshen, Nocticula, Arazni].
Andoran as it exists is not super interesting. That being said, it was all written out in SHINING KINGDOMS, so retconning everything in there might be a little too soon.
I would assume that the final state is some sort of shattered central Cheliax, more homelands for demihuman ancestries [gnomes, strix], and there being lots of hell gates opening up and maybe like, open diabolic control of the rump state of Cheliax.
|
It being Paizo, it's entirely possible that, as a nigh-all-powerful, irredeemably evil FEMALE character, she redeems herself and becomes a good guy [Sorshen, Nocticula, Arazni].
Which is why I don't think she gets redeemed.
It's been done before...several times.
She either needs to go away and never come back or she needs to stay evil and continue being a thorn in the side of the Inner Sea region.
I like the idea that she ascends to Goddesshood and becomes a goddess serving asmodeus.
I like the idea that she ascends to Goddesshood and becomes a goddess serving asmodeus.
Probably not a goddess, considering Asmodeus' historical attitudes. I could see Abrogail Thrune II becoming a fifth Queen of Night (joining Ardad Lili, Doloras, Eiseth, and Mahathallah).
|
|
Abrogail II really isn't all that accomplished.
Last I checked, she was a Sorc16/Aristocrat2 and sitting on a throne for 17 years. What has she done that would make her worthy of becoming a demigoddess?
If you suggest that maybe she does something REALLY diabolical in the Hell's Destiny AP, I would answer by pointing out that that doesn't sound like a good result for the players. That's the kind of thing players are supposed to prevent.
She could always use a warshard, we have had 4 adventures now where the evil guys have gone "i am gonna use this to awaken some evil/ascend/change the world" so if she needs divinity she could have it. At the very least level wise she should be more that 20 if she is the final foe for the AP because to put into context level 20 pcs were able to defeat the final villain of Spore War and while she need not be that powerful yet she is definitely gonna be in that level 20 range.
If she stays at level 18 she'd also be a good act 2 boss with minions and then the party goes to hell and a devil is the final boss. But a warshard giving her a level boost could also work. There's plenty of directions the AP could go in.
Creative Director
|
The disconnect of an NPC staying a relatively static level or in a relatively unchanged position in lore when we don't immediately put them into an adventure verses the perception that there is a constant influx of new PCs who level up from 1st to 20th level in the span of a few months is a weird point of metacomplexity that we constantly struggle with. But in the end, until we DO do a story that focuses on that character, we generally try not to have them level up and do too much "off screen" because...
A) We try to make all our major villains interesting enough to be a BBEG for a potential story, but...
B) If we do and then we change their setup, that feels like a waste of effort on our part to have put that much work into that NPC in the first place when we could have just waited and presented them in their adjusted form later, closer to a point where we were confident we'd be able to put them on-screen in an adventure or a novel or something.
It's always worth remembering too that while we do try to set up a believable and compelling setting for everyone to adventure in... it's also not a setting meant to have every location move forward in a plot at an equal time in concordance to the passage of real-world time. That works a lot better for a non-interactive setting used by an author for their stories, or for a homebrew where the GM can keep the players invested as things move forward because they know what parts of the world their players are interested in.
|
|
Abrogail II really isn't all that accomplished.
Last I checked, she was a Sorc16/Aristocrat2 and sitting on a throne for 17 years. What has she done that would make her worthy of becoming a demigoddess?
If you suggest that maybe she does something REALLY diabolical in the Hell's Destiny AP, I would answer by pointing out that that doesn't sound like a good result for the players. That's the kind of thing players are supposed to prevent.
statblocks are pretty easy to change.
|
|
She could always use a warshard, we have had 4 adventures now where the evil guys have gone "i am gonna use this to awaken some evil/ascend/change the world" so if she needs divinity she could have it. At the very least level wise she should be more that 20 if she is the final foe for the AP because to put into context level 20 pcs were able to defeat the final villain of Spore War and while she need not be that powerful yet she is definitely gonna be in that level 20 range.
That sounds too similar to Casandalee's ascension. Find a magic widget (in Casandalee's case, an advanced computer) and become a god. That also sounds like that one human guy who was some sort of maintenance worker who was exposed to some weird machine energies and was granted instant deityhood of some sort. His weapon is a big wrench of some kind. I can't think of his name at the moment, but you get the idea.
Anyway, instant ascension by a widget, computer, or weird energies has already been done. And for Golarion, it's been done in the form of the Starstone. I would hate to see it done again by some strange piece of metal that fell from the sky.
Sure, a warshard could very well grant power (and quite a bit I might add), but it should not cause ascension by itself.
It was speculated in Operation Hellmouth that the Dragon in story could use a warshard to "age up" immediately to Great Wyrm (or whatever the PF2 version is) status. I don't know if a warshard could do that or not, but the characters in the book seemed to be convinced that it could.
That's the kind of power I could see a warshard granting, not making a new god. If that were the case, Gorum's armor could spawn MANY new gods. That would be ridiculous.