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Paizo Announces Drift Crisis, Lastwall, Abomination Vaults, and Shadows at Sundown
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<blockquote data-quote="JThursby" data-source="post: 8650677" data-attributes="member: 7025596"><p>I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, it's undeniable that the setting feels lighter than it's first edition incarnation. But on the other, I find there are a lot of factors that are going into that decision and I can't ultimately justify the content of the Lastwall book as being the result of a wider trend.</p><p></p><p>Golarion pre-dates Pathfinder by a few years, and during that time it had to quickly create an identity for itself in contrast to other D&D settings. The one it picked at first was "darker and more subversive Sword Coast." You can see this in the earliest of Adventure Paths, with Varisia basically being the edgier and meaner version of the Sword Coast, and when the rest of the setting got fleshed out it took on the same general tone. At the time of release of the original Inner Sea World Guide I was absolutely in love with the setting, the severe tone with the darker lore paired with the amazing illustrations made it quickly stick in my head in a way other D&D settings didn't. It quickly earned it's #2 spot of favorite D&D setting in my heart, right under Eberron.</p><p></p><p>Then a whole decade of pop culture came and went. Game of Thrones ascended to most relevant and influential TV show of the current age then degenerated into a miserable laughing stock of sophomoric nihilism and nonsense plotlines, leaving behind nothing but a long list of subpar dark fantasy clones that went in to capitalize on it's success. If the Inner Sea World Guide was released as it was during 2nd edition in a post-Game of Thrones world, it would have been treated as passe and trite by no fault of it's own. Some evolution had to happen. The solution appears to be simply filling out the world instead of focusing on the dark aspects exclusively. Cheliax and Nidal still exist, there are still untold horrors waiting out in the cosmos, etc etc, but now there is also lore books about lighter areas and topics. For places that still have massive problems or issues those are typically still fleshed out: the Absalom book is rife with plot hooks about issues with the city and it's people for example. The Mwangi book has a cheery cover, but many of the locales it talks about are immensely dysfunctional or are under some imminent threat. This is a good approach. It doesn't invalidate what came before, it just expands the setting by encompassing more of the human experience.</p><p></p><p>Knights of Lastwall breaks that pattern by re-framing a mostly heroic but sometimes troubled faction into an entirely heroic one. I can't think of any other Lost Omen book that does that. I know there was that "slavery is being deleted from the setting" meme, but the Absalom book definitively crushed that notion; the legacy of slavery in Absalom, the ongoing evil of it abroad, the politics of those looking to fight it or profit from it, and character stories that fit into each of those aspects were present in the book. My slight disappointment with the book is not because it is part of a trend I don't like, but because it bucks the trend I do like with the Lost Omens line. In my opinion, Lastwall's depiction is most likely a case of being written by junior setting writers. They either did not pick up on the nuances of Lastwall as a faction and thus did not represent them as nuanced in their writing, or did notice them and decided to override it with an entirely heroic tone when it wasn't appropriate to do so. I wouldn't mind so much if this was just a result of Lastwall going through some very big changes and the Knights end up reforming their ways, but that isn't really the case. They still operate like moronic zealots with no real plan, they still do psychotic things like press children into joining their military, and they're still championing an outdated kind of chivalric "virtue" that the world has moved on from. Those elements are still there but just plastered over with incongruent language.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="JThursby, post: 8650677, member: 7025596"] I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, it's undeniable that the setting feels lighter than it's first edition incarnation. But on the other, I find there are a lot of factors that are going into that decision and I can't ultimately justify the content of the Lastwall book as being the result of a wider trend. Golarion pre-dates Pathfinder by a few years, and during that time it had to quickly create an identity for itself in contrast to other D&D settings. The one it picked at first was "darker and more subversive Sword Coast." You can see this in the earliest of Adventure Paths, with Varisia basically being the edgier and meaner version of the Sword Coast, and when the rest of the setting got fleshed out it took on the same general tone. At the time of release of the original Inner Sea World Guide I was absolutely in love with the setting, the severe tone with the darker lore paired with the amazing illustrations made it quickly stick in my head in a way other D&D settings didn't. It quickly earned it's #2 spot of favorite D&D setting in my heart, right under Eberron. Then a whole decade of pop culture came and went. Game of Thrones ascended to most relevant and influential TV show of the current age then degenerated into a miserable laughing stock of sophomoric nihilism and nonsense plotlines, leaving behind nothing but a long list of subpar dark fantasy clones that went in to capitalize on it's success. If the Inner Sea World Guide was released as it was during 2nd edition in a post-Game of Thrones world, it would have been treated as passe and trite by no fault of it's own. Some evolution had to happen. The solution appears to be simply filling out the world instead of focusing on the dark aspects exclusively. Cheliax and Nidal still exist, there are still untold horrors waiting out in the cosmos, etc etc, but now there is also lore books about lighter areas and topics. For places that still have massive problems or issues those are typically still fleshed out: the Absalom book is rife with plot hooks about issues with the city and it's people for example. The Mwangi book has a cheery cover, but many of the locales it talks about are immensely dysfunctional or are under some imminent threat. This is a good approach. It doesn't invalidate what came before, it just expands the setting by encompassing more of the human experience. Knights of Lastwall breaks that pattern by re-framing a mostly heroic but sometimes troubled faction into an entirely heroic one. I can't think of any other Lost Omen book that does that. I know there was that "slavery is being deleted from the setting" meme, but the Absalom book definitively crushed that notion; the legacy of slavery in Absalom, the ongoing evil of it abroad, the politics of those looking to fight it or profit from it, and character stories that fit into each of those aspects were present in the book. My slight disappointment with the book is not because it is part of a trend I don't like, but because it bucks the trend I do like with the Lost Omens line. In my opinion, Lastwall's depiction is most likely a case of being written by junior setting writers. They either did not pick up on the nuances of Lastwall as a faction and thus did not represent them as nuanced in their writing, or did notice them and decided to override it with an entirely heroic tone when it wasn't appropriate to do so. I wouldn't mind so much if this was just a result of Lastwall going through some very big changes and the Knights end up reforming their ways, but that isn't really the case. They still operate like moronic zealots with no real plan, they still do psychotic things like press children into joining their military, and they're still championing an outdated kind of chivalric "virtue" that the world has moved on from. Those elements are still there but just plastered over with incongruent language. [/QUOTE]
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Paizo Announces Drift Crisis, Lastwall, Abomination Vaults, and Shadows at Sundown
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