Pathfinder 1E What does your Pathfinder game and game world look and feel like?

[Glade Riven]

Well, the one I'm about to start is a homebrew that does some mixing and matching:

• Several Elf races, most which are just ethnic groups. Primarally, they are a mix of celtic and japanese culture. They just built their first empire, and are learning to deal with humans on their timescale.
• Humans arrived about a millinia ago after an exodus from a land ruled by giants. Since then, they've taken over at least 1/3 of the continant, built an empire, had it collapse/fragment, and occasionally fight with one another
• Orc=Native Americans, and have bred with humans after getting their butt whupped a few too many times.
• Dwarves=Vikings or Merchant Princes (or something in between). Human interaction has largly civilized the dwarves, but they still enjoy fighting for the heck of it.
• Division of Magic: Only an elf can become a wizard due to the need for centuries of schooling, although humans have developed a few shortcuts, resulting in a homebrew Magewrite class (retools the bard with flavor of the Eberron Artificer, it'll be playtested). Magewrites will use the IK mechanika crafting system (all IK rules were released under OLG)
• Division of Religion: Humans introduced organised religion to the everyone else; 3 different flavored druidic traditions exist: Elf (balance with nature), Hobgoblin (Traditional "hippy" version), and Orc (survival of the Fittest)

And that's the tip of the iceberg. I'm taking a lot of flavoring from traditional folklore, fairytales, and history.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

If you have ever heard of the Nepherim, then you have an idea of who the 'gods' of the world are.

I haven't, do you have any links to inform oneself with?

 

[Scott DeWar]

naw. sorry about that. I have been watching this british show called 'hex' on the chiller channel and am being inspired by the idea of who the nepherim are. so there are cheribim, seraphim and nepherim, the last being unions between humans and the angels (devas/solars). If you were to say that the great ons (Nepherim) aare also the various gods of the lands (dieties and demigods), perhaps the lessor or demi gods of each pantheon, and the greater and intermediates are the ruling class of true divine? just and idea here-branstorming here with a 30 % chance of meatballs.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Are you sure they spell it that way instead of "nephilim"?

 

[Scott DeWar]

Are you sure they spell it that way instead of "nephilim"?

Actually, due to my very poor spelling capabilities, I am reasonally sure that the spelling is wrong. it might be Nepherim. It might be in those books between the old ad new testaments of the catholic bible. i just don't have a clue right now. My world is still under construction.

 

[gamerprinter]

Kaidan - my commercial home-brew

Originally, I wanted my group to playtest the Introductory mini-arc - The Gift, for my Kaidan: a Japanese Ghost Story setting, but the players were more eager to play Kaidanese locals, rather than "gaijin" westerners visiting a feudal Japan-like exotic location, as in the The Gift, 3 part adventure arc.

At least, I'm getting to playtest my new classes, and altered Pathfinder classes to fit in my Asian Horror setting. The party consists of one samurai, whose lord (a vampire) is concerned with provincial security, allowing him to work closely with the local Ninja house. The rest of the party are all related family members of that same Ninja house. Though since ninja is a prestige class, none of the players qualify as of yet. All of them are duel class Shinobi (ninja rogue) and either fighter, monk or sorcerer, as per prerequisites of my ninja prestige class. Though one is opting to focus on rogue (shinobi) exclusively rather than going ninja later on.

One player was supposed to join the party as a Miko (oracle), but she has missed the last three weekends of play, (boyfriend issues) so no one to playtest the Miko as yet, though the party needs one.

While the setting works as an immersive oriental setting in a feudal Japan- like place (approx. 1200 - 1450 comparable historical timeline), the subtle horror elements are always in the background: undead lords of state, constant hunts for heretics (most everyone is a heretic), shape-changers everywhere, yurei ghost spirits, animated objects, the monsters and kami, etc. - in other ways its not so typical.

But it's been fun so far. Can't wait to see higher level play-testing.

 

[Reneshat]

In regards to the Nephilim, the only reference you'll find in common Christian texts, including the Apocrypha (those Catholic books between the old and new testament) is actually in Genesis. It doesn't say a lot about them there, only making reference that they walked the earth in the days before Noah, and the offspring between the sons of God and the daughters of Man were mighty heroes.

A more complete story is found is old Jewish lore however. Most notably in what we believe to be the Book of Enoch. The Book of Enoch was an excepted Jewish scriptural text around the time of Jesus, even being quoted from in Jude. However, we lost all copies of that book before the Synod of Carthage, or the official determination of what constitutes the modern Christian Bible and what does not. Much later, complete copies of what is believed to be the Book of Enoch were found in Ethiopia. It is these transcripts which tell the more complete story. As seeming verification of the validity of these translations, they match up with pieces of the Book of Enoch later found in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Basically, the Nephilim were angels tasked with watching over Earth. However, over time they grew to lust after human women and power. They took forms of flesh and ruled over the humans, producing half-celestial offspring of a mightly nature, think Heracules and Achilles. They introduced such things as more advanced metal working, various forms of magic, and astrology. Eventually, God sent an army of angels down to cleanse the earth of them. However, they were not killed (maybe because they could not be) and were instead imprisoned. The mightiest of the Nephilim and their leader was named Azazel. It was not long after this that the flood supposedly occurred.

In many ways the story holds similarities to the various mythologies of other early civilizations, especially Sumerian mythology. The most striking difference is that while treated as gods are in the other mythologies, the nephilim are underneath Elohim and thus do not rank god status in the story.

I think that should answer most of the questions.

 

[Scott DeWar]

And tha, my friends is pretty darn close to what I had in my mind. thank you very much Reneshat for the delivery. 9I am sending you an XP for that!)

 

[Sylrae]

My Pathfinder game is Second Darkness.

However, I have some very unusual characters, as I am often willing to accept, for interesting purposes.

Given standard practices of my games, there is also no party healer (Nobody likes to play the healer), and players act on their own goals almost as much as acting on those of the rest of the group.

Spoiler

Our Teifling Barbarian is a murderous monster. He killed a bunch of prostitutes, for example, and fed the bodies to the dogs at the goblin, in the middle of the night. He figured out that Saul was cheating with the goblin, confronted him, and Saul tried to blackmail him about the murder of the prostitutes. The Barbarian attacked him, killed him, and took the deed to the Goblin. He then Ran from the guards, hid under the docks, attracted a shark with the blood from saul's decapitated body, and then took off again. One of the other players resurrected Saul, and saul came back with the debt of the resurrection, and no Gold Goblin. He took off when it came to paying his debt. (If you read the module you know what happened to him when he ran off). The Teifling is now working for Clegg Zincher in his arena as a pit fighter, as well as a hit-man, in return for buying himself out of his situation. He also had to turn over the goblin to Clegg, which Clegg found very entertaining. All of this was Just after introducing Samaritha. So everything from Samaritha to the the beginning of the tunnels under the goblin never happened. I now need to find another way to introduce Kwava, and his organization, and explain about Depora Azinrae.

It's crazy. lol

We have a Teifling Barbarian, an Elven Rogue raised by Dwarves, an Erinyes Druid who's been the subject of an alter memory effect of a high level wizard. (Broken down into a race + racial class) and some new characters coming in.

I also have a bunch of houserules, and draw things from Trailblazer (like their spellcasting progression) and Project Phoenix (Druid and Monk).

 

[Scott DeWar]

project Phoenix? what's that?