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Starfinder

2018-06-10T05:09:21Z

2602:306:3B27:CB40:8CC:F1D:295F:94F3:

{{Game Infobox
|name = Starfinder
|picture = [[File:Starfinder Iconics.jpg|250px]]
|system = Modified [[D20]]
|publisher = [[Paizo]]
|authors = James Sutter, Sarah Robinson, Robert McCreary, Owen Stephens et al
|year = 2017
|books = Starfinder Core Rulebook
}}
:''This game is not to be confused with [[Starjammer]], created by the people maintaining D20PFSRD, which is [[Spelljammer]] for Pathfinder (though it is compatible with Starfinder).
'''Starfinder''' (aka Pathfinder 40k) is an RPG by [[Paizo|Paizo Publishing]] released in August 2017. It is a future version of [[Pathfinder]] set IN SPACE.

==Overview==
* There's ratmen IN SPACE, meaning that Paizo has [[Skaven]] IN SPACE before [[GW]] has in a playable form.
* There are going to be hardcover books and a Starfinder Adventure Path, much like Pathfinder has.
* FTL travel was revealed by the new deity Triune and is achieved by traveling through a dimension called the Drift. "Drift beacons" randomly appear or are planted by clerics of Triune and reduce the risk of a Drift jump to the beacon's location; the Starstone in Absalom Station is a fuckhuge Drift beacon that also accelerates travel to the station. Whenever a ship enters the Drift, it drags entire segments of reality from elsewhere into the Drift with it. [[Warp|This is not at all ominous, no siree.]] So do be careful: you'll never know when you have to scrape the demons off of your ship's bumper.
* [[Golarion]] is fucking gone. As in totally gone, nobody can remember what happened to it, it just fucking vanished. The various races have spread out to the other planets in Golarion's system. New ones are there, too. Everyone remembers building a giant space station in orbit around Golarion while it was still definitely around and so can use its construction as a frame of reference to about ''when'' the world vanished (within a few hundred years), but no one remembers anything about the planet itself disappearing.
* The Iconic Characters are members of the Starfinder Society from that station, who have the mission of finding out what happened to Golarion.
* [[Goblin]]s survived and have little space helmets.

===Differences from Pathfinder===
Considering that this is Paizo, the goons who made a killing off of resurrecting 3.5E, the rules for this game aren't that far removed from the original PF mechanics. Though you can't get a 1-1 translation of all the classes, you can probably be able port most of your characters over.
* Each character now has both [[hit points]], which are hard to replace, and "stamina points," which work like hit points but can be much more easily recovered and are always lost first. HP is essentially stuck as a hybrid between racial stats (meaning that little spessrats only give 2 HP to a character while burly Vesk and chitinous Shirrens give 6 HP) and class stats (essentially like Hit Die, only with no rolling), while Stamina is given per class level + [[Constitution]] Modifier.
* The Resolve mechanic gives you a small pool of points to spend for recovering stamina, stabilizing if you're dying, and getting up if you're stable. These points are keyed off of a single stat your class is dependent on (so Soldiers pick between Str and Dex, Mystics use Wis, so on and so forth). Each class even has special uses for Resolve and backgrounds can give special circumstances for regaining them.
* In addition to your race and class, you pick a "theme" at character creation, which is basically a 5e background. Themes are things like being an Ace Pilot or a Xenoenvoy that give your character some flavor, and a few other abilities that unlock as you level, plus a small stat boost.
* Archetypes, rather than being class-specific and swapping out whatever abilities they want, are a bit more reminiscent of 4e's Themes - You pick it up and it replaces certain class abilities (and since these are for all classes, they switch off only certain abilities) and grant new abilities.
* Skills are largely condensed in a way that, while not ''identical'' to 5e, certainly resembles it much more than Pathfinder: a single Athletics skills rather than separate skills for Climb and Swim, for instance, or Mysticism instead of Arcana and Spellcraft.
* No charisma-based casters at all (though the Solarian and Envoy both sort of fit the niche thematically), and no full casters: the technomancer and the mystic are both half-casters. All spellcasting is distinctly 5e-ish, with lower-level spells that can be cast in higher-level slots for boosted effects. (For instance, the primary healing spell is a first-level spell, but it heals more and more as it gets cast in higher level slots, eventually also cleansing various status effects.)
* Most classes that rely on weapon-use get "Weapon Specialization" in their weapons during progression, and all of them can take it as a feat. It adds their character level to damage rolls.
* Everyone has [[derp|two kinds of AC]]: KAC, for kinetic weapons like swords and bullets, and EAC, for energy weapons like lasers and lightsaber-a-likes. Unlike with PF where you're stuck trying to remember what armor bonuses add to Flat-Footed or Touch, this allows you to calculate your defenses a bit easier.
* Cybernetics and genetic modding are also a thing.
* Most classes start off scaling a bit slow, then ramp up at about level 11. For instance, a Solarian's energy blade does 1d6 damage at first level, then 2d6 at fifth level, but starts going up much faster at level eleven, and caps out at 12d6.
* Weapons take a page out of 4E's book and have items that scale in power alongside player levels...except they don't give them to you, no! You still have to buy these stronger guns and armors!
* Ship-building and combat will be very familiar to those who played [[Rogue Trader (RPG)]]. Build Points to buy parts for your ship, the need to travel through an alternate dimension that may or may not contain unholy terrors, the whole shebang.
** The promotional material also promised that each class would totally have mechanics to help them in ship combat. Most of this is false. Not only is a majority of the mechanics keyed off of RANKS in a particular skill (Pilot for all the ship defenses) rather than the character's actual bonus, but several class bonuses are flat-out not allowed to work in a ship. Also damning is the sharply-rising difficulty curve for all your ship actions, which keys itself off of the average party level rather than some other stat <s>[[Wat|This means that if you level up high enough, your little zippy spaceship that's been extensively customized will be as impossible to maneuver for your veteran crew as a fucking freighter for a bunch of rookies]]</s> but this was fixed in the errata.
** Each character has roles during combat, similar to RT. Unlike that game though, the roles are a lot more simplified in number (Captain for leading, Gunner for shootan, Engineer for fixing, Pilot for flying, and Science Officer to manage all computer things) and complexity. All each role does is grant special abilities to use in combat.

==Core classes==
* '''Envoys''': Use wit and charm to bolster their allies and demoralize or befuddle enemies. They also get a lot of skillmonkey powers, including "expertise" in a number of skills in a way similar to the [[Investigator]]. They have a selection of talents to select to use in order to distract enemies, but they all require an enemy to either see or hear them, which can hamstring them in specific situations.
* '''Mechanics''': Mechanical geniuses. The class as a whole has a lot of tricks for fiddling with computers and disabling or taking over machines, and can do fun things like turning any piece of mechanical gear into a makeshift grenade or overclock their drone or cortex to put themselves in the Matrix.
**''Drones'' are one of their choices for class themes. It's pretty obvious - it's a fucking drone, with purpose of either being a gun-rig, a scout, or a hoverdrone. Drones are always fun to use with customizable parts to work with.
**''Exocortex'' is the other choice, hardwiring an AI into their brains. Rather than a pet drone, this allows for a Mechanic to use additional weaponry as well as a free Skill Focus feat. It also can help with hacking a bit and can target enemies for guaranteed hits, and can give ''themselves'' some of the drone's upgrades. Including a jet pack.
* '''Mystics''': Channel the universe's mysterious energies, often through faith in a god. They're a sort of cross between [[Sorcerer]] and [[Cleric]] in that they have a special theme in them with bonus thematic spells and talents as well as the ability to heal.
**''Akashic'' is a rather skill-focused connection. Bonuses on skill checks, the ability to re-roll with more ranks on the skill, and the power to (eventually) cast any spell you want at the cost of a higher spell-slot.
**''Empath'' is, obviously, focused on magical empathy. The ability to read emotions.
**''Healer'' is rather obvious. You're a medic. You keep tabs on everyone, top them off on HP when you can and eventually learn to siphon health from your enemies and cheat death itself.
**''Mindbreaker'' allows you to commit literal mindfuckery. Your powers are focused upon inflicting as much pain as inhumanly possible, with the capstone power being able to EXPLODE HEADS.
**''Overlord'' is also about mindfuckery, but on a more subtle scale. This allows you to brainwash people, break their resistances slowly, and eventually exert absolute control over someone.
**''Star Shaman'' is the most spacey one. You can pilot ships good, walk in space without a suit, and turn into a star-being. The capstone for this allows you to teleport between planets.
**''Xenodruid'' is the remnants of the [[Druid]]. Plant shenanigans, the power to talk to and transform into an animal, and even the eventual ability to reincarnate.
* '''Operatives''': Use stealth and skill to get in and out of dangerous situations. They get a shitload of attacks with weak weapons, like a monk, and a special sneak attack trick like a [[Rogue]], and they can pick a number of specializations to refine what kind of sneaky guy they want to be. Among all the classes, these guys are especially notorious for how powerful they are.
**''Daredevil'' allows you to be very mobile, with the eventual ability to gain a natural swim and climb speed for more maneuverability.
**''Detective'' gives you the ability to investigate a bit better, with the ability to eventually cast Divination to find answers when you're at a dead end.
**''Explorer'' is the sort used to exploring all sorts of different worlds. They can explore around with special benefits and are especially familiar with places far from home.
**''Ghost'' is probably the one people use the most for having a serious boost to Stealth (a skill they'll already have high scores on by virtue of a high Dex), making it neigh-impossible to fail. They can turn invisible and eventually even phase through walls.
**''Hacker'' is in a similar field to the Mechanic, with the power to distract with computers. They're more focused on hacking than anything else though.
**''Spy'' allows you to pull of any sort of disguise, eventually being able to even feed any thought-reader false information.
**''Thief'' is more like a traditional thief. Their special ability allows them to build a contingency plan JUST when something goes wrong and derail the DM's plans to bust your asses if it goes right.
* '''Solarians''': Shape the energy of stars and black holes into armor and weapons for themselves. Weirdly, their cosmic-energy weapons do normal kinetic damage (although some of their class powers change that). Fluff-wise, they seem like Jedi, being warrior monks who represent a universal force and gain mystical powers from their devotion to that force. The Solarians are attuned to a sort of ill-defined cosmic cycle that's somehow connected to stars. This manifests as a mote of either light or dark that floats around them, which they turn into either a weapon or armor (you pick which at first level and can't change it). Gameplay wise, they're melee spell-combatants who build up energy points by being in combat, then spend these points to set off magical effects. They can choose to build either Graviton or Photon points, which can then trigger associated spells. Graviton tends to be more focused on moving and controlling your enemies, whereas Photon is more about damaging and dazing. They have minor magic effects that they can use basically whenever, but their show-stoppers require them to be fully attuned to the associated force (basically, to have spent three rounds attuning themselves). Also, they basically ''have'' to balance the number of Gravity and Photon tricks they know or suffer harsh penalties. All in all, they play sort of like a [[Magus]] mixed with a [[World_of_Warcraft | Cataclysm-era Druid]]. It's kind of complicated, but fun to play. Also, pick a weapon kid. It scales better and is cooler. The armor is basically screwing yourself.
* '''Soldiers''': Specialize in heavy weapons and armor. They share a [[Fighter]]'s bonus feat selection, but differentiate themselves by picking from combat styles that alter how they work and a not-shit save and skill progression. They also learn "gear tricks" to boost up their weapons and armor in ways most other classes can't.
**''Arcane Assailant'' allows you to punch through resistances and corporeality before anyone else and imbue weapons with special effects like they were magical.
**''Armor Storm'' focuses on wearing heavy armor and making sure you're not hamstrung by it. You naturally gain proficiency in powered armor (literal walking tanks) and giving you the full mileage and then some from your suit.
**''Blitz'' is about aggression. You intend to rush in head-first, learning how to ignore pain and throw everything into an attack.
**''Bombard'' makes you a mix between Demolitions Expert and Heavy Weapons Guy. You can make your own grenades, you can punch harder with heavy guns, and make explosions get more boomy.
**''Guard'' is the defensive style. Extra comfort in the armor is the start, and the end is ignoring conditions and being such a walking tank that you can make yourself a wall to your buds. Power Armor Included.
**''Hit and Run'' is switch-hitting: the class. Run in, lay a few blows, and hop out before they hit you.
**''Sharpshoot'' is for snipers. You aim so well that you can ignore cover and hit them in their weak points for maximum damage.
* '''Technomancers''': The magical version of computer programmers, hacking the laws of physics. They're essentially techno-[[Wizard]]s, with an electronic bound item (and no familiar) and a bunch of special talents allowing them to mess with equipment and spells to their liking. They eventually even have the ability to fuse spellslots together to cast bigger spells.

==Races==
Like 2/3rds of these are already available as non-core PC races for Pathfinder, but heavily rejiggered to fit the new system. There are also rules and fluff for the core races of Pathfinder, with some tweaks (like no speed penalty for being Small) to fit the Starfinder rules.
* '''[[Android]]s''': Artificial people. Are generally pissed off about being created as a servitor race, complete with occasional literal slavery, so they intentionally distance themselves from the human cultures they broke away from. They have no gender because they're robots. Crunchwise they have similar social penalties to their Pathfinder counterparts, and retain many of their immunities. The only difference here is that they can wire themselves with an armor upgrade to get the benefits of the upgrade without actually wearing armor.
* '''[[Human]]s''': Everybody knows humans. They are about the only race that ''didn't'' get nerfed in the transition from ''Pathfinder'', or in comparison to their most-obvious ''Pathfinder'' equivalents, and so are just as overpowered as they've always been.
* '''[[Kasatha]]s''': [[Thri-kreen|Four-armed aliens from a desert world.]] They invented the Solarian traditions. Their four arms are unfortunately nerfed such that they can't quad-weapon wield, the system as a whole makes multi-weapon fighting a rough concept for just about anyone without multiple attacks. And unfortunately, they lost nearly all their good, general purpose abilities, like AC boosts, in the transition, and instead kept all their situational abilities, such as not taking movement penalties in desert terrain, presumably to "balance" the power of their now-neigh-useless four arms.
* '''[[Lashunta]]s''': A race of telepaths. They choose which subrace they get to be at puberty, which mostly determines ability scores and fluff like social standing. The two subraces are tall, slender and attractive and short, broad and strong; both are reminiscent of the golden age of pulp SF. It used to be that only women can become the former and men always became the latter, but with recent (progressive) changes the two can now pick, with government-sponsored aptitude tests making the rounds. This means that their men can now also be tall, slender and bishie while the women can be [[Musclegirl|short, broad and swole]].
* '''[[Shirren]]s''': [[Tyranids|Insectoid people who recently broke free from a predatory hive mind.]] Literally addicted to making choices for themselves. Also telepathic. A slightly more original take on the bug alien trope. Not a Pathfinder port.
* '''[[Vesk]]''': [[Lizardmen|Powerful reptilian aliens]], with [[Star Trek|Klingon honor-culture]]. Have natural weapons, armor proficiencies, that kinda deal. Nobody likes them because they only just stopped warring with everyone else, but everyone tolerates them because they're handy in a fight and make good mercenaries that can be pointed away from civilized people and towards the dangers of deep space. Fit the half-orc niche of the excellent bruiser race. Also not a Pathfinder port.
* '''[[Ysoki]]''': A plucky and hotheaded race, often called "[[ratfolk]]," with a bit of similarity to the Pathfinder version. Not actually [[Skaven]] in space, but don't let that stop you from rolling Space [[Thanquol]]. Enjoy a number of benefits from their Moxie trait, including easily running around underfoot and standing up as a swift action if knocked down. Also they have cheek pouches able to store small objects like ammo and bombs like a chipmunk.
* The usual [[Elves]], [[Halfling]]s, [[Dwarves]] and so on are offered as "Legacy Conversions". If you want to play them, you can, and there are rules for them in the back of the book, but it seems that none of the old races are going to be strongly supported.

===Alien Archive===
The first Bestiary didn't just contain monsters to drag into whatever story you make, but also several new PC races as well. Neat!
* '''Barathus''': Weird hardy gasbag things from a gas giant. They float around and have some sort of shapeshiftery.
* '''Contemplative''': BE THE WORLD'S BIGGEST BRAIN...on a teeny tiny body. So tiny that you can't carry anything bigger than a pistol without breaking your psychic focus on flying. They're not only able to fly with the power of their minds, but they're also super smart.
* '''Draeliks''': Humanoid banana-looking men. They have some spell like abilities and do good with darkness.
* '''Dragonkin''': Humanoid [[Dragon]]s! Hell yeah! They're effectively dragons on two legs with all the basic benefits of being a dragon...and they can only partner up with one ally, granting them both the best Initiative score between them.
* '''[[Drow]]''': Yeah, they're here too. Almost like elves, but with racial spell like abilities light sensitivity. If they grab a specific feat, they can also effectively detect anything in the darkness.
* '''Formians''': Four-legged bugmen. They get natural weapons and blindesense with smell.
* '''[[Goblin]]s''': Now with silly space helmets! They also can slap together quick fixes to things.
* '''Grays''': A surprisingly stereotypical alien race. Flimsy, but they're psychic and can phase out of existence for concealment for a few times each day.
* '''Haans''': Giant freaky primitive space... spiderthings. They spit fire and make web balloons.
* '''Ikeshti''': Closest thing we have to [[Kobold]]s for now. They hail from a desert world, they can shed their skin to get flexible, and they squirt blood from their eyes.
* '''Kalos''': Fishmen who can't operate on land without suits, but on sea they have blindsense (sound) and lowlight vision.
* '''Maraquoi''': Monkeymen with blindsense (sound). They have prehensile tails.
* '''Nuars''': SPACE MINOTAURS! They charge into battle without penalties and have horns. They have a special item augment called "Maze Cores" that were ripped straight out of RWBY.
* '''Reptoids''': Shapeshifting space lizardmen. They have claws when not turning into someone else.
* '''Ryphorians''': Trimorphic pointy-eared aliens. They get a spare feat, the elves' +2 to perception, and either resistance to cold or fire (or both and take longer before needing to test Fortitude for surviving).
* '''Sarcesians''': Space mothmen. They get a spare skill rank (like humans) and grow giant space-wings for flying when in space.
* '''Shobhads''': Brutish four-armed aliens that look straight outta Oddworld. They're quite fast, get Orc Ferocity, and they resist cold.
* '''Skittermanders''': Little six-armed stuffed critters. They can move twice in a turn and are extra grabby.
* '''Urogs''': Bizarre electrical monsters that are slow, but sense enemies through electrical currents. They also have extra skill ranks.
* '''Verthani''': Gangly humanoids. They gain Skill Focus as a natural ability and have chameleonic skin. Also useful is their ability to stack two implants to one location, though it's for one slot and one of them must be cybernetic.
* '''Witchwyrds''': They have four arms, each of which is capable of absorbing magic missiles and firing them back at someone.
* '''Wrikreechees''': The prawns from District 9. They're rather resourceful, with bonuses to grab small things, swim speeds, and a bonus to cover, but they're slow on land.

===Pact Worlds===
*'''Astrazoans''': Weird gelatinous blobs of meat, capable of impersonating other beings.
*'''Bantrids''': Noseless...stump...things...? They're sorta like Tiki statues, but tinier and super-mobile.
*'''Borais''': [[Revenant]]s...IN SPACE. They get a racial feature from whatever they once were, they have resistances against negative energy effects, but thankfully they don't get gimped by healing.
*'''Khizars''': Plant-monsters. They're essentially only able to perceive light and life, but are also telepathic.
*'''S.R.O.s''': Whereas Androids were for making Data, S.R.O.s are more for making Chappie. They're far more resistant to things that'd affect living beings, but are also less able to benefit from healing (though reassembly is a thing). They also possess built-in technological equipment, but are startlingly fragile compared to their synth-skinned counterparts.
*'''Strix''': The same shadowy bird-men from PF. They're less spiteful shitbags and more technologically capable.

==The Pact Worlds==

The main setting of the game is the Pact Worlds, the solar system Golarion was part of. Originally introduced in the ''Pathfinder'' sourcebook ''Distant Worlds''.

'''The Sun''': A big-ass ball of plasma, normally home to giant Plasma Oozes and denizens from the Plane of Fire. Followers of Sarenae found a bunch of humanoid-build cities floating around in force bubbles abandoned, and moved right in.

'''Aballon''': Fantasy Mercury, this planet is mostly home to the Anacites, a race of robots left behind by their creators thousands of years ago.

'''Castrovel''': Fantasy Venus. This sweltering jungle world is home to the Lashunta as well as Elves, who ''really'' didn't like that centuries-long gap in their memories.

'''Absalom Station''': Parked in Golarion's former orbit, this space station is the center of the Pact Worlds' government and contains the Starstone.

'''Akiton''': John Carter-style Mars, now fallen on hard times. Home to the Yoski, Ikeshti, Shobads, and red-skinned humans.

'''Verces''': A tidally-locked world that has had spacecraft and cybernetics since the Pathfinder days.

'''Iidari''': A few centuries ago, the Kasathas left their dying world on a giant colony ship to make a new home on Akiton. The natives didn't agree, so they parked their ship in a new orbit and stayed there.

'''The Diaspora''': Two twin planets were blown to pieces, possibly by someone on Eox. Some of the life on the planet was too stubborn to die, and still lives on in the resulting asteroid belt. In modern times, it's become Future Shackles, home to mining companies and Space Pirates.

'''Eox''': Like the Diaspora, Eox got wrecked in an ancient cataclysm(possibly backlash from the Diaspora's destruction), and technically, the planets that got blown up got off easy. To survive their world's death, the population has become undead. Needless to say, the rest of the Pact Worlds are a little nervous about a planet run by [[Lich]]es.

'''Triaxus''': Home to Ryphorians, Dragonkin, and straight-up Dragons. Triaxus has a strange, long orbit that gives it Summers and Winters that each last for generations.

'''Liavara''': Fantasy Saturn. Liavara isn't technicially a pact world, due to not having much of civilization other than gas-mining operations. The Barathu consider the world a

'''Bretheda''': Blue Fantasy Jupiter. Home to the Barathu, with other races living on its moons.

'''Apostae''': A lonely, hollow world currently ruled by the Drow.

'''Aucturn''': Planet Lovecraft. This living organic world is supposedly a yet-unborn Great Old One. That is already pregnant with a mountain-sized polyp. Currently being fought over by the cultists of the Outer Gods and the Dominion of the Black, whom are somehow ''worse''.

==Gods of the Pact Worlds==

In the centuries since Pathfinder, some gods have risen, other have fallen, and some apparently stayed behind on Golarion. This is who's hot right now:

'''Abadar''': [[Lawful Neutral]] God of Commerce, Law, and Civilization. Still going strong, only he now runs a corporation rather than simply a bank.

'''Besmara''': [[Chaotic Neutral]] Goddess of Piracy back on Golarion, the advent of Space Piracy gave her a boost to the big leages.

'''Damoritosh''': [[Lawful Evil]] War God of the Vesk.

'''Desna''': [[Chaotic Good]] Goddess of Luck and Travel.

'''The Devourer''': [[Chaotic Evil]] God of Destruction who wishes to destroy everything. Apparently not Rovagug, who is MIA along with his prison.

'''Eloritu''': [[Neutral]] God of Magic and Truth.

'''Hylax''': [[Lawful Good]] Bug-Goddess of Diplomacy, Peace, and Friendship. Used to be worshipped by the Swarm until they decided to go all Tyrranid. Needless to say, she was happy to see the Shirren break away.

''' Ibra''':

'''Iomedae''':

'''Lao Shu Po''':

'''Nyarlathotep''':

'''Oras''':

'''Pharasma''':

'''Sarenrae''':

'''Talavet''':

'''Triune''':

'''Urgathoa''':

'''Weydan''':

'''Yaresa''':

'''Zon-Kuthon''':

==Books==
* August 2017 saw the release of the '''Starfinder Core Rulebook''' as promised, making [[Paizo]] better at releasing books on time than [[White Wolf|some publishers]]. It has mostly everything you need to run a game, even if the character options are a bit bare out of the box.
* October 2017 saw the release of the '''Alien Archive''', aka the [[Monster Manual]] for the game. This puts about two months between the release of the two books, so have fun either porting over monsters from Pathfinder or exclusively fighting humanoid opponents. The book also comes with special equipment all the different NPCs use along with all the prices and stats. For example you can now buy a laser sniper rifle the cybercommandos use. Instead of opting for the vanilla bolt action. Along with many different magic, tech and hybrid items.
* March 2018 released '''Pact Worlds''', a setting book that went more in depth into come of the central planets present in the main setting as well as some of the factions. Alongside some new races, there's also some new spells, themes, items, archetypes, and feats.

Just like it's predecessor, Starfinder has several prewritten adventures for GMs to use if they feel unoriginal enough.
* '''Dead Suns''': A giant WMD capable of blowing up stars has just shown up from the Drift like some sorta [[Space Hulk]]. The local not-quite-[[Necron]] empire of Eox has interest in claiming it.
==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Starfinder.png|The image used to announce the game.
</gallery>

{{Starfinder-Races}}

[[Category:Roleplaying]]

Starfinder

2018-06-10T04:34:04Z

2602:306:3B27:CB40:8CC:F1D:295F:94F3:

{{Game Infobox
|name = Starfinder
|picture = [[File:Starfinder Iconics.jpg|250px]]
|system = Modified [[D20]]
|publisher = [[Paizo]]
|authors = James Sutter, Sarah Robinson, Robert McCreary, Owen Stephens et al
|year = 2017
|books = Starfinder Core Rulebook
}}
:''This game is not to be confused with [[Starjammer]], created by the people maintaining D20PFSRD, which is [[Spelljammer]] for Pathfinder (though it is compatible with Starfinder).
'''Starfinder''' (aka Pathfinder 40k) is an RPG by [[Paizo|Paizo Publishing]] released in August 2017. It is a future version of [[Pathfinder]] set IN SPACE.

==Overview==
* There's ratmen IN SPACE, meaning that Paizo has [[Skaven]] IN SPACE before [[GW]] has in a playable form.
* There are going to be hardcover books and a Starfinder Adventure Path, much like Pathfinder has.
* FTL travel was revealed by the new deity Triune and is achieved by traveling through a dimension called the Drift. "Drift beacons" randomly appear or are planted by clerics of Triune and reduce the risk of a Drift jump to the beacon's location; the Starstone in Absalom Station is a fuckhuge Drift beacon that also accelerates travel to the station. Whenever a ship enters the Drift, it drags entire segments of reality from elsewhere into the Drift with it. [[Warp|This is not at all ominous, no siree.]] So do be careful: you'll never know when you have to scrape the demons off of your ship's bumper.
* [[Golarion]] is fucking gone. As in totally gone, nobody can remember what happened to it, it just fucking vanished. The various races have spread out to the other planets in Golarion's system. New ones are there, too. Everyone remembers building a giant space station in orbit around Golarion while it was still definitely around and so can use its construction as a frame of reference to about ''when'' the world vanished (within a few hundred years), but no one remembers anything about the planet itself disappearing.
* The Iconic Characters are members of the Starfinder Society from that station, who have the mission of finding out what happened to Golarion.
* [[Goblin]]s survived and have little space helmets.

===Differences from Pathfinder===
Considering that this is Paizo, the goons who made a killing off of resurrecting 3.5E, the rules for this game aren't that far removed from the original PF mechanics. Though you can't get a 1-1 translation of all the classes, you can probably be able port most of your characters over.
* Each character now has both [[hit points]], which are hard to replace, and "stamina points," which work like hit points but can be much more easily recovered and are always lost first. HP is essentially stuck as a hybrid between racial stats (meaning that little spessrats only give 2 HP to a character while burly Vesk and chitinous Shirrens give 6 HP) and class stats (essentially like Hit Die, only with no rolling), while Stamina is given per class level + [[Constitution]] Modifier.
* The Resolve mechanic gives you a small pool of points to spend for recovering stamina, stabilizing if you're dying, and getting up if you're stable. These points are keyed off of a single stat your class is dependent on (so Soldiers pick between Str and Dex, Mystics use Wis, so on and so forth). Each class even has special uses for Resolve and backgrounds can give special circumstances for regaining them.
* In addition to your race and class, you pick a "theme" at character creation, which is basically a 5e background. Themes are things like being an Ace Pilot or a Xenoenvoy that give your character some flavor, and a few other abilities that unlock as you level, plus a small stat boost.
* Archetypes, rather than being class-specific and swapping out whatever abilities they want, are a bit more reminiscent of 4e's Themes - You pick it up and it replaces certain class abilities (and since these are for all classes, they switch off only certain abilities) and grant new abilities.
* Skills are largely condensed in a way that, while not ''identical'' to 5e, certainly resembles it much more than Pathfinder: a single Athletics skills rather than separate skills for Climb and Swim, for instance, or Mysticism instead of Arcana and Spellcraft.
* No charisma-based casters at all (though the Solarian and Envoy both sort of fit the niche thematically), and no full casters: the technomancer and the mystic are both half-casters. All spellcasting is distinctly 5e-ish, with lower-level spells that can be cast in higher-level slots for boosted effects. (For instance, the primary healing spell is a first-level spell, but it heals more and more as it gets cast in higher level slots, eventually also cleansing various status effects.)
* Most classes that rely on weapon-use get "Weapon Specialization" in their weapons during progression, and all of them can take it as a feat. It adds their character level to damage rolls.
* Everyone has [[derp|two kinds of AC]]: KAC, for kinetic weapons like swords and bullets, and EAC, for energy weapons like lasers and lightsaber-a-likes. Unlike with PF where you're stuck trying to remember what armor bonuses add to Flat-Footed or Touch, this allows you to calculate your defenses a bit easier.
* Cybernetics and genetic modding are also a thing.
* Most classes start off scaling a bit slow, then ramp up at about level 11. For instance, a Solarian's energy blade does 1d6 damage at first level, then 2d6 at fifth level, but starts going up much faster at level eleven, and caps out at 12d6.
* Weapons take a page out of 4E's book and have items that scale in power alongside player levels...except they don't give them to you, no! You still have to buy these stronger guns and armors!
* Ship-building and combat will be very familiar to those who played [[Rogue Trader (RPG)]]. Build Points to buy parts for your ship, the need to travel through an alternate dimension that may or may not contain unholy terrors, the whole shebang.
** The promotional material also promised that each class would totally have mechanics to help them in ship combat. Most of this is false. Not only is a majority of the mechanics keyed off of RANKS in a particular skill (Pilot for all the ship defenses) rather than the character's actual bonus, but several class bonuses are flat-out not allowed to work in a ship. Also damning is the sharply-rising difficulty curve for all your ship actions, which keys itself off of the average party level rather than some other stat <s>[[Wat|This means that if you level up high enough, your little zippy spaceship that's been extensively customized will be as impossible to maneuver for your veteran crew as a fucking freighter for a bunch of rookies]]</s> but this was fixed in the errata.
** Each character has roles during combat, similar to RT. Unlike that game though, the roles are a lot more simplified in number (Captain for leading, Gunner for shootan, Engineer for fixing, Pilot for flying, and Science Officer to manage all computer things) and complexity. All each role does is grant special abilities to use in combat.

==Core classes==
* '''Envoys''': Use wit and charm to bolster their allies and demoralize or befuddle enemies. They also get a lot of skillmonkey powers, including "expertise" in a number of skills in a way similar to the [[Investigator]]. They have a selection of talents to select to use in order to distract enemies, but they all require an enemy to either see or hear them, which can hamstring them in specific situations.
* '''Mechanics''': Mechanical geniuses. The class as a whole has a lot of tricks for fiddling with computers and disabling or taking over machines, and can do fun things like turning any piece of mechanical gear into a makeshift grenade or overclock their drone or cortex to put themselves in the Matrix.
**''Drones'' are one of their choices for class themes. It's pretty obvious - it's a fucking drone, with purpose of either being a gun-rig, a scout, or a hoverdrone. Drones are always fun to use with customizable parts to work with.
**''Exocortex'' is the other choice, hardwiring an AI into their brains. Rather than a pet drone, this allows for a Mechanic to use additional weaponry as well as a free Skill Focus feat. It also can help with hacking a bit and can target enemies for guaranteed hits, and can give ''themselves'' some of the drone's upgrades. Including a jet pack.
* '''Mystics''': Channel the universe's mysterious energies, often through faith in a god. They're a sort of cross between [[Sorcerer]] and [[Cleric]] in that they have a special theme in them with bonus thematic spells and talents as well as the ability to heal.
**''Akashic'' is a rather skill-focused connection. Bonuses on skill checks, the ability to re-roll with more ranks on the skill, and the power to (eventually) cast any spell you want at the cost of a higher spell-slot.
**''Empath'' is, obviously, focused on magical empathy. The ability to read emotions.
**''Healer'' is rather obvious. You're a medic. You keep tabs on everyone, top them off on HP when you can and eventually learn to siphon health from your enemies and cheat death itself.
**''Mindbreaker'' allows you to commit literal mindfuckery. Your powers are focused upon inflicting as much pain as inhumanly possible, with the capstone power being able to EXPLODE HEADS.
**''Overlord'' is also about mindfuckery, but on a more subtle scale. This allows you to brainwash people, break their resistances slowly, and eventually exert absolute control over someone.
**''Star Shaman'' is the most spacey one. You can pilot ships good, walk in space without a suit, and turn into a star-being. The capstone for this allows you to teleport between planets.
**''Xenodruid'' is the remnants of the [[Druid]]. Plant shenanigans, the power to talk to and transform into an animal, and even the eventual ability to reincarnate.
* '''Operatives''': Use stealth and skill to get in and out of dangerous situations. They get a shitload of attacks with weak weapons, like a monk, and a special sneak attack trick like a [[Rogue]], and they can pick a number of specializations to refine what kind of sneaky guy they want to be. Among all the classes, these guys are especially notorious for how powerful they are.
**''Daredevil'' allows you to be very mobile, with the eventual ability to gain a natural swim and climb speed for more maneuverability.
**''Detective'' gives you the ability to investigate a bit better, with the ability to eventually cast Divination to find answers when you're at a dead end.
**''Explorer'' is the sort used to exploring all sorts of different worlds. They can explore around with special benefits and are especially familiar with places far from home.
**''Ghost'' is probably the one people use the most for having a serious boost to Stealth (a skill they'll already have high scores on by virtue of a high Dex), making it neigh-impossible to fail. They can turn invisible and eventually even phase through walls.
**''Hacker'' is in a similar field to the Mechanic, with the power to distract with computers. They're more focused on hacking than anything else though.
**''Spy'' allows you to pull of any sort of disguise, eventually being able to even feed any thought-reader false information.
**''Thief'' is more like a traditional thief. Their special ability allows them to build a contingency plan JUST when something goes wrong and derail the DM's plans to bust your asses if it goes right.
* '''Solarians''': Shape the energy of stars and black holes into armor and weapons for themselves. Weirdly, their cosmic-energy weapons do normal kinetic damage (although some of their class powers change that). Fluff-wise, they seem like Jedi, being warrior monks who represent a universal force and gain mystical powers from their devotion to that force. The Solarians are attuned to a sort of ill-defined cosmic cycle that's somehow connected to stars. This manifests as a mote of either light or dark that floats around them, which they turn into either a weapon or armor (you pick which at first level and can't change it). Gameplay wise, they're melee spell-combatants who build up energy points by being in combat, then spend these points to set off magical effects. They can choose to build either Graviton or Photon points, which can then trigger associated spells. Graviton tends to be more focused on moving and controlling your enemies, whereas Photon is more about damaging and dazing. They have minor magic effects that they can use basically whenever, but their show-stoppers require them to be fully attuned to the associated force (basically, to have spent three rounds attuning themselves). Also, they basically ''have'' to balance the number of Gravity and Photon tricks they know or suffer harsh penalties. All in all, they play sort of like a [[Magus]] mixed with a [[World_of_Warcraft | Cataclysm-era Druid]]. It's kind of complicated, but fun to play. Also, pick a weapon kid. It scales better and is cooler. The armor is basically screwing yourself.
* '''Soldiers''': Specialize in heavy weapons and armor. They share a [[Fighter]]'s bonus feat selection, but differentiate themselves by picking from combat styles that alter how they work and a not-shit save and skill progression. They also learn "gear tricks" to boost up their weapons and armor in ways most other classes can't.
**''Arcane Assailant'' allows you to punch through resistances and corporeality before anyone else and imbue weapons with special effects like they were magical.
**''Armor Storm'' focuses on wearing heavy armor and making sure you're not hamstrung by it. You naturally gain proficiency in powered armor (literal walking tanks) and giving you the full mileage and then some from your suit.
**''Blitz'' is about aggression. You intend to rush in head-first, learning how to ignore pain and throw everything into an attack.
**''Bombard'' makes you a mix between Demolitions Expert and Heavy Weapons Guy. You can make your own grenades, you can punch harder with heavy guns, and make explosions get more boomy.
**''Guard'' is the defensive style. Extra comfort in the armor is the start, and the end is ignoring conditions and being such a walking tank that you can make yourself a wall to your buds. Power Armor Included.
**''Hit and Run'' is switch-hitting: the class. Run in, lay a few blows, and hop out before they hit you.
**''Sharpshoot'' is for snipers. You aim so well that you can ignore cover and hit them in their weak points for maximum damage.
* '''Technomancers''': The magical version of computer programmers, hacking the laws of physics. They're essentially techno-[[Wizard]]s, with an electronic bound item (and no familiar) and a bunch of special talents allowing them to mess with equipment and spells to their liking. They eventually even have the ability to fuse spellslots together to cast bigger spells.

==Races==
Like 2/3rds of these are already available as non-core PC races for Pathfinder, but heavily rejiggered to fit the new system. There are also rules and fluff for the core races of Pathfinder, with some tweaks (like no speed penalty for being Small) to fit the Starfinder rules.
* '''[[Android]]s''': Artificial people. Are generally pissed off about being created as a servitor race, complete with occasional literal slavery, so they intentionally distance themselves from the human cultures they broke away from. They have no gender because they're robots. Crunchwise they have similar social penalties to their Pathfinder counterparts, and retain many of their immunities. The only difference here is that they can wire themselves with an armor upgrade to get the benefits of the upgrade without actually wearing armor.
* '''[[Human]]s''': Everybody knows humans. They are about the only race that ''didn't'' get nerfed in the transition from ''Pathfinder'', or in comparison to their most-obvious ''Pathfinder'' equivalents, and so are just as overpowered as they've always been.
* '''[[Kasatha]]s''': [[Thri-kreen|Four-armed aliens from a desert world.]] They invented the Solarian traditions. Their four arms are unfortunately nerfed such that they can't quad-weapon wield, the system as a whole makes multi-weapon fighting a rough concept for just about anyone without multiple attacks. And unfortunately, they lost nearly all their good, general purpose abilities, like AC boosts, in the transition, and instead kept all their situational abilities, such as not taking movement penalties in desert terrain, presumably to "balance" the power of their now-neigh-useless four arms.
* '''[[Lashunta]]s''': A race of telepaths. They choose which subrace they get to be at puberty, which mostly determines ability scores and fluff like social standing. The two subraces are tall, slender and attractive and short, broad and strong; both are reminiscent of the golden age of pulp SF. It used to be that only women can become the former and men always became the latter, but with recent (progressive) changes the two can now pick, with government-sponsored aptitude tests making the rounds. This means that their men can now also be tall, slender and bishie while the women can be [[Musclegirl|short, broad and swole]].
* '''[[Shirren]]s''': [[Tyranids|Insectoid people who recently broke free from a predatory hive mind.]] Literally addicted to making choices for themselves. Also telepathic. A slightly more original take on the bug alien trope. Not a Pathfinder port.
* '''[[Vesk]]''': [[Lizardmen|Powerful reptilian aliens]], with [[Star Trek|Klingon honor-culture]]. Have natural weapons, armor proficiencies, that kinda deal. Nobody likes them because they only just stopped warring with everyone else, but everyone tolerates them because they're handy in a fight and make good mercenaries that can be pointed away from civilized people and towards the dangers of deep space. Fit the half-orc niche of the excellent bruiser race. Also not a Pathfinder port.
* '''[[Ysoki]]''': A plucky and hotheaded race, often called "[[ratfolk]]," with a bit of similarity to the Pathfinder version. Not actually [[Skaven]] in space, but don't let that stop you from rolling Space [[Thanquol]]. Enjoy a number of benefits from their Moxie trait, including easily running around underfoot and standing up as a swift action if knocked down. Also they have cheek pouches able to store small objects like ammo and bombs like a chipmunk.
* The usual [[Elves]], [[Halfling]]s, [[Dwarves]] and so on are offered as "Legacy Conversions". If you want to play them, you can, and there are rules for them in the back of the book, but it seems that none of the old races are going to be strongly supported.

===Alien Archive===
The first Bestiary didn't just contain monsters to drag into whatever story you make, but also several new PC races as well. Neat!
* '''Barathus''': Weird hardy gasbag things from a gas giant. They float around and have some sort of shapeshiftery.
* '''Contemplative''': BE THE WORLD'S BIGGEST BRAIN...on a teeny tiny body. So tiny that you can't carry anything bigger than a pistol without breaking your psychic focus on flying. They're not only able to fly with the power of their minds, but they're also super smart.
* '''Draeliks''': Humanoid banana-looking men. They have some spell like abilities and do good with darkness.
* '''Dragonkin''': Humanoid [[Dragon]]s! Hell yeah! They're effectively dragons on two legs with all the basic benefits of being a dragon...and they can only partner up with one ally, granting them both the best Initiative score between them.
* '''[[Drow]]''': Yeah, they're here too. Almost like elves, but with racial spell like abilities light sensitivity. If they grab a specific feat, they can also effectively detect anything in the darkness.
* '''Formians''': Four-legged bugmen. They get natural weapons and blindesense with smell.
* '''[[Goblin]]s''': Now with silly space helmets! They also can slap together quick fixes to things.
* '''Grays''': A surprisingly stereotypical alien race. Flimsy, but they're psychic and can phase out of existence for concealment for a few times each day.
* '''Haans''': Giant freaky primitive space... spiderthings. They spit fire and make web balloons.
* '''Ikeshti''': Closest thing we have to [[Kobold]]s for now. They hail from a desert world, they can shed their skin to get flexible, and they squirt blood from their eyes.
* '''Kalos''': Fishmen who can't operate on land without suits, but on sea they have blindsense (sound) and lowlight vision.
* '''Maraquoi''': Monkeymen with blindsense (sound). They have prehensile tails.
* '''Nuars''': SPACE MINOTAURS! They charge into battle without penalties and have horns. They have a special item augment called "Maze Cores" that were ripped straight out of RWBY.
* '''Reptoids''': Shapeshifting space lizardmen. They have claws when not turning into someone else.
* '''Ryphorians''': Trimorphic pointy-eared aliens. They get a spare feat, the elves' +2 to perception, and either resistance to cold or fire (or both and take longer before needing to test Fortitude for surviving).
* '''Sarcesians''': Space mothmen. They get a spare skill rank (like humans) and grow giant space-wings for flying when in space.
* '''Shobhads''': Brutish four-armed aliens that look straight outta Oddworld. They're quite fast, get Orc Ferocity, and they resist cold.
* '''Skittermanders''': Little six-armed stuffed critters. They can move twice in a turn and are extra grabby.
* '''Urogs''': Bizarre electrical monsters that are slow, but sense enemies through electrical currents. They also have extra skill ranks.
* '''Verthani''': Gangly humanoids. They gain Skill Focus as a natural ability and have chameleonic skin. Also useful is their ability to stack two implants to one location, though it's for one slot and one of them must be cybernetic.
* '''Witchwyrds''': They have four arms, each of which is capable of absorbing magic missiles and firing them back at someone.
* '''Wrikreechees''': The prawns from District 9. They're rather resourceful, with bonuses to grab small things, swim speeds, and a bonus to cover, but they're slow on land.

===Pact Worlds===
*'''Astrazoans''': Weird gelatinous blobs of meat, capable of impersonating other beings.
*'''Bantrids''': Noseless...stump...things...? They're sorta like Tiki statues, but tinier and super-mobile.
*'''Borais''': [[Revenant]]s...IN SPACE. They get a racial feature from whatever they once were, they have resistances against negative energy effects, but thankfully they don't get gimped by healing.
*'''Khizars''': Plant-monsters. They're essentially only able to perceive light and life, but are also telepathic.
*'''S.R.O.s''': Whereas Androids were for making Data, S.R.O.s are more for making Chappie. They're far more resistant to things that'd affect living beings, but are also less able to benefit from healing (though reassembly is a thing). They also possess built-in technological equipment, but are startlingly fragile compared to their synth-skinned counterparts.
*'''Strix''': The same shadowy bird-men from PF. They're less spiteful shitbags and more technologically capable.

==The Pact Worlds==

The main setting of the game is the Pact Worlds, the solar system Golarion was part of. Originally introduced in the ''Pathfinder'' sourcebook ''Distant Worlds''.

'''The Sun''': A big-ass ball of plasma, normally home to giant Plasma Oozes and denizens from the Plane of Fire. Followers of Sarenae found a bunch of humanoid-build cities floating around in force bubbles abandoned, and moved right in.

'''Aballon''': Fantasy Mercury, this planet is mostly home to the Anacites, a race of robots left behind by their creators thousands of years ago.

'''Castrovel''': Fantasy Venus. This sweltering jungle world is home to the Lashunta as well as Elves, who ''really'' didn't like that centuries-long gap in their memories.

'''Absalom Station''': Parked in Golarion's former orbit, this space station is the center of the Pact Worlds' government and contains the Starstone.

'''Akiton''': John Carter-style Mars, now fallen on hard times. Home to the Yoski, Ikeshti, Shobads, and red-skinned humans.

'''Verces''': A tidally-locked world that has had spacecraft and cybernetics since the Pathfinder days.

'''Iidari''': A few centuries ago, the Kasathas left their dying world on a giant colony ship to make a new home on Akiton. The natives didn't agree, so they parked their ship in a new orbit and stayed there.

'''The Diaspora''': Two twin planets were blown to pieces, possibly by someone on Eox. Some of the life on the planet was too stubborn to die, and still lives on in the resulting asteroid belt. In modern times, it's become Future Shackles, home to mining companies and Space Pirates.

'''Eox''': Like the Diaspora, Eox got wrecked in an ancient cataclysm(possibly backlash from the Diaspora's destruction), and technically, the planets that got blown up got off easy. To survive their world's death, the population has become undead. Needless to say, the rest of the Pact Worlds are a little nervous about a planet run by [[Lich]]es.

'''Triaxus''': Home to Ryphorians, Dragonkin, and straight-up Dragons. Triaxus has a strange, long orbit that gives it Summers and Winters that each last for generations.

'''Liavara''': Fantasy Saturn. Liavara isn't technicially a pact world, due to not having much of civilization other than gas-mining operations. The Barathu consider the world a

'''Bretheda''': Blue Fantasy Jupiter. Home to the Barathu, with other races living on its moons.

'''Apostae''': A lonely, hollow world currently ruled by the Drow.

'''Aucturn''': Planet Lovecraft. This living organic world is supposedly a yet-unborn Great Old One. That is already pregnant with a mountain-sized polyp. Currently being fought over by the cultists of the Outer Gods and the Dominion of the Black, whom are somehow ''worse''.

==Books==
* August 2017 saw the release of the '''Starfinder Core Rulebook''' as promised, making [[Paizo]] better at releasing books on time than [[White Wolf|some publishers]]. It has mostly everything you need to run a game, even if the character options are a bit bare out of the box.
* October 2017 saw the release of the '''Alien Archive''', aka the [[Monster Manual]] for the game. This puts about two months between the release of the two books, so have fun either porting over monsters from Pathfinder or exclusively fighting humanoid opponents. The book also comes with special equipment all the different NPCs use along with all the prices and stats. For example you can now buy a laser sniper rifle the cybercommandos use. Instead of opting for the vanilla bolt action. Along with many different magic, tech and hybrid items.
* March 2018 released '''Pact Worlds''', a setting book that went more in depth into come of the central planets present in the main setting as well as some of the factions. Alongside some new races, there's also some new spells, themes, items, archetypes, and feats.

Just like it's predecessor, Starfinder has several prewritten adventures for GMs to use if they feel unoriginal enough.
* '''Dead Suns''': A giant WMD capable of blowing up stars has just shown up from the Drift like some sorta [[Space Hulk]]. The local not-quite-[[Necron]] empire of Eox has interest in claiming it.
==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Starfinder.png|The image used to announce the game.
</gallery>

{{Starfinder-Races}}

[[Category:Roleplaying]]

Golarion

2018-06-10T03:21:26Z

2602:306:3B27:CB40:8CC:F1D:295F:94F3: /* Gods of Golarion */

{{stub}}
[[File:Continent of Avistan.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Welcome to Golarion.]]
[[Golarion]] is the "main" planet in Paizo's default [[Campaign setting|campaign setting]] for the [[Pathfinder Roleplaying Game]]. It's not the sum total of the setting's Material Plane like, say, Athas is, but it's where most of the action is and where you're going to be spending most of your time so it's also the nickname for what's properly known as the [[Pathfinder Campaign Setting]]. Golarion was first introduced to players as a generic OGL module named ''Crown of the Kobold King'', released in June of 2007 under Paizo's GameMastery imprint. Two months later at [[Gen Con]] 2007, Paizo published ''Rise of the Runelords'', the first of Pathfinder's famous Adventure Paths and the first product to bear the Pathfinder brand name; this was followed by another adventure path and a couple "Pathfinder Chronicles" supplements. When Wizards announced [[Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition]] and neglected to mention that the OGL would be replaced with a giant spiky dildo, Paizo cashed in on the confusion and announced that they would be creating a replacement RPG, based on OGL content but with a less restrictive license for its "Product Identity" and with Golarion as the default setting. Golarion is notable for ripping off fucking everything, including dime-store pulp novels, random bits of relatively modern history, earlier editions of D&D, sci-fi kitsch, and the kitchen sink. This is a transparent attempt to [[Gay|fill the gaping orifice]] left behind by the loss of the D&D's "Product Identity" as cheaply as possible, justified as a way of allowing many different campaign styles to coexist in the same setting. One notable exception is the elder gods of the Far Realm, which Paizo replaced by biting the bullet and licensing the [[Cthulhu Mythos]] from Chaosium.

The centerpiece of Golarion is the Inner Sea region, consisting of the fantasy equivalents of Western Europe, the Mediterranean Sea zone, and the northern half of Africa. Unlike [[Dark Sun|most]] other fantasy settings, many of the cultures and civilizations of the Inner Sea region are in severe decline after the only deity which represents humans in the [[Outer Planes|Great Beyond]], Aroden, died a few centuries ago. To add salt to the wound, this caused a series of events which fucked up the world: the formation of a massive supernatural stationary fuckstorm that annihilated two entire nations and allowed [[Pirate|pirates]] to develop their own kingdoms, the obliteration of a noble [[barbarian]] empire by [[Eye of Terror|a tear in the tissue of reality]] opened directly into the [[Abyss]], and the prophets and diviners committing mass suicide as an prophesied golden age for mankind suddenly faded into nothing. As if this wasn't enough, the religious hysteria led the two greatest empires of the region to become balkanized devil-worshipping fantasy Nazis and decadent chucklefucks, respectively.

==Nations of Golarion==
===Absalom===
[[File:PathfinderExplained.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Golarion (or at least the parts that matter) in a nutshell.]]
Mecca meets [[Sigil]] in the middle of the ocean. 10,000 years in Golarion's past, a fuckhuge magic space rock called the Starstone struck the planet, creating the Inner Sea in the process and destroying Azlant, home of the Glorious Azlanti Master Race. The last of the Azlanti, Aroden, lifted the stone out of the Inner Sea 5,000 years later and used its magic to become [[Emperor|the God of Humanity in living flesh,]] founding the city-state of Absalom on the island where he dumped the thing to protect it from others who wanted to pull the same trick. It's still there, in the heart of the Ascendant Court, and anyone who survives the Test of the Starstone can use it to become a god too. (Thousands try every year; only three have ever succeeded, including [[Lulz|one guy who took the test on a drunken dare and can't remember how he did it.]]) As everyone has a stake in keeping the number of crazy gods around to a minimum and the island is strategically located in the middle of the Inner Sea, Absalom has become the effective center of civilization in Golarion's western hemisphere, with a complete clusterfuck of races and nationalities walking the streets to wheel and deal. Other areas of note include the Cairnlands, the slightly-haunted graveyard for all the dumbasses who tried and failed to invade one of the most important places on the planet, and the Ivy District, which is where all the whores are and where everyone goes to [[Diplomacy|stab each other in the back.]]

===Alkenstar===
Fuck yeah [[Murlynd|guns in your fantasy setting.]] Alkenstar is in the middle of a giant non-magical desert formed by a war between its magocratic neighbors, Geb and Nex, so they had to tell [[Medieval Stasis]] to shove it and learn engineering to stay relevant. Almost all of Golarion's gunpowder-based weaponry is produced by Alkenstari engineers, and they like to keep it that way so they can continue to charge out the ass for them. This is so your GM has an excuse to veto firearms. Despite what you'd expect from a desert nation that shits firearms, they're ''not'' particularly friends with Andoran, maintaining scrupulous neutrality and being situated in Golarion's equivalent of northeastern Africa.

===Andoran===
Fuck yeah 'Muricans. When Cheliax shat the bed, the nobles of Andoran went along with their new devil overlords in the interest of not becoming a fucking bloodbath like Galt or Cheliax itself. Andoran's burgeoning merchant class had other ideas and whipped up a revolution two years later, using Galtan philosophy (as if the American Revolution parallels weren't fucking obvious enough) to fuel the fires and inventing democratic socialism and the welfare state from whole cloth. As expected of fantasy Americans, they also practice cultural imperialism, actively exporting their radical ideology and disrupting the Inner Sea's slave trade. This makes them less than popular with the rest of the world. Their patron divinity is a [[Guardinal|celestial eagle-man.]]

===Belkzen===
Stupid dumb [[Orc|greenskin]] scum. When Golarion's dwarves took their expedition/holy war out of the Darklands, they brought the orcs with them. The dwarves eventually pushed them back into a shitty little valley in the continent's north, but not before a [[Grimgor Ironhide|strong and ambitious orc warlord]] named Belkzen managed to capture and ransack a [[Dwarf Fortress]] that he rechristened Urgir, the closest thing to a capital city they have. Naturally, the Hold of Belkzen has since collapsed into a fuckpile of semi-nomadic tribes with friendly names like Broken Spine, Gutspear, and Murdered Child constantly wrangling with each other for territory. The current holder of Urgir, Grask Uldeth of the Empty Hand, has discovered the value of trade with less beefy races, and your average PC can walk the streets in relative safety... most of the time. Other locations of note include the Brimstone Haruspex, where orc clerics huff volcanic gas to predict the future, and the Foundry, where and I quote: [[Mekboy|"crazed orc engineers known as Steeleaters remain neutral in order to sell their bizarre siege weaponry to all sides."]] '''Green really iz da best, innit?'''

===Brevoy===
Stuck all the way in the upper right corner of the map, this land is cold, forested and the country is on the verge of collapse. [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Supposedly some dragon or dude with a dragon showed up, conquered everyone and his line has ruled for years only to disappear one night and now the various noble houses vie for control.]]

Anyway, Brevoy is divided into a few regional areas, each ruled by a noble house who have their own outlook and goals, as well as a [[Greyhawk|somewhat independent city of adventurer swordsmen]]. The northern nobles are loosely allied against the equally loosely allied south and, in an attempt to build power and prestige enough to keep the calm, the newest king has sent [[Adventurer|adventurers]] south to found a new kingdom, [[Just As Planned|preferably a weak one that they can conquer in a weekend war.]]

===Cheliax===
[[File:Cheliax_flag.png|right|thumb]]
Motherfucking '''DEVIL [[Nazi|NAZIS.]]''' I mean, shit, their flag has a fucking swastika on it, modified ''just'' enough to keep German fa/tg/uys from [[/pol/|getting arrested.]] They were the biggest big cheese since Azlant until Aroden died and the noble houses turned the empire into a clusterfuck resembling a [[Crusader Kings]] game gone bad. House Thrune, fortunately (for them), [[Devil|had some friends in low places]] and leveraged their foul magic to slaughter their way through a 30-year civil war and put Queen Abrogail on the throne. Now the people of Cheliax have to deal with a government that worships [[Asmodeus]] as a state religion, regularly employs bound devils in its armies, [[Chaos|and ''really'' likes putting spikes on things.]] Anyone who doesn't support the new order is at risk of getting ratted out by his neighbors for profit and the villages "live in fear," but for the most part people live as they always have. And yes, they ''do'' make sure the <s>trains</s> carriages run on time and have a huge standing military. You know, just in case the swastika wasn't big enough of a hint.

===Druma===
Jewish Scientologists. Alternately, [[Star Trek|Ferengi]] in a fantasy setting. Their religion (which they claim is just a set of divinations, even though it acts exactly like a real-world religion complete with all kinds of weird social conscriptions) literally directs them to make as much money as they can, bling themselves the fuck out, favor each other over <s>goyim</s> unbelievers in business dealings, and eventually buy out the entire world. [[Chaotic Stupid]] robbers beware, that unassuming gem convoy is also blinged out with enough contingency spells to flash boil a dragon, and if the magic doesn't get you, the equally pimped-out guards will. Contrary to expectations, ''not'' dwarven, though there is a substantial dwarven minority because of their role in getting the Five Kings Mountains to stop killing each other and the absolutely retarded amount of gold and gems on their land. [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|For them, heaven is humans-only.]]

===Five Kings Mountains===
When the dwarves forced their way to the surface, they popped up here mostly. Over the course of the Quest For Sky (the aforementioned holy war to the surface) they built up a fuckton of [[Dwarfs (Warhammer Fantasy)|grudges]] with each other that mutated and merged over time, and after an exceedingly long and generic history the Five Kings Mountains are in a situation similar to the real-life Holy Roman Empire; there are far more than five dwarf polities there, and none of them can be considered "kings." Otherwise they're your standard generic as fuck fantasy dwarves. Funnily, are neighbors with the elves and the Ferengiboos, as well as the not!Americans.

===Galt===
'''VIVE LA REVOLUTION!''' Galt was at one time a Chelish holding, but after Big Daddy Asmodeus got his fingers in its contingency of [[Neckbeard|poets and philosophers]] started writing screeds about how shit House Thrune was and if someone like that could rule by divine right, then divine right was a crock of shit. Because Galt is just the high school history version of France during the Terror, this idea spread like wildfire and anyone who was even remotely related to the Chelish leadership was put to the sword. Modern Galt is a continuously shifting crab-bucket of revolutionary governments, each one falling victim to the next based on the shifting whims of the mob. One neat wrinkle is that the guillotines used to execute yesterday's news (the ''final blades'') trap the souls of those they kill, simultaneously preventing resurrection and keeping the soul from getting stolen by (or sent to, if the victim was evil) Hell. Dwarf players should take note of the town of Azurestone, which is built around a holy site of Torag and is kept relatively insulated from the anarchic clusterfuck.

===Geb===
Fuck yeah [[Lich]] King (actually a ghost king, though there is a Lich Queen ruling in his stead, since the ghost king is mildly senile). Originally part of ancient Osirion until they exiled a cocky necromancer named Geb, so he started his own kingdom with [[meme|blackmagic and hookers]], also named Geb, and got into a multi-century pissing match with the wizard Nex, who ruled the nation of Nex. This war fucked both countries, turning Geb into an undead wasteland and the southern portions of Nex into a desert where magic doesn't work.

===Hermea===
[[Council of Wyrms]]: The Nation. An island in the sea between Cheliax and Varisia ruled by a gold dragon who is instituting some "[[communism|Glorious Endeavor]]" to perfect humanity.

===Irrisen===
Cold as a witch's titty, and boy are there witches here. Founded by [[Baba Yaga]] after a month long war, she locked the land in perpetual winter then promptly fucked off, only returning every 100 years to kidnap the current queen and install a new daughter on the throne. Formerly part of the Lands of the Linnorm Kings, they are still [[butthurt]] about losing the territory.

===Isger===
Cheliax's bottom bitch. Only notable because their flag has a barely-disguised swastika on it. A glorified trade-route between Cheilax and other wealthier nations, such as Druma, keeping the trade roads secured is the main priority, leaving the rest of the nation to suffer. Isger is used to suffering, though, as large swaths of the country were recently fucked in a war with raiding goblin tribes from which they still haven't really recovered.

===Jalmeray===
Little India. Originally ruled by Nex it was given to a Vudran explorer because Nex liked the cut of his jib.

===Katapesh===
Slavers and drug dealers ruled by a mysterious and alien race called the Pactmasters.

===Kyonin===
Typical elf kingdom. Been fucked over by a demon who has blighted a huge swath of the south.

===Lands of the Linnorm Kings===
Vikings and nasty animalistic dragons called linnorms. If you can actually kill a linnorm they'll crown you as one of their kings. Killing a linnorm subjects you to the linnorm's death curse, which does bad things to you until you die. Notably, actually uniting the Lands of the Linnorm Kings involves killing the biggest, meanest linnorm, and ''his'' death curse causes you to [[Lucius the Eternal| become him]], so have fun with that.

===Lastwall===
Crusader state that fights Orcs and Vampires.

===Mendev===
Another crusader state, this one fights demons. It's queen is over 100 years old but looks to be early middle aged due to a youth potion they buy from Thuvia.

===Mendiogalti Island===
Island of assassins who venerate a giant red praying mantis god. They can and will murder anyone but sitting monarchs.

===Molthune===
Fantasy Prussia. Recently lost their northern lands to a bunch of Robin Hood wannabes. Makes the criminally stupid decision of hiring hobgoblin mercenaries because they have an unhealthy obsession with outdoing Cheliax in the whole empire-building thing.

===Mwangi Expanse===
Home to intelligent gorilla men and a super ancient empire of black men who lived in flying cities making the saying "We wuz kangs" sorta true for Pathfinder.

===Nex===
Originally part of ancient Osirion, at some point it became its own nation called Nex ruled by the [[wizard]] named Nex. Real creative bunch, these wizards. As is natural for a nation of wizards they have royally fucked up their lands in a massive magic war with Geb, to their south, almost single-handedly making the nation of Alkenstar in the process. After Nex just completely fucked off one day, the war pretty much went into a stalemate because Geb didn't even want to fight anymore if he wouldn't get to kill Nex.

===Nidal===
Client state to Cheliax, they are basically Clive Barker's Cenobites (think BDSM people who love hard piercings and spiked chains) plus 1984.

===Nirmathas===
A wooded area that told Molthune to fuck off. Basically this is Robin Hood's Sherwood Forest.

===Numeria===
[[Conan the Barbarian|Conan]] meets [[Expedition to the Barrier Peaks|science fiction]], so expect super buff barbarians throwing spears at giant metal scorpions with laser eyes. Hard core as fuck.

===Osirion===
Literally Egypt if the Mummy movies were documentaries.

===Qadira===
Fantasy Turkey/Arabia. Have warred with Taldor and for a while ruled Osirion. May or may not be on the verge of a civil war. Is actually the westernmost holding of an even larger Persia-inspired empire called Kelesh.

===Rahadoum===
A country so fucked over by the gods that divine magic and worship is outlawed. This no-doubt displeases the gods but they [[Tzeentch|continue their machinations in secret via espionage clerics]].

===Razmiran===
Ever play a game with an [[That guy|edgelord]] who always wants to be the [[Mary Sue|super-bestest at everything]] and the GM just capitulates to their every whim and gives them [[Grimdark|a kingdom which they rule worse that North Korea and say everyone should worship them as a god?]] Well, that's pretty much this country. Previously part of the River Kingdoms, broke off a few years ago because said "God-King" converted a bunch of idiots. A nation of Scientologists and home of the "false priest" archetype for sorcerers.

===Realm of the Mammoth Lords===
Ever want a low fantasy caveman game that still fights witches, giants, demons, [[dinosaur|prehistoric megafauna]] and more? Go here.

===River Kingdoms===
A vast territory of constantly rising and falling petty kingdoms, it's likely if it ever united it would be one of the most powerful nations in the Inner Sea since its comparable to Taldor and Cheliax in size, but they prefer fighting amongst themselves. All neighboring countries claim some bit of it but can never hold it long due to various reasons. Banditry is massively common and is expected by the populace, some even take up banditry as a bit of part-time work between their normal lives like fishing and farming. Has its own unspoken code called the "Six River Freedoms" which basically amount to:

#Say whatever you want, but don't be surprised if a Half-Orc punches you in the face when you call their mother uglier than a mountain troll.
#If you swear an Oath you keep it or you die, no exceptions.
#No one can block the use of the rivers or land travel or charge tolls other than in wartime. However if you get attacked whilst travelling them you're on your own.
#Within their realms all who are there are bound to whatever local laws exist.
#Slavey is utterly prohibited, and even wizards can get their ass bitten if they summon a creature in view of commoners.
#As long as you give the victim a chance to defend their belongings, your allowed to steal and conquer their stuff. However if you steal their stuff and they don't get a chance to block it your treated as a common criminal.

Basically the Balkans of the setting, but with more rivers. Also the home of the Kingmaker AP module, which let players build their own kingdom.

===Sargava===
Technically a colony to the devil-worshipping assholes in Cheliax, they are effectively independent thanks to the massive fuck-you hurricane and pirates to their north. The local Mwangi people are little better than slaves and may be plotting to overthrow dem white bois.

===Shackles===
Pirates of the Caribbean. "Ruled" by the Hurricane King, every island and small stretch of land is claimed by some pirate or pirate group.

===Sodden Lands===
Previously consisting of two small kingdoms that thrived on prophecy, when Aroden died and prophecy pretty much failed followed by a massive hurricane that would make Katrina look like a small breeze, they collapsed and this is now just ruins and swampy, marshy lands. So yeah, Louisiana on a bad day.

===Taldor===
Has overtones of the Byzantine Empire and British Empire. Stagnant, decadent, corrupt. The grand prince hires vikings as bodyguards. Once rules much of the world but has become a shadow of it's former self.

===Thuvia===
Barely held together because the small cities in this realm produce the single most sought after magical item. No, not girdles of gender-swapping. I swear to... No, they make a potion that reverts the drinker to the prime of life. Consume it often enough and you basically can be immortal. Only a few batches are made each year and the prices are exorbitant.

===Ustalav===
I vant to zuck your blood! Take every fantasy gothic horror trope and dump it here. You got vampires, zombies, werewolves, liches, hags, voodoo, Cthulhu, witches and everything else. Here, EVERY night is a horrible night to have a curse.

===Varisia===
This is the main setting of the main setting. Vast wild lands, a few small cities at the edges, massive ruins to explore, goblins to kill, gypsies and more. Most of the adventures paths either play completely here, start here or at least have ties here.

===Worldwound===
Aroden, god of humans, made a lot of enemies in his day before he died. One was a giant insectoid demon lord. When he bit the bullet about a hundred years ago, the demon lord saw his chance and tore open a new gaping hole into the world to fuck. In constant war with Mendev and for the most part leave Numeria and the Mammoth Lords alone because why would you fuck with alien tech and guys who fight on mammoths?

==Lands Beyond the Core Setting==
[[File:Golarion Continents.jpg|300px|thumb|right|So many places to go, so little places well-developed...]]
Paizo, still wanting even more kitchen sink fantasy and wanting to emulate Forgotten Realms, have other continents and lands beyond the core setting.

===Arcadia===
Well they needed a place for the Americas. Notably the vikings from the Lands of the Linnorm Kings think of it as a kind of paradise and their rulers have a settlement on it in an allusion to Vinland from viking history.

===Azlant===
Atlantis by another name. Home to the first human empire that was uplifted by the aboleths, was destroyed by the Starstone when the aboleths thought humans were getting uppity.

===Casmaron===
What happens when you mix India, the 'stans and the Middle East? This. Vast swaths of largely unruled or ungovernable lands but also two massive "empires", one being a Persian/Ottoman expy, the other being fantasy India.

===Crown of the World===
Connects Avistan (Europe) to Tian Xia (East Asia). Has a few eskimo-like settlements and Cthulhu horror themes going on here.

===Darklands===
Paizo's Underdark. Drow, Svirneblin, Duergar and all the tropes therein.

===Iblydos===
Classical Greece. An island archipelago that serves as a common stopping point for traders going between the Inner Sea region and the distant lands of Vudra and Kelesh in Casmaron. Known for its prophecising Cyclopes and Demigod Heroes who often rule its numerous City-States.

===Sarusan===
Mysterious land of deadly terrors which is clearly Australia. Australia is bad enough, who the fuck knows how scary it would be with fantasy elements. Nobody can remember what it looks like for some reason that has nothing to do with leaving a blank canvas for your GM to paint with horrible death.

===Tian Xia===
[[File:Pathfinder Tian Xia Map.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Paizo is always careful to avoid cultural appropriation and treats foreign cultures in a respectful and well-informed manner.]]
Has all your classic East Asia fantasy tropes going on here. Decadent empires, eastern dragons, monks in monasteries learning kung-fu, mystical monks meditating under waterfalls, Studio Ghibli creatures running around, Naga, Oni, Mongols, and samurai.

==Gods of Golarion==
There are gods upon gods for the game but they split up into a number of different pantheons.

===Core Pantheon===
'''[[Abadar]]:''' God of civilization, walls, and banking. Doing pretty well in modern times, all things considered. Lawful Neutral in a very reasonable kind of way, leaning more towards good, but still stuck doing shit like letting Zon-Kuthon into his Vault because he doesn't break his contracts.

'''[[Asmodeus]]:''' It's [[Asmodeus]], what the fuck do you expect? The most notable changes from OGL are that Asmodeus is actually a deity this time around, and that [[SJW|misogyny is an explicit part of his dominion. Because otherwise you wouldn't be able to tell that he's a bad guy.]] Yes, the leader of his greatest group of mortal servants is female. No, the setting material does not comment on this. (One designer claimed this is because he doesn't care so much about ''mortal'' gender, since mortals are just going to die and the lawful evil ones will end up his anyway. While this was probably just the designer trying to keep his ass from getting ripped by angry neckbeards and doesn't make that much sense, it does line up with PF Asmodeus' general "they'll all see things my way eventually" mentality.)

'''[[Calistria]]:''' An elven goddess, Calistria's temples often double as centers of intrigue and brothels. [[Slaanesh|Feeding into people's lust]] and also feeding people's anxieties until they seek revenge, she is seen often as a bit of an odd one. Her favored animal is the hornet since they can sting repeatedly. Seriously, if you piss her off she will show her disdain for you by having hornets sting your junk until it's black and blistered. She is Chaotic Neutral to the extreme, in fact she is so whimsical and unreliable that she is the only non-chaotic evil deity that even Asmodeus refuses to work with.

'''[[Cayden Cailean]]:''' Five humans in the setting have ascended to godhood, each with their own outlooks and spheres and Cayden Cailean is one of them. His outlook and spheres? Partying it up, [[dwarf|getting drunk]] and going on adventures. Cayden Cailean apparently got drunk one night and took the Test of the Starstone. There are plenty of legends around why exactly the drunken man did it but one says he saw [[Slaanesh|Calistria, goddess of lust and revenge]], and wanted some of that. The goddess rebuffed him and said only a god could pleasure her. Pissed and drunk, he grabbed a keg and set off. Three days later, rocking a heavenly hangover, Cayden emerged as the most recent of the gods.

'''[[Desna]]:''' An ancient space alien who befriended one of the first gods. When Lamashtu stole the beast domain from him, she took his travel domain. Chaotic Good, and likes wandering around, but guides people with her control over luck, and has a bunch of scientist followers who see her as helping them find knowledge. Very chill for a goddess whose signature weapon is an oversized shuriken.

'''[[Erastil]]:''' Old-fashioned god of the harvest and rural areas; a grumpy but well-meaning old codger who's getting a little past it since "city living" became a thing, but is still popular out in the farming country and wilderness regions. Source of much [[SJW]] outrage when his first detailed writeup revealed that being "God of the Old Ways" also makes him a patriarchal chap who believes women should get married and make babies, though he will sigh and accept it if a woman wants to prove she can have a happy life doing something else. They kicked up such a stink about this, claiming there was no way he could be Lawful Good and think this, that Paizo hastily retconned it. For the record, men are supposed to(eventually) be settling down too. Basically a generic wilderness/rural god, though he does have some similarities to [[St. Cuthbert]].

'''[[Gorum]]:''' Basically [[Khorne]]-lite, and including the bits about not killing non-combatants. (Well, technically [[Conan the Barbarian| Crom]], but the kids only care about their 40k.) Favors actual strategy over charging massed arches armored only with war-cries though.

'''[[Gozreh]]:''' Nature god. Most interesting thing about them is that they're a [[dickgirl|hermaphrodite]], with their female form being associated with the sea and their male form with the sky.

'''[[Iomedae]]:''' Aroden's herald, who mostly took over his job after his untimely demise. A former paladin turned deity via the Starstone, and a righteous crusader type. Paizo really screws with Iomedae depending on what source you read. Sometimes seen as a [[paladin|paragon of righteousness]], she sometimes comes across as a prick, [[That guy|going so far as to deafen people who are trying to save the world because they didn't suck up to her well enough]] in one poorly-written adventure. May or may not have banged the local Bahamut-equivalent, Apsu, as a gold dragon calling her mom hangs out in her court.

'''[[Irori]]:''' Fantasy Buddha. A former mortal, but unlike the others, whom he mocks for just copying his old friend Aroden, he got there on his own, by refining and perfecting his body and mind into literal perfection. Has more followers out in Tian, but he's making waves in Golarion. His clerics get [[monk|Improved Unarmed Strike instead of a favored weapon]].

'''[[Lamashtu]]:''' Mother of monsters and a former female demon lord who stole the domains from a god she murdered. Most of the "monster" races pay homage to her, and her evil favor usually manifests as hideous deformity and mutation. Usually manifests as a [[/d/| heavily pregnant mishmash of monster parts]].

'''[[Nethys]]:''' The god of magic. Played too much ''[[Call of Cthulhu]]'' and broke his brain. His fractured mind usually manifests as two faces, one white and benevolent, one black and destructive.

'''[[Norgorber]]''' '''[[REDACTED]]'''

'''[[Pharasma]]:''' [[The Raven Queen]], sort of. The deathly-neutral type of death goddess, and probably the oldest and most primordial of divinities. Haaaaates undeath, so much that her clerics get a custom variant of the Death domain with the undeath-related parts replaced. Judges the souls of every creature that ever dies before assigning them to their proper afterlives, with allowances made for things like racial affiliation and belief in reincarnation.

'''[[Rovagug]]''': An ancient primordial force of destruction, despised by all the other gods and worshipped only by madmen and lesser primordial forces of destruction. The other gods put aside their differences long ago to trap him in the Cage, which is Golarion itself. Bad Things will happen if he ever gets out, [[Starfinder| which might be fated to happen]]. His spawn still rampage around the world, one of which is the [[tarrasque]]. A ''mid-tier'' one.

'''[[Sarenrae]]:''' [[Rule 63]] [[Pelor]]. Asmodeus's good-aligned brother's first servant, who took up his portfolio after Asmodeus murdered him. Ironically, the two allied to take the foremost role in defeating and caging Rovagug. In addition to being a sun goddess, she emphasizes the idea of compassion and redemption for the truly-repentant... and destruction for those who're truly past all that.

'''[[Shelyn]]:''' Beauty, art, and love goddess. Not so much sex though, that's Calistria's job. Literally all beings love her... some are just incapable of expressing that love in healthy ways. Lamashtu in particular gives her the creeps. Zon-Kuthon's sister, and responsible for containing the worst of the monster he's become.

'''[[Torag]]:''' We have come up with interesting twists for at least most of the blatant copies on this list. No such luck here. Torag is [[Moradin]], dwarf without end. Amen.

'''[[Urgathoa]]:''' Once upon a time, when the world was young, there lived a decadent queen who spent her whole life in unbridled hedonism. So much that, when she died, and went to wait in line in Pharasma's Boneyard to await judgement, she cut out of the line and slipped back into the world because she couldn't stand the thought of giving up the pleasures of life. In the process, she became the first undead creature and infected the world with both undeath and disease. Aw well. Very cheery for an evil goddess, since she's all about doing what you love... though for most of her followers, that's various shades of cannibalism and plague-spreading.

'''Zon-Kuthon:''' Originally known as Dou-Bral, half-sister to Shelyn, he got so asshurt about his sister's talents that he decided to go to the leather club between realities to brood. There, he was [[Rape|enlightened]] by an [[Slaanesh|alien presence]]. He returned to Golarion as a hyper BDSM fetishist known as Zon-Kuthon, god of pain, torture, and edge. His unholy symbol is a skull with a spiked chain going through the eye sockets, for fuck's sake. Despite his worshipers being evil touturing murderers, his clergy still tends to be kind to those who worship Shelyn because he still loves her, deep down in the irrevocably-ruined part of him that's still Dou-Bral.

===Tian-Xia Deities===
'''Daikitsu'''

'''Fumeiyoshi'''

'''General Susumu'''

'''Hei Feng'''

'''Kofusachi'''

'''Lady Nanbyo'''

'''Lao Sho Pu'''

'''Nalinivati'''

'''Qi Zhong'''

'''Shizuru''': Shizuru is your typical asian themed goddess of sun, honor, ancestors, and swordplay. She's generally on good relations with every other Tian Diety. She's typically worshiped by honorable samurai and weeaboos. She is the lover of the moon god Tsukiyo and had to get him resurrected by the help of Qi-Zhong, the god of medicine, after his brother Fumeiyoshi grew so damn jealous of his brother actually having a girlfriend that he geeked him. She has an star archon daughter called the [[Weeaboo|Dusk Ronin]], who got kicked out of her mother's house and now wanders the Great Beyond in search of redemption.

'''Sun Wukong'''

'''Tsukiyo'''

'''Yaezhing'''

'''Yamatsumi'''

===Other Major Deities===
===Dwarven Pantheon===

'''Droskar'''

===Elven Pantheon===
===Halfling Pantheon===

==Races of Golarion==
Being effectively [[Dungeons & Dragons]] 3.75, Golarion is absolutely crawling with races. Your D&D standards are here, but there's also an ever-growing array of races, from monstrous humanoids to ones lifted from real-world mythology to even homebrewed races.

===The Standards===
'''[[Human]]:''' Bog-standard human, following in the best D&D traditions by having different nations with different hats to wear.

'''[[Dwarf]]:''' Originated in Golarion's [[Underdark]], migrated to the surface in the legendary "Quest for Sky" centuries ago.

'''[[Elf]]:''' One of the planet's oldest races. Buggered off through magical gateways to another planet during the worst of the Starfall disaster, then came back a few centuries ago.

'''[[Halfling]]:''' Pretty much your standard stunties, barring the fact that they're very popular slaves throughout the Inner Sea region.

'''[[Gnome]]:''' Fey who migrated to Golarion from [[Feywild|The First World]], then found out that without regular stimulation, they undergo something called "The Bleaching" which drives them mad and painfully kills them. In other words, they can literally get bored to death!

'''[[Half-Elf]]:''' Pretty much your standard half-elves.

'''[[Half-Orc]]:''' Extra emphasis on the "you were probably born from rape!" backstory.

===Snowflake Races===
The races most of /tg/ mocks because they're seen as favored by people who want special snowflake or weeaboo type characters, even if these are all races with roots in traditional D&D.

'''[[Aasimar]]:''' The iconic D&D Goodly [[Planetouched]]. Because Pathfinder has a much bigger array of "angels", there's many different sub-varieties of aasimar. There's actually a country where these guys are really common, which makes them almost as normal in Golarion as a [[dragonborn]] or [[half-orc]] would be in standard 5e D&D.

'''[[Catfolk]]:''' Pretty bog-standard [[Chaotic Stupid]] cat-people. Infamous for their schizophrenic artwork, which has portrayed them as anything from "[[catgirl]]s with a fine layer of fur all over their body" to "full fledged [[furry]]" to [[Elder Scrolls|"why does this look exactly like a Khajiit?"]].

'''[[Changeling]]:''' Not to be confused with the [[Eberron]] changeling, which is a [[doppelganger]]'s half-human spawn, Golarion's changelings are the immature larval form of [[hag]]s. Essentially, an entire species of cute/hot witches - with heterochromia, no less! - who are supposed to beautiful, but at the same time, so creepy and spooky they get a Charisma penalty. This aspect is the main reason why /tg/ mocks them. They're not necessarily a bad race, though, especially if you want more dark fantasy or horror fantasy games.

'''[[Dhampyre|Dhampir]]:''' Half-human and half-vampire, but, like the changeling, they fit the Ustalav region just great - hell, it really is surprising that these guys never showed up in [[Ravenloft]].

'''[[Drow]]:''' When the elves fucked off to another planet to escape an apocalypse, some of the more arrogant assholes stayed behind. Ultimately turning to worship of various [[Demon Prince]]s to survive, and becoming psycho-evil arrogant assholes in the bargain. Most noted for their fucked-up love of fleshcrafting, which is basically manipulating living creatures and turning them into monsters.

'''[[Ganzi]]:''' The most obscure of the PF [[Planetouched]], these guys are essentially Chaotic Planetouched and may be connected to the Protheans, Golarion's equivalent to the [[Slaad]]i.

'''[[Genasi|Ifrit/Oread/Sylph/Undine]]:''' These guys are basically [[genasi]], but Pathfinder pretends to treat them as seperate races in order to make the comparison seem less obvious.

'''[[Shifter|Skinwalker]]:''' As dhampirs are to vampires, these guys are to [[therianthrope]]s. Essentially [[Shifter]]s with less shitty artwork.

'''[[Suli]]:''' One of the stupider [[planetouched]] races in Pthfinder, these guys are [[genie]]-kin who trace their lineage to the oft-forgotten Janni, the mixed-elemental fifth genie race which is the weakest of them all.

'''[[Tengu]]:''' Humanoid flightless crow-people who love shinies. Essentially less-evil [[kenku]] outright using the mythological version's name. Tend to become rogues (or ninjas), samurai and pirates. Sometimes two at once.

'''[[Tiefling]]:''' When one of the countries has the theme "demonic invasion through gaping portals to the Abyss" and another is "Fantasy Nazis using a pact with Satan to stay in power", are you really surprised that these guys are everywhere? Especially considering Golarion has a huge list of fiends outside of the Devil/Daemon/Demon trinity and they ''all'' make tieflings.

===Monstrous Humanoids===
'''[[Goblin]]:''' Doubles down on the [[Chaotic Stupid]] aspects; love fire, really good singers, absolutely terrified of dogs, horses and writing.

'''[[Orc]]:''' Driven up from the Underdark by the dwarves, who they used to war with. Really double-down on the Always Chaotic Evil aspects.

'''[[Kobold]]:''' Pretty much the D&D iconic version.

'''[[Hobgoblin]]:''' A militaristic race descended from an experiment to magically mutate goblins into slave-soldiers to fight against the elf empire; their creators were killed, but the hobgoblins were complete, and now they don't have an off-switch.

===Foreigners===
Because Golarion has lots of "not!X" countries, there's both a "not!India" (Vudra) and a "not!Orient" (Dragon Empires), each of which has some fairly unique races native to it.

'''[[Kitsune]]:''' Your standard mischievous fun-loving shapeshifting fox-folk.

'''[[Nagaji]]:''' A race of [[serpentfolk]] bred as slaves by the [[naga]]s; they're quite content in their servitude.

'''[[Samsaran]]:''' Spiritually enlightened blue & white-colored humans who continuously reincarnate.

'''[[Vanara]]:''' Friendly, sage-like monkey-people.

===Sci-Fantasy Races===
Pathfinder's mapped out the star system that Golarion comes from, and in best pulp fantasy fashion, that means that you can play androids and aliens in this setting too.

'''[[Android]]:''' Look like humans with pale, silver-tinted skin and circuitry that lights up like science-tattoos when they use their powers. Most common in Numeria, as they are born out of "creation forges" left behind when the starship crashed.

'''[[Kasatha]]:''' Four-armed humanoids who don't remember what world they came from. Favor dual-wielding bows.

'''[[Lashunta]]:''' The natives of Golarion's equivalent of Venus; antennaed humanoids with psionic powers and [[-4 Strength|extreme sexual dimorphism]] - men look more like dwarves, women look more like elves.

'''[[Triaxian]]:''' Pointy-eared aliens whose planet undergoes an extreme orbit, leading to centuries-long summers and winters, and thus the species is divided into "Summer Generation" and "Winter Generation" subspecies.

===Real-Worlders===
The least common race group, so far, these are critters taken from non-D&D fantasy sources, including several Lovecraft races and cryptids.

'''[[Reptoid]]:''' Shapeshifting lizardfolk with [[psionics]] who hail from an unknown world or plane, based on a popular conspiracy theory.

'''[[Orang-Pendak]]:''' A crytid that is basically a smaller, smarter sasquatch.

'''[[Deep One]] Hybrid:''' A human with [[Deep One]] ancestry, giving them amphibious abilities but cursing them to turn into a Deep One - which is death to their old personality - in their 50s.

'''[[Being of Ib]]:''' Amphibious, gnome-like frog-people from the Cthulhu Mythos; although their Dreamlands colony was famously annihilated by Sarnath in "The Doom That Came to Sarnath", it's possible other colonies exist elsewhere in the multiverse.

'''[[Yaddithian]]:''' Tapir-snouted insectile-looking people adept in sorcery who have scattered across the galaxy due to their homeworld being destroyed by bholes. Taken from the Lovecraft story "Through the Gates of the Silver Key".

==Other Planets and Planes==

==Trivia==

==Further Reading==

{{Pathfinder-Races}}

[[Category:Roleplaying]]

Golarion

2018-06-10T03:13:26Z

2602:306:3B27:CB40:8CC:F1D:295F:94F3: /* Core Pantheon */

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[[File:Continent of Avistan.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Welcome to Golarion.]]
[[Golarion]] is the "main" planet in Paizo's default [[Campaign setting|campaign setting]] for the [[Pathfinder Roleplaying Game]]. It's not the sum total of the setting's Material Plane like, say, Athas is, but it's where most of the action is and where you're going to be spending most of your time so it's also the nickname for what's properly known as the [[Pathfinder Campaign Setting]]. Golarion was first introduced to players as a generic OGL module named ''Crown of the Kobold King'', released in June of 2007 under Paizo's GameMastery imprint. Two months later at [[Gen Con]] 2007, Paizo published ''Rise of the Runelords'', the first of Pathfinder's famous Adventure Paths and the first product to bear the Pathfinder brand name; this was followed by another adventure path and a couple "Pathfinder Chronicles" supplements. When Wizards announced [[Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition]] and neglected to mention that the OGL would be replaced with a giant spiky dildo, Paizo cashed in on the confusion and announced that they would be creating a replacement RPG, based on OGL content but with a less restrictive license for its "Product Identity" and with Golarion as the default setting. Golarion is notable for ripping off fucking everything, including dime-store pulp novels, random bits of relatively modern history, earlier editions of D&D, sci-fi kitsch, and the kitchen sink. This is a transparent attempt to [[Gay|fill the gaping orifice]] left behind by the loss of the D&D's "Product Identity" as cheaply as possible, justified as a way of allowing many different campaign styles to coexist in the same setting. One notable exception is the elder gods of the Far Realm, which Paizo replaced by biting the bullet and licensing the [[Cthulhu Mythos]] from Chaosium.

The centerpiece of Golarion is the Inner Sea region, consisting of the fantasy equivalents of Western Europe, the Mediterranean Sea zone, and the northern half of Africa. Unlike [[Dark Sun|most]] other fantasy settings, many of the cultures and civilizations of the Inner Sea region are in severe decline after the only deity which represents humans in the [[Outer Planes|Great Beyond]], Aroden, died a few centuries ago. To add salt to the wound, this caused a series of events which fucked up the world: the formation of a massive supernatural stationary fuckstorm that annihilated two entire nations and allowed [[Pirate|pirates]] to develop their own kingdoms, the obliteration of a noble [[barbarian]] empire by [[Eye of Terror|a tear in the tissue of reality]] opened directly into the [[Abyss]], and the prophets and diviners committing mass suicide as an prophesied golden age for mankind suddenly faded into nothing. As if this wasn't enough, the religious hysteria led the two greatest empires of the region to become balkanized devil-worshipping fantasy Nazis and decadent chucklefucks, respectively.

==Nations of Golarion==
===Absalom===
[[File:PathfinderExplained.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Golarion (or at least the parts that matter) in a nutshell.]]
Mecca meets [[Sigil]] in the middle of the ocean. 10,000 years in Golarion's past, a fuckhuge magic space rock called the Starstone struck the planet, creating the Inner Sea in the process and destroying Azlant, home of the Glorious Azlanti Master Race. The last of the Azlanti, Aroden, lifted the stone out of the Inner Sea 5,000 years later and used its magic to become [[Emperor|the God of Humanity in living flesh,]] founding the city-state of Absalom on the island where he dumped the thing to protect it from others who wanted to pull the same trick. It's still there, in the heart of the Ascendant Court, and anyone who survives the Test of the Starstone can use it to become a god too. (Thousands try every year; only three have ever succeeded, including [[Lulz|one guy who took the test on a drunken dare and can't remember how he did it.]]) As everyone has a stake in keeping the number of crazy gods around to a minimum and the island is strategically located in the middle of the Inner Sea, Absalom has become the effective center of civilization in Golarion's western hemisphere, with a complete clusterfuck of races and nationalities walking the streets to wheel and deal. Other areas of note include the Cairnlands, the slightly-haunted graveyard for all the dumbasses who tried and failed to invade one of the most important places on the planet, and the Ivy District, which is where all the whores are and where everyone goes to [[Diplomacy|stab each other in the back.]]

===Alkenstar===
Fuck yeah [[Murlynd|guns in your fantasy setting.]] Alkenstar is in the middle of a giant non-magical desert formed by a war between its magocratic neighbors, Geb and Nex, so they had to tell [[Medieval Stasis]] to shove it and learn engineering to stay relevant. Almost all of Golarion's gunpowder-based weaponry is produced by Alkenstari engineers, and they like to keep it that way so they can continue to charge out the ass for them. This is so your GM has an excuse to veto firearms. Despite what you'd expect from a desert nation that shits firearms, they're ''not'' particularly friends with Andoran, maintaining scrupulous neutrality and being situated in Golarion's equivalent of northeastern Africa.

===Andoran===
Fuck yeah 'Muricans. When Cheliax shat the bed, the nobles of Andoran went along with their new devil overlords in the interest of not becoming a fucking bloodbath like Galt or Cheliax itself. Andoran's burgeoning merchant class had other ideas and whipped up a revolution two years later, using Galtan philosophy (as if the American Revolution parallels weren't fucking obvious enough) to fuel the fires and inventing democratic socialism and the welfare state from whole cloth. As expected of fantasy Americans, they also practice cultural imperialism, actively exporting their radical ideology and disrupting the Inner Sea's slave trade. This makes them less than popular with the rest of the world. Their patron divinity is a [[Guardinal|celestial eagle-man.]]

===Belkzen===
Stupid dumb [[Orc|greenskin]] scum. When Golarion's dwarves took their expedition/holy war out of the Darklands, they brought the orcs with them. The dwarves eventually pushed them back into a shitty little valley in the continent's north, but not before a [[Grimgor Ironhide|strong and ambitious orc warlord]] named Belkzen managed to capture and ransack a [[Dwarf Fortress]] that he rechristened Urgir, the closest thing to a capital city they have. Naturally, the Hold of Belkzen has since collapsed into a fuckpile of semi-nomadic tribes with friendly names like Broken Spine, Gutspear, and Murdered Child constantly wrangling with each other for territory. The current holder of Urgir, Grask Uldeth of the Empty Hand, has discovered the value of trade with less beefy races, and your average PC can walk the streets in relative safety... most of the time. Other locations of note include the Brimstone Haruspex, where orc clerics huff volcanic gas to predict the future, and the Foundry, where and I quote: [[Mekboy|"crazed orc engineers known as Steeleaters remain neutral in order to sell their bizarre siege weaponry to all sides."]] '''Green really iz da best, innit?'''

===Brevoy===
Stuck all the way in the upper right corner of the map, this land is cold, forested and the country is on the verge of collapse. [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Supposedly some dragon or dude with a dragon showed up, conquered everyone and his line has ruled for years only to disappear one night and now the various noble houses vie for control.]]

Anyway, Brevoy is divided into a few regional areas, each ruled by a noble house who have their own outlook and goals, as well as a [[Greyhawk|somewhat independent city of adventurer swordsmen]]. The northern nobles are loosely allied against the equally loosely allied south and, in an attempt to build power and prestige enough to keep the calm, the newest king has sent [[Adventurer|adventurers]] south to found a new kingdom, [[Just As Planned|preferably a weak one that they can conquer in a weekend war.]]

===Cheliax===
[[File:Cheliax_flag.png|right|thumb]]
Motherfucking '''DEVIL [[Nazi|NAZIS.]]''' I mean, shit, their flag has a fucking swastika on it, modified ''just'' enough to keep German fa/tg/uys from [[/pol/|getting arrested.]] They were the biggest big cheese since Azlant until Aroden died and the noble houses turned the empire into a clusterfuck resembling a [[Crusader Kings]] game gone bad. House Thrune, fortunately (for them), [[Devil|had some friends in low places]] and leveraged their foul magic to slaughter their way through a 30-year civil war and put Queen Abrogail on the throne. Now the people of Cheliax have to deal with a government that worships [[Asmodeus]] as a state religion, regularly employs bound devils in its armies, [[Chaos|and ''really'' likes putting spikes on things.]] Anyone who doesn't support the new order is at risk of getting ratted out by his neighbors for profit and the villages "live in fear," but for the most part people live as they always have. And yes, they ''do'' make sure the <s>trains</s> carriages run on time and have a huge standing military. You know, just in case the swastika wasn't big enough of a hint.

===Druma===
Jewish Scientologists. Alternately, [[Star Trek|Ferengi]] in a fantasy setting. Their religion (which they claim is just a set of divinations, even though it acts exactly like a real-world religion complete with all kinds of weird social conscriptions) literally directs them to make as much money as they can, bling themselves the fuck out, favor each other over <s>goyim</s> unbelievers in business dealings, and eventually buy out the entire world. [[Chaotic Stupid]] robbers beware, that unassuming gem convoy is also blinged out with enough contingency spells to flash boil a dragon, and if the magic doesn't get you, the equally pimped-out guards will. Contrary to expectations, ''not'' dwarven, though there is a substantial dwarven minority because of their role in getting the Five Kings Mountains to stop killing each other and the absolutely retarded amount of gold and gems on their land. [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|For them, heaven is humans-only.]]

===Five Kings Mountains===
When the dwarves forced their way to the surface, they popped up here mostly. Over the course of the Quest For Sky (the aforementioned holy war to the surface) they built up a fuckton of [[Dwarfs (Warhammer Fantasy)|grudges]] with each other that mutated and merged over time, and after an exceedingly long and generic history the Five Kings Mountains are in a situation similar to the real-life Holy Roman Empire; there are far more than five dwarf polities there, and none of them can be considered "kings." Otherwise they're your standard generic as fuck fantasy dwarves. Funnily, are neighbors with the elves and the Ferengiboos, as well as the not!Americans.

===Galt===
'''VIVE LA REVOLUTION!''' Galt was at one time a Chelish holding, but after Big Daddy Asmodeus got his fingers in its contingency of [[Neckbeard|poets and philosophers]] started writing screeds about how shit House Thrune was and if someone like that could rule by divine right, then divine right was a crock of shit. Because Galt is just the high school history version of France during the Terror, this idea spread like wildfire and anyone who was even remotely related to the Chelish leadership was put to the sword. Modern Galt is a continuously shifting crab-bucket of revolutionary governments, each one falling victim to the next based on the shifting whims of the mob. One neat wrinkle is that the guillotines used to execute yesterday's news (the ''final blades'') trap the souls of those they kill, simultaneously preventing resurrection and keeping the soul from getting stolen by (or sent to, if the victim was evil) Hell. Dwarf players should take note of the town of Azurestone, which is built around a holy site of Torag and is kept relatively insulated from the anarchic clusterfuck.

===Geb===
Fuck yeah [[Lich]] King (actually a ghost king, though there is a Lich Queen ruling in his stead, since the ghost king is mildly senile). Originally part of ancient Osirion until they exiled a cocky necromancer named Geb, so he started his own kingdom with [[meme|blackmagic and hookers]], also named Geb, and got into a multi-century pissing match with the wizard Nex, who ruled the nation of Nex. This war fucked both countries, turning Geb into an undead wasteland and the southern portions of Nex into a desert where magic doesn't work.

===Hermea===
[[Council of Wyrms]]: The Nation. An island in the sea between Cheliax and Varisia ruled by a gold dragon who is instituting some "[[communism|Glorious Endeavor]]" to perfect humanity.

===Irrisen===
Cold as a witch's titty, and boy are there witches here. Founded by [[Baba Yaga]] after a month long war, she locked the land in perpetual winter then promptly fucked off, only returning every 100 years to kidnap the current queen and install a new daughter on the throne. Formerly part of the Lands of the Linnorm Kings, they are still [[butthurt]] about losing the territory.

===Isger===
Cheliax's bottom bitch. Only notable because their flag has a barely-disguised swastika on it. A glorified trade-route between Cheilax and other wealthier nations, such as Druma, keeping the trade roads secured is the main priority, leaving the rest of the nation to suffer. Isger is used to suffering, though, as large swaths of the country were recently fucked in a war with raiding goblin tribes from which they still haven't really recovered.

===Jalmeray===
Little India. Originally ruled by Nex it was given to a Vudran explorer because Nex liked the cut of his jib.

===Katapesh===
Slavers and drug dealers ruled by a mysterious and alien race called the Pactmasters.

===Kyonin===
Typical elf kingdom. Been fucked over by a demon who has blighted a huge swath of the south.

===Lands of the Linnorm Kings===
Vikings and nasty animalistic dragons called linnorms. If you can actually kill a linnorm they'll crown you as one of their kings. Killing a linnorm subjects you to the linnorm's death curse, which does bad things to you until you die. Notably, actually uniting the Lands of the Linnorm Kings involves killing the biggest, meanest linnorm, and ''his'' death curse causes you to [[Lucius the Eternal| become him]], so have fun with that.

===Lastwall===
Crusader state that fights Orcs and Vampires.

===Mendev===
Another crusader state, this one fights demons. It's queen is over 100 years old but looks to be early middle aged due to a youth potion they buy from Thuvia.

===Mendiogalti Island===
Island of assassins who venerate a giant red praying mantis god. They can and will murder anyone but sitting monarchs.

===Molthune===
Fantasy Prussia. Recently lost their northern lands to a bunch of Robin Hood wannabes. Makes the criminally stupid decision of hiring hobgoblin mercenaries because they have an unhealthy obsession with outdoing Cheliax in the whole empire-building thing.

===Mwangi Expanse===
Home to intelligent gorilla men and a super ancient empire of black men who lived in flying cities making the saying "We wuz kangs" sorta true for Pathfinder.

===Nex===
Originally part of ancient Osirion, at some point it became its own nation called Nex ruled by the [[wizard]] named Nex. Real creative bunch, these wizards. As is natural for a nation of wizards they have royally fucked up their lands in a massive magic war with Geb, to their south, almost single-handedly making the nation of Alkenstar in the process. After Nex just completely fucked off one day, the war pretty much went into a stalemate because Geb didn't even want to fight anymore if he wouldn't get to kill Nex.

===Nidal===
Client state to Cheliax, they are basically Clive Barker's Cenobites (think BDSM people who love hard piercings and spiked chains) plus 1984.

===Nirmathas===
A wooded area that told Molthune to fuck off. Basically this is Robin Hood's Sherwood Forest.

===Numeria===
[[Conan the Barbarian|Conan]] meets [[Expedition to the Barrier Peaks|science fiction]], so expect super buff barbarians throwing spears at giant metal scorpions with laser eyes. Hard core as fuck.

===Osirion===
Literally Egypt if the Mummy movies were documentaries.

===Qadira===
Fantasy Turkey/Arabia. Have warred with Taldor and for a while ruled Osirion. May or may not be on the verge of a civil war. Is actually the westernmost holding of an even larger Persia-inspired empire called Kelesh.

===Rahadoum===
A country so fucked over by the gods that divine magic and worship is outlawed. This no-doubt displeases the gods but they [[Tzeentch|continue their machinations in secret via espionage clerics]].

===Razmiran===
Ever play a game with an [[That guy|edgelord]] who always wants to be the [[Mary Sue|super-bestest at everything]] and the GM just capitulates to their every whim and gives them [[Grimdark|a kingdom which they rule worse that North Korea and say everyone should worship them as a god?]] Well, that's pretty much this country. Previously part of the River Kingdoms, broke off a few years ago because said "God-King" converted a bunch of idiots. A nation of Scientologists and home of the "false priest" archetype for sorcerers.

===Realm of the Mammoth Lords===
Ever want a low fantasy caveman game that still fights witches, giants, demons, [[dinosaur|prehistoric megafauna]] and more? Go here.

===River Kingdoms===
A vast territory of constantly rising and falling petty kingdoms, it's likely if it ever united it would be one of the most powerful nations in the Inner Sea since its comparable to Taldor and Cheliax in size, but they prefer fighting amongst themselves. All neighboring countries claim some bit of it but can never hold it long due to various reasons. Banditry is massively common and is expected by the populace, some even take up banditry as a bit of part-time work between their normal lives like fishing and farming. Has its own unspoken code called the "Six River Freedoms" which basically amount to:

#Say whatever you want, but don't be surprised if a Half-Orc punches you in the face when you call their mother uglier than a mountain troll.
#If you swear an Oath you keep it or you die, no exceptions.
#No one can block the use of the rivers or land travel or charge tolls other than in wartime. However if you get attacked whilst travelling them you're on your own.
#Within their realms all who are there are bound to whatever local laws exist.
#Slavey is utterly prohibited, and even wizards can get their ass bitten if they summon a creature in view of commoners.
#As long as you give the victim a chance to defend their belongings, your allowed to steal and conquer their stuff. However if you steal their stuff and they don't get a chance to block it your treated as a common criminal.

Basically the Balkans of the setting, but with more rivers. Also the home of the Kingmaker AP module, which let players build their own kingdom.

===Sargava===
Technically a colony to the devil-worshipping assholes in Cheliax, they are effectively independent thanks to the massive fuck-you hurricane and pirates to their north. The local Mwangi people are little better than slaves and may be plotting to overthrow dem white bois.

===Shackles===
Pirates of the Caribbean. "Ruled" by the Hurricane King, every island and small stretch of land is claimed by some pirate or pirate group.

===Sodden Lands===
Previously consisting of two small kingdoms that thrived on prophecy, when Aroden died and prophecy pretty much failed followed by a massive hurricane that would make Katrina look like a small breeze, they collapsed and this is now just ruins and swampy, marshy lands. So yeah, Louisiana on a bad day.

===Taldor===
Has overtones of the Byzantine Empire and British Empire. Stagnant, decadent, corrupt. The grand prince hires vikings as bodyguards. Once rules much of the world but has become a shadow of it's former self.

===Thuvia===
Barely held together because the small cities in this realm produce the single most sought after magical item. No, not girdles of gender-swapping. I swear to... No, they make a potion that reverts the drinker to the prime of life. Consume it often enough and you basically can be immortal. Only a few batches are made each year and the prices are exorbitant.

===Ustalav===
I vant to zuck your blood! Take every fantasy gothic horror trope and dump it here. You got vampires, zombies, werewolves, liches, hags, voodoo, Cthulhu, witches and everything else. Here, EVERY night is a horrible night to have a curse.

===Varisia===
This is the main setting of the main setting. Vast wild lands, a few small cities at the edges, massive ruins to explore, goblins to kill, gypsies and more. Most of the adventures paths either play completely here, start here or at least have ties here.

===Worldwound===
Aroden, god of humans, made a lot of enemies in his day before he died. One was a giant insectoid demon lord. When he bit the bullet about a hundred years ago, the demon lord saw his chance and tore open a new gaping hole into the world to fuck. In constant war with Mendev and for the most part leave Numeria and the Mammoth Lords alone because why would you fuck with alien tech and guys who fight on mammoths?

==Lands Beyond the Core Setting==
[[File:Golarion Continents.jpg|300px|thumb|right|So many places to go, so little places well-developed...]]
Paizo, still wanting even more kitchen sink fantasy and wanting to emulate Forgotten Realms, have other continents and lands beyond the core setting.

===Arcadia===
Well they needed a place for the Americas. Notably the vikings from the Lands of the Linnorm Kings think of it as a kind of paradise and their rulers have a settlement on it in an allusion to Vinland from viking history.

===Azlant===
Atlantis by another name. Home to the first human empire that was uplifted by the aboleths, was destroyed by the Starstone when the aboleths thought humans were getting uppity.

===Casmaron===
What happens when you mix India, the 'stans and the Middle East? This. Vast swaths of largely unruled or ungovernable lands but also two massive "empires", one being a Persian/Ottoman expy, the other being fantasy India.

===Crown of the World===
Connects Avistan (Europe) to Tian Xia (East Asia). Has a few eskimo-like settlements and Cthulhu horror themes going on here.

===Darklands===
Paizo's Underdark. Drow, Svirneblin, Duergar and all the tropes therein.

===Iblydos===
Classical Greece. An island archipelago that serves as a common stopping point for traders going between the Inner Sea region and the distant lands of Vudra and Kelesh in Casmaron. Known for its prophecising Cyclopes and Demigod Heroes who often rule its numerous City-States.

===Sarusan===
Mysterious land of deadly terrors which is clearly Australia. Australia is bad enough, who the fuck knows how scary it would be with fantasy elements. Nobody can remember what it looks like for some reason that has nothing to do with leaving a blank canvas for your GM to paint with horrible death.

===Tian Xia===
[[File:Pathfinder Tian Xia Map.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Paizo is always careful to avoid cultural appropriation and treats foreign cultures in a respectful and well-informed manner.]]
Has all your classic East Asia fantasy tropes going on here. Decadent empires, eastern dragons, monks in monasteries learning kung-fu, mystical monks meditating under waterfalls, Studio Ghibli creatures running around, Naga, Oni, Mongols, and samurai.

==Gods of Golarion==
There are gods upon gods for the game but they split up into a number of different pantheons.

===Core Pantheon===
'''[[Abadar]]:''' God of civilization, walls, and banking. Doing pretty well in modern times, all things considered. Lawful Neutral in a very reasonable kind of way, leaning more towards good, but still stuck doing shit like letting Zon-Kuthon into his Vault because he doesn't break his contracts.

'''[[Asmodeus]]:''' It's [[Asmodeus]], what the fuck do you expect? The most notable changes from OGL are that Asmodeus is actually a deity this time around, and that [[SJW|misogyny is an explicit part of his dominion. Because otherwise you wouldn't be able to tell that he's a bad guy.]] Yes, the leader of his greatest group of mortal servants is female. No, the setting material does not comment on this. (One designer claimed this is because he doesn't care so much about ''mortal'' gender, since mortals are just going to die and the lawful evil ones will end up his anyway. While this was probably just the designer trying to keep his ass from getting ripped by angry neckbeards and doesn't make that much sense, it does line up with PF Asmodeus' general "they'll all see things my way eventually" mentality.)

'''[[Calistria]]:''' An elven goddess, Calistria's temples often double as centers of intrigue and brothels. [[Slaanesh|Feeding into people's lust]] and also feeding people's anxieties until they seek revenge, she is seen often as a bit of an odd one. Her favored animal is the hornet since they can sting repeatedly. Seriously, if you piss her off she will show her disdain for you by having hornets sting your junk until it's black and blistered. She is Chaotic Neutral to the extreme, in fact she is so whimsical and unreliable that she is the only non-chaotic evil deity that even Asmodeus refuses to work with.

'''[[Cayden Cailean]]:''' Five humans in the setting have ascended to godhood, each with their own outlooks and spheres and Cayden Cailean is one of them. His outlook and spheres? Partying it up, [[dwarf|getting drunk]] and going on adventures. Cayden Cailean apparently got drunk one night and took the Test of the Starstone. There are plenty of legends around why exactly the drunken man did it but one says he saw [[Slaanesh|Calistria, goddess of lust and revenge]], and wanted some of that. The goddess rebuffed him and said only a god could pleasure her. Pissed and drunk, he grabbed a keg and set off. Three days later, rocking a heavenly hangover, Cayden emerged as the most recent of the gods.

'''[[Desna]]:''' An ancient space alien who befriended one of the first gods. When Lamashtu stole the beast domain from him, she took his travel domain. Chaotic Good, and likes wandering around, but guides people with her control over luck, and has a bunch of scientist followers who see her as helping them find knowledge. Very chill.

'''[[Erastil]]:''' Old-fashioned god of the harvest and rural areas; a grumpy but well-meaning old codger who's getting a little past it since "city living" became a thing, but is still popular out in the farming country and wilderness regions. Source of much [[SJW]] outrage when his first detailed writeup revealed that being "God of the Old Ways" also makes him a patriarchal chap who believes women should get married and make babies, though he will sigh and accept it if a woman wants to prove she can have a happy life doing something else. They kicked up such a stink about this, claiming there was no way he could be Lawful Good and think this, that Paizo hastily retconned it. For the record, men are supposed to be out doing the dangerous jobs too. Basically a generic wilderness/rural god, though he does have some similarities to [[St. Cuthbert]].

'''[[Gorum]]:''' Basically [[Khorne]]-lite, and including the bits about not killing non-combatants. (Well, technically [[Conan the Barbarian| Crom]], but the kids only care about their 40k.) Favors actual strategy over charging massed arches armored only with war-cries though.

'''[[Gozreh]]:''' Nature god. Most interesting thing about them is that they're a [[dickgirl|hermaphrodite]], with their female form being associated with the sea and their male form with the earth.

'''[[Iomedae]]:''' Aroden's herald, who mostly took over his job after his untimely demise. A former paladin turned deity via the Starstone, and a righteous crusader type. Paizo really screws with Iomedae depending on what source you read. Sometimes seen as a [[paladin|paragon of righteousness]], she sometimes comes across as a prick, [[That guy|going so far as to almost kill people who are trying to save the world because they didn't suck up to her well enough]] in one poorly-written adventure. May or may not have banged the local Bahamut-equivalent, Apsu, as a gold dragon calling her mom hangs out in her court.

'''[[Irori]]:''' Fantasy Buddha. A former mortal, but unlike the others, whom he mocks for just copying his old friend Aroden, he got there on his own, by refining and perfecting his body and mind into literal perfection. Has more followers out in Tian, but he's making waves in Golarion. His clerics get [[monk|Improved Unarmed Strike instead of a favored weapon]].

'''[[Lamashtu]]:''' Mother of monsters and a former female demon lord who stole the domains from a god she murdered. Most of the "monster" races pay homage to her, and her evil favor usually manifests as hideous deformity and mutation. Usually manifests as a [[/d/| heavily pregnant mishmash of monster parts]].

'''[[Nethys]]:''' The god of magic. Played too much ''[[Call of Cthulhu]]'' and broke his brain. His fractured mind usually manifests as two faces, one white and benevolent, one black and destructive.

'''[[Norgorber]]''' '''[[REDACTED]]'''

'''[[Pharasma]]:''' [[The Raven Queen]], sort of. The deathly-neutral type of death goddess, and probably the oldest and most primordial of divinities. Haaaaates undeath, so much that her clerics get a custom variant of the Death domain with the undeath-related parts replaced. Judges the souls of every creature that ever dies before assigning them to their proper afterlives, with allowances made for things like racial affiliation and belief in reincarnation.

'''[[Rovagug]]''': An ancient primordial force of destruction, despised by all the other gods and worshipped only by madmen and lesser primordial forces of destruction. The other gods put aside their differences long ago to trap him in the Cage, which is Golarion itself. Bad Things will happen if he ever gets out, [[Starfinder| which might be fated to happen]]. His spawn still rampage around the world, one of which is the [[tarrasque]]. A ''mid-tier'' one.

'''[[Sarenrae]]:''' [[Rule 63]] [[Pelor]]. Asmodeus's good-aligned brother's first servant, who took up his portfolio after Asmodeus murdered him. Ironically, the two allied to take the foremost role in defeating and caging Rovagug. In addition to being a sun goddess, she emphasizes the idea of compassion and redemption for the truly-repentant... and destruction for those who're truly past all that.

'''[[Shalyn]]:''' Beauty, art, and love goddess. Not sex though, that's Calistria's job. Literally all beings love her... some are just incapable of expressing that love in healthy ways. Lamashtu in particular gives her the creeps. Zon-Kuthon's sister, and responsible for containing the worst of the monster he's become.

'''[[Torag]]:''' We have come up with interesting twists for at least most of the blatant copies on this list. No such luck here. Torag is [[Moradin]], dwarf without end. Amen.

'''[[Urgathoa]]:''' Once upon a time, when the world was young, there lived a decadent queen who spent her whole life in unbridled hedonism. So much that, when she died, and went to wait in line in Pharasma's Boneyard to await judgement, she cut out of the line and slipped back into the world because she couldn't stand the thought of giving up the pleasures of life. In the process, she became the first undead creature and infected the world with both undeath and disease. Aw well. Very cheery for an evil goddess, since she's all about doing what you love... though for most of her followers, that's various shades of cannibalism and plague-spreading.

'''Zon-Kuthon:''' Originally known as Dou-Bral, half-sister to Shelyn, he got so asshurt about his sister's talents that he decided to go to the leather club between realities to brood. There, he was [[Rape|enlightened]] by an [[Slaanesh|alien presence]]. He returned to Golarion as a hyper BDSM fetishist known as Zon-Kuthon, god of pain, torture, and edge. His unholy symbol is a skull with a spiked chain going through the eye sockets, for fuck's sake. Despite his worshipers being evil touturing murderers, his clergy still tends to be kind to those who worship Shelyn because he still loves her, deep down in the irrevocably-ruined part of him that's still Dou-Bral.

===Tian-Xia Deities===
'''Daikitsu'''

'''Fumeiyoshi'''

'''General Susumu'''

'''Hei Feng'''

'''Kofusachi'''

'''Lady Nanbyo'''

'''Lao Sho Pu'''

'''Nalinivati'''

'''Qi Zhong'''

'''Shizuru''': Shizuru is your typical asian themed goddess of sun, honor, ancestors, and swordplay. She's generally on good relations with every other Tian Diety. She's typically worshiped by honorable samurai and weeaboos. She is the lover of the moon god Tsukiyo and had to get him resurrected by the help of Qi-Zhong, the god of medicine, after his brother Fumeiyoshi grew so damn jealous of his brother actually having a girlfriend that he geeked him. She has an star archon daughter called the [[Weeaboo|Dusk Ronin]], who got kicked out of her mother's house and now wanders the Great Beyond in search of redemption.

'''Sun Wukong'''

'''Tsukiyo'''

'''Yaezhing'''

'''Yamatsumi'''

===Other Major Deities===
===Dwarven Pantheon===
===Elven Pantheon===
===Halfling Pantheon===

==Races of Golarion==
Being effectively [[Dungeons & Dragons]] 3.75, Golarion is absolutely crawling with races. Your D&D standards are here, but there's also an ever-growing array of races, from monstrous humanoids to ones lifted from real-world mythology to even homebrewed races.

===The Standards===
'''[[Human]]:''' Bog-standard human, following in the best D&D traditions by having different nations with different hats to wear.

'''[[Dwarf]]:''' Originated in Golarion's [[Underdark]], migrated to the surface in the legendary "Quest for Sky" centuries ago.

'''[[Elf]]:''' One of the planet's oldest races. Buggered off through magical gateways to another planet during the worst of the Starfall disaster, then came back a few centuries ago.

'''[[Halfling]]:''' Pretty much your standard stunties, barring the fact that they're very popular slaves throughout the Inner Sea region.

'''[[Gnome]]:''' Fey who migrated to Golarion from [[Feywild|The First World]], then found out that without regular stimulation, they undergo something called "The Bleaching" which drives them mad and painfully kills them. In other words, they can literally get bored to death!

'''[[Half-Elf]]:''' Pretty much your standard half-elves.

'''[[Half-Orc]]:''' Extra emphasis on the "you were probably born from rape!" backstory.

===Snowflake Races===
The races most of /tg/ mocks because they're seen as favored by people who want special snowflake or weeaboo type characters, even if these are all races with roots in traditional D&D.

'''[[Aasimar]]:''' The iconic D&D Goodly [[Planetouched]]. Because Pathfinder has a much bigger array of "angels", there's many different sub-varieties of aasimar. There's actually a country where these guys are really common, which makes them almost as normal in Golarion as a [[dragonborn]] or [[half-orc]] would be in standard 5e D&D.

'''[[Catfolk]]:''' Pretty bog-standard [[Chaotic Stupid]] cat-people. Infamous for their schizophrenic artwork, which has portrayed them as anything from "[[catgirl]]s with a fine layer of fur all over their body" to "full fledged [[furry]]" to [[Elder Scrolls|"why does this look exactly like a Khajiit?"]].

'''[[Changeling]]:''' Not to be confused with the [[Eberron]] changeling, which is a [[doppelganger]]'s half-human spawn, Golarion's changelings are the immature larval form of [[hag]]s. Essentially, an entire species of cute/hot witches - with heterochromia, no less! - who are supposed to beautiful, but at the same time, so creepy and spooky they get a Charisma penalty. This aspect is the main reason why /tg/ mocks them. They're not necessarily a bad race, though, especially if you want more dark fantasy or horror fantasy games.

'''[[Dhampyre|Dhampir]]:''' Half-human and half-vampire, but, like the changeling, they fit the Ustalav region just great - hell, it really is surprising that these guys never showed up in [[Ravenloft]].

'''[[Drow]]:''' When the elves fucked off to another planet to escape an apocalypse, some of the more arrogant assholes stayed behind. Ultimately turning to worship of various [[Demon Prince]]s to survive, and becoming psycho-evil arrogant assholes in the bargain. Most noted for their fucked-up love of fleshcrafting, which is basically manipulating living creatures and turning them into monsters.

'''[[Ganzi]]:''' The most obscure of the PF [[Planetouched]], these guys are essentially Chaotic Planetouched and may be connected to the Protheans, Golarion's equivalent to the [[Slaad]]i.

'''[[Genasi|Ifrit/Oread/Sylph/Undine]]:''' These guys are basically [[genasi]], but Pathfinder pretends to treat them as seperate races in order to make the comparison seem less obvious.

'''[[Shifter|Skinwalker]]:''' As dhampirs are to vampires, these guys are to [[therianthrope]]s. Essentially [[Shifter]]s with less shitty artwork.

'''[[Suli]]:''' One of the stupider [[planetouched]] races in Pthfinder, these guys are [[genie]]-kin who trace their lineage to the oft-forgotten Janni, the mixed-elemental fifth genie race which is the weakest of them all.

'''[[Tengu]]:''' Humanoid flightless crow-people who love shinies. Essentially less-evil [[kenku]] outright using the mythological version's name. Tend to become rogues (or ninjas), samurai and pirates. Sometimes two at once.

'''[[Tiefling]]:''' When one of the countries has the theme "demonic invasion through gaping portals to the Abyss" and another is "Fantasy Nazis using a pact with Satan to stay in power", are you really surprised that these guys are everywhere? Especially considering Golarion has a huge list of fiends outside of the Devil/Daemon/Demon trinity and they ''all'' make tieflings.

===Monstrous Humanoids===
'''[[Goblin]]:''' Doubles down on the [[Chaotic Stupid]] aspects; love fire, really good singers, absolutely terrified of dogs, horses and writing.

'''[[Orc]]:''' Driven up from the Underdark by the dwarves, who they used to war with. Really double-down on the Always Chaotic Evil aspects.

'''[[Kobold]]:''' Pretty much the D&D iconic version.

'''[[Hobgoblin]]:''' A militaristic race descended from an experiment to magically mutate goblins into slave-soldiers to fight against the elf empire; their creators were killed, but the hobgoblins were complete, and now they don't have an off-switch.

===Foreigners===
Because Golarion has lots of "not!X" countries, there's both a "not!India" (Vudra) and a "not!Orient" (Dragon Empires), each of which has some fairly unique races native to it.

'''[[Kitsune]]:''' Your standard mischievous fun-loving shapeshifting fox-folk.

'''[[Nagaji]]:''' A race of [[serpentfolk]] bred as slaves by the [[naga]]s; they're quite content in their servitude.

'''[[Samsaran]]:''' Spiritually enlightened blue & white-colored humans who continuously reincarnate.

'''[[Vanara]]:''' Friendly, sage-like monkey-people.

===Sci-Fantasy Races===
Pathfinder's mapped out the star system that Golarion comes from, and in best pulp fantasy fashion, that means that you can play androids and aliens in this setting too.

'''[[Android]]:''' Look like humans with pale, silver-tinted skin and circuitry that lights up like science-tattoos when they use their powers. Most common in Numeria, as they are born out of "creation forges" left behind when the starship crashed.

'''[[Kasatha]]:''' Four-armed humanoids who don't remember what world they came from. Favor dual-wielding bows.

'''[[Lashunta]]:''' The natives of Golarion's equivalent of Venus; antennaed humanoids with psionic powers and [[-4 Strength|extreme sexual dimorphism]] - men look more like dwarves, women look more like elves.

'''[[Triaxian]]:''' Pointy-eared aliens whose planet undergoes an extreme orbit, leading to centuries-long summers and winters, and thus the species is divided into "Summer Generation" and "Winter Generation" subspecies.

===Real-Worlders===
The least common race group, so far, these are critters taken from non-D&D fantasy sources, including several Lovecraft races and cryptids.

'''[[Reptoid]]:''' Shapeshifting lizardfolk with [[psionics]] who hail from an unknown world or plane, based on a popular conspiracy theory.

'''[[Orang-Pendak]]:''' A crytid that is basically a smaller, smarter sasquatch.

'''[[Deep One]] Hybrid:''' A human with [[Deep One]] ancestry, giving them amphibious abilities but cursing them to turn into a Deep One - which is death to their old personality - in their 50s.

'''[[Being of Ib]]:''' Amphibious, gnome-like frog-people from the Cthulhu Mythos; although their Dreamlands colony was famously annihilated by Sarnath in "The Doom That Came to Sarnath", it's possible other colonies exist elsewhere in the multiverse.

'''[[Yaddithian]]:''' Tapir-snouted insectile-looking people adept in sorcery who have scattered across the galaxy due to their homeworld being destroyed by bholes. Taken from the Lovecraft story "Through the Gates of the Silver Key".

==Other Planets and Planes==

==Trivia==

==Further Reading==

{{Pathfinder-Races}}

[[Category:Roleplaying]]

Golarion

2018-06-10T01:59:09Z

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[[File:Continent of Avistan.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Welcome to Golarion.]]
[[Golarion]] is the "main" planet in Paizo's default [[Campaign setting|campaign setting]] for the [[Pathfinder Roleplaying Game]]. It's not the sum total of the setting's Material Plane like, say, Athas is, but it's where most of the action is and where you're going to be spending most of your time so it's also the nickname for what's properly known as the [[Pathfinder Campaign Setting]]. Golarion was first introduced to players as a generic OGL module named ''Crown of the Kobold King'', released in June of 2007 under Paizo's GameMastery imprint. Two months later at [[Gen Con]] 2007, Paizo published ''Rise of the Runelords'', the first of Pathfinder's famous Adventure Paths and the first product to bear the Pathfinder brand name; this was followed by another adventure path and a couple "Pathfinder Chronicles" supplements. When Wizards announced [[Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition]] and neglected to mention that the OGL would be replaced with a giant spiky dildo, Paizo cashed in on the confusion and announced that they would be creating a replacement RPG, based on OGL content but with a less restrictive license for its "Product Identity" and with Golarion as the default setting. Golarion is notable for ripping off fucking everything, including dime-store pulp novels, random bits of relatively modern history, earlier editions of D&D, sci-fi kitsch, and the kitchen sink. This is a transparent attempt to [[Gay|fill the gaping orifice]] left behind by the loss of the D&D's "Product Identity" as cheaply as possible, justified as a way of allowing many different campaign styles to coexist in the same setting. One notable exception is the elder gods of the Far Realm, which Paizo replaced by biting the bullet and licensing the [[Cthulhu Mythos]] from Chaosium.

The centerpiece of Golarion is the Inner Sea region, consisting of the fantasy equivalents of Western Europe, the Mediterranean Sea zone, and the northern half of Africa. Unlike [[Dark Sun|most]] other fantasy settings, many of the cultures and civilizations of the Inner Sea region are in severe decline after the only deity which represents humans in the [[Outer Planes|Great Beyond]], Aroden, died a few centuries ago. To add salt to the wound, this caused a series of events which fucked up the world: the formation of a massive supernatural stationary fuckstorm that annihilated two entire nations and allowed [[Pirate|pirates]] to develop their own kingdoms, the obliteration of a noble [[barbarian]] empire by [[Eye of Terror|a tear in the tissue of reality]] opened directly into the [[Abyss]], and the prophets and diviners committing mass suicide as an prophesied golden age for mankind suddenly faded into nothing. As if this wasn't enough, the religious hysteria led the two greatest empires of the region to become balkanized devil-worshipping fantasy Nazis and decadent chucklefucks, respectively.

==Nations of Golarion==
===Absalom===
[[File:PathfinderExplained.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Golarion (or at least the parts that matter) in a nutshell.]]
Mecca meets [[Sigil]] in the middle of the ocean. 10,000 years in Golarion's past, a fuckhuge magic space rock called the Starstone struck the planet, creating the Inner Sea in the process and destroying Azlant, home of the Glorious Azlanti Master Race. The last of the Azlanti, Aroden, lifted the stone out of the Inner Sea 5,000 years later and used its magic to become [[Emperor|the God of Humanity in living flesh,]] founding the city-state of Absalom on the island where he dumped the thing to protect it from others who wanted to pull the same trick. It's still there, in the heart of the Ascendant Court, and anyone who survives the Test of the Starstone can use it to become a god too. (Thousands try every year; only three have ever succeeded, including [[Lulz|one guy who took the test on a drunken dare and can't remember how he did it.]]) As everyone has a stake in keeping the number of crazy gods around to a minimum and the island is strategically located in the middle of the Inner Sea, Absalom has become the effective center of civilization in Golarion's western hemisphere, with a complete clusterfuck of races and nationalities walking the streets to wheel and deal. Other areas of note include the Cairnlands, the slightly-haunted graveyard for all the dumbasses who tried and failed to invade one of the most important places on the planet, and the Ivy District, which is where all the whores are and where everyone goes to [[Diplomacy|stab each other in the back.]]

===Alkenstar===
Fuck yeah [[Murlynd|guns in your fantasy setting.]] Alkenstar is in the middle of a giant non-magical desert formed by a war between its magocratic neighbors, Geb and Nex, so they had to tell [[Medieval Stasis]] to shove it and learn engineering to stay relevant. Almost all of Golarion's gunpowder-based weaponry is produced by Alkenstari engineers, and they like to keep it that way so they can continue to charge out the ass for them. This is so your GM has an excuse to veto firearms. Despite what you'd expect from a desert nation that shits firearms, they're ''not'' particularly friends with Andoran, maintaining scrupulous neutrality and being situated in Golarion's equivalent of northeastern Africa.

===Andoran===
Fuck yeah 'Muricans. When Cheliax shat the bed, the nobles of Andoran went along with their new devil overlords in the interest of not becoming a fucking bloodbath like Galt or Cheliax itself. Andoran's burgeoning merchant class had other ideas and whipped up a revolution two years later, using Galtan philosophy (as if the American Revolution parallels weren't fucking obvious enough) to fuel the fires and inventing democratic socialism and the welfare state from whole cloth. As expected of fantasy Americans, they also practice cultural imperialism, actively exporting their radical ideology and disrupting the Inner Sea's slave trade. This makes them less than popular with the rest of the world. Their patron divinity is a [[Guardinal|celestial eagle-man.]]

===Belkzen===
Stupid dumb [[Orc|greenskin]] scum. When Golarion's dwarves took their expedition/holy war out of the Darklands, they brought the orcs with them. The dwarves eventually pushed them back into a shitty little valley in the continent's north, but not before a [[Grimgor Ironhide|strong and ambitious orc warlord]] named Belkzen managed to capture and ransack a [[Dwarf Fortress]] that he rechristened Urgir, the closest thing to a capital city they have. Naturally, the Hold of Belkzen has since collapsed into a fuckpile of semi-nomadic tribes with friendly names like Broken Spine, Gutspear, and Murdered Child constantly wrangling with each other for territory. The current holder of Urgir, Grask Uldeth of the Empty Hand, has discovered the value of trade with less beefy races, and your average PC can walk the streets in relative safety... most of the time. Other locations of note include the Brimstone Haruspex, where orc clerics huff volcanic gas to predict the future, and the Foundry, where and I quote: [[Mekboy|"crazed orc engineers known as Steeleaters remain neutral in order to sell their bizarre siege weaponry to all sides."]] '''Green really iz da best, innit?'''

===Brevoy===
Stuck all the way in the upper right corner of the map, this land is cold, forested and the country is on the verge of collapse. [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Supposedly some dragon or dude with a dragon showed up, conquered everyone and his line has ruled for years only to disappear one night and now the various noble houses vie for control.]]

Anyway, Brevoy is divided into a few regional areas, each ruled by a noble house who have their own outlook and goals, as well as a [[Greyhawk|somewhat independent city of adventurer swordsmen]]. The northern nobles are loosely allied against the equally loosely allied south and, in an attempt to build power and prestige enough to keep the calm, the newest king has sent [[Adventurer|adventurers]] south to found a new kingdom, [[Just As Planned|preferably a weak one that they can conquer in a weekend war.]]

===Cheliax===
[[File:Cheliax_flag.png|right|thumb]]
Motherfucking '''DEVIL [[Nazi|NAZIS.]]''' I mean, shit, their flag has a fucking swastika on it, modified ''just'' enough to keep German fa/tg/uys from [[/pol/|getting arrested.]] They were the biggest big cheese since Azlant until Aroden died and the noble houses turned the empire into a clusterfuck resembling a [[Crusader Kings]] game gone bad. House Thrune, fortunately (for them), [[Devil|had some friends in low places]] and leveraged their foul magic to slaughter their way through a 30-year civil war and put Queen Abrogail on the throne. Now the people of Cheliax have to deal with a government that worships [[Asmodeus]] as a state religion, regularly employs bound devils in its armies, [[Chaos|and ''really'' likes putting spikes on things.]] Anyone who doesn't support the new order is at risk of getting ratted out by his neighbors for profit and the villages "live in fear," but for the most part people live as they always have. And yes, they ''do'' make sure the <s>trains</s> carriages run on time and have a huge standing military. You know, just in case the swastika wasn't big enough of a hint.

===Druma===
Jewish Scientologists. Alternately, [[Star Trek|Ferengi]] in a fantasy setting. Their religion (which they claim is just a set of divinations, even though it acts exactly like a real-world religion complete with all kinds of weird social conscriptions) literally directs them to make as much money as they can, bling themselves the fuck out, favor each other over <s>goyim</s> unbelievers in business dealings, and eventually buy out the entire world. [[Chaotic Stupid]] robbers beware, that unassuming gem convoy is also blinged out with enough contingency spells to flash boil a dragon, and if the magic doesn't get you, the equally pimped-out guards will. Contrary to expectations, ''not'' dwarven, though there is a substantial dwarven minority because of their role in getting the Five Kings Mountains to stop killing each other and the absolutely retarded amount of gold and gems on their land. [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|For them, heaven is humans-only.]]

===Five Kings Mountains===
When the dwarves forced their way to the surface, they popped up here mostly. Over the course of the Quest For Sky (the aforementioned holy war to the surface) they built up a fuckton of [[Dwarfs (Warhammer Fantasy)|grudges]] with each other that mutated and merged over time, and after an exceedingly long and generic history the Five Kings Mountains are in a situation similar to the real-life Holy Roman Empire; there are far more than five dwarf polities there, and none of them can be considered "kings." Otherwise they're your standard generic as fuck fantasy dwarves. Funnily, are neighbors with the elves and the Ferengiboos, as well as the not!Americans.

===Galt===
'''VIVE LA REVOLUTION!''' Galt was at one time a Chelish holding, but after Big Daddy Asmodeus got his fingers in its contingency of [[Neckbeard|poets and philosophers]] started writing screeds about how shit House Thrune was and if someone like that could rule by divine right, then divine right was a crock of shit. Because Galt is just the high school history version of France during the Terror, this idea spread like wildfire and anyone who was even remotely related to the Chelish leadership was put to the sword. Modern Galt is a continuously shifting crab-bucket of revolutionary governments, each one falling victim to the next based on the shifting whims of the mob. One neat wrinkle is that the guillotines used to execute yesterday's news (the ''final blades'') trap the souls of those they kill, simultaneously preventing resurrection and keeping the soul from getting stolen by (or sent to, if the victim was evil) Hell. Dwarf players should take note of the town of Azurestone, which is built around a holy site of Torag and is kept relatively insulated from the anarchic clusterfuck.

===Geb===
Fuck yeah [[Lich]] King (actually a ghost king, though there is a Lich Queen ruling in his stead, since the ghost king is mildly senile). Originally part of ancient Osirion until they exiled a cocky necromancer named Geb, so he started his own kingdom with [[meme|blackmagic and hookers]], also named Geb, and got into a multi-century pissing match with the wizard Nex, who ruled the nation of Nex. This war fucked both countries, turning Geb into an undead wasteland and the southern portions of Nex into a desert where magic doesn't work.

===Hermea===
[[Council of Wyrms]]: The Nation. An island in the sea between Cheliax and Varisia ruled by a gold dragon who is instituting some "[[communism|Glorious Endeavor]]" to perfect humanity.

===Irrisen===
Cold as a witch's titty, and boy are there witches here. Founded by [[Baba Yaga]] after a month long war, she locked the land in perpetual winter then promptly fucked off, only returning every 100 years to kidnap the current queen and install a new daughter on the throne. Formerly part of the Lands of the Linnorm Kings, they are still [[butthurt]] about losing the territory.

===Isger===
Cheliax's bottom bitch. Only notable because their flag has a barely-disguised swastika on it. A glorified trade-route between Cheilax and other wealthier nations, such as Druma, keeping the trade roads secured is the main priority, leaving the rest of the nation to suffer. Isger is used to suffering, though, as large swaths of the country were recently fucked in a war with raiding goblin tribes from which they still haven't really recovered.

===Jalmeray===
Little India. Originally ruled by Nex it was given to a Vudran explorer because Nex liked the cut of his jib.

===Katapesh===
Slavers and drug dealers ruled by a mysterious and alien race called the Pactmasters.

===Kyonin===
Typical elf kingdom. Been fucked over by a demon who has blighted a huge swath of the south.

===Lands of the Linnorm Kings===
Vikings and nasty animalistic dragons called linnorms. If you can actually kill a linnorm they'll crown you as one of their kings. Killing a linnorm subjects you to the linnorm's death curse, which does bad things to you until you die. Notably, actually uniting the Lands of the Linnorm Kings involves killing the biggest, meanest linnorm, and ''his'' death curse causes you to [[Lucius the Eternal| become him]], so have fun with that.

===Lastwall===
Crusader state that fights Orcs and Vampires.

===Mendev===
Another crusader state, this one fights demons. It's queen is over 100 years old but looks to be early middle aged due to a youth potion they buy from Thuvia.

===Mendiogalti Island===
Island of assassins who venerate a giant red praying mantis god. They can and will murder anyone but sitting monarchs.

===Molthune===
Fantasy Prussia. Recently lost their northern lands to a bunch of Robin Hood wannabes. Makes the criminally stupid decision of hiring hobgoblin mercenaries because they have an unhealthy obsession with outdoing Cheliax in the whole empire-building thing.

===Mwangi Expanse===
Home to intelligent gorilla men and a super ancient empire of black men who lived in flying cities making the saying "We wuz kangs" sorta true for Pathfinder.

===Nex===
Originally part of ancient Osirion, at some point it became its own nation called Nex ruled by the [[wizard]] named Nex. Real creative bunch, these wizards. As is natural for a nation of wizards they have royally fucked up their lands in a massive magic war with Geb, to their south, almost single-handedly making the nation of Alkenstar in the process. After Nex just completely fucked off one day, the war pretty much went into a stalemate because Geb didn't even want to fight anymore if he wouldn't get to kill Nex.

===Nidal===
Client state to Cheliax, they are basically Clive Barker's Cenobites (think BDSM people who love hard piercings and spiked chains) plus 1984.

===Nirmathas===
A wooded area that told Molthune to fuck off. Basically this is Robin Hood's Sherwood Forest.

===Numeria===
[[Conan the Barbarian|Conan]] meets [[Expedition to the Barrier Peaks|science fiction]], so expect super buff barbarians throwing spears at giant metal scorpions with laser eyes. Hard core as fuck.

===Osirion===
Literally Egypt if the Mummy movies were documentaries.

===Qadira===
Fantasy Turkey/Arabia. Have warred with Taldor and for a while ruled Osirion. May or may not be on the verge of a civil war. Is actually the westernmost holding of an even larger Persia-inspired empire called Kelesh.

===Rahadoum===
A country so fucked over by the gods that divine magic and worship is outlawed. This no-doubt displeases the gods but they [[Tzeentch|continue their machinations in secret via espionage clerics]].

===Razmiran===
Ever play a game with an [[That guy|edgelord]] who always wants to be the [[Mary Sue|super-bestest at everything]] and the GM just capitulates to their every whim and gives them [[Grimdark|a kingdom which they rule worse that North Korea and say everyone should worship them as a god?]] Well, that's pretty much this country. Previously part of the River Kingdoms, broke off a few years ago because said "God-King" converted a bunch of idiots. A nation of Scientologists and home of the "false priest" archetype for sorcerers.

===Realm of the Mammoth Lords===
Ever want a low fantasy caveman game that still fights witches, giants, demons, [[dinosaur|prehistoric megafauna]] and more? Go here.

===River Kingdoms===
A vast territory of constantly rising and falling petty kingdoms, it's likely if it ever united it would be one of the most powerful nations in the Inner Sea since its comparable to Taldor and Cheliax in size, but they prefer fighting amongst themselves. All neighboring countries claim some bit of it but can never hold it long due to various reasons. Banditry is massively common and is expected by the populace, some even take up banditry as a bit of part-time work between their normal lives like fishing and farming. Has its own unspoken code called the "Six River Freedoms" which basically amount to:

#Say whatever you want, but don't be surprised if a Half-Orc punches you in the face when you call their mother uglier than a mountain troll.
#If you swear an Oath you keep it or you die, no exceptions.
#No one can block the use of the rivers or land travel or charge tolls other than in wartime. However if you get attacked whilst travelling them you're on your own.
#Within their realms all who are there are bound to whatever local laws exist.
#Slavey is utterly prohibited, and even wizards can get their ass bitten if they summon a creature in view of commoners.
#As long as you give the victim a chance to defend their belongings, your allowed to steal and conquer their stuff. However if you steal their stuff and they don't get a chance to block it your treated as a common criminal.

Basically the Balkans of the setting, but with more rivers. Also the home of the Kingmaker AP module, which let players build their own kingdom.

===Sargava===
Technically a colony to the devil-worshipping assholes in Cheliax, they are effectively independent thanks to the massive fuck-you hurricane and pirates to their north. The local Mwangi people are little better than slaves and may be plotting to overthrow dem white bois.

===Shackles===
Pirates of the Caribbean. "Ruled" by the Hurricane King, every island and small stretch of land is claimed by some pirate or pirate group.

===Sodden Lands===
Previously consisting of two small kingdoms that thrived on prophecy, when Aroden died and prophecy pretty much failed followed by a massive hurricane that would make Katrina look like a small breeze, they collapsed and this is now just ruins and swampy, marshy lands. So yeah, Louisiana on a bad day.

===Taldor===
Has overtones of the Byzantine Empire and British Empire. Stagnant, decadent, corrupt. The grand prince hires vikings as bodyguards. Once rules much of the world but has become a shadow of it's former self.

===Thuvia===
Barely held together because the small cities in this realm produce the single most sought after magical item. No, not girdles of gender-swapping. I swear to... No, they make a potion that reverts the drinker to the prime of life. Consume it often enough and you basically can be immortal. Only a few batches are made each year and the prices are exorbitant.

===Ustalav===
I vant to zuck your blood! Take every fantasy gothic horror trope and dump it here. You got vampires, zombies, werewolves, liches, hags, voodoo, Cthulhu, witches and everything else. Here, EVERY night is a horrible night to have a curse.

===Varisia===
This is the main setting of the main setting. Vast wild lands, a few small cities at the edges, massive ruins to explore, goblins to kill, gypsies and more. Most of the adventures paths either play completely here, start here or at least have ties here.

===Worldwound===
Aroden, god of humans, made a lot of enemies in his day before he died. One was a giant insectoid demon lord. When he bit the bullet about a hundred years ago, the demon lord saw his chance and tore open a new gaping hole into the world to fuck. In constant war with Mendev and for the most part leave Numeria and the Mammoth Lords alone because why would you fuck with alien tech and guys who fight on mammoths?

==Lands Beyond the Core Setting==
[[File:Golarion Continents.jpg|300px|thumb|right|So many places to go, so little places well-developed...]]
Paizo, still wanting even more kitchen sink fantasy and wanting to emulate Forgotten Realms, have other continents and lands beyond the core setting.

===Arcadia===
Well they needed a place for the Americas. Notably the vikings from the Lands of the Linnorm Kings think of it as a kind of paradise and their rulers have a settlement on it in an allusion to Vinland from viking history.

===Azlant===
Atlantis by another name. Home to the first human empire that was uplifted by the aboleths, was destroyed by the Starstone when the aboleths thought humans were getting uppity.

===Casmaron===
What happens when you mix India, the 'stans and the Middle East? This. Vast swaths of largely unruled or ungovernable lands but also two massive "empires", one being a Persian/Ottoman expy, the other being fantasy India.

===Crown of the World===
Connects Avistan (Europe) to Tian Xia (East Asia). Has a few eskimo-like settlements and Cthulhu horror themes going on here.

===Darklands===
Paizo's Underdark. Drow, Svirneblin, Duergar and all the tropes therein.

===Iblydos===
Classical Greece. An island archipelago that serves as a common stopping point for traders going between the Inner Sea region and the distant lands of Vudra and Kelesh in Casmaron. Known for its prophecising Cyclopes and Demigod Heroes who often rule its numerous City-States.

===Sarusan===
Mysterious land of deadly terrors which is clearly Australia. Australia is bad enough, who the fuck knows how scary it would be with fantasy elements. Nobody can remember what it looks like for some reason that has nothing to do with leaving a blank canvas for your GM to paint with horrible death.

===Tian Xia===
[[File:Pathfinder Tian Xia Map.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Paizo is always careful to avoid cultural appropriation and treats foreign cultures in a respectful and well-informed manner.]]
Has all your classic East Asia fantasy tropes going on here. Decadent empires, eastern dragons, monks in monasteries learning kung-fu, mystical monks meditating under waterfalls, Studio Ghibli creatures running around, Naga, Oni, Mongols, and samurai.

==Gods of Golarion==
There are gods upon gods for the game but they split up into a number of different pantheons.

===Core Pantheon===
'''[[Abadar]]:''' God of civilization, walls, and banking. Doing pretty well in modern times, all things considered. Lawful Neutral in a very reasonable kind of way, leaning more towards good, but still stuck doing shit like letting Zon-Kuthon into his Vault because he doesn't break his contracts.

'''[[Asmodeus]]:''' It's [[Asmodeus]], what the fuck do you expect? The most notable changes from OGL are that Asmodeus is actually a deity this time around, and that [[SJW|misogyny is an explicit part of his dominion. Because otherwise you wouldn't be able to tell that he's a bad guy.]] Yes, the leader of his greatest group of mortal servants is female. No, the setting material does not comment on this. (One designer claimed this is because he doesn't care so much about ''mortal'' gender, since mortals are just going to die and the lawful evil ones will end up his anyway. While this was probably just the designer trying to keep his ass from getting ripped by angry neckbeards and doesn't make that much sense, it does line up with PF Asmodeus' general "they'll all see things my way eventually" mentality.)

'''[[Calistria]]:''' An elven goddess, Calistria's temples often double as centers of intrigue and brothels. [[Slaanesh|Feeding into people's lust]] and also feeding people's anxieties until they seek revenge, she is seen often as a bit of an odd one. Her favored animal is the hornet since they can sting repeatedly. Seriously, if you piss her off she will show her disdain for you by having hornets sting your junk until it's black and blistered. She is Chaotic Neutral to the extreme, in fact she is so whimsical and unreliable that she is the only non-chaotic evil deity that even Asmodeus refuses to work with.

'''[[Cayden Cailean]]:''' Five humans in the setting have ascended to godhood, each with their own outlooks and spheres and Cayden Cailean is one of them. His outlook and spheres? Partying it up, [[dwarf|getting drunk]] and going on adventures. Cayden Cailean apparently got drunk one night and took the Test of the Starstone. There are plenty of legends around why exactly the drunken man did it but one says he saw [[Slaanesh|Calistria, goddess of lust and revenge]], and wanted some of that. The goddess rebuffed him and said only a god could pleasure her. Pissed and drunk, he grabbed a keg and set off. Three days later, rocking a heavenly hangover, Cayden emerged as the most recent of the gods.

'''[[Desna]]:''' An ancient space alien who befriended one of the first gods. When Lamashtu stole the beast domain from him, she took his travel domain. Chaotic Good, and likes wandering around, but guides people with her control over luck, and has a bunch of scientist followers who see her as helping them find knowledge. Very chill.

'''[[Erastil]]:''' Old-fashioned god of the harvest and rural areas; a grumpy but well-meaning old codger who's getting a little past it since "city living" became a thing, but is still popular out in the farming country and wilderness regions. Source of much [[SJW]] outrage when his first detailed writeup revealed that being "God of the Old Ways" also makes him a patriarchal chap who believes women should get married and make babies, though he will sigh and accept it if a woman wants to prove she can have a happy life doing something else. They kicked up such a stink about this, claiming there was no way he could be Lawful Good and think this, that Paizo hastily retconned it. For the record, men are supposed to be out doing the dangerous jobs too. Basically a generic wilderness/rural god, though he does have some similarities to [[St. Cuthbert]].

'''[[Gorum]]:''' Basically [[Khorne]]-lite, and including the bits about not killing non-combatants. (Well, technically [[Conan the Barbarian| Crom]], but the kids only care about their 40k.) Favors actual strategy over charging massed arches armored only with war-cries though.

'''[[Gozreh]]:''' Nature god. Most interesting thing about them is that they're a [[dickgirl|hermaphrodite]], with their female form being associated with the sea and their male form with the earth.

'''[[Iomedae]]:''' Aroden's herald, who mostly took over his job after his untimely demise. A former paladin turned deity via the Starstone, and a righteous crusader type. Paizo really screws with Iomedae depending on what source you read. Sometimes seen as a [[paladin|paragon of righteousness]], she sometimes comes across as a prick, [[That guy|going so far as to almost kill people who are trying to save the world because they didn't suck up to her well enough]] in one poorly-written adventure. May or may not have banged the local Bahamut-equivalent, Apsu, as a gold dragon calling her mom hangs out in her court.

'''[[Irori]]:''' Fantasy Buddha. A former mortal, but unlike the others, whom he mocks for just copying his old friend Aroden, he got there on his own, by refining and perfecting his body and mind into literal perfection. Has more followers out in Tian, but he's making waves in Golarion. His clerics get [[monk|Improved Unarmed Strike instead of a favored weapon]].

'''[[Lamashtu]]:''' Mother of monsters and a former female demon lord who stole the domains from a god she murdered. Most of the "monster" races pay homage to her, and her evil favor usually manifests as hideous deformity and mutation. Usually manifests as a [[/d/| heavily pregnant mishmash of monster parts]].

'''[[Nethys]]:''' The god of magic. Played too much ''[[Call of Cthulhu]]'' and broke his brain. His fractured mind usually manifests as two faces, one white and benevolent, one black and destructive.

'''[[Norgorber]]''' '''[[REDACTED]]'''

'''[[Pharasma]]:''' [[The Raven Queen]], sort of. The deathly-neutral type of death goddess, and probably the oldest and most primordial of divinities. Haaaaates undeath, so much that her clerics get a custom variant of the Death domain with the undeath-related parts replaced. Judges the souls of every creature that ever dies before assigning them to their proper afterlives, with allowances made for things like racial affiliation and belief in reincarnation.

'''[[Rovagug]]''': An ancient primordial force of destruction, despised by all the other gods and worshipped only by madmen and lesser primordial forces of destruction. The other gods put aside their differences long ago to trap him in the Cage, which is Golarion itself. Bad Things will happen if he ever gets out, [[Starfinder| which might be fated to happen]]. His spawn still rampage around the world, one of which is the [[tarrasque]]. A ''mid-tier'' one.

'''[[Sarenrae]]:''' [[Rule 63]] [[Pelor]]. Asmodeus's good-aligned brother's first servant, who took up his portfolio after Asmodeus murdered him. Ironically, the two allied to take the foremost role in defeating and caging Rovagug. In addition to being a sun goddess, she emphasizes the idea of compassion and redemption for the truly-repentant... and destruction for those who're truly past all that.

'''[[Shalyn]]:''' Beauty, art, and love goddess. Not sex though, that's Calistria's job. Literally all beings love her... some are just incapable of expressing that love in healthy ways. Lamashtu in particular gives her the creeps. Zon-Kuthon's sister, and responsible for containing the worst of the monster he's become.

'''[[Torag]]:''' We have come up with interesting twists for at least most of the blatant copies on this list. No such luck here. Torag is [[Moradin]], dwarf without end. Amen.

'''[[Urgathoa]]:''' Once upon a time, when the world was young, there lived a decadent queen who spent her whole life in unbridled hedonism. So much that, when she died, and went to wait in line in Pharasma's Boneyard to await judgement, she cut out of the line and slipped back into the world because she couldn't stand the thought of giving up the pleasures of life. In the process, she became the first undead creature and infected the world with both undeath and disease. Aw well. Very cheery for an evil goddess, since she's all about doing what you love... though for most of her followers, that's various shades of cannibalism and plague-spreading.

'''Zon-Kuthon:''' Originally known as Dou-Bral, half-sister to Shelyn, he got so asshurt about his sister's talents that he decided to go to the leather club between realities to brood. There, he was [[Rape|enlightened]] by an [[Slaanesh|alien presence]]. He returned to Golarion as a hyper BDSM fetishist known as Zon-Kuthon, god of pain, torture, and edge. His unholy symbol is a skull with a chain in it, for fuck's sake. Despite his worshipers being evil touturing murderers, his clergy still tends to be kind to those who worship Shelyn because he still loves her, deep down in the irrevocably-ruined part of him that's still Dou-Bral.

===Tian-Xia Deities===
'''Daikitsu'''

'''Fumeiyoshi'''

'''General Susumu'''

'''Hei Feng'''

'''Kofusachi'''

'''Lady Nanbyo'''

'''Lao Sho Pu'''

'''Nalinivati'''

'''Qi Zhong'''

'''Shizuru''': Shizuru is your typical asian themed goddess of sun, honor, ancestors, and swordplay. She's generally on good relations with every other Tian Diety. She's typically worshiped by honorable samurai and weeaboos. She is the lover of the moon god Tsukiyo and had to get him resurrected by the help of Qi-Zhong, the god of medicine, after his brother Fumeiyoshi grew so damn jealous of his brother actually having a girlfriend that he geeked him. She has an star archon daughter called the [[Weeaboo|Dusk Ronin]], who got kicked out of her mother's house and now wanders the Great Beyond in search of redemption.

'''Sun Wukong'''

'''Tsukiyo'''

'''Yaezhing'''

'''Yamatsumi'''

===Other Major Deities===
===Dwarven Pantheon===
===Elven Pantheon===
===Halfling Pantheon===

==Races of Golarion==
Being effectively [[Dungeons & Dragons]] 3.75, Golarion is absolutely crawling with races. Your D&D standards are here, but there's also an ever-growing array of races, from monstrous humanoids to ones lifted from real-world mythology to even homebrewed races.

===The Standards===
'''[[Human]]:''' Bog-standard human, following in the best D&D traditions by having different nations with different hats to wear.

'''[[Dwarf]]:''' Originated in Golarion's [[Underdark]], migrated to the surface in the legendary "Quest for Sky" centuries ago.

'''[[Elf]]:''' One of the planet's oldest races. Buggered off through magical gateways to another planet during the worst of the Starfall disaster, then came back a few centuries ago.

'''[[Halfling]]:''' Pretty much your standard stunties, barring the fact that they're very popular slaves throughout the Inner Sea region.

'''[[Gnome]]:''' Fey who migrated to Golarion from [[Feywild|The First World]], then found out that without regular stimulation, they undergo something called "The Bleaching" which drives them mad and painfully kills them. In other words, they can literally get bored to death!

'''[[Half-Elf]]:''' Pretty much your standard half-elves.

'''[[Half-Orc]]:''' Extra emphasis on the "you were probably born from rape!" backstory.

===Snowflake Races===
The races most of /tg/ mocks because they're seen as favored by people who want special snowflake or weeaboo type characters, even if these are all races with roots in traditional D&D.

'''[[Aasimar]]:''' The iconic D&D Goodly [[Planetouched]]. Because Pathfinder has a much bigger array of "angels", there's many different sub-varieties of aasimar. There's actually a country where these guys are really common, which makes them almost as normal in Golarion as a [[dragonborn]] or [[half-orc]] would be in standard 5e D&D.

'''[[Catfolk]]:''' Pretty bog-standard [[Chaotic Stupid]] cat-people. Infamous for their schizophrenic artwork, which has portrayed them as anything from "[[catgirl]]s with a fine layer of fur all over their body" to "full fledged [[furry]]" to [[Elder Scrolls|"why does this look exactly like a Khajiit?"]].

'''[[Changeling]]:''' Not to be confused with the [[Eberron]] changeling, which is a [[doppelganger]]'s half-human spawn, Golarion's changelings are the immature larval form of [[hag]]s. Essentially, an entire species of cute/hot witches - with heterochromia, no less! - who are supposed to beautiful, but at the same time, so creepy and spooky they get a Charisma penalty. This aspect is the main reason why /tg/ mocks them. They're not necessarily a bad race, though, especially if you want more dark fantasy or horror fantasy games.

'''[[Dhampyre|Dhampir]]:''' Half-human and half-vampire, but, like the changeling, they fit the Ustalav region just great - hell, it really is surprising that these guys never showed up in [[Ravenloft]].

'''[[Drow]]:''' When the elves fucked off to another planet to escape an apocalypse, some of the more arrogant assholes stayed behind. Ultimately turning to worship of various [[Demon Prince]]s to survive, and becoming psycho-evil arrogant assholes in the bargain. Most noted for their fucked-up love of fleshcrafting, which is basically manipulating living creatures and turning them into monsters.

'''[[Ganzi]]:''' The most obscure of the PF [[Planetouched]], these guys are essentially Chaotic Planetouched and may be connected to the Protheans, Golarion's equivalent to the [[Slaad]]i.

'''[[Genasi|Ifrit/Oread/Sylph/Undine]]:''' These guys are basically [[genasi]], but Pathfinder pretends to treat them as seperate races in order to make the comparison seem less obvious.

'''[[Shifter|Skinwalker]]:''' As dhampirs are to vampires, these guys are to [[therianthrope]]s. Essentially [[Shifter]]s with less shitty artwork.

'''[[Suli]]:''' One of the stupider [[planetouched]] races in Pthfinder, these guys are [[genie]]-kin who trace their lineage to the oft-forgotten Janni, the mixed-elemental fifth genie race which is the weakest of them all.

'''[[Tengu]]:''' Humanoid flightless crow-people who love shinies. Essentially less-evil [[kenku]] outright using the mythological version's name. Tend to become rogues (or ninjas), samurai and pirates. Sometimes two at once.

'''[[Tiefling]]:''' When one of the countries has the theme "demonic invasion through gaping portals to the Abyss" and another is "Fantasy Nazis using a pact with Satan to stay in power", are you really surprised that these guys are everywhere? Especially considering Golarion has a huge list of fiends outside of the Devil/Daemon/Demon trinity and they ''all'' make tieflings.

===Monstrous Humanoids===
'''[[Goblin]]:''' Doubles down on the [[Chaotic Stupid]] aspects; love fire, really good singers, absolutely terrified of dogs, horses and writing.

'''[[Orc]]:''' Driven up from the Underdark by the dwarves, who they used to war with. Really double-down on the Always Chaotic Evil aspects.

'''[[Kobold]]:''' Pretty much the D&D iconic version.

'''[[Hobgoblin]]:''' A militaristic race descended from an experiment to magically mutate goblins into slave-soldiers to fight against the elf empire; their creators were killed, but the hobgoblins were complete, and now they don't have an off-switch.

===Foreigners===
Because Golarion has lots of "not!X" countries, there's both a "not!India" (Vudra) and a "not!Orient" (Dragon Empires), each of which has some fairly unique races native to it.

'''[[Kitsune]]:''' Your standard mischievous fun-loving shapeshifting fox-folk.

'''[[Nagaji]]:''' A race of [[serpentfolk]] bred as slaves by the [[naga]]s; they're quite content in their servitude.

'''[[Samsaran]]:''' Spiritually enlightened blue & white-colored humans who continuously reincarnate.

'''[[Vanara]]:''' Friendly, sage-like monkey-people.

===Sci-Fantasy Races===
Pathfinder's mapped out the star system that Golarion comes from, and in best pulp fantasy fashion, that means that you can play androids and aliens in this setting too.

'''[[Android]]:''' Look like humans with pale, silver-tinted skin and circuitry that lights up like science-tattoos when they use their powers. Most common in Numeria, as they are born out of "creation forges" left behind when the starship crashed.

'''[[Kasatha]]:''' Four-armed humanoids who don't remember what world they came from. Favor dual-wielding bows.

'''[[Lashunta]]:''' The natives of Golarion's equivalent of Venus; antennaed humanoids with psionic powers and [[-4 Strength|extreme sexual dimorphism]] - men look more like dwarves, women look more like elves.

'''[[Triaxian]]:''' Pointy-eared aliens whose planet undergoes an extreme orbit, leading to centuries-long summers and winters, and thus the species is divided into "Summer Generation" and "Winter Generation" subspecies.

===Real-Worlders===
The least common race group, so far, these are critters taken from non-D&D fantasy sources, including several Lovecraft races and cryptids.

'''[[Reptoid]]:''' Shapeshifting lizardfolk with [[psionics]] who hail from an unknown world or plane, based on a popular conspiracy theory.

'''[[Orang-Pendak]]:''' A crytid that is basically a smaller, smarter sasquatch.

'''[[Deep One]] Hybrid:''' A human with [[Deep One]] ancestry, giving them amphibious abilities but cursing them to turn into a Deep One - which is death to their old personality - in their 50s.

'''[[Being of Ib]]:''' Amphibious, gnome-like frog-people from the Cthulhu Mythos; although their Dreamlands colony was famously annihilated by Sarnath in "The Doom That Came to Sarnath", it's possible other colonies exist elsewhere in the multiverse.

'''[[Yaddithian]]:''' Tapir-snouted insectile-looking people adept in sorcery who have scattered across the galaxy due to their homeworld being destroyed by bholes. Taken from the Lovecraft story "Through the Gates of the Silver Key".

==Other Planets and Planes==

==Trivia==

==Further Reading==

{{Pathfinder-Races}}

[[Category:Roleplaying]]

Golarion

2018-06-10T01:57:34Z

2602:306:3B27:CB40:8CC:F1D:295F:94F3: /* Ustalav */

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[[File:Continent of Avistan.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Welcome to Golarion.]]
[[Golarion]] is the "main" planet in Paizo's default [[Campaign setting|campaign setting]] for the [[Pathfinder Roleplaying Game]]. It's not the sum total of the setting's Material Plane like, say, Athas is, but it's where most of the action is and where you're going to be spending most of your time so it's also the nickname for what's properly known as the [[Pathfinder Campaign Setting]]. Golarion was first introduced to players as a generic OGL module named ''Crown of the Kobold King'', released in June of 2007 under Paizo's GameMastery imprint. Two months later at [[Gen Con]] 2007, Paizo published ''Rise of the Runelords'', the first of Pathfinder's famous Adventure Paths and the first product to bear the Pathfinder brand name; this was followed by another adventure path and a couple "Pathfinder Chronicles" supplements. When Wizards announced [[Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition]] and neglected to mention that the OGL would be replaced with a giant spiky dildo, Paizo cashed in on the confusion and announced that they would be creating a replacement RPG, based on OGL content but with a less restrictive license for its "Product Identity" and with Golarion as the default setting. Golarion is notable for ripping off fucking everything, including dime-store pulp novels, random bits of relatively modern history, earlier editions of D&D, sci-fi kitsch, and the kitchen sink. This is a transparent attempt to [[Gay|fill the gaping orifice]] left behind by the loss of the D&D's "Product Identity" as cheaply as possible, justified as a way of allowing many different campaign styles to coexist in the same setting. One notable exception is the elder gods of the Far Realm, which Paizo replaced by biting the bullet and licensing the [[Cthulhu Mythos]] from Chaosium.

The centerpiece of Golarion is the Inner Sea region, consisting of the fantasy equivalents of Western Europe, the Mediterranean Sea zone, and the northern half of Africa. Unlike [[Dark Sun|most]] other fantasy settings, many of the cultures and civilizations of the Inner Sea region are in severe decline after the only deity which represents humans in the [[Outer Planes|Great Beyond]], Aroden, died a few centuries ago. To add salt to the wound, this caused a series of events which fucked up the world: the formation of a massive supernatural stationary fuckstorm that annihilated two entire nations and allowed [[Pirate|pirates]] to develop their own kingdoms, the obliteration of a noble [[barbarian]] empire by [[Eye of Terror|a tear in the tissue of reality]] opened directly into the [[Abyss]], and the prophets and diviners committing mass suicide as an prophesied golden age for mankind suddenly faded into nothing. As if this wasn't enough, the religious hysteria led the two greatest empires of the region to become balkanized devil-worshipping fantasy Nazis and decadent chucklefucks, respectively.

==Nations of Golarion==
===Absalom===
[[File:PathfinderExplained.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Golarion (or at least the parts that matter) in a nutshell.]]
Mecca meets [[Sigil]] in the middle of the ocean. 10,000 years in Golarion's past, a fuckhuge magic space rock called the Starstone struck the planet, creating the Inner Sea in the process and destroying Azlant, home of the Glorious Azlanti Master Race. The last of the Azlanti, Aroden, lifted the stone out of the Inner Sea 5,000 years later and used its magic to become [[Emperor|the God of Humanity in living flesh,]] founding the city-state of Absalom on the island where he dumped the thing to protect it from others who wanted to pull the same trick. It's still there, in the heart of the Ascendant Court, and anyone who survives the Test of the Starstone can use it to become a god too. (Thousands try every year; only three have ever succeeded, including [[Lulz|one guy who took the test on a drunken dare and can't remember how he did it.]]) As everyone has a stake in keeping the number of crazy gods around to a minimum and the island is strategically located in the middle of the Inner Sea, Absalom has become the effective center of civilization in Golarion's western hemisphere, with a complete clusterfuck of races and nationalities walking the streets to wheel and deal. Other areas of note include the Cairnlands, the slightly-haunted graveyard for all the dumbasses who tried and failed to invade one of the most important places on the planet, and the Ivy District, which is where all the whores are and where everyone goes to [[Diplomacy|stab each other in the back.]]

===Alkenstar===
Fuck yeah [[Murlynd|guns in your fantasy setting.]] Alkenstar is in the middle of a giant non-magical desert formed by a war between its magocratic neighbors, Geb and Nex, so they had to tell [[Medieval Stasis]] to shove it and learn engineering to stay relevant. Almost all of Golarion's gunpowder-based weaponry is produced by Alkenstari engineers, and they like to keep it that way so they can continue to charge out the ass for them. This is so your GM has an excuse to veto firearms. Despite what you'd expect from a desert nation that shits firearms, they're ''not'' particularly friends with Andoran, maintaining scrupulous neutrality and being situated in Golarion's equivalent of northeastern Africa.

===Andoran===
Fuck yeah 'Muricans. When Cheliax shat the bed, the nobles of Andoran went along with their new devil overlords in the interest of not becoming a fucking bloodbath like Galt or Cheliax itself. Andoran's burgeoning merchant class had other ideas and whipped up a revolution two years later, using Galtan philosophy (as if the American Revolution parallels weren't fucking obvious enough) to fuel the fires and inventing democratic socialism and the welfare state from whole cloth. As expected of fantasy Americans, they also practice cultural imperialism, actively exporting their radical ideology and disrupting the Inner Sea's slave trade. This makes them less than popular with the rest of the world. Their patron divinity is a [[Guardinal|celestial eagle-man.]]

===Belkzen===
Stupid dumb [[Orc|greenskin]] scum. When Golarion's dwarves took their expedition/holy war out of the Darklands, they brought the orcs with them. The dwarves eventually pushed them back into a shitty little valley in the continent's north, but not before a [[Grimgor Ironhide|strong and ambitious orc warlord]] named Belkzen managed to capture and ransack a [[Dwarf Fortress]] that he rechristened Urgir, the closest thing to a capital city they have. Naturally, the Hold of Belkzen has since collapsed into a fuckpile of semi-nomadic tribes with friendly names like Broken Spine, Gutspear, and Murdered Child constantly wrangling with each other for territory. The current holder of Urgir, Grask Uldeth of the Empty Hand, has discovered the value of trade with less beefy races, and your average PC can walk the streets in relative safety... most of the time. Other locations of note include the Brimstone Haruspex, where orc clerics huff volcanic gas to predict the future, and the Foundry, where and I quote: [[Mekboy|"crazed orc engineers known as Steeleaters remain neutral in order to sell their bizarre siege weaponry to all sides."]] '''Green really iz da best, innit?'''

===Brevoy===
Stuck all the way in the upper right corner of the map, this land is cold, forested and the country is on the verge of collapse. [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Supposedly some dragon or dude with a dragon showed up, conquered everyone and his line has ruled for years only to disappear one night and now the various noble houses vie for control.]]

Anyway, Brevoy is divided into a few regional areas, each ruled by a noble house who have their own outlook and goals, as well as a [[Greyhawk|somewhat independent city of adventurer swordsmen]]. The northern nobles are loosely allied against the equally loosely allied south and, in an attempt to build power and prestige enough to keep the calm, the newest king has sent [[Adventurer|adventurers]] south to found a new kingdom, [[Just As Planned|preferably a weak one that they can conquer in a weekend war.]]

===Cheliax===
[[File:Cheliax_flag.png|right|thumb]]
Motherfucking '''DEVIL [[Nazi|NAZIS.]]''' I mean, shit, their flag has a fucking swastika on it, modified ''just'' enough to keep German fa/tg/uys from [[/pol/|getting arrested.]] They were the biggest big cheese since Azlant until Aroden died and the noble houses turned the empire into a clusterfuck resembling a [[Crusader Kings]] game gone bad. House Thrune, fortunately (for them), [[Devil|had some friends in low places]] and leveraged their foul magic to slaughter their way through a 30-year civil war and put Queen Abrogail on the throne. Now the people of Cheliax have to deal with a government that worships [[Asmodeus]] as a state religion, regularly employs bound devils in its armies, [[Chaos|and ''really'' likes putting spikes on things.]] Anyone who doesn't support the new order is at risk of getting ratted out by his neighbors for profit and the villages "live in fear," but for the most part people live as they always have. And yes, they ''do'' make sure the <s>trains</s> carriages run on time and have a huge standing military. You know, just in case the swastika wasn't big enough of a hint.

===Druma===
Jewish Scientologists. Alternately, [[Star Trek|Ferengi]] in a fantasy setting. Their religion (which they claim is just a set of divinations, even though it acts exactly like a real-world religion complete with all kinds of weird social conscriptions) literally directs them to make as much money as they can, bling themselves the fuck out, favor each other over <s>goyim</s> unbelievers in business dealings, and eventually buy out the entire world. [[Chaotic Stupid]] robbers beware, that unassuming gem convoy is also blinged out with enough contingency spells to flash boil a dragon, and if the magic doesn't get you, the equally pimped-out guards will. Contrary to expectations, ''not'' dwarven, though there is a substantial dwarven minority because of their role in getting the Five Kings Mountains to stop killing each other and the absolutely retarded amount of gold and gems on their land. [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|For them, heaven is humans-only.]]

===Five Kings Mountains===
When the dwarves forced their way to the surface, they popped up here mostly. Over the course of the Quest For Sky (the aforementioned holy war to the surface) they built up a fuckton of [[Dwarfs (Warhammer Fantasy)|grudges]] with each other that mutated and merged over time, and after an exceedingly long and generic history the Five Kings Mountains are in a situation similar to the real-life Holy Roman Empire; there are far more than five dwarf polities there, and none of them can be considered "kings." Otherwise they're your standard generic as fuck fantasy dwarves. Funnily, are neighbors with the elves and the Ferengiboos, as well as the not!Americans.

===Galt===
'''VIVE LA REVOLUTION!''' Galt was at one time a Chelish holding, but after Big Daddy Asmodeus got his fingers in its contingency of [[Neckbeard|poets and philosophers]] started writing screeds about how shit House Thrune was and if someone like that could rule by divine right, then divine right was a crock of shit. Because Galt is just the high school history version of France during the Terror, this idea spread like wildfire and anyone who was even remotely related to the Chelish leadership was put to the sword. Modern Galt is a continuously shifting crab-bucket of revolutionary governments, each one falling victim to the next based on the shifting whims of the mob. One neat wrinkle is that the guillotines used to execute yesterday's news (the ''final blades'') trap the souls of those they kill, simultaneously preventing resurrection and keeping the soul from getting stolen by (or sent to, if the victim was evil) Hell. Dwarf players should take note of the town of Azurestone, which is built around a holy site of Torag and is kept relatively insulated from the anarchic clusterfuck.

===Geb===
Fuck yeah [[Lich]] King (actually a ghost king, though there is a Lich Queen ruling in his stead, since the ghost king is mildly senile). Originally part of ancient Osirion until they exiled a cocky necromancer named Geb, so he started his own kingdom with [[meme|blackmagic and hookers]], also named Geb, and got into a multi-century pissing match with the wizard Nex, who ruled the nation of Nex. This war fucked both countries, turning Geb into an undead wasteland and the southern portions of Nex into a desert where magic doesn't work.

===Hermea===
[[Council of Wyrms]]: The Nation. An island in the sea between Cheliax and Varisia ruled by a gold dragon who is instituting some "[[communism|Glorious Endeavor]]" to perfect humanity.

===Irrisen===
Cold as a witch's titty, and boy are there witches here. Founded by [[Baba Yaga]] after a month long war, she locked the land in perpetual winter then promptly fucked off, only returning every 100 years to kidnap the current queen and install a new daughter on the throne. Formerly part of the Lands of the Linnorm Kings, they are still [[butthurt]] about losing the territory.

===Isger===
Cheliax's bottom bitch. Only notable because their flag has a barely-disguised swastika on it. A glorified trade-route between Cheilax and other wealthier nations, such as Druma, keeping the trade roads secured is the main priority, leaving the rest of the nation to suffer. Isger is used to suffering, though, as large swaths of the country were recently fucked in a war with raiding goblin tribes from which they still haven't really recovered.

===Jalmeray===
Little India. Originally ruled by Nex it was given to a Vudran explorer because Nex liked the cut of his jib.

===Katapesh===
Slavers and drug dealers ruled by a mysterious and alien race called the Pactmasters.

===Kyonin===
Typical elf kingdom. Been fucked over by a demon who has blighted a huge swath of the south.

===Lands of the Linnorm Kings===
Vikings and nasty animalistic dragons called linnorms. If you can actually kill a linnorm they'll crown you as one of their kings. Killing a linnorm subjects you to the linnorm's death curse, which does bad things to you until you die. Notably, actually uniting the Lands of the Linnorm Kings involves killing the biggest, meanest linnorm, and ''his'' death curse causes you to [[Lucius the Eternal| become him]], so have fun with that.

===Lastwall===
Crusader state that fights Orcs and Vampires.

===Mendev===
Another crusader state, this one fights demons. It's queen is over 100 years old but looks to be early middle aged due to a youth potion they buy from Thuvia.

===Mendiogalti Island===
Island of assassins who venerate a giant red praying mantis god. They can and will murder anyone but sitting monarchs.

===Molthune===
Fantasy Prussia. Recently lost their northern lands to a bunch of Robin Hood wannabes. Makes the criminally stupid decision of hiring hobgoblin mercenaries because they have an unhealthy obsession with outdoing Cheliax in the whole empire-building thing.

===Mwangi Expanse===
Home to intelligent gorilla men and a super ancient empire of black men who lived in flying cities making the saying "We wuz kangs" sorta true for Pathfinder.

===Nex===
Originally part of ancient Osirion, at some point it became its own nation called Nex ruled by the [[wizard]] named Nex. Real creative bunch, these wizards. As is natural for a nation of wizards they have royally fucked up their lands in a massive magic war with Geb, to their south, almost single-handedly making the nation of Alkenstar in the process. After Nex just completely fucked off one day, the war pretty much went into a stalemate because Geb didn't even want to fight anymore if he wouldn't get to kill Nex.

===Nidal===
Client state to Cheliax, they are basically Clive Barker's Cenobites (think BDSM people who love hard piercings and spiked chains) plus 1984.

===Nirmathas===
Basically this is Robin Hood's Sherwood Forest.

===Numeria===
[[Conan the Barbarian|Conan]] meets [[Expedition to the Barrier Peaks|science fiction]], so expect super buff barbarians throwing spears at giant metal scorpions with laser eyes. Hard core as fuck.

===Osirion===
Literally Egypt if the Mummy movies were documentaries.

===Qadira===
Fantasy Turkey/Arabia. Have warred with Taldor and for a while ruled Osirion. May or may not be on the verge of a civil war. Is actually the westernmost holding of an even larger Persia-inspired empire called Kelesh.

===Rahadoum===
A country so fucked over by the gods that divine magic and worship is outlawed. This no-doubt displeases the gods but they [[Tzeentch|continue their machinations in secret via espionage clerics]].

===Razmiran===
Ever play a game with an [[That guy|edgelord]] who always wants to be the [[Mary Sue|super-bestest at everything]] and the GM just capitulates to their every whim and gives them [[Grimdark|a kingdom which they rule worse that North Korea and say everyone should worship them as a god?]] Well, that's pretty much this country. Previously part of the River Kingdoms, broke off a few years ago because said "God-King" converted a bunch of idiots. A nation of Scientologists and home of the "false priest" archetype for sorcerers.

===Realm of the Mammoth Lords===
Ever want a low fantasy caveman game that still fights witches, giants, demons, [[dinosaur|prehistoric megafauna]] and more? Go here.

===River Kingdoms===
A vast territory of constantly rising and falling petty kingdoms, it's likely if it ever united it would be one of the most powerful nations in the Inner Sea since its comparable to Taldor and Cheliax in size, but they prefer fighting amongst themselves. All neighboring countries claim some bit of it but can never hold it long due to various reasons. Banditry is massively common and is expected by the populace, some even take up banditry as a bit of part-time work between their normal lives like fishing and farming. Has its own unspoken code called the "Six River Freedoms" which basically amount to:

#Say whatever you want, but don't be surprised if a Half-Orc punches you in the face when you call their mother uglier than a mountain troll.
#If you swear an Oath you keep it or you die, no exceptions.
#No one can block the use of the rivers or land travel or charge tolls other than in wartime. However if you get attacked whilst travelling them you're on your own.
#Within their realms all who are there are bound to whatever local laws exist.
#Slavey is utterly prohibited, and even wizards can get their ass bitten if they summon a creature in view of commoners.
#As long as you give the victim a chance to defend their belongings, your allowed to steal and conquer their stuff. However if you steal their stuff and they don't get a chance to block it your treated as a common criminal.

Basically the Balkans of the setting, but with more rivers. Also the home of the Kingmaker AP module, which let players build their own kingdom.

===Sargava===
Technically a colony to the devil-worshipping assholes in Cheliax, they are effectively independent thanks to the massive fuck-you hurricane and pirates to their north. The local Mwangi people are little better than slaves and may be plotting to overthrow dem white bois.

===Shackles===
Pirates of the Caribbean. "Ruled" by the Hurricane King, every island and small stretch of land is claimed by some pirate or pirate group.

===Sodden Lands===
Previously consisting of two small kingdoms that thrived on prophecy, when Aroden died and prophecy pretty much failed followed by a massive hurricane that would make Katrina look like a small breeze, they collapsed and this is now just ruins and swampy, marshy lands. So yeah, Louisiana on a bad day.

===Taldor===
Has overtones of the Byzantine Empire and British Empire. Stagnant, decadent, corrupt. The grand prince hires vikings as bodyguards. Once rules much of the world but has become a shadow of it's former self.

===Thuvia===
Barely held together because the small cities in this realm produce the single most sought after magical item. No, not girdles of gender-swapping. I swear to... No, they make a potion that reverts the drinker to the prime of life. Consume it often enough and you basically can be immortal. Only a few batches are made each year and the prices are exorbitant.

===Ustalav===
I vant to zuck your blood! Take every fantasy gothic horror trope and dump it here. You got vampires, zombies, werewolves, liches, hags, voodoo, Cthulhu, witches and everything else. Here, EVERY night is a horrible night to have a curse.

===Varisia===
This is the main setting of the main setting. Vast wild lands, a few small cities at the edges, massive ruins to explore, goblins to kill, gypsies and more. Most of the adventures paths either play completely here, start here or at least have ties here.

===Worldwound===
Aroden, god of humans, made a lot of enemies in his day before he died. One was a giant insectoid demon lord. When he bit the bullet about a hundred years ago, the demon lord saw his chance and tore open a new gaping hole into the world to fuck. In constant war with Mendev and for the most part leave Numeria and the Mammoth Lords alone because why would you fuck with alien tech and guys who fight on mammoths?

==Lands Beyond the Core Setting==
[[File:Golarion Continents.jpg|300px|thumb|right|So many places to go, so little places well-developed...]]
Paizo, still wanting even more kitchen sink fantasy and wanting to emulate Forgotten Realms, have other continents and lands beyond the core setting.

===Arcadia===
Well they needed a place for the Americas. Notably the vikings from the Lands of the Linnorm Kings think of it as a kind of paradise and their rulers have a settlement on it in an allusion to Vinland from viking history.

===Azlant===
Atlantis by another name. Home to the first human empire that was uplifted by the aboleths, was destroyed by the Starstone when the aboleths thought humans were getting uppity.

===Casmaron===
What happens when you mix India, the 'stans and the Middle East? This. Vast swaths of largely unruled or ungovernable lands but also two massive "empires", one being a Persian/Ottoman expy, the other being fantasy India.

===Crown of the World===
Connects Avistan (Europe) to Tian Xia (East Asia). Has a few eskimo-like settlements and Cthulhu horror themes going on here.

===Darklands===
Paizo's Underdark. Drow, Svirneblin, Duergar and all the tropes therein.

===Iblydos===
Classical Greece. An island archipelago that serves as a common stopping point for traders going between the Inner Sea region and the distant lands of Vudra and Kelesh in Casmaron. Known for its prophecising Cyclopes and Demigod Heroes who often rule its numerous City-States.

===Sarusan===
Mysterious land of deadly terrors which is clearly Australia. Australia is bad enough, who the fuck knows how scary it would be with fantasy elements. Nobody can remember what it looks like for some reason that has nothing to do with leaving a blank canvas for your GM to paint with horrible death.

===Tian Xia===
[[File:Pathfinder Tian Xia Map.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Paizo is always careful to avoid cultural appropriation and treats foreign cultures in a respectful and well-informed manner.]]
Has all your classic East Asia fantasy tropes going on here. Decadent empires, eastern dragons, monks in monasteries learning kung-fu, mystical monks meditating under waterfalls, Studio Ghibli creatures running around, Naga, Oni, Mongols, and samurai.

==Gods of Golarion==
There are gods upon gods for the game but they split up into a number of different pantheons.

===Core Pantheon===
'''[[Abadar]]:''' God of civilization, walls, and banking. Doing pretty well in modern times, all things considered. Lawful Neutral in a very reasonable kind of way, leaning more towards good, but still stuck doing shit like letting Zon-Kuthon into his Vault because he doesn't break his contracts.

'''[[Asmodeus]]:''' It's [[Asmodeus]], what the fuck do you expect? The most notable changes from OGL are that Asmodeus is actually a deity this time around, and that [[SJW|misogyny is an explicit part of his dominion. Because otherwise you wouldn't be able to tell that he's a bad guy.]] Yes, the leader of his greatest group of mortal servants is female. No, the setting material does not comment on this. (One designer claimed this is because he doesn't care so much about ''mortal'' gender, since mortals are just going to die and the lawful evil ones will end up his anyway. While this was probably just the designer trying to keep his ass from getting ripped by angry neckbeards and doesn't make that much sense, it does line up with PF Asmodeus' general "they'll all see things my way eventually" mentality.)

'''[[Calistria]]:''' An elven goddess, Calistria's temples often double as centers of intrigue and brothels. [[Slaanesh|Feeding into people's lust]] and also feeding people's anxieties until they seek revenge, she is seen often as a bit of an odd one. Her favored animal is the hornet since they can sting repeatedly. Seriously, if you piss her off she will show her disdain for you by having hornets sting your junk until it's black and blistered. She is Chaotic Neutral to the extreme, in fact she is so whimsical and unreliable that she is the only non-chaotic evil deity that even Asmodeus refuses to work with.

'''[[Cayden Cailean]]:''' Five humans in the setting have ascended to godhood, each with their own outlooks and spheres and Cayden Cailean is one of them. His outlook and spheres? Partying it up, [[dwarf|getting drunk]] and going on adventures. Cayden Cailean apparently got drunk one night and took the Test of the Starstone. There are plenty of legends around why exactly the drunken man did it but one says he saw [[Slaanesh|Calistria, goddess of lust and revenge]], and wanted some of that. The goddess rebuffed him and said only a god could pleasure her. Pissed and drunk, he grabbed a keg and set off. Three days later, rocking a heavenly hangover, Cayden emerged as the most recent of the gods.

'''[[Desna]]:''' An ancient space alien who befriended one of the first gods. When Lamashtu stole the beast domain from him, she took his travel domain. Chaotic Good, and likes wandering around, but guides people with her control over luck, and has a bunch of scientist followers who see her as helping them find knowledge. Very chill.

'''[[Erastil]]:''' Old-fashioned god of the harvest and rural areas; a grumpy but well-meaning old codger who's getting a little past it since "city living" became a thing, but is still popular out in the farming country and wilderness regions. Source of much [[SJW]] outrage when his first detailed writeup revealed that being "God of the Old Ways" also makes him a patriarchal chap who believes women should get married and make babies, though he will sigh and accept it if a woman wants to prove she can have a happy life doing something else. They kicked up such a stink about this, claiming there was no way he could be Lawful Good and think this, that Paizo hastily retconned it. For the record, men are supposed to be out doing the dangerous jobs too. Basically a generic wilderness/rural god, though he does have some similarities to [[St. Cuthbert]].

'''[[Gorum]]:''' Basically [[Khorne]]-lite, and including the bits about not killing non-combatants. (Well, technically [[Conan the Barbarian| Crom]], but the kids only care about their 40k.) Favors actual strategy over charging massed arches armored only with war-cries though.

'''[[Gozreh]]:''' Nature god. Most interesting thing about them is that they're a [[dickgirl|hermaphrodite]], with their female form being associated with the sea and their male form with the earth.

'''[[Iomedae]]:''' Aroden's herald, who mostly took over his job after his untimely demise. A former paladin turned deity via the Starstone, and a righteous crusader type. Paizo really screws with Iomedae depending on what source you read. Sometimes seen as a [[paladin|paragon of righteousness]], she sometimes comes across as a prick, [[That guy|going so far as to almost kill people who are trying to save the world because they didn't suck up to her well enough]] in one poorly-written adventure. May or may not have banged the local Bahamut-equivalent, Apsu, as a gold dragon calling her mom hangs out in her court.

'''[[Irori]]:''' Fantasy Buddha. A former mortal, but unlike the others, whom he mocks for just copying his old friend Aroden, he got there on his own, by refining and perfecting his body and mind into literal perfection. Has more followers out in Tian, but he's making waves in Golarion. His clerics get [[monk|Improved Unarmed Strike instead of a favored weapon]].

'''[[Lamashtu]]:''' Mother of monsters and a former female demon lord who stole the domains from a god she murdered. Most of the "monster" races pay homage to her, and her evil favor usually manifests as hideous deformity and mutation. Usually manifests as a [[/d/| heavily pregnant mishmash of monster parts]].

'''[[Nethys]]:''' The god of magic. Played too much ''[[Call of Cthulhu]]'' and broke his brain. His fractured mind usually manifests as two faces, one white and benevolent, one black and destructive.

'''[[Norgorber]]''' '''[[REDACTED]]'''

'''[[Pharasma]]:''' [[The Raven Queen]], sort of. The deathly-neutral type of death goddess, and probably the oldest and most primordial of divinities. Haaaaates undeath, so much that her clerics get a custom variant of the Death domain with the undeath-related parts replaced. Judges the souls of every creature that ever dies before assigning them to their proper afterlives, with allowances made for things like racial affiliation and belief in reincarnation.

'''[[Rovagug]]''': An ancient primordial force of destruction, despised by all the other gods and worshipped only by madmen and lesser primordial forces of destruction. The other gods put aside their differences long ago to trap him in the Cage, which is Golarion itself. Bad Things will happen if he ever gets out, [[Starfinder| which might be fated to happen]]. His spawn still rampage around the world, one of which is the [[tarrasque]]. A ''mid-tier'' one.

'''[[Sarenrae]]:''' [[Rule 63]] [[Pelor]]. Asmodeus's good-aligned brother's first servant, who took up his portfolio after Asmodeus murdered him. Ironically, the two allied to take the foremost role in defeating and caging Rovagug. In addition to being a sun goddess, she emphasizes the idea of compassion and redemption for the truly-repentant... and destruction for those who're truly past all that.

'''[[Shalyn]]:''' Beauty, art, and love goddess. Not sex though, that's Calistria's job. Literally all beings love her... some are just incapable of expressing that love in healthy ways. Lamashtu in particular gives her the creeps. Zon-Kuthon's sister, and responsible for containing the worst of the monster he's become.

'''[[Torag]]:''' We have come up with interesting twists for at least most of the blatant copies on this list. No such luck here. Torag is [[Moradin]], dwarf without end. Amen.

'''[[Urgathoa]]:''' Once upon a time, when the world was young, there lived a decadent queen who spent her whole life in unbridled hedonism. So much that, when she died, and went to wait in line in Pharasma's Boneyard to await judgement, she cut out of the line and slipped back into the world because she couldn't stand the thought of giving up the pleasures of life. In the process, she became the first undead creature and infected the world with both undeath and disease. Aw well. Very cheery for an evil goddess, since she's all about doing what you love... though for most of her followers, that's various shades of cannibalism and plague-spreading.

'''Zon-Kuthon:''' Originally known as Dou-Bral, half-sister to Shelyn, he got so asshurt about his sister's talents that he decided to go to the leather club between realities to brood. There, he was [[Rape|enlightened]] by an [[Slaanesh|alien presence]]. He returned to Golarion as a hyper BDSM fetishist known as Zon-Kuthon, god of pain, torture, and edge. His unholy symbol is a skull with a chain in it, for fuck's sake. Despite his worshipers being evil touturing murderers, his clergy still tends to be kind to those who worship Shelyn because he still loves her, deep down in the irrevocably-ruined part of him that's still Dou-Bral.

===Tian-Xia Deities===
'''Daikitsu'''

'''Fumeiyoshi'''

'''General Susumu'''

'''Hei Feng'''

'''Kofusachi'''

'''Lady Nanbyo'''

'''Lao Sho Pu'''

'''Nalinivati'''

'''Qi Zhong'''

'''Shizuru''': Shizuru is your typical asian themed goddess of sun, honor, ancestors, and swordplay. She's generally on good relations with every other Tian Diety. She's typically worshiped by honorable samurai and weeaboos. She is the lover of the moon god Tsukiyo and had to get him resurrected by the help of Qi-Zhong, the god of medicine, after his brother Fumeiyoshi grew so damn jealous of his brother actually having a girlfriend that he geeked him. She has an star archon daughter called the [[Weeaboo|Dusk Ronin]], who got kicked out of her mother's house and now wanders the Great Beyond in search of redemption.

'''Sun Wukong'''

'''Tsukiyo'''

'''Yaezhing'''

'''Yamatsumi'''

===Other Major Deities===
===Dwarven Pantheon===
===Elven Pantheon===
===Halfling Pantheon===

==Races of Golarion==
Being effectively [[Dungeons & Dragons]] 3.75, Golarion is absolutely crawling with races. Your D&D standards are here, but there's also an ever-growing array of races, from monstrous humanoids to ones lifted from real-world mythology to even homebrewed races.

===The Standards===
'''[[Human]]:''' Bog-standard human, following in the best D&D traditions by having different nations with different hats to wear.

'''[[Dwarf]]:''' Originated in Golarion's [[Underdark]], migrated to the surface in the legendary "Quest for Sky" centuries ago.

'''[[Elf]]:''' One of the planet's oldest races. Buggered off through magical gateways to another planet during the worst of the Starfall disaster, then came back a few centuries ago.

'''[[Halfling]]:''' Pretty much your standard stunties, barring the fact that they're very popular slaves throughout the Inner Sea region.

'''[[Gnome]]:''' Fey who migrated to Golarion from [[Feywild|The First World]], then found out that without regular stimulation, they undergo something called "The Bleaching" which drives them mad and painfully kills them. In other words, they can literally get bored to death!

'''[[Half-Elf]]:''' Pretty much your standard half-elves.

'''[[Half-Orc]]:''' Extra emphasis on the "you were probably born from rape!" backstory.

===Snowflake Races===
The races most of /tg/ mocks because they're seen as favored by people who want special snowflake or weeaboo type characters, even if these are all races with roots in traditional D&D.

'''[[Aasimar]]:''' The iconic D&D Goodly [[Planetouched]]. Because Pathfinder has a much bigger array of "angels", there's many different sub-varieties of aasimar. There's actually a country where these guys are really common, which makes them almost as normal in Golarion as a [[dragonborn]] or [[half-orc]] would be in standard 5e D&D.

'''[[Catfolk]]:''' Pretty bog-standard [[Chaotic Stupid]] cat-people. Infamous for their schizophrenic artwork, which has portrayed them as anything from "[[catgirl]]s with a fine layer of fur all over their body" to "full fledged [[furry]]" to [[Elder Scrolls|"why does this look exactly like a Khajiit?"]].

'''[[Changeling]]:''' Not to be confused with the [[Eberron]] changeling, which is a [[doppelganger]]'s half-human spawn, Golarion's changelings are the immature larval form of [[hag]]s. Essentially, an entire species of cute/hot witches - with heterochromia, no less! - who are supposed to beautiful, but at the same time, so creepy and spooky they get a Charisma penalty. This aspect is the main reason why /tg/ mocks them. They're not necessarily a bad race, though, especially if you want more dark fantasy or horror fantasy games.

'''[[Dhampyre|Dhampir]]:''' Half-human and half-vampire, but, like the changeling, they fit the Ustalav region just great - hell, it really is surprising that these guys never showed up in [[Ravenloft]].

'''[[Drow]]:''' When the elves fucked off to another planet to escape an apocalypse, some of the more arrogant assholes stayed behind. Ultimately turning to worship of various [[Demon Prince]]s to survive, and becoming psycho-evil arrogant assholes in the bargain. Most noted for their fucked-up love of fleshcrafting, which is basically manipulating living creatures and turning them into monsters.

'''[[Ganzi]]:''' The most obscure of the PF [[Planetouched]], these guys are essentially Chaotic Planetouched and may be connected to the Protheans, Golarion's equivalent to the [[Slaad]]i.

'''[[Genasi|Ifrit/Oread/Sylph/Undine]]:''' These guys are basically [[genasi]], but Pathfinder pretends to treat them as seperate races in order to make the comparison seem less obvious.

'''[[Shifter|Skinwalker]]:''' As dhampirs are to vampires, these guys are to [[therianthrope]]s. Essentially [[Shifter]]s with less shitty artwork.

'''[[Suli]]:''' One of the stupider [[planetouched]] races in Pthfinder, these guys are [[genie]]-kin who trace their lineage to the oft-forgotten Janni, the mixed-elemental fifth genie race which is the weakest of them all.

'''[[Tengu]]:''' Humanoid flightless crow-people who love shinies. Essentially less-evil [[kenku]] outright using the mythological version's name. Tend to become rogues (or ninjas), samurai and pirates. Sometimes two at once.

'''[[Tiefling]]:''' When one of the countries has the theme "demonic invasion through gaping portals to the Abyss" and another is "Fantasy Nazis using a pact with Satan to stay in power", are you really surprised that these guys are everywhere? Especially considering Golarion has a huge list of fiends outside of the Devil/Daemon/Demon trinity and they ''all'' make tieflings.

===Monstrous Humanoids===
'''[[Goblin]]:''' Doubles down on the [[Chaotic Stupid]] aspects; love fire, really good singers, absolutely terrified of dogs, horses and writing.

'''[[Orc]]:''' Driven up from the Underdark by the dwarves, who they used to war with. Really double-down on the Always Chaotic Evil aspects.

'''[[Kobold]]:''' Pretty much the D&D iconic version.

'''[[Hobgoblin]]:''' A militaristic race descended from an experiment to magically mutate goblins into slave-soldiers to fight against the elf empire; their creators were killed, but the hobgoblins were complete, and now they don't have an off-switch.

===Foreigners===
Because Golarion has lots of "not!X" countries, there's both a "not!India" (Vudra) and a "not!Orient" (Dragon Empires), each of which has some fairly unique races native to it.

'''[[Kitsune]]:''' Your standard mischievous fun-loving shapeshifting fox-folk.

'''[[Nagaji]]:''' A race of [[serpentfolk]] bred as slaves by the [[naga]]s; they're quite content in their servitude.

'''[[Samsaran]]:''' Spiritually enlightened blue & white-colored humans who continuously reincarnate.

'''[[Vanara]]:''' Friendly, sage-like monkey-people.

===Sci-Fantasy Races===
Pathfinder's mapped out the star system that Golarion comes from, and in best pulp fantasy fashion, that means that you can play androids and aliens in this setting too.

'''[[Android]]:''' Look like humans with pale, silver-tinted skin and circuitry that lights up like science-tattoos when they use their powers. Most common in Numeria, as they are born out of "creation forges" left behind when the starship crashed.

'''[[Kasatha]]:''' Four-armed humanoids who don't remember what world they came from. Favor dual-wielding bows.

'''[[Lashunta]]:''' The natives of Golarion's equivalent of Venus; antennaed humanoids with psionic powers and [[-4 Strength|extreme sexual dimorphism]] - men look more like dwarves, women look more like elves.

'''[[Triaxian]]:''' Pointy-eared aliens whose planet undergoes an extreme orbit, leading to centuries-long summers and winters, and thus the species is divided into "Summer Generation" and "Winter Generation" subspecies.

===Real-Worlders===
The least common race group, so far, these are critters taken from non-D&D fantasy sources, including several Lovecraft races and cryptids.

'''[[Reptoid]]:''' Shapeshifting lizardfolk with [[psionics]] who hail from an unknown world or plane, based on a popular conspiracy theory.

'''[[Orang-Pendak]]:''' A crytid that is basically a smaller, smarter sasquatch.

'''[[Deep One]] Hybrid:''' A human with [[Deep One]] ancestry, giving them amphibious abilities but cursing them to turn into a Deep One - which is death to their old personality - in their 50s.

'''[[Being of Ib]]:''' Amphibious, gnome-like frog-people from the Cthulhu Mythos; although their Dreamlands colony was famously annihilated by Sarnath in "The Doom That Came to Sarnath", it's possible other colonies exist elsewhere in the multiverse.

'''[[Yaddithian]]:''' Tapir-snouted insectile-looking people adept in sorcery who have scattered across the galaxy due to their homeworld being destroyed by bholes. Taken from the Lovecraft story "Through the Gates of the Silver Key".

==Other Planets and Planes==

==Trivia==

==Further Reading==

{{Pathfinder-Races}}

[[Category:Roleplaying]]

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game

2018-06-10T01:52:36Z

2602:306:3B27:CB40:8CC:F1D:295F:94F3: /* Adventure Paths */

[[File:Pathfinder Logo.jpeg|300px|right]]
When [[4E|''D&D'' 4th edition]] was announced it was immediately rejected with a lot of [[butthurt|negative feelings]] by a rather large number of [[neckbeards|people]]. Realizing a lot of [[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition|3]] and 3.5 [[Splatbook|material]] would suddenly become mostly useless and that [[WotC|Wizards]] would be making a significantly different game, [[Paizo|Paizo Publishing]] decided to cash in on the 4th edition naysayers and appeal to the people who wanted to stick to the old edition, but realized it still needed to be fixed.

Thus the '''''Pathfinder Roleplaying Game''''' came about, usually called ''D&D'' 3.75 or 3.PF due to the fact that it largely resembles 3.5's [[d20 System|ruleset]] but with various non-drastic updates, fixes and changes. Notably, grappling now more closely resembles something that might almost be called "sense" (gasp!) and [[Half-orcs]], and [[Half-elves]] don't suck anymore. Spellcasters are just as crazy as ever once they've got a few levels in them, while melee classes, generally speaking, got buffed across the board. Not enough to make them outshine the wizards, but take what you can get. This is assuming that your [[DM]] isn't a newfag incapable of compensating.

Noted for the mishmash campaign world (which contains elements [[Blood_Ravens|lifted]] from pretty much everything, ever, from real-world history to crappy pulp Sci-Fi to [[Lord of the Rings|LotR]] with a dash of [[Order of the Stick]] thrown in for good measure), entire published campaigns called Adventure Paths, and decent maturity level (in both senses- [[gay]] people exist, as do bum-fuckin', banjo-playing, inbred hillbilly ogres). The setting is both good and total shit at the same time, no better than any decent [[gamemaster]] can come up with on their own.

Essentially fairly well-done Darker and Edgier ''D&D''. And the Adventure Paths & Modules are pretty good. If you're the sort of [[skub]] DM who uses shit like that.

== Golarion ==
[[File:PathfinderExplained.jpg|thumb|300px|right|The campaign setting explained in one handy graphic.]]
{{main|Golarion}}
The main setting of ''Pathfinder'' is the Inner Sea region (basically the equivalent of the Mediterranean sea zone in our world) on a planet called Golarion. Unlike other ''D&D'' settings, many of the cultures and civilizations of the Inner Sea region are in severe decline after the only deity which represents humans in the Great Beyond (the outer planes), Aroden, died a few centuries ago. To add salt to the wound, this caused a series of events which fucked up the world: the formation of a massive supernatural stationary hurricane that annihilated two entire nations and allowed [[pirate]]s to develop their own kingdoms, the obliteration of a noble [[barbarian]] empire by [[Eye of Terror|a tear in the tissue of reality]] opened directly into the [[Abyss]], and most of the prophets and diviners committed mass suicide as an imminent prophesied golden age for mankind suddenly faded into nothing. As if this wasn't enough, the two greatest empires started to collapse in the religious hysteria, Cheliax (the Golarion equivalent of the Holy Roman Empire) suffered a civil war that ultimately put on the throne a noble house with links to the Nine Hells, making worship of the [[devil]] (Rock me Azmodeus!) the official state religion. Taldor (a mix of the Byzantine Empire and the Spanish Empire during the Habsburg era) started to lose territories at the hands of the Keleshite Empire (the "Persian" ethnicity in Golarion), while banks owned by brass dragons turned its culture completely decadent and stagnated by the bureaucracy. As this happened some provinces declared independence from Cheliax, creating two new countries, Andoran (which is like the 13 colonies after winning the Revolutionary War, so basically America (fuck yeah) with swords and sorcery) and Galt (France during The Terror with some elements which remind you of the Soviet Union after the end of the Russian civil war).

If all these political fuck ups are not enough, Golarion is in fact a cage built by the gods for an entity known as Rovagug, basically a massive worm which works like a [[Sphere of Annihilation|black hole]] and represents entropy. It's also connected with the Plateau of Leng and there are cults to the [[Old Ones|Old God]]s (yes, the [[H.P. Lovecraft]] ones, so you can roll a [[Alignment|CE]] [[cleric]] of Nyarlathotep for the evulz). Of course all of this is hidden by the Pathfinder Society (imagine National Geographic meets your standard Adventurers' Guild and then, as [[awesome]] as that sounds, make them [[fail|incompetent]]), one of the many factions and secret societies whose selfish intentions are just helping civilization to sink more into the pile of crap it is mired in instead of helping it come out. The remaining deities and their churches aren't helping either, the veteran gods have already seen an apocalypse obliterate the world once and the new ones are just useless adventurers who can't grasp that they aren't mortals anymore.

Beyond the Inner Sea region there are even more continents and nations, but barely anybody gives a shit about them (including most of Paizo's writers) with the exception of [[China|Tian Xia]], where [[weeaboo]]ness and [[furries|furfaggotry]] meet. There's also the Darklands (the [[Underdark]] of Golarion), divided into three levels, each more under and darker than the last. And if the planet seems too shitty for you the whole solar system is full of civilizations and monsters to [[Rip and Tear|rip and tear through in your quest for loot]], not to mention the shenanigans you can get into in the other [[plane]]s of the multiverse.

{{Pathfinder-Classes}}

==''Pathfinder Tales''==
The series of novels written for the setting. There are over thirty of them now, with some ''[[Forgotten Realms]]'' authors occasionally writing for Paizo, most notably [[Ed Greenwood]] who made ''Forgotten Realms''. This may be an indicator of how much [[Wizards of the Coast]] messing around with the settings drove people off.

== Adventure Paths ==
One of the big draws to the system is the pre-written campaigns Paizo puts out called Adventure Paths, or APs. Each AP is 6 books long and run on average from levels 1 to 15 though some end earlier in levels and at least one takes you to level 20. WARNING: The following may provide spoilers.

=== Rise of the Runelords ===
Pathfinder's 'flagship' AP, RotR hits a lot of more classic tropes. Starts off with the party fighting goblins and an evil Aasimar, moves on to fighting ghouls and a Lamia, then it becomes a mild wilderness game to fight your way to a big ass dam and fight several types of ogres and giants, save a few towns, then go off to fight dragons an ancient evil spellcaster.

=== Curse of the Crimson Throne ===
An Evil Queen and intrigue in and around her court. Popular enough to get an update from 3.5 to Pathfinder just like Runelords did. Also fucking impossible. Do not attempt if your GM has any sort of malicious intent. Fucking bards, man.

=== Second Darkness ===
Drow want to blow everything up, and the elves who send you to stop them are kinda jerks. Not one of the most popular APs.

=== Legacy of Fire ===
Genies and Arabian Nights the adventure Path

=== Council of Thieves ===
Be a hero and help the Nazis against the Mafia. Huge city but a total shithole. Has some major issues with player involvement because a lot of shit happens behind the scenes and the AP doesn't think much of informing the players about it. Needs some work from the DM.

=== Kingmaker ===
Make Your Own Kingdom: The Adventure Path.

=== Serpent's Skull ===
The jungle exploration path with lizardfolk, normally considered one of the weakest APs alongside Second Darkness.

=== Carrion Crown ===
The classic horror monster path

=== Jade Regent ===
Travel to Tian-Xa to get a good heir to the throne, to the throne. A lot of the path is just getting there.

=== Skull & Shackles ===
Pirates! You start pressganged on a ship, and after breaking free you need to make a name for yourself on the high seas. Awful for a GM that doesn't want to spend hours voicing the dozen or so important NPCs appearing in just book 1.

=== Shattered Star ===
Semi-sequel to Runelords, you need to assemble a powerful artifact and a different villain of ancient Thassilon threatens to rise. Almost pure dungeon crawl.

=== Reign of Winter ===
Somebody turned down the thermostat in Taldor, so you go and investigate. Things get out of whack when you fight winter fey in the middle of summer, get teleported to Bumfuck, Icy Nowhere and get roped into a date with a Winter Wolf, and it only escalates from there when you go to another continent, another planet, and another galaxy on your quest to rescue damsel-in-distress Baba Yaga from her uppity daughter and son, Rasputin, and his army of tear gas elementals, WWI Russian soldier zombies, and magically-animated tanks.

=== Wrath of the Righteous ===
The Demons of the Worldwound have decided that being trapped in the area around the Worldwound is a bum game, and break free, inadvertently giving your party mythic power in the process. You progress deeper into the Worldwound and eventually to the Abyss itself to save the world from demonic invasion. Good plot and NPCs, could use some work on the game balance, DMs may want to up the difficulty.

=== Mummy's Mask ===
Ancient Egyptian/Osirion path with ancient tombs, mummies, and floating pyramids. Also an emphasis on moral shades of gray.

=== Iron Gods ===
Travel through Barbarians and scavenged technology land fighting aliens, an organization that wants to monopolize all high technology, and face down an AI that wants to make itself a god. Do not charge the final boss if it's linnorm is still alive. Learn from others mistakes.

Also a steampunk twist on this campaign would be amazing.

=== Giantslayer ===
Big Stuff. Kill it fast before it kills you. Do no attempt to make giants fail will saves. The ap accounts for it.

Also, the 5th book is just a fire-themed version of the 4th.

=== Hell's Rebels ===
In a city at the edge of Cheliax, the Thrunes moved one of their family that even those devil-worshipers find too much. As he cracks down, you rise up. Well developed city. This AP actually is what most people think Council of Thieves was going to be.

=== Hell's Vengeance ===
The bad guy path- Cheliax can't focus on the Hell's Rebels rebellion because they're dealing with one of their own, an ill-considered attempt at their capital. You work for the Queen in helping put it down and restoring order in the lands. Pretty damn great if you have an average to good GM.

=== Strange Aeons ===
Lovecraft the adventure path. Lethal as fuck. Bring backup characters and do not, I repeat DO NOT have a mental score below 10. You'll be insane by the end of the first book. Also bring a tank along with you everywhere.

=== Ironfang Invasion ===
One of the more "traditional" recent adventure paths, this one involves stopping a massive hobgoblin army, though it does have some relatively unusual twists in the later books. Set in the country of Robin Hood (or Wood, for those of us who live in T.H. White's books).

=== Ruins of Azlant ===
Visit the ruins of not-Atlantis and fight evil psychic fish (Aboleths), lots of nautical themes and aquatic monsters. Also, there's a magic theremin as an optional treasure.

== Rage ==
''Pathfinder's'' barbarians are champion swimmers, but only when [[rage|raging]].

The ''Pathfinder RPG'' inspires a large amount of nerdrage over its rules, with frequent [[butthurt|bawwing]] over class balance, perceived nonsensical nerfs to [[fighter]]s, buffed [[CoDzilla]] and [[wizard]]s and general [[troll|troll]]age. Any discussion of the differences between ''Pathfinder'' ("3.75" for fanboys) and regular 3.5 is almost guaranteed to produce a flamewar.

==Second Edition==
Paizo has announced that they are working on the second edition of Pathfinder, which will be released in August of 2019. It make several changes, and will make both [[goblin]]s and [[alchemist]]s core choices. Will probably include elements of [[Starfinder]]. Also, after decades of deflecting criticism with "4e, bluh bluh," the devs naturally put in a dig at the infamous 4e Forgotten Realms while listing what they would ''not'' do to Golarion. The playtest will hit August 2nd 2018.

* [http://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo5lkl9 Announcement on the main Paizo blog.]
* [http://paizo.com/pathfinderplaytest The main page for the playtest.]
* [http://paizo.com/pathfinderplaytest/faq The FAQ for the playtest and 2e in general.]

== Links ==
* [http://paizo.com/pathfinder ''Pathfinder''] at Paizo Publishing, for those too damn lazy to use Google.
* [http://pathfinderwiki.com Pathfinder Wiki], because every goddamn thing has a wiki these days.
* [http://www.d20pfsrd.com/ Pathfinder SRD]: For those of you who are too lazy and/or cheap to get the books.
* [http://www.archivesofnethys.com/Default.aspx Archives of Nethys]: Another great repository for more obscure ''Pathfinder'' splatbook content.

[[Category:Roleplaying]]