Neongelion |
I'm a sucker for the "Last of His Kind" trope, where there's someone who's the last of his civilization, era, race, etc. Naturally a pure-blooded character, NPC or otherwise, holds great interest for me.
GMs: have you ever used pureblooded Azlantis in your games? Players, have you ever seen a pureblood, whether an NPC or PC? I'd imagine PC purebloods would be pretty rare thanks to their +2 to all ability scores.
Third question: is it just me or is there a very good possibility of a colony of pureblooded Azlanti on the moon?
Major_Blackhart |
You could probably have a chance of encountering Pureblooded Azlanti if you ran Rise of the Runelords or perhaps the after effects of that, specifically in places like the Runewell (I think that's where it was). Beyond that, as far as everyone is concerned, they're wiped out. You could definitely have someone with STRONG Azlanti blood, hence their purple eyes, but beyond that I think the last Azlanti was actually Aroden himself.
Dragonchess Player |
Other than in Rise of the Runelords, there's one event in Shattered Star...
Beyond that, Aroden is named in canon as the "last (pureblooded) Azlanti" to survive through the Earthfall/Age of Darkness. There may be others of Azlanti heritage (i.e., the gillmen), but they are no longer "pure" Azlanti (specifically in a rules sense).
As for the moon, the fact that...
...pretty much makes pureblooded Azlanti statistically near impossible.
Neongelion |
Other than in Rise of the Runelords, there's one event in Shattered Star...
** spoiler omitted **Beyond that, Aroden is named in canon as the "last (pureblooded) Azlanti" to survive through the Earthfall/Age of Darkness. There may be others of Azlanti heritage (i.e., the gillmen), but they are no longer "pure" Azlanti (specifically in a rules sense).
As for the moon, the fact that...
** spoiler omitted **
...pretty much makes pureblooded Azlanti statistically near impossible.
I get that canonically, there's none left. But as the Inner Sea World Guide said, Golarion is if nothing a magical place: extremely well hidden enclaves of pureblooded survivors, those who are revived from thousands of years of stasis, or somehow resurrected using ancient magic could all definitely be possible.
I'm not so much asking for canonical justification of pureblooded Azlanti appearing (okay maybe I kind of did with the moon question); I'm pretty flexible when it comes to what's canon and what's not when it comes to Golarion. I'm more curious if they've actually been used at all in campaigns, whether as players or NPCs.
Seth Parsons |
Tabletop Prophet |
So, because I'm pretty sure that Paizo is going to keep Hermea and Promise as vague as possible until it becomes relevant, I'd say this:
One character I would like to play is an almost pureblood Azlanti in WotR who is a child of Aroden, and by taking the heirophant path... well, let's just say that being a domain granting demi-god is a step toward Aroden's re-birth Also, Iomedae realizing who he is would be an interesting plot device in the latter part of the AP.
Seth Parsons |
True, Mikaze. Then again, I'm sure several Azlanti probably holed up in their own private stasis fields as well. It makes for interesting situations, that's for sure! Good or bad, a discovered Azlanti would be the talk of whatever region they show up in.
And Dragonchess: Thank you. I thought so, just wasn't near any material to look it up n_n
theStormWeaver |
Dragonchess Player wrote:Other than in Rise of the Runelords, there's one event in Shattered Star...
** spoiler omitted **Beyond that, Aroden is named in canon as the "last (pureblooded) Azlanti" to survive through the Earthfall/Age of Darkness. There may be others of Azlanti heritage (i.e., the gillmen), but they are no longer "pure" Azlanti (specifically in a rules sense).
As for the moon, the fact that...
** spoiler omitted **
...pretty much makes pureblooded Azlanti statistically near impossible.I get that canonically, there's none left. But as the Inner Sea World Guide said, Golarion is if nothing a magical place: extremely well hidden enclaves of pureblooded survivors, those who are revived from thousands of years of stasis, or somehow resurrected using ancient magic could all definitely be possible.
I'm not so much asking for canonical justification of pureblooded Azlanti appearing (okay maybe I kind of did with the moon question); I'm pretty flexible when it comes to what's canon and what's not when it comes to Golarion. I'm more curious if they've actually been used at all in campaigns, whether as players or NPCs.
I'm running Shattered Star, and one of my players encountered the spoilered event above. So, I have one, but I didn't specifically allow it, per se.
Although, the idea of running a short campaign where the party are a group of Azlanti who time-traveled/came-out-of-stasis/what-have-you could be fun.
Aegys |
So my Azlanti obsessed character who claimed his bloodline made him a descendant of ancient Azlant used his wish to turn himself into a Pure Blooded Azlanti. Now this was like level 10ish or so, and the +2 to his stats wasnt exactly a game imbalance by that point in time.
Alleran |
Also, at higher levels, the racial bonuses to their stats don't really make things unbalanced, it's just early levels that's skewed. Gold really is the equalizer among adventurers.
This. The racial bonus of a pureblooded Azlanti loses most of its lustre somewhere around 7th or 8th level, in my experience.
zen.cat |
I get that canonically, there's none left. But as the Inner Sea World Guide said, Golarion is if nothing a magical place: extremely well hidden enclaves of pureblooded survivors, those who are revived from thousands of years of stasis, or somehow resurrected using ancient magic could all definitely be possible.
I'm not so much asking for canonical justification of pureblooded Azlanti appearing (okay maybe I kind of did with the moon question); I'm pretty flexible when it comes to what's canon and what's not when it comes to Golarion. I'm more curious if they've actually been used at all in campaigns, whether as players or NPCs.
I've done so once as an NPC, but the character's nature never came up in the story. My excuse was that the NPC had been petrified by a medusa, then the PCs came along many hundreds of years later, and turned her back.
Shivok |
There are pureblood Azlanti in Golarion, but not in any numbers to make their culture, language and distinctiveness viable any longer. Most of these folks are in stasis. There are several sources thread that mentioned their rumored locations.
As an FYI Aroden was not "The Last Azlanti" he took that title from an old Azlanti prophecy.
Yakman |
There are plenty of pureblooded, canonic Azlanti going around in Golarion.
It's just that they live underground (Morlocks) or underwater (Gillmen).
Azlant being dead and gone, and it's ruined survivors insane and reclusive is just so much better than there being these perfect people from the past waiting to bring happiness into the world. Azlant was a failed Aboleth experiment, not utopia.
KtA |
It always struck me as weird that they would "die out".
If the Azlanti had mental and physical advantages in all fields with no disadvantages balancing them out, then natural selection would mean that those genes would spread rapidly through the population.
For it to work, the Azlanti advantages would have to come from some big spell that was disrupted when Azlant sunk, or something...
Even a tiny remnant population would mean that the intervening ten thousand years or so would be far more than enough for most people (certainly those in the Inner Sea region) to have the Azlanti advantages.
Look how widely lactose tolerance has spread through the human population of Earth, and that has a lot smaller advantages than a +2 to five more stats.
Deadmanwalking |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It always struck me as weird that they would "die out".
If the Azlanti had mental and physical advantages in all fields with no disadvantages balancing them out, then natural selection would mean that those genes would spread rapidly through the population.
For it to work, the Azlanti advantages would have to come from some big spell that was disrupted when Azlant sunk, or something...
Even a tiny remnant population would mean that the intervening ten thousand years or so would be far more than enough for most people (certainly those in the Inner Sea region) to have the Azlanti advantages.
Look how widely lactose tolerance has spread through the human population of Earth, and that has a lot smaller advantages than a +2 to five more stats.
Not if the genes involved are highly recessive, which seems very possible. Especially if they involved weird Aboleth bioengineering. Heck, given that then Aboleths decided to end their little experiment maybe they released a tailored plague reducing Azlanti fertility below the point of sustainability or some such thing, with only mutations like gillmen and morlocks managing to breed in sufficient numbers to remain 'pure' strains.
KtA |
Something like the plague thing would work, yes (though that would be pretty impressive engineering), but I don't think just being recessive would be enough.
I'm not sure "highly recessive" is really a thing, if something is classically dominant/recessive (as opposed to incomplete dominance or codominance etc.) it's all-the-way. (Unless you're talking about a trait being suppressed by epistasis? But I've never heard it described that way.)
EDIT: Recessive doesn't mean it's going to decline over time ... that requires something to act against it (selection or genetic drift).
Deadmanwalking |
Something like the plague thing would work, yes (though that would be pretty impressive engineering), but I don't think just being recessive would be enough.
I'm not sure "highly recessive" is really a thing, if something is classically dominant/recessive (as opposed to incomplete dominance or codominance etc.) it's all-the-way. (Unless you're talking about a trait being suppressed by epistasis? But I've never heard it described that way.)
I'm not a biologist. My terms are thus gonna be imprecise in this area. What I meant was a recessive gene where even if two people who had it had children, the children would be likely to not actually manifest the trait. There are several ways for that to occur biologically...but I'm really not up on the precise terminology.
KtA |
KtA wrote:I'm not a biologist. My terms are thus gonna be imprecise in this area. What I meant was a recessive gene where even if two people who had it had children, the children would be likely to not actually manifest the trait. There are several ways for that to occur biologically...but I'm really not up on the precise terminology.Something like the plague thing would work, yes (though that would be pretty impressive engineering), but I don't think just being recessive would be enough.
I'm not sure "highly recessive" is really a thing, if something is classically dominant/recessive (as opposed to incomplete dominance or codominance etc.) it's all-the-way. (Unless you're talking about a trait being suppressed by epistasis? But I've never heard it described that way.)
The problem is that the Azlanti "pureblooded" bit implies that it was basically the norm in Azlant, which would require that Azlanti parents were mostly having Azlanti kids.
Deadmanwalking |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The problem is that the Azlanti "pureblooded" bit implies that it was basically the norm in Azlant, which would require that Azlanti parents were mostly having Azlanti kids.
True, but that might necessitate having both parents be purebloods. With even one generation of outbreeding making it vastly less likely.
I'm not saying this is likely in real world genetics...but there was Aboleth bioengineering involved, and magic.
Samasboy1 |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Something like the plague thing would work, yes (though that would be pretty impressive engineering), but I don't think just being recessive would be enough.
I'm not sure "highly recessive" is really a thing, if something is classically dominant/recessive (as opposed to incomplete dominance or codominance etc.) it's all-the-way. (Unless you're talking about a trait being suppressed by epistasis? But I've never heard it described that way.)
EDIT: Recessive doesn't mean it's going to decline over time ... that requires something to act against it (selection or genetic drift).
Not a biologist, so only trying to use elementary understanding of genetics here. Using spoiler tags to avoid a giant post.
But certain traits seem hierarchical if it can be expressed in more than two ways.
As for recessive traits not breeding out, I think that genetic drift would be heavily impacted by the relative population sizes involved.
Take Chelaxians, which are described as Azlanti/Ulfen hybrids.
A Azlanti (aa) mixing with an Ulfen (AA) would produce no Azlanti offspring (all Aa). Assuming future pairings are all with pure Ulfen (AA) stock, no future children would be Azlanti, and there is a 50% reduction in carriers (Aa) in each generation.
Pairings between carriers (Aa) result in 25% reduction in carriers per generation, and 25% regression to Azlanti.
But when you consider there are far more Ulfen than Azlanti, pairings are much more likely to be with a pure Ulfen (AA) than a carrier (Aa).
Or to use the marble analogy, if there are 5 red marbles in a jar with 500 blue marbles, your odds of pulling red marbles just isn't very high.
That doesn't even take into account epistasis.
And there is always the possibility, in world where magic can warp creatures in various ways, that Azlanti have a completely artificial element in their genetics that has no corresponding element in non-Azlanti. Sort of like horses breed true, and donkeys breed true, but mules are infertile. Azlanti breed true, and Ulfens breed true, but that extra magic chromosome in the Azlanti that causes awesomeness just can't pass down when bred to an Ulfen.
zergtitan |
Here's an idea.
There is a spell, Half Blood Extraction, that turns half orcas into full orcas.
What if someone developed a variant to turn Atlantic-heritage humans (Chelaxians, Tandem, and Gillman) into full pureblood Atlantic?
I would say that's a 9th level spell that could be discovered in a campaign that requires the human subject to have some ethnic connection in heritage to the Azlanti. Mythic version would do so no matter the ethnicity.
I would also guess to find such a spell means meeting an Aboleth. AP plot!
Samasboy1 |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
There is a spell, Half Blood Extraction, that turns half [b[orcas[/b] into full orcas.
Stupid auto correct.
Err.....Orcs.
I don't know about 9th level.....Half Blood Extraction is only 5th. But 7th, maybe higher.
Of course, as you say, it might require gaining knowledge from an Aboleth, and certainly would be a prized secret no matter what.
Archpaladin Zousha |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I can't help but imagine there may be some Azlanti prisoners in stasis in some ancient serpentfolk vault somewhere...
Isn't that what the Stasis Fields or whatever it's called in Sargava basically is? It's vague, so there's no indication that the prisoners are Azlanti and the prison is serpentfolk, but that's sort of what I'd imagine.
I also have an idea for a character rattling around as a pureblood Azlanti soldier who was petrified by magic or something, and spent a few centuries preserved in a Pathfinder Lodge as a statue before they realized the statue was a person. Because he's just a grunt, he knows nothing of most of the high and mighty stuff that would have caused the empire to fall, and so the Pathfinders teach him common and, having no real place to go, he joins them and they send him to Azlanti digs to see if anything jogs his memory.
Alleran |
Samasboy1 wrote:
There is a spell, Half Blood Extraction, that turns half [b[orcas[/b] into full orcas.Stupid auto correct.
Err.....Orcs.
I don't know, it sounds like a pretty powerful spell. Presumably a half-orca could move about on land (depending on the other half, but it'll be a human, because everything is), but a full orca would be a sitting duck. Or sitting orca, as the case may be.
Yakman |
Samasboy1 wrote:
There is a spell, Half Blood Extraction, that turns half [b[orcas[/b] into full orcas.Stupid auto correct.
Err.....Orcs.
I don't know about 9th level.....Half Blood Extraction is only 5th. But 7th, maybe higher.
Of course, as you say, it might require gaining knowledge from an Aboleth, and certainly would be a prized secret no matter what.
I think the half-orca is a much more interesting character race than the half-orc
LazarX |
I'm a sucker for the "Last of His Kind" trope, where there's someone who's the last of his civilization, era, race, etc. Naturally a pure-blooded character, NPC or otherwise, holds great interest for me.
GMs: have you ever used pureblooded Azlantis in your games? Players, have you ever seen a pureblood, whether an NPC or PC? I'd imagine PC purebloods would be pretty rare thanks to their +2 to all ability scores.
Third question: is it just me or is there a very good possibility of a colony of pureblooded Azlanti on the moon?
1. Technically Aroden was the last of the Azlanti. So no.
2. No.
3. It's just you.
Doomed Hero |
Making this happen in game is easy. There are plenty of bones and whatnot scattered about. A wealthy enough historian could have Resurrection cast on the bones of an Azlanti to learn more about the civilization and whatnot.
Then suddenly there's a pureblood aslanti running around who has no knowledge of the modern world.
Great character concept.
Alleran |
Making this happen in game is easy. There are plenty of bones and whatnot scattered about. A wealthy enough historian could have Resurrection cast on the bones of an Azlanti to learn more about the civilization and whatnot.
Then suddenly there's a pureblood aslanti running around who has no knowledge of the modern world.
Great character concept.
That won't work. Resurrection has a limit of ten years per caster level, while Azlant was destroyed over nine thousand years before the current Golarion date (meaning you would need a caster level of ~1000 to pull it off).
A Miracle might be able to do it, at GM discretion, but it would have to be an exceptionally powerful one.
Samasboy1 |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You know, Azlanti heritage could be a great explanation for the Imperious Sorcerer Bloodline. I never felt the source of its power was very clear, but Azlanti heritage would be an interesting way to explain it.
Oh, and along the Half Blood Extraction line, the Drow have a 2nd level spell, Ancestral Regression, that turns them into a normal Elf for 24 hours. So we have two spells that tap into your genetic heritage. One for humans to be Azlanti (temp or perm) would be pretty cool.
KtA |
As for recessive traits not breeding out, I think that genetic drift would be heavily impacted by the relative population sizes involved.
I don't think the number of Azlanti survivors was small enough for random genetic drift to be a significant factor.
Yes, if it's a recessive gene, you will have a very small number of people with the full traits in each generation. Sure. But that recessive gene shouldn't just disappear unless it's selected against. There should still be very occasional Azlanti popping up in the part-Azlanti-heritage populations of the Inner Sea.
In reality, I think the Azlanti thing would have to be a lot of genes (affecting intelligence, strength, health etc. after all) which would make it much less likely that they would ALL pop up at once.
Still, one would expect that part-Azlanti populations would tend to marry among themselves, which would increase the chances...
EDIT: And further, selection will act in favor of the Azlanti genes, since they provide significant advantages, which will increase it more.
Samasboy1 |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Well, some Azlanti traits are still present. Chelaxians' pale skin and dark hair are attributed to Azlanti heritage, for example.
Compare Keleshites to Taldans. The differences should be due to Azlanti influence. Similarly, the differences between Ulfen and Chelaxians are remnants of Azlanti influence.
So not all traits have disappeared, just enough so they aren't pure Azlanti anymore. So some of them could have been dominant, or incomplete or co-dominant. We just know they do have a genetic legacy but not enough that pure Azlanti show up anymore.
I think I like the mule example the best. Going pretty far into random supposition, maybe the aboleth added a 24th chromosome to Azlanti containing the key gene to their awesomeness. Breeding of Azlanti with other humans works, but the offspring lack the extra chromosome. The offspring can inherit all the individual traits of their Azlanti forebears, but without the key gene on the missing chromosome, they can't express true Azlanti awesomeness.
KestrelZ |
There are certainly Thasillonians that escaped by stasis, dimensional hopping, or other means. Though related to Azlanti, they are not cultural Azlanti.
It is possible some Azlanti escaped through similar means, yet those that escaped by extraordinary means could have been destroyed while in stasis, failed to make a thriving extradimensional colony, or the colony may have developed a culture very different from the one they escaped.
Still, it is a possibility. Aroden being "The last Azlanti" may be a title mortals gave him as he was the last one known and acknowledged by Golarion residents. Events in some of the Adventure Paths provide hints that exception might be made.
Mudfoot |
I always wondered why the Runelords and any other reasonably competent Thassilonians, Azlanti and aboleths didn't simply Plane Shift out to somewhere safe before Earthfall, wait a few (hundred) years and then come back again. Or maybe they didn't bother to come back, or are living in Sarusan or Arcadia. So there's nothing ruling out a whole extant pure Azlanti civilization.
Yakman |
Well, since they could interbreed with other human ethnicities, it would make sense that they could breed with each other...
Of course, given the high magic nature of their culture, I don't think frequent use of things like Clone would be out of order.
Ah, but they are interbreeding with other humans to create... other humans.
Perhaps to have the "Pure Azlanti" abilities, something else was involved, not just a bit of the old boot knocking.
LazarX |
There are certainly Thasillonians that escaped by stasis, dimensional hopping, or other means. Though related to Azlanti, they are not cultural Azlanti.
They weren't "pure blooded" Azlanti. The slightest bit of racial mixing means your kids don't get the _+2 to every stat.
Alleran |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
KestrelZ wrote:They weren't "pure blooded" Azlanti. The slightest bit of racial mixing means your kids don't get the _+2 to every stat.There are certainly Thasillonians that escaped by stasis, dimensional hopping, or other means. Though related to Azlanti, they are not cultural Azlanti.
Thassilonians got the +2 boost (their race is listed as "Azlanti" throughout RotRL). Runelords like Karzoug and Krune, for example, as well as various others (except for the ones explicitly called out as not Thassilonian, on a brief skim). One could argue that they were just the noble houses and that the commoners didn't have it, but that would be splitting hairs - it seems that at least with minimal amounts of interbreeding, the Azlanti race was still "alive" in Thassilon on some level, so a Thassilonian wealthy enough to afford having themselves put in stasis getting the +2 is a reasonable assumption.
Alleran |
Not only are they stated to be Azlanti in stat blocks, but some of them were the original Rune Lords that escaped Azlant with Xin, so no mixing was required.
The original Runelords aren't really under discussion, since they were pureblood Azlanti from the get-go. It's what happened after several generations passed and some intermixing happened.
In fact, on checking Karzoug's history he was born a slave, and he still had the Azlanti +2 to everything. That's a point in favour of all levels of Thassilonian society benefiting from the Azlanti race. I seriously doubt that Karzoug's bloodline was "pure" and had no racial intermixing if he was a slave, after all.