I know many people tend to run the APs as written, maybe with a few changes here or there. But I’m curious if anyone has tried extensive changes to the existing lore or entirely new additions to the world and lore. Perhaps for existing APs or as
For example, based on a thread I found written back in 2012 on the Paizo forums (found here https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2p9dz?Campaign-Arc-Idea-POSTSerpents-Skull-AP ), I’ve been playing around with using a sort of Ancient Aliens theme for the serpentfolk, where their deities are based primarily on the Sumerian/Babylonian deities (Marduk, Ishtar, Ereshkigal, Enlil, Nergal, and so on) known collectively as the Annunaki (no relation to the Annunaki creature in PF1e’s Bestiary 5). I’ve been adapting the Serpent’s Skull AP to PF2e with these changes, and incorporating things like powerful serpentine constructs (the so-called Fangs of Enlil, statblock here: https://monster.pf2.tools/v/92ZJMRbV-fang-of-enlil ) that guard the Vaults in the Darklands, where these Vaults are chambers holding Annunaki genetic experimentation laboratories. The Nephilim (the creature from PF1e’s Bestiary 3) are one of the many experiments of the Annunaki.
Instead of being a post-Serpent’s Skull, I’m essentially changing up Serpent’s Skull to add in these elements. I really like the idea of Ancient Aliens (it’s one of my favorite sci-fi tropes, mostly thanks to Stargate SG-1) and I love the serpentfolk as villains so combining the two with a dash of Babylonian mythology just felt perfect.
In the eye of Abendego is a sort of reverse-Glare that repels the material plane, instead of banishing outsiders to their last non-material location. In its shadow plane counterpart is the void at reality’s end that Darvakka are made from.
At the very heart of the storm is nothing but debris and wreckages, unless somebody from the material plane is also there - actively observing it. Getting there is an ordeal comparable to the test of the starstone. When observed by a living creature of the material plane, there are bones with intense properties that can only be described as anti-futuristic. There is anti-potential in them, and touching them will bring forth the Gap - and the cessation of Golarion’s future. And thaaaaat’s it. Don’t touch those bones, or it won’t just be Omens that are Lost.
That sounds cool! I think it works really well with the flavor for the Golarion serpentfolk.
Since drow are now non-canon, I guess keeping them in my game is homebrew. I’ve been idly considering diverging even more from the Pathfinder canon there, but haven’t settled on a direction.
More and more planes. Outer planes, demi-planes, concept-embodying planes, planes based around archetypal emotions. Most recently a fey-inhabited demiplane of music, full of sentient melodies and (literal) earworms. The good/evil/law/chaos planar creatures that get the spotlight now aren’t as interesting to me, and I hope the upcoming alignment changes in the remaster mix up the cosmology.
Golarion without heroes, inspired by the d20 setting Midnight (which was basically Middle Earth if Sauron won).
The last adventure in each adventure path usually lays out the consequences of epic failure, but the continuity usually assumes that parties of heroic adventurers always rise to defeat the potentially world-altering challenges presented. Assuming the opposite makes the world a much more interesting place; each new adventure path reshapes part of the world (or even the whole world) to be increasingly at the mercy of chaos and evil, and afflicted regions and triumphant villains eventually start bumping up against each other.
It’s a cruel fate to inflict on most of the NPCs who live there, but it’s a huge boon to good-aligned adventurers, who will never lack for challenges or excitement.
