Pathfinder Ancestry Guide: Small Folk

My fifth video on the Ancestries of Golarion. This video we are covering the small folk of Pathfinder, inluding halflings, gnomes and goblins.
▬ Contents of this video ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
0:00 - Preamble
0:40 - Halflings
4:28 - Halfling Religion
5:19 - Halfling Subtypes
10:18 - Gnomes
12:46 - Gnome Subtypes
18:18 - Goblins
21:47 - Outro
CREDITS
The large high-res map I use is not a Paizo official map, but the work of the incomparable Rob McCaleb ( www.artstation.com/robmccaleb ) used here with their gracious permission.
See the first part of my video on Humans here: • Pathfinder Ancestry Gu...
#paizo #pathfinder #golarion #innersea #roleplaying #rpg #history #lore #timeline #dnd #ancestry #halfling #gnome #svirfneblin #goblin

[@presidenttogekiss635]

I love the theory that one of the reasons why Norgober is so strict about his appearence being depicted is because in life, he was a halfling, and he doesnt want people to find out.

[@TheMythKeeper]

Could be!

[@chazzwozzio]

He is 3 halfling children in a trench coat

[@mawanamawan]

Goblins vs Gnomes compete on who the more lovable chaos bringer is.

[@fumarc4501]

Kobolds as a close runner up.

[@stephenchurch1784]

One of my favorite characters so far is a goblin bard focusing on debuffs. He thinks he's mastered buffing and de-buffing at the same time, but in reality, the rest of the party just wears earplugs to block out his "music"

[@jondoh2226]

"First world problems" has new meaning in PF.

[@aralornwolf3140]

I don't know if you want this included... Spoiler Below In the Pathfinder: Kingmaker Computer RPG, one of the companions you can pick up is a Gnome. He's investigating the cause of the Bleaching. Fortunately, in chapter 6 (or thereabouts) you learn how the Bleaching came about. This ends his personal quest. What happened was, one of the Eldest was curious to know what death was like, but didn't want to experience it himself. Not the Die then reincarnate which happens to all fey of the First world... but the "die and your soul joins the river of souls" type of learning. So, he asked for volunteers. These volunteers were gnomes. He killed them, then resurrected them. The gnomes thought this was fun, so more and more gnomes joined in on the "game". However, Pharasma noticed what was happening. To punish all involved, she destroyed the Eldest then banished the Gnomes from the First World, permanently harming their link to it. If the Gnomes wanted to experience the river of souls, then they, and all of their descendants, will experience it in full. That was the cataclysm which resulted in the gnome exile. The wrath of Pharasma... the Goddess who created their entire universe! Yeah... don't piss off the gods of Galorian; especially the ancient powerful ones like Pharasma and Desna (she, in a fit of rage, destroyed an entire layer of the Abyss including the demonlord and all demons which were part of it).

[@TheMythKeeper]

This is great info, and I actually wasn't aware of it. Thanks for sharing!

[@tnttiger3079]

So you are telling me the gnomes found a respawn exploit in the, and it got so bad the head dev had to patch it out by migrating gnomes from Fey to mortal creatures?

[@olorinmagus4479]

@@tnttiger3079well, the “exploit” as you call it is a well known aspect of how fey work. They don’t die since their souls are tied to the First World, and so they simply generate a new body somewhere there upon their death. What the gnomes were doing was literally force their souls into a system that was not designed in any way to deal with souls of their nature, then returning to the First World, then going right back in again and again and again em masse. Until Pharasma, the person in charge of repairing the damage they were doing got thoroughly done with their shit, and made their souls compatible with the River. Thus damaging their connection to the First World, and rendering them truly mortal

[@radred609]

I was on the fence about boglins as a core race when 2e first dropped, so much so that when i ran our first campaign my only restriction on char gen was "no goblins" well, one of my players really wanted to play a goblin. so after a chat about table expectations, a warning that many of the NPCs we would come across would distrust him by default or maybe even worse if the rest of the group wasn't there to vouch for him, i ended up rolling with it and fitting his idea in. best decision ever. It's added so much dynamicism to the group and to how they interact with the world... especially when we came up against *other* goblins as adversaries.

[@TheMythKeeper]

So far I haven't had any goblin players yet, but this is what I'd be hoping for. Its a challenge for a player, knowing how risky it is to wander around by themselves. Also an opportunity to deal with some pretty serious real-world issues under the guise of the fantastical. I commend you for letting your player roll with the character they wanted.

[@ohthreefiftyone]

I have a Goblin player in my 1E campaign. One benefit of their being a core race in 2E is that they’re not as ludicrously broken. That guy’s rogue basically cannot fail a stealth check he’s got such a stack of bonuses on it from all the feats and little bonuses to dex and stealth 1E goblins can get.

[@agsilverradio2225]

Gnomes are immortal age-wise, but can be litterally bored to death.

[@Ofley_Adventures]

Interesting to see that svirfneblin are evil normally in Golarion. It may not be the most interesting change, but it does broaden the spectrum on the ancestries. Have a terrific day everyone! Thanks for the vid.

[@UrLeingod]

They aren't evil, though. They're actually True Neutral.

[@israelmorales4249]

in the "PATHFINDER KINGMAKER" videogame you can unveil the origin of the 'bleaching'. A curse by Pharasma to the gnomes and the Eldest for disrestpectful "game of the death"....i'm sorry about my bad english

[@TheMythKeeper]

I should have included this in my section on gnomes! Thank Israel!

[@satiricalbard1]

Really loving these videos!

[@sessione2]

Yay, I was waiting for this! ☀

[@DepWilkerson]

Thank you. Was trying to find lore on halflings for one of my players. This helps

[@RollingSoloRPG]

Before the video started I was hoping you you would throw in goblins too. I'm glad you did.

[@Cilan1999]

This is a great channel, I hope you get more subscribers soon.

[@TheMythKeeper]

I appreciate that!

[@aralornwolf3140]

Decent video, informative. The format could have been improved as you missed the Gnome and Goblin religion, but you had Halfling religion in the video. Congrats on 775 Subscribers. :D

[@GunnarWahl]

as a huge fan of how the game does their gnomes, I see the gnomes have their own gods like Brigh, getting to know them would be neat.

[@TheMythKeeper]

Its definitely something I could speak to in a future video. They don't have their own pantheon (like say the dwarves, or the giants or the orcs do) but they have a kind of 'adopted pantheon' of gods like Brigh and Shelyn, which is basically just a collection of gods they like. The only exception is Nivi Rombodazzle who is an ascended gnome and therefore the only 'gnome god' in that sense. They are also fey creatures, so you can watch my Court of the Eldest religion guide to get a look at some of the fey gods as well. Warning - they are totally weird.

[@GunnarWahl]

@@TheMythKeeper In my current Rise of the runelords campaign, i'm playing a whole party of gnomes (the idea is that in each adventure path book, I rotate my character out for a different member of a separate party of gnome pc's off doing their own thing.) and I was looking into which gods each of them would worship, I did land on Nivi for my bard, but I'd love to know more about how they see the gods. i'll definitely check out the eldest religion guide.

[@davidpotts2299]

Nice video thanks

[@Thegenderfluiddinosaur]

This has given me the amazing idea of modifying the kingmaker AP to make it about creating a kingdom for the Halflings

[@TheMythKeeper]

That's a great concept. Now you've just got to get a whole party of halfling players to play it out 😅

[@MPDcaw]

Awesome channel. I think you should invest in an anti-pop mic protection to avoid sudden "plock" noises.

[@TheMythKeeper]

I have! But unfortunately, I had a bunch of videos already produced before I purchased it, so I think I have a few more poppy videos before it gets better.

[@pugking4518]

In my Kingmaker campaign my character who is the ruler of a new kingdom give Linzi and the rest of the group noble titles as a reward so if we get a visitor from Cheliax it's going to be pretty funny how they will react to a Halfling who is high nobility lol

[@TheMythKeeper]

Let's face it, if there's one character who deserves a noble title its definitely Linzi. Good work!

[@syvajarvi2289]

Loved the video. We have a player in our current campaign that is running a goblin and he is our resident chaos monkey. Think Bix from the movie legend with a bit more stumble but a lot more swagger, A short Jack Sparrow in execution… the interactions have been epically fun.

[@Fangoros]

Love your videos. You have a great voice for it and the visuals are also really helpful and nice looking. Do you think you will do videos about important creatures in the future? I am particulary interested in Dragons and Giants, since I might create a campaign revolving around them. Anyways, great stuff!

[@TheMythKeeper]

Yes! That's coming, stay tuned. After my planes series concludes I have some stuff cooking along those lines.

[@marcusblackwell2372]

Could you please do a video on the Pathfinder organization? Until this video, I thought Pathfinder was just a creative name for the game

[@TheMythKeeper]

Yep, that's in the works 🙂

[@canecodabravura]

Awesome video. I wanna play a goblin Sorcerer as soon as I can.

[@agsilverradio2225]

17:20 Bleachling gnomes be like; 🎶Oh yeah, I said life goes on; long after the thrill of living is gone!🎶

[@bwizzzz4k]

Small folk best folk

[@WhiteCaneV1]

Agreed

[@WiseOwl_1408]

Short kings and queens

[@RicardoPM777]

👏👏👏👏👏

[@tnttiger3079]

I only just noticed each of the five Gnome types is linked to a specific Magic Tradition (and bleaching). I feel dumb.

[@OmegaWyrm]

Golarion Goblins have juuuust enough Gremlins in them to be plausibly deniable, and I love them for it. I've always wondered if other tables had a similar experience to mine, where the players are essentially tasked with destroying a goblin encampment that has been attacking their hometown, and the players basically adopt a goblin sidekick as part of that mini-adventure because either the art for them is so compelling or their DM plays the Goblins in a fun way. I've been wondering if enough players did something similar to this that it's basically been canonized for 2e. I think both Rise of the Runelords and Jade Regent send you to do this right at the start?

[@TheMythKeeper]

Full disclosure this has happened to me as a GM in both Pathfinder _and_ Starfinder. So yeah, quite likely.

[@mrpeach32]

I'd love more about goblins. Maybe that says something about me…

[@TheMythKeeper]

I'll see what I can do 😅

[@kendannon4435]

Concerning Hobbits is my favorite Tolkien writing.

[@andrewwahba5006]

So where exactly do Halflings come from? Are they native to Golarion like humans are? 🤔

[@TheMythKeeper]

Yeah like orcs, dwarves and humans - they just popped up!

[@o98z]

@@TheMythKeeper specifically they appeared in human settlements after humans had settled down

[@joluoto]

The first time someone cooked food the Halflings were just there, though it's possible the Halflings were the first to ever cook food. Either way Halflings appeared because food needed to be cooked.

[@Artemisthemp]

Monkey Goblin what the story behind those? Goblin + Vandara?

[@Cyberfender1]

Halflings. Where do they come from??? The Cabbage Patch?

[@TheMythKeeper]

Where do humans come from? TBH, I don't buy this story that dwarves came from the cinders that bounced off Torag's anvil when he forged the world. Most of the species of Golarion don't have an explicit creation myth. I think the truth is evolution is a fact of life on Golarion as it is on Earth (see my Alghollthu video for more confirmation on this) and the Gods merely picked their favorites after they started to appear in the universe.

[@teddennison344]

I suppose I could have missed some of it, but I've read through most of the 2E source material, and don't remember most of this stuff. So I suspect a lot of it is Pathfinder 1 info that may or may not be Canon for 2e.

[@TheMythKeeper]

Unless its directly contradicted in the new source material, I think most of this should still be good. What parts in particular do you think isn't canon?

[@teddennison344]

@@TheMythKeeper The more detailed stuff about gnomes in particular struck me. I can sort of map most subraces(?) you mentioned to 2e gnome heritages, but the names are completely different, there are things on both sides with no analog, and there's no mention in 2e that I could find about them having a geography. Also, all the 2e Mwangi expanse book says about gnomes is that there are some there, but they have no gnome-exclusive cities or encampments.

[@teddennison344]

@@TheMythKeeper Not super comfortable going into a lot of negative detail like this on what was ultimately a worthwhile watch. So I'll also say I really enjoyed the last section on Goblins. The game system history of them was wonderful, and really helps me wrap my mind around where they are now. If I haven't seen much of that reported lore about them (particularly the bits about their gods) in 2e materials, it mostly doesn't seem incompatible with the 2e stuff I've seen either, and more goblins = more fun. And I suppose it could always be buried in one of the 60 Lost Omens books I don't have yet.

[@TheMythKeeper]

@@teddennison344 - Hey I appreciate your viewership and the feedback is always welcome!

[@TheMythKeeper]

Actually just saw your first comment (KZbin comments format funny for me sometimes). Most of the gnome stuff is 2E canon. I went to the 2E Character Guide, and all the info, and the gnome subtypes are directly there. However, there isn't a 1:1 map between your choices of heritage and the gnome subtypes - which is to say that the 'crunch' doesn't always map to the 'fluff' and I think thats intentional. Have a look at the guide and let me know if I'm missing something there.

[@douglasphillips5870]

What they did to goblins is a shame. They used to be something, now they're just another kind of small folk. They may as well be gnomes

[@agsilverradio2225]

What about kobolds? Aren't they also smallfolk?

[@TheMythKeeper]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/bHfKmZR4jaichq8&ab_channel=MythKeeper

[@Thunk787]

There's a god of lies and thievery called "Gixx"? Yeah, the people of Absalom really should have asked a few more questions...

[@Vattghern_]

The halflings of Pathfinder were not as bland as I expected them to be, however, the best halflings are still from Eberron. The gnomes are more fey than demihuman - I have mixed feelings about that, but at least it's original. I never liked Paizo's goblin design, it's quite childish and they resemble caricatures more than they resemble a sentient, credible race. D&D ruined 5E with too many quirky races, so comical goblins are not my cup of tea. I prefer them as NPCs for grinding 😂

[@TheMythKeeper]

Honestly PF gnome are my favourite gnomes. I love the crazy multi-colored hair and the fey look. Halflings feel pretty typical here, but I have no complaints with that. As for the gobbos I don't know, I think its nice for your early game villains to have a sense of playfulness to them too.