Cheliax fell into decline and civil war, until the devil-worshipping 'Thrice-Damned' House of Thrune seized power. Thus began the current period in Golarion's history: the Age of Lost Omens, as storms wracked the world and prophecy lost its power. The priests of Aroden suddenly lost their powers, and by all accounts, including from Pharasma, the Lady of Graves, goddess of Death herself, Aroden somehow had died. Recently, however, the prophesied return of Aroden instead brought weeks of natural disasters, including a massive storm that continues to blow to this day. As Cheliax rose in power, the Church of Aroden moved its seat of power there. As Taldor grew vast and decadent, the frontier colonies broke away and formed their own Empire of Cheliax. He helped bring humanity out of the Age of Darkness, helping to establish the vast Empire of Taldor. Azlant was destroyed, and most of the surface civilizations on the nearby continents of Arcadia and Avistan were devastated (but then, so too were the Aboleths.) Meanwhile, the Elves, who had foreseen the coming Earthfall, mostly fled to the sanctuary of Sovyrian on the planet Castrovel, while the underground-dwelling Dwarves took the impact as a sign from their gods to make their way to the surface, beginning the 'Quest for Sky,' driving their Orc rivals before them.Д®ventually, the living God Aroden, last of the Azlanti, appeared. Fearing the growing power of the humans, the Aboleths sent a massive asteroid crashing onto their homeland. As humanity developed, they grew resentful and resisted against their aquatic masters. Thousands of years ago, the Human empire of Azlant thrived on the surface, while secretly ruled from the deep by the Aboleths, the aquatic monsters that lifted them to greatness. This meant that you could run different themes of campaign merely by changing the locale on Golarion, rather than having to incorporate different settings, such as Dragonlance vs. The Fantasy Kitchen Sink nature of the game's setting as a whole means that a large variety of fantasy genres are represented, along with certain horror and sci-fi ones. The other planets get far more discussion in Pathfinder's sci-fi counterpart, Starfinder, since it's far easier to get to the other planets in that game. note Golarion is actually one of several populated planets in the setting's solar system, but the focus is almost exclusively to Golarion, the 'Earth' of the setting. in fact they refer to the same basic setting: the Constructed World of Golarion. Pathfinder products are mostly set in what First Edition rulebooks refer to as 'The Inner Sea,' and more recent Second Edition books call 'The Age of Lost Omens' note The only difference between the two is that 'Age of Lost Omens' incorporates certain political changes that came about as parts of the storylines of Adventure Paths from First Edition.

The second edition diverges significantly from the game's roots as a modified version of D&D 3.5 Edition: among other things it simplifies the game's action economy rules, introduces a new XP system, and modifies how proficiencies work. Pathfinder 2nd Edition began public playtesting in August 2018 and officially launched in August 2019.

It also prides itself on being compatible with 3.5 (with a few rules alterations, of course.) However, as they heard from more fans of 3rd Edition who were dissatisfied with the radical changes introduced in 4th Edition, Paizo saw an opportunity: they would create their own ruleset, using the foundation of D&D to offer something new and fresh while allowing old players to build on what they already knew, created, and played. Paizo decided to publish a 3rd-edition-focused magazine of its own, Pathfinder, keeping up the 'Adventure Path' tradition they'd established in the last three years of Dungeon while establishing a new in-house campaign setting. When WotC announced the fourth edition of D&D, they took back the publication rights to the magazines in order to create exclusively online versions. Pathfinder was created by Paizo Publishing, a group that was split off from Wizards of the Coast in 2002 to publish Dragon and Dungeon Magazines.

After 10 years of publication, the first edition of Pathfinder was phased out in favor of the Second Edition - this edition continues to evolve the ruleset towards incorporating more simplicity while still finding a way to give more options for creating characters and adventures to challenge them. In short, it's D&D for those who disliked the changes found in D&D's Fourth Edition (or who liked 3.5 and wished to remain compatible with its rules). It is a tabletop game based upon the rules of Dungeons and Dragons' 3.5 Edition, but expands on them, making additional rules, rebalancing classes, and simplifying some aspects. The Pathfinder RPG (in its first edition) has been called a Spiritual Successor to the 3.5 Edition of Dungeons & Dragons.

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