The Great Reset by Zyphandrel the Veiled

[Xuelian Baijie]

The Great Reset of Golarion: A Parable of Tyranny​

Once, in a nameless age, a consortium of planar powers sought to reshape Golarion in their image. At their head stood Klauthor the Shaper, an Azlanti architect of unparalleled ambition, touched by knowledge gleaned from the Aboleth’s dreams and tempered by the cold rationality of Mechanus. He believed himself a harbinger of a new era, one where mortals could be bent and shaped like molten iron on the anvil of destiny.

“The Transformation of Humanity,” he called it—a grandiose title for a scheme born not of wisdom, but arrogance. Klauthor’s vision was one of unyielding order, a Golarion where every citizen was a cog in the machine of progress. To this end, he forged alliances with planar bureaucrats, devils eager for contracts, and even certain mortal kingdoms blinded by the promise of utopia.

His rhetoric dripped with florid promises:

“We stand on the cusp of revolution! A time of unity and prosperity beckons, where the petty squabbles of kings and commoners are erased beneath the singular vision of perfection.”

But beneath the gilded surface of his words lay the sinister thorn: the annihilation of free will. For the "transformation" required the destruction of all that made mortals unique. Faith, creativity, and dissent were deemed inefficiencies to be pruned.

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The Thorn of Totalitarianism​

As Klauthor’s plan gained traction, entire cities fell under his control, their populations transformed into obedient drones through the application of forbidden transmutation magic and invasive constructs from Numeria. Education, once the tool of enlightenment, became a mechanism for indoctrination. Faith, the last bastion of hope for many, was supplanted by the cold worship of progress itself. Even the divine began to stir in alarm, for such a scheme threatened the delicate balance of the cosmos.

It was the gods themselves who identified the true peril. Nethys, in his maddened brilliance, saw the abomination of magic stripped of its chaos. Desna, goddess of dreams, recoiled at the vision of a world where the stars sang only the sterile songs of predestination. Pharasma, Keeper of Souls, beheld the fate of mortal spirits shackled for eternity in servitude to a machine.

And so, divine warnings rippled through mortal seers and prophets, urging rebellion. Yet Klauthor’s grip tightened, his legions of mechanized enforcers enforcing his "paradise" with ruthless efficiency.

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The Uprising of Utherion​

From the ashes of despair rose an unlikely leader: Utherion Blackstar, an oracle of enigmatic power and fractured sanity. Utherion’s visions showed him the death of individuality, the cold march of a future without freedom. Branded a heretic, he gathered the remnants of mortal resistance—rebels, zealots, and misfits who had seen the dark heart of Klauthor's utopia. Among them, priests of Cayden Cailean whispered of the joy stolen from the world, druids of Gozreh wept for nature twisted into lifeless efficiency, and tiefling warlocks, outcasts all, sought vengeance against the architects of their pain.

Utherion’s words were a balm to the broken, but an affront to Klauthor’s philosophy:

“To control us is to erase the spark of the divine within. Mortals are not clay to be reshaped at a tyrant’s whim. We are the embers of freedom, destined to burn eternal!”

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The Fall of the Shaper​

The final battle played out on a colossal scale. In the Clockwork Cradle, a planar fortress built by Klauthor to house his designs, the resistance faced the full might of his creations. The sky itself fractured with the clash of magic and steel. Utherion, wielding an artifact of unfathomable power—an ancient relic of Old-Mage Jatembe—shattered Klauthor’s planar links, collapsing his fortress into the Great Beyond.

Though victorious, the rebellion paid a steep price. Utherion vanished in the maelstrom, his fate unknown. Cities lay in ruin, and mortals struggled to reclaim their fractured lives. Klauthor’s vision was destroyed, but the scars of his tyranny lingered in the hearts of survivors.

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A Warning Carved in History​

The story of Klauthor and Utherion serves as a cautionary tale in Golarion. To some, it is a warning against the blind pursuit of progress at the cost of freedom. To others, it is a grim reminder of how easily noble intentions can become chains. In taverns, bards sing of Utherion’s defiance, but the wise know that such struggles are never truly over. The Great Reset is not confined to the past; it is a cycle, a shadow that looms whenever power seeks to consume autonomy.

For in Golarion, as in all worlds, the battle between freedom and tyranny is eternal. Choose wisely, adventurer.