Pathfinder Battles Preview: Goblins on the March!

Friday, September 30, 2011

When we put together the set list for our first major Pathfinder Battles set, Heroes & Monsters, we knew it needed to contain several goblins. Ever since James Jacobs and Wayne Reynolds reimagined these classic monsters in the very first Pathfinder Adventure Path volume, “Burnt Offerings,” these little green-skinned bastards have been sort of unofficial mascots for the Pathfinder brand. They just had to be represented in the set.

The behind-the-scenes images below show the unpainted master sculpts of two of the goblins included in the Heroes & Monsters set. As WizKids’ sculptors pretty much translated our critters directly into three dimensions, we did not require any changes to their look.

The image below shows the goblins in their full-color glory. We asked WizKids to darken the greens a bit on these little guys, so the final production models will come off a little less day-glo than they appear here, but you can get a good sense of how nasty the goblins will look when they come chomping into your life in December!

They be plasticrack, you be food!

Next Week: I have no idea which images we’ll preview next week, but I am confident they will look awesome. Let me know what minis or Pathfinder Battles information you’d like to see, and I’ll do my best to reveal it here in seven days!

Erik Mona
Publisher

More Jade Regent Romances

Thursday, September 29, 2011

The relationship and romance rules presented in the Jade Regent Player’s Guide have proven to be a popular addition to the Jade Regent Adventure Path—so much so that people have been clamoring for relationship rules for other characters in the Adventure Path beyond the four main NPCs presented in Pathfinder #49.

Although you can always come up with your own romance and relationship statistics for any NPC in any adventure, we’ve taken two characters from Pathfinder Adventure Path #49: The Brinewall Legacy and Pathfinder Adventure Path #50: Night of Frozen Shadows—Kelda Oxgutter and Ulf Gormundr—and are presenting their official relationship info here. As usual, relationships with these characters can be either friendly or competitive, and can lead to gaining an NPC’s devotion, or their enmity. See pages 13–15 of the Jade Regent Player’s Guide for a full explanation of these rules and their use in the Jade Regent Adventure Path.

Kelda Oxgutter

Although Kelda is scheduled to take her leave of the PCs once they reach Kalsgard, if they work hard at building relationships with her, she may stay on indefinitely.

Preferred Gifts: armor, shields, or weapons, fine furs, epic sagas of heroism and battle
Hated Insults: questioning her prowess in battle, joking about her capture, sexist comments
Devotion Boon: Kelda’s fast footwork and speed in battle has inspired you to quickness in combat as well. Once per game session, you may gain a 5-foot enhancement bonus to your speed as a swift action, regardless of the distance between you and Kelda. Once activated, this bonus persists for a number of rounds equal to your Relationship Score with Kelda divided by 10 (rounded down).
Enmity Boon: Kelda can be close-lipped and somewhat stiff, but you have to admit that she is strong-willed, and held up surprisingly well in captivity. You’re determined to prove that you’re just as stubborn as she is, and gain a +4 bonus on saving throws against fear and enchantment effects.
Romance Score: 36

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Ulf Gormundr

Ulf is strictly professional, and usually avoids relationships with his employers, but it is possible that Ulf might warm to someone who truly puts time and effort into building a friendship with the surly and notoriously difficult Ulfen guide.

Preferred Gifts: scrimshaw artworks, strong liquor, survival gear
Hated Insults: abuse of authority, questioning his guidance or his survival skills, racist comments about the Varki or about half-breeds in general
Devotion Boon: Ulf’s devotion to his friends, even in the face of overwhelming adversity, is truly an inspiration. You gain a +1 bonus on all attack rolls and weapon damage rolls against an opponent that has just successfully attacked one of your allies in combat. This bonus lasts for 1 round after the opponent’s attack.
Enmity Boon: It’s easy to push Ulf’s buttons and make him mad, and there’s nothing that angers him more than someone who doesn’t follow his advice on surviving in harsh environments. Of course, to know what not to do, you’ve had to listen attentively to his lectures, and have picked up more than a few pointers as a result. Choose one terrain type from the list of ranger favored terrains. You gain a +2 bonus on initiative checks and Perception, Stealth, and Survival checks when you are in that terrain, regardless of the distance between you and Ulf.
Romance Score: 42

Rob McCreary
Developer

The Box

by Bill Ward

Chapter One: Win Some, Lose Some

Kostin talked as he circled the box, a cube of black wood a forearm's length across resting on a table at the center of the junk-cluttered attic room. The afternoon's heist had come off without a hitch, and Kostin was still basking in the giddy afterglow of his success; his mind and mouth, as the old Varisian saying went, were determined to outrace one another. It had taken every scrap of will he possessed to leave the box alone until his friends had arrived that evening. Kostin knew that the real danger with a score like this was not so much in the stealing of the thing, but in the opening. Whatever this box was—and by extension whatever was in it—was special. The exact kind of special that made fortunes and got people killed in equal measure.

"So... to the box itself." Kostin, having finished his retelling of the day's con, got on with the business of the evening. "The wood is clearly onyx bark from the Mwangi Expanse, spot-lacquered in the Vudran style. The inlay is most likely the work of a Chelish silversmith, and the locking mechanism—at least what is visible so far—is almost certainly of dwarven make. Agree?"

"Not even close." Aeventius Reatés, scion of one of Magnimar's oldest—and now most impoverished—families, looked up from his scrutiny of the box to fix his glowing eyes on Kostin. "But it is wizard-locked. And why exactly is... she... here for this?"

"The name's Taldara, Aeventius," The third member of the group was a tall blonde leaning uncomfortably on the edge of a wobble-legged Galtan dining table. "Though I suppose feigning ignorance of my name is just your way of making me feel welcome after all these years." Taldara paused to scratch the head of the sleek badger draping her right shoulder and shifted her gaze toward Kostin. "As far as why I'm here, well, our mutual friend lied to me."

Most Chelaxians assume every Varisian’s a thief. In Kostin’s case, they’d be right.

Spreading both hands in a gesture of pleading innocence, Kostin deployed his most charming half-smile. "We could still be looking at a major find, Tal. Besides, isn't this more fun than sketching the Irespan all day? You should be flattered I trust you with something like this."

Aeventius, the bluish glow of the detection spell fading from his eyes, pushed his way irritably past Kostin to examine the box from another angle. Tall and sharp-featured, with jet-black hair sweeping back from a high forehead, the wizard looked every bit the full-blood Azlanti he claimed to be. "There are precautions we must take before..." Aeventius trailed off and cocked his head, listening. "Someone at your door."

"Flattered!" Ignoring the wizard, Taldara shot to her feet and took a step toward Kostin. She wore her fair hair back in a single, thick braid that exposed the pronounced tips of her ears, lending her a somewhat severe aspect. "You told me exactly what you knew would get me here. And now it seems that, in addition to this having nothing to do with Thassilonian artifacts, we've come to help you appraise stolen goods."

Caught with your hand in another man's pocket, Kostin thought. How is it he could coolly lie his way into Dockway's cargo impound with little more than an inexpertly forged writ of seizure and a cocky swagger, but this girl so completely disarmed him? Woman now, he corrected. It had after all been twelve years, long enough for even someone with Taldara's half-elven heritage to leave childhood completely behind and grow into someone new, a stranger.

And stranger she was, returning to Magnimar a world traveler, scholar, and newly minted Pathfinder—far more than Kostin had managed to do for himself. No, Kostin Dalakcz had stayed behind—stayed behind and become exactly what the predominantly Chelish population of his city suspected all Varisians of being: a thief.

At least he didn't run a harrow parlor.

"Would you answer that damn door already?" Aeventius spoke without looking up from the box, and Kostin, noting the banging downstairs for the first time, tore his attention away from Taldara. No, he did not run a harrow parlor, but he did run that most ubiquitous of Varisian institutions: the odds and ends shop. Among the citified Varisians who, like Kostin's father, had given up their wandering to settle throughout the Shore District of Magnimar, the small import-export emporiums like Dalakcz Durables of Callowcaulk Street, Beacon's Point, were a profitable link between the inland caravans and the sea.

Of course, such businesses had proven even more lucrative as fronts and fences for stolen goods, and if Kostin's father could see what had become of his once above-board shop, he would no doubt spit curses enough to make an Ulfen blush.

The banging three stories down had changed—it now sounded more like someone trying to smash down the door. Kostin could feel the vibrations through the floor with each blow.

"Probably some dumb drunk stevedore looking for the Whale's Belly," he growled, kicking his way toward the street-side windows through the detritus of the loft; a clutter of unsaleable items like a litterbin for all Golarion. Forcing open a window, Kostin leaned out. "Two blocks shoreward, you souse!"

The pane above him shattered before Kostin even registered the crossbow-armed thugs arrayed in the street below. He ducked back inside, collapsing to the floor and upsetting a standing shelf full of brass fittings and tarnished silverware. Another thunk drew his attention to the ceiling, where a second crossbow bolt buried itself a hand's breadth away from the first.

There must have been fifteen of them out there, that damn Shoanti gutter-gang bristling with weapons and painted for war.

Downstairs the door crashed in with a splintering final boom.

"New friends, or old?" Aeventius asked, stretching to his full height and cracking his knuckles. Taldara had rushed to Kostin's side, checking him for injuries. Her badger hissed eerily, bristling in agitation as it clung to her shoulder with curled nails the length of a man's fingers. Until that moment it had seemed a mere cute pet to Kostin, with its black-and-white face and bumbling demeanor—now it seemed about as cuddly as a war dog.

Kostin scrambled to his feet, glass crunching beneath his boots. The sounds of destruction rose muffled from the first floor. The shop was being trashed. "New," he said in answer to the wizard's question. "A dozen or more. But I never crossed any Shoanti. "

Aeventius tapped a finger on the polished lid of the stolen box. "I do not believe in coincidence."

Kostin shook his head as he strapped on his sword belt. It sounded as if a cavalry squadron maneuvered downstairs—or a single, epileptic giant flailed about in destructive seizure. "Not these guys. Small-time thugs running low-level stuff between the Point and Rag's End. A real headache for the Sczarni, but not someone like me. If anyone would be looking for the box, I'd expect the Scales, or one of the Shadow bosses. These guys are street trash."

"Sounds like the 'street trash' have just reached the second floor," Taldara said, drawing a long knife from beneath her jacket.

Aeventius, stooping low under the slanted ceiling at the far end of the room, was already peering out the alley-side windows. "Seems clear. Difficult to tell."

Leaning with one ear pressed against the attic's only door and listening to the intruders' chaos, Kostin uttered a string of fluent Varisian under his breath. "We could fight..."

"Don’t be a fool," countered the wizard.

"It's my home, Aevy," said Kostin.

"It is our lives I am thinking of," Aeventius said, raising the window and once again inspecting the street. "And I told you never to call me that."

"He's right," Taldara agreed. Pulling Kostin away from the door, she began to drag the heavy Galtan dining table to bar the passage.

"Desna laughs," Kostin hissed between clenched teeth before joining Taldara with the table. Shouts and the sounds of rampage had grown closer, now coming from the stairwell.

Behind them Aeventius was intoning a spell, uttering the strange language of magic as if he had been born to it. Kostin turned in time to see the flash of the wizard's ring, and the unstoppering of a phial in his other hand. Bringing the phial to his lips, Aeventius sucked up the contents with a sharp intake of breath. Kostin knew from experience that the wizard had just eaten a live spider, and judging from the grimace on his friend's face it had probably been a large one.

"Come," Aeventius said, before vaulting out of the window with the practiced ease of an acrobat.

"You next," Kostin said to Taldara. Behind them, the door boomed as if hit with a siege ram. "Go up." She did not argue, following Aeventius through the window with more composure than Kostin would have ever expected. He scooped up the mage-locked box—was it really the cause of all this?—and climbed through the window just as the attic door splintered from its hinges, toppling the primitive barricade. The howls of the Shoanti spilled out into the night after him.

The edge of the roof was within easy reach, and Kostin hoisted himself up one-handed, with Taldara's aid. From the vantage of the slate roof he could see his building—of which his rented storefront and apartments comprised but a tenth—stretching away to north and south. To his right, across the alley, the old five-story Rope Works building blocked their sight of the landward portion of the city, but the convoluted tangle of warehouses, dockyards, taverns, and tenements that comprised the shoreward view dazzled with alternating patches of light and dark.

The warm flicker of torches below stole his attention—some of the Shoanti, shouting and whooping like a pack of wild dogs, had run around into the alley to block any escape.

Breathing deeply of the cool, sea-tanged night air, Kostin struck out northward, Aeventius and Taldara at his heels. Before him loomed the dark shape of the Rope Works as it veered sharply shoreward just at the end of his block. The roof upon which they ran was a black wedge against the lights of the Shore, as the lower city was called. Just above was another dark band, the Seacleft, the great cliff that bisected Magnimar, atop which blazed the lights of the Summit, the upper city, a bright knife-edge glow like a barrier between the commoners of the Shore and the glittering heavens above.

A snarling yell announced that the Shoanti had followed them onto the roof.

"I will go first, then you can throw over the box," Aeventius said as they neared the narrowest space between the tenement and the Rope Works. They had practiced this escape route years ago, the leap over to the Rope Works and the quick climb to its abandoned top floor, but never had Kostin's heart been hammering in his chest like this, or his limbs trembling.

Unseen in the darkness, crossbow bolts whispered past.

Aeventius jumped out over the alley and struck the stone face of the Rope Works hard, sliding a little before finding purchase on a scrollwork ledge. He twisted his body, clinging to the building with one hand, and Kostin tossed the box over so that it hit the wizard square in the chest. Aeventius clutched it reflexively, holding tight.

Kostin turned to Taldara, intending to give a few words of encouragement, but the spry half-elf was already moving, leaping between buildings and flattening herself against the stones a bit higher up than Aeventius. Clearly she had been living a more exciting life than one spent writing travelogues and sketching artifacts since last he saw her—he only hoped he would get a chance to hear about it one day.

With a wild shout, Kostin followed his friends across the gap, catching the ledge with a shock to knock his breath out.

Aeventius scrambled past him, going upward, pausing only to hand over the chest of black wood that was the source of all their trouble.

To his left, a bolt cracked against the wall. Kostin began to climb as best he could with one hand, waiting for the shout from Aeventius that meant the wizard was ready for him to toss the box upward.

The smack of flesh and iron below and to his right drew Kostin's attention. There in the dark, one of the Shoanti—exposed skin painted in ochre and ash—wrestled with Taldara. Her badger growled and bit at the thug, slipping from her shoulder and down to the stone ledge upon which she and the Shoanti balanced.

Taldara ducked to scoop the creature up, leaving herself defenseless.

Kostin saw the gleam of the knife in the dark above her, poised to strike.

"Toss it up now!" came Aeventius's shout from above.

Kostin cocked his arm back and threw, not upward at the wizard, but hard down and into the face of the attacking Shoanti. The sharp crack of impact and a gargled yell preceded the man's fall. Man and box both plummeted into the torch-lit alleyway, down among the swarming Shoanti pack.

Their howls of victory rose up in the same instant that the first tongues of flame sprang from the windows of Kostin's home.

Coming Next Week: The secret lives of the Sczarni in Chapter Two of Bill Ward's "The Box."

Bill Ward is the author of more than 40 short stories for venues like Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Every Day Fiction, Morpheus Tales, Rogue Blades Entertainment, and more, as well as game work for companies such as i-Kore and Urban Mammoth. A diehard fan of pulp adventure, he’s also an editor at the flagship sword and sorcery magazine Black Gate. For more information, visit his website at billwardwriter.com.

Illustration by J. P. Targete.

Combat Maneuvers and Weapon Special Features

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Page 199 of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook says, “When you attempt to perform a combat maneuver, make an attack roll and add your CMB in place of your normal attack bonus. Add any bonuses you currently have on attack rolls due to spells, feats, and other effects. These bonuses must be applicable to the weapon or attack used to perform the maneuver.” That last sentence implies that some weapons apply their bonuses on combat maneuver checks, and some do not. So how do you know which weapons do? The answer depends on what kind of combat maneuver you’re attempting, and in some cases what kind of weapon you’re using.

Disarm, sunder, and trip are normally the only kinds of combat maneuvers in which you’re actually using a weapon (natural weapons and unarmed strikes are considered weapons for this purpose) to perform the maneuver, and therefore the weapon’s bonuses (enhancement bonuses, feats such as Weapon Focus, fighter weapon training, and so on) apply to the roll.

For other maneuvers, either you’re not using a weapon at all, or the weapon is incidental to making the maneuver and its bonuses shouldn’t make you better at attempting the maneuver. For example, just because you have a +5 greatsword doesn’t mean it gives you a +5 bonus on dirty trick checks (Pathfinder RPG Advanced Player’s Guide 320), and just because you have a +5 dagger doesn’t mean it gives you a +5 bonus on grapple checks. Of course, the GM is free to rule that in certain circumstances, a creature can apply weapon bonuses for these maneuvers, such as when using a sap in a dirty trick maneuver to hit an opponent in a sensitive spot.

There is a special exception to the above rules. If you’re using a weapon with the trip special feature, and you’re attempting a drag or reposition combat maneuver (Advanced Player’s Guide 321–322), you may apply the weapon’s bonuses to the roll because trip weapons are also suitable for dragging and repositioning (this also means we don’t have to add “drag” and “reposition” weapon properties to existing weapons).

Additionally, the polearm master fighter archetype (Advanced Player’s Guide 106) has an ability called sweeping fend that allows the fighter to use any spear or polearm to make bull rush or trip maneuvers. For the bull rush, this is a specific exception that overrides the general rule of “weapon bonuses don’t apply on bull rushes.” For the trip, the text as written is redundant because anyone can already use a weapon as part of a trip attempt, so giving the polearm master this ability has no effect. This ability needs to be updated as follows.

Update: On page 106 of the Advanced Player’s Guide, Polearm Master, Sweeping Fend ability, delete the second sentence. Replace the first sentence with “At 13th level, a polearm master can use any spear or polearm to make bull rush maneuvers, though he takes a –4 penalty on combat maneuver checks when making such attempts. When using a spear or polearm to make a trip maneuver, he treats these weapons as if they had the trip weapon feature.”

Sean K Reynolds
Designer

10,222... 700... 5

Monday, September 26, 2011

Mike Brock, Paizo's new Pathfinder Society Campaign Coordinator!

With a drive the same distance as it is from Whitethrone to Eleder, I had quite the interesting time in my four and a half days from Atlanta to Redmond. I have been preparing my list of items I want to address with the campaign in both structure and rules for several weeks. I was able to refine that list during the drive. I am honored to have been chosen by Paizo as the caretaker of the Pathfinder Society. It is an awesome, and somewhat daunting responsibility, but one I am excited to take on.

As to how the title correlates to this blog and my journey, it is my three Pathfinder Society Numbers. I think I bring a lot to the Campaign Coordinator position with my prior experiences in Pathfinder Society. I started as a player at Gen Con during the Pathfinder Special with Kyle Baird as my GM. That experience got me hooked on Pathfinder Society, especially since I was spared from a horrible death that first game. I continued playing and enjoying Pathfinder Society, learning about Golarion and absorbing all the information I could find about the campaign setting.

Several months after Gen Con, the call went out for volunteers who were crazy enough to take on the mantle of Venture-Captain. As I had already started a small group of Pathfinder Society enthusiasts and knew of quite a few stores in the Atlanta area, I thought what better way to become more active (and to have an excuse for my wife to go play) than to be organizing Pathfinder Society. I applied, and after several emails and a phone interview, I was offered the position. I was excited and full of enthusiasm, ready to organize Pathfinder Society and make it the best location anywhere in the world. After the first nine weeks of being away from home at a Pathfinder Society game day somewhere in the metro Atlanta area, my wife helped me refocus my goals. I quickly learned if I was going to continue to organize and grow Pathfinder Society in my community, was going to need help. I contacted several people over the next few months and assigned them as store liaisons. I decided if I could have one person running Pathfinder Society at each location, they could devote more time to that specific location, recruiting GMs and players, handling scheduling issues and the like with store owners, and essentially taking ownership of Pathfinder Society in their little section of Atlanta. That left me with only having to worry about the website, making sure locations didn’t conflict with games being run, and other coordination efforts. A special thanks goes out to Kyle and Nani Pratt (current Atlanta co-Venture-Captains), Joseph Caubo, John Compton, and Blake Sorenesen for their efforts as store liaisons. Without their help, Pathfinder Society in Atlanta would have never grown to where it is today.

And now we fast-forward to the past few months. I became aware just before Gen Con that the Campaign Coordinator position was becoming available. I emailed Paizo with my interest, and to my surprise, I was called in for an interview during Gen Con. But this was not just any interview. This was a lunch interview and they were paying for my lunch! After meeting up with several of the Decemvirate members outside the Pathfinder Society room, we made the long walk to our dining establishment—White Castle. I have to say, it was unlike any interview I had participated in before but it was a free lunch. The interview went fairly well and I went back to GMing thinking that was the last I would hear about the open position. To my surprise, several weeks later I received a phone call from Erik Mona offering me the job. After making sure it was okay with the wife (after all, I accepted Venture-Captain without telling her), and that moving to the opposite side of the country was not out of the question, I accepted.

I arrived at Paizo last Tuesday. The first few days have been hectic. I’ve been clearing up overdue emails, catching up on how everything works here, and presenting some of my ideas. Over the course of the next few months, I will be presenting some of those ideas through Pathfinder Society blogs on Mondays. Just as my store liaisons were vital to me growing Pathfinder Society in Atlanta, the Venture-Captains are very important ambassadors to the game to help me grow Pathfinder Society throughout the world. With my trust in them, and my commitment to the Pathfinder Society playerbase, I am confident we will see amazing growth. One thing I want to emphasize is that Pathfinder Society is not my campaign. It is your campaign. I am just the caretaker. I try to listen to all of your concerns and work with people here at Paizo to make sure the campaign improves. I am not looking to change everything about it. I think it is fairly strong as it is. But there are some things that can be done better.

One of the first things I am doing is targeting more than 25 new regions I would like to assign new Venture Captains. You can find information on how to apply and what areas we are looking to include in the Regional Coordinators forum.

Once again, I thank Paizo for entrusting me to take care of Pathfinder Society and I thank all of you for making the campaign what it is today.

A Reminder: Don't miss the Pathfinder Tales round-table discussion in the Paizo chat room tonight at 6:00 PST!

Mike Brock
Pathfinder Society Campaign Coordinator

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Heroes & Monsters Behind the Scenes

Friday, September 23, 2011

So far we’ve revealed the digital sculpts for 11 of the prepainted miniatures in our Pathfinder Battles: Heroes & Monsters base set, including the mighty Huge Black Dragon! Digital sculpts give us the chance to see what a miniature will look like in full color, and allow us a chance to make minor (or even major) adjustments to ensure that the miniatures accurately model the characters and creatures that inhabit the Pathfinder world.

But digital is not the only way to sculpt a miniature, of course. Even though our partners at WizKids use the most modern methods to create their beautiful minis, sometimes the best way to make a miniature is to sculpt it by hand using precision tools and modeling putty. This is the same process by which most metal miniatures come into the world. Because the epoxy putty used by most sculptors is usually green, minis lingo refers to these preliminary miniature sculpts as “greens,” no matter what color they turn out to be.

Below you can see the green of the tallest miniature in the Heroes & Monsters set, the two-headed Ettin. The pose is an amalgamation of a black-and-white ettin image from a Pathfinder’s Journal fiction piece and the ettin entry in the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary. When WizKids provided this image to Paizo for approval, Senior Art Director Sarah Robinson and I thought it captured the creature perfectly, and gave the sculpt our stamp of approval almost immediately.

Once a sculpt has been approved, WizKids technicians use the green to form the basis of the mold from which the entire production run will come. At about the same time this is being done, painters must determine what the final paint job of the miniature will look like. In the case of digital sculpts, general paint guides come with the sculpt itself. In the case of traditional sculpts, however, the artists must interpret colors from the original art, and take their best shot at how they think the final colors should look.

Just this week, WizKids sent over the proposed paint deco specs for the Ettin, which looked like this:

Like the sculpt before it, the paint deco sample passed inspection with very few changes. We like the way this guy looks. That said, from experience with the Beginner Box Heroes set, WizKids improves the painting with each step, so the final miniature will likely look a little more “weathered” than this one, giving it a slightly more realistic look.

So the Ettin went very smoothly, transitioning from art to green to mold to paint deco with virtually no hitches. I’m happy to say that this has been the case for most of the miniatures in the Heroes & Monsters set, but a few have been somewhat more stubborn, requiring more substantial changes at each step in the process. A good example of this is the Human Ranger.

When we decided to put the Human Ranger in the set, we provided this great illustration by Eric Belisle to WizKids.

Their sculptor’s first crack at this miniature captured a lot of what we thought was important about the character’s costume and general demeanor, but Sarah and I were concerned that the pose was too two-dimensional, and wasn’t as dynamic as Belisle’s original illustration. Our WizKids counterparts agreed, and came back with the following major improvement:

We really liked this approach, and approved the sculpt. Now here was a bowman we could see people really wanting to play, and the pose really tells a lot about the character. We were excited! But things got a lot more exciting earlier this week, when WizKids sent over the following paint deco for approval:

And that, as they say, was a bulls-eye.

From here the paint decos will be turned into “masks” that go over the unpainted miniatures, allowing paint application to go in all the right places. Add some hand-finishing to bring out the tiny details, and the Ettin and Human Ranger are on their way to production!

Next Week: Goblins, Goblins, Goblins!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Pathfinder Author Chat Next Monday!

Thursday, September 21st, 2011

Hey there, fiction fans! This coming Monday, September 26th, Pathfinder Tales author Dave Gross has set up an awesome Pathfinder Tales round table discussion in the Paizo chat room. Starting at 6:00pm PST, this is your chance to catch all of the current Pathfinder Tales novelists in one place, to offer your opinions and ask your burning questions (such as the all-important “Who would win, Elyana or Ellasif?”). The floor will be entirely open, and your questions will determine what we talk about, so drop by http://chat.dmtools.org/ on Monday night to chat with Dave Gross (Prince of Wolves, Master of Devils, Winter Witch), Elaine Cunningham (Winter Witch), Howard Andrew Jones (Plague of Shadows), Robin D. Laws (The Worldwound Gambit), and yours truly (Death’s Heretic, Fiction Editor). (Once you get there, be sure to type /join PFTales to enter the side room hosting the discussion.) It’s guaranteed to be a riotous, educational, and undeniably literary affair.

I’ll be there—will you?

James Sutter
Fiction Editor

The Seventh Execution

by Amber E. Scott

Chapter Three: The Fettered Freed

The moon was a yellow bruise in the sky as I hurried through the streets of Edme. Sweat poured off me as if I raced through a furnace. I ran without seeing, navigating the streets by long practice. I felt I had left part of myself back at home, as if I had lost a limb.

I stopped, panting, when the cobbled road spilled into a flagstone-plated quadrangle. Prickly weeds, trampled flat by the mobs that congregated there, sprouted from cracks in the stones. The gray walls of Torvin Academy bounded the opposite size of the plaza. A few lights burned in upper windows, but the plaza was full of moonshadows.

Razor Jenni stood in the center of the quadrangle, atop a wooden platform braced with heavy timbers. I shuddered when I saw the final blade, her thirsty edge held aloft atop a scaffold. A set of stocks at the base of the scaffold snapped around the prisoner's neck. A groove cut through the yoke allowed Razor Jenni's blade to slip through and take the prisoner's head with her.

I spied movement at the base of the platform. Bradach stood concealed in the shadow of the scaffold. When he saw me, he took a step forward and beckoned. I scanned the quadrangle a final time to ensure no one watched, then hurried to meet him.

“It's good to see you,” Bradach said. He wore a heavy, dark cloak and stood with his hands deep in his pockets, shoulders hunched against the chill. “Did you succeed?”

“I spoke to my... I spoke to Mirford.”

Bradach looked alarmed. “You told him our plan?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I asked about the executions. I wanted to prove to you that the guilty, the traitors, are the ones who are executed.”

Bradach sighed and crouched to face me. “And what did you find?”

When you are a halfling, you get used to living in a world unsized for you. Yet it always seemed to me that I was the proper height, and everything else overlarge and exaggerated. In that moment, though, I felt small. “He implied that the evidence used—” My voice broke. I cleared my throat. “The evidence might not be as ironclad as I would prefer.”

“It's hard to admit that the things we fought for weren't worth our dedication,” Bradach said. “It's taken me a long time to reach the place I am now, and I took many wrong turns along the way. But what we do here can make up for many sins of the past. You see that, don't you?”

I nodded.

“Then do you have the medallion? Hand it to me and we can set about freeing these poor souls.” He stretched a hand out.

I have said before that halflings must remain alert to survive. We have learned to carefully read the humans who run the cities in which we live, attuning ourselves to their whims and desires to remain useful, and thus safe. Bradach's words sounded well enough, but the way he thrust his hand toward me was a shade too quick, too eager. It unnerved me for reasons I couldn't articulate.

“Tell me more,” I said. “What led you to undertake such a selfless mission?”

“We are exposed here. I'd be happy to answer your questions afterward, but we can't delay. You did get the medallion, didn't you?”

“Even the most desperate looter would hardly stride up to the doors of Torvin Academy. We have a few minutes.” I met Bradach's gaze. “I spent most of my life allowing myself to work for a man whose intentions were not wholly admirable. Forgive me if I make more certain this time. What spurred you on your mission?”

He looked away as if weighing my question. When he spoke, his voice was low and sad. “Someone I care about is trapped in there. Do you need to know more than that?”

But I had seen a flash of annoyance in his eyes before he looked away. My sense of unease deepened.

“How did she come to this?”

He gave me a lopsided smile. “It is that obvious that she's a woman? We worked together in Mivon. She hated injustice as much as I did, and we undertook several missions together. Six months ago she traveled to Edme in an attempt to free a prisoner awaiting the blade. She failed, and was executed herself.”

"Razor Jenni claims both heads and souls."

It was a good story. Yet if Bradach had known what function I truly performed for Mirford, he would have used a different cover. My life revolved around executions, and I knew well enough that there was only one woman to die in Razor Jenni's arms in the last few months. I took a step back, anger replacing the nausea in my gut.

“You had nothing to do with her,” I said, harshly, foolishly.

Bradach straightened. “I choose to keep my motivations private. I may be guilty of misleading you in that sense, but I wanted to make sure you understood how important this is. It's all that matters. Now we can argue about this all night or you can tell me whether you got the medallion.”

I took another step back. “I couldn't get the opportunity. You'll have to give me more time.”

We stared at each other. Branach looked me over from tip to toe, tapping his chin. After a long silence, he spoke.

“I think you're lying.”

“That makes two of us.”

He gave me an ugly smile. “Then I won't waste any more words. Give me the medallion or I'll take it off your corpse.”

He reached for me and I stumbled back, flailing my arm to keep him off. My little knife leaped into my hand.

“Get away from me!”

He put a finger to his lips as he advanced. “Voice down, slip. Do you want to bring the whole city down on us?”

My heart thudded. The fiery anger inside me turned in an instant to icy rage.

“Chelaxian!” I dropped my voice to a shaking whisper. “I've sent more than one of your kind to their deaths.”

“And now you'll help one of my kind release those souls.” He darted forward and grabbed for me again. I ducked under his arm and skipped out of his reach. “They'll be invaluable in my rituals. Perhaps I'll even find a use for your corpse.”

I darted to the left. Bradach rushed forward and caught hold of my wrist. A soundless explosion of cold shot up my arm and numbed me all the way to my shoulder. I bit my tongue to keep from crying out. I flailed, kicking and scratching, and threw myself back. Bradach lost his grip. I tucked into a roll as I fell. My numbed arm threw me off. The roll broke apart and I sprawled on my stomach.

For an instant I felt a terrible weakness grip my limbs, but I shook off the lassitude and scrambled to my feet. I kept as quiet as I could. If I cried out, someone was bound to hear. The guards at the Academy would simply arrest us both, and I had just stolen from my master. Looters would cut us down.

Bradach loomed over me. My knife lay on the ground to my right. I dropped to my knees when Bradach swung at me. His arms whooshed overhead. I snatched up the knife and stabbed him in the thigh.

Bradach stumbled back with a muffled cry. His heavy cloak blunted some of the impact, but the edge of my knife came away wet with blood.

I leaped to my feet again as Bradach took another run at me. He had his own knife out now. I dove forward and to one side of him. His knife scored my back as I rolled past. The cut stung, but not badly. I kicked up to my feet a dozen paces past him.

“I get worse than that chopping carrots.”

He threw his knife at my head. I ducked down and raised my hands for cover. Too late I realized that Bradach's throw was careless, meant only to distract me. I tried to back up but he had already charged. As I scrambled back, Bradach caught me in the chest with a sharp kick.

I flew back and slammed into the cobblestones. Bradach twisted his hands together. Blue light built between them.

I had hoped our forced silence might keep him from casting, but no words accompanied his intricate gestures. Light shot from his hands and streamed toward me like ethereal arrows. I rolled away. The missiles followed my movements. I bit my fist to keep from screaming as the bolts slammed into my side.

My body shrieked with pain, but my heart bled with regret. To conspire with a Chelaxian, even unwittingly—I could think of no greater ignominy. I had paid for my betrayal, and paid dearly.

Bradach twisted his hands together again. I bounced to my feet and sprinted for cover. I whipped around the edge of Razor Jenni's platform and crouched behind one of the timbers. I heard Bradach's quiet curse.

I panted, trying to regain my breath. I blinked in surprise to see I still held my knife. Instinct must have kept it in my hand. I could hear Bradach circle around Razor Jenni's frame. I waited until he had almost rounded to my side, then ran the other way.

Bradach reversed direction. I'd expected that. I raced up the stairs onto the execution platform and cut across it. Bradach heard me coming and tried to back away. I threw myself off the platform and crashed into him, burying my knife in his shoulder.

His howl of pain eased the ache in my heart. We fell together. I tried to pull the blade free but Bradach rolled to the side and threw me off. I had always supposed wizards to be weak and frail, but Bradach was no pale scholar. His strength and size far outstripped mine.

My knife stayed buried in Bradach's shoulder. I scrabbled for a weapon but came up with nothing but a chunk of broken flagstone. Bradach rose to his feet, panting. I clutched the flagstone to my chest and crawled under Razor Jenni's platform.

She was a presence, that blade. I could feel her weight above me, pressing down, waiting hungrily for her next victim. I shuddered and forced myself to remain in the shadows, half-hidden behind a timber pile.

“Come out of there you rotten little slip,” Bradach whispered. I could hear the faint rasp of his boots as he circled the platform, trying to spot me. “Or throw me the medallion and I'll let you go.”

Halflings survive by reading human intentions. I knew Bradach was lying.

Bradach finally got on his hands and knees to peer under the platform. I summoned all my strength and flung the flagstone chunk. The rock struck Bradach above his eyes. He whimpered and collapsed.

I waited for a minute to catch my breath. My heart beat crazily and would not calm down. I crawled out from under the platform and rolled the wizard over. He was unconscious, but still lived. I went through his clothes and removed a case of scrolls and a pouch half-filled with gold and silver coins.

Then I dragged Bradach up the stairs to the platform. My side ached. Blood dripped from the cut on my back, but not much. I used all my strength to pull the wizard's warm, heavy body along. My sense that Razor Jenni was alive—was watching me—grew stronger as I dragged Bradach across the platform and onto the chopping block.

Six traitors I had sent to their final rest. Six that I was certain of.

That night I made it seven.

∗∗∗

Her or me, I'd said. I had saved myself by condemning her. In truth, though, I had condemned both of us. When she made the march to Razor Jenni, I'd walked beside her, though I hadn't known it then. A part of my soul stays trapped in that blade, too. I believe it always will.

Galt is no longer home to me. I am armed, though, and I have money in my purse and new courage in my heart. I'm told the River Kingdoms hold freedom for all, even servants. The road there is a dangerous one, but halflings have learned to survive. I travel when the roads are empty and sleep in ditches when I can. My sleep is untroubled. The nightmares have gone.

Coming Next Week: Varisian scoundrels in the streets of Magnimar in Bill Ward's "The Box."

Amber E. Scott is the author of "The Swamp Warden" and several chapters in "The Compass Stone: The Collected Journals of Eando Kline," as well as numerous Paizo RPG products such as Heart of the Jungle and Halflings of Golarion. She writes from her home in Canada, where she lives with her husband, Jason, and her two cats, Dabu and ZugZug.

Art by Mike Capprotti.

Stealth Playtest, Round Two

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Illustration by Christian Pearce

In case you missed it, a few weeks ago the Pathfinder design team previewed some changes we were considering making to the Stealth skill. Like any design endeavor, game design benefits from iteration. After letting all of you playtest the rules and let us know what you thought of the first draft, we went back to the drawing board and made some changes based on that fantastic feedback.
In this round of playtesting, you'll find that we've cleared up some action issues. We have opened up the possibilities for using standard actions with the Stealth skill, as long as those standard actions do not attack creatures. In this way, the Stealth skill mirrors the rules found in the invisibility spell; at least as far as what actions you can attempt while you are hidden without automatically ending that condition.

Speaking of hidden, while we have kept the invisible condition, and have even strengthened the wording on that condition a bit, we have also created a lesser, connected condition called hidden. You gain the hidden condition when you benefit from Stealth, and you gain the invisible condition when you use a spell or effect that makes you visually undetectable, like the invisibility spell. Hidden is the base condition, and invisible is an upgrade of that condition.

Lastly, we have added some small language changes to explain how the hidden condition interacts with some universal monster rules dealing with senses—specifically blindsense, blindsight, scent, and tremorsense.
Just like the last round of playtesting, keep in mind that these changes are not yet official. While you are free to use them in your home game—and we would like you to do so—these changes are not yet ready for Pathfinder Society play. This time around we are going to give you two weeks to playtest and comment on these proposed changes, so tell us what you think sometime before October 3rd. We'll announce the final version in the Design Tuesday blog sometime after the playtest is completed, and make changes to the rules using the Pathfinder RPG FAQ system.

Stealth

(Dex; Armor Check Penalty) You are skilled at avoiding detection, allowing you to slip past foes or strike from an unseen position. This skill covers hiding and moving silently.

Check: Your Stealth check is opposed by the Perception check of anyone who might notice you. Usually a Stealth check is made at the start of an action when you have some kind of cover (except for soft cover) or concealment. You cannot spend a free action to initiate Stealth, but if you spend a free action while under the effects of Stealth, you must make a new Stealth check to continue its effects. You can always spend a swift action to stay immobile and make a Stealth check. You can move up to half your speed and use Stealth at no penalty. When moving at a speed greater than half your speed and up to your normal speed, you take a –5 penalty on the Stealth check. It's usually impossible to use Stealth while taking an immediate action, a full-round action, or any action to make an attack, unless you are subject to greater invisibility or a similar effect, or you are sniping (see below). When you make your Stealth check, those creatures that didn't succeed at the opposed roll treat you as hidden until the start of your next action or until the end of your turn if you do not end your turn with cover or concealment. You are not hidden from creatures that are observing you (creatures that you didn't have cover or concealment from) or that succeed at the opposed check.
A creature larger or smaller than Medium takes a size bonus or penalty on Stealth checks depending on its size category: Fine +16, Diminutive +12, Tiny +8, Small +4, Large –4, Huge –8, Gargantuan –12, Colossal –16.

Attacking while Hidden: Usually, making an attack against a creature ends the hidden condition. For purposes of Stealth, an attack includes any spell targeting a foe or whose area or effect includes a foe. Actions directed at an unattended object do not end Stealth. Causing harm indirectly is not an attack. If during your last action you were hidden to a creature, you are still considered hidden when you make the first attack of that new action.

Other Perception Checks: If a creature makes a Perception check as a move action to notice a hidden creature, the DC of the Perception check is the hidden creature's last Stealth check. This is also the case if a creature makes a Perception check to notice a hidden creature because the perceiving creature is entering an area where it could possibly notice a hidden creature.

Sniping: If you already are hidden to a target and you are at least 10 feet away from that target, as a standard action, you can make one ranged attack against that target and immediately make an opposed Stealth check to stay hidden. You take a –20 penalty on your Stealth check when attempting to snipe.

Creating a Diversion to Hide: You can use Bluff to allow you to use Stealth. If you do not have cover or concealment, as a swift action, you can attempt a Bluff check opposed by the Sense Motive of opponents that can see you. If you are successful, you are considered to have concealment from those creatures (but you do not gain the percent miss chance from concealment) until the end of your next action, you make an attack (as defined in the Attacking while Hidden section, above), or the end of your turn, whichever happens first.

Action: Usually making a Stealth check is not an action. Using Stealth is part of the action you are taking.

Special: If you are subject to the invisibility or greater invisibility spells or a similar effect, you gain a +40 bonus on Stealth checks while you are immobile, or a +20 bonus on Stealth checks while you're moving. If you have the Stealthy feat, you get a bonus on Stealth checks (see Chapter 5).

Conditions

Hidden: You are difficult to detect but you not invisible. A hidden creature gains a +2 bonus on attack rolls against sighted opponents, and ignores its opponents' Dexterity bonus to AC (if any). You do not have line of sight to a creature or object that is hidden from you.

Invisible: Invisible creatures are visually undetectable. An invisible creature or object gains the benefits of the hidden condition. An invisible object or creature gains total concealment.

Universal Monster Rules

Blindsense (Ex) Using nonvisual senses, such as acute smell or hearing, a creature with blindsense notices things it cannot see. The creature usually does not need to make Perception checks notice hidden creatures or to pinpoint the location of an invisible creature within range of its blindsense ability, provided that it has line of effect to that creature. Any opponent the creature cannot see still has total concealment from the creature with blindsense, and the creature still has the normal miss chance when attacking foes that have concealment. Visibility still affects the movement of a creature with blindsense. A creature with blindsense is still denied its Dexterity bonus to Armor Class against attacks from creatures it cannot see.
Format: blindsense 60 ft.; Location: Senses.

Blindsight (Ex) This ability is similar to blindsense, but is far more discerning. Using nonvisual senses, such as sensitivity to vibrations, keen smell, acute hearing, or echolocation, a creature with blindsight maneuvers and fights as well as a sighted creature. invisibility, darkness, and most kinds of concealment are irrelevant, as is the hidden condition, though the creature must have line of effect to a creature or object to discern that creature or object. The ability's range is specified in the creature's descriptive text. The creature usually does not need to make Perception checks to notice creatures within this range. Unless noted otherwise, blindsight is continuous, and the creature need do nothing to use it. Some forms of blindsight, however, must be triggered as a free action. If so, this is noted in the creature's description. If a creature must trigger its blindsight ability, the creature gains the benefits of blindsight only during its turn.
Format: blindsight 60 ft.; Location: Senses.

Scent (Ex) This special quality allows a creature to detect approaching enemies, sniff out hidden foes, and track by sense of smell. Creatures with the scent ability can identify familiar odors just as humans do familiar sights.
The creature can detect opponents within 30 feet by sense of smell. If the opponent is upwind, the range increases to 60 feet; if downwind, it drops to 15 feet. Strong scents, such as smoke or rotting garbage, can be detected at twice the ranges noted above. Overpowering scents, such as skunk musk or troglodyte stench, can be detected at triple normal range.
When a creature detects a scent, the exact location of the source is not revealed—only its presence somewhere within range. The creature can take a move action to note the direction of the scent. When it is within 5 feet of the source, the creature pinpoints the source's location or notices a hidden creature.
A creature with the scent ability can follow tracks by smell, making a Wisdom (or Survival) check to find or follow a track. The typical DC for a fresh trail is 10 (no matter what kind of surface holds the scent). This DC increases or decreases depending on how strong the quarry's odor is, the number of creatures, and the age of the trail. For each hour that the trail is cold, the DC increases by 2. The ability otherwise follows the rules for the Survival skill. Creatures tracking by scent ignore the effects of surface conditions and poor visibility.
Format: scent; Location: Senses.

Tremorsense (Ex) A creature with tremorsense is sensitive to vibrations in the ground and can automatically notice hidden creatures and objects as well as pinpoint invisible creatures and objects in contact with the ground. Aquatic creatures with tremorsense can also sense the location of creatures moving through water. The ability's range is specified in the creature's descriptive text.
Format: tremorsense 60 ft.; Location: Senses.

Stephen Radney-MacFarland
Designer

The Most Dangerous Site in Gaming

Monday, September 19, 2011

About a decade ago, the unwritten rules for success in the tabletop roleplaying game industry were rewritten by the most dangerous man in gaming. Ryan Dancey, then a vice president at Wizards of the Coast, championed the idea of "open gaming." This idea was clearly crazy. Take the crown jewels of the most popular roleplaying game in history and give them away to your competition, for free? Madness!

In retrospect, it was not so crazy after all. That decision changed the entire industry. Hundreds of publishers, including Paizo, have since taken advantage of Ryan's foresight. The core innovation was the OGL, the Open Gaming License, but the real meat was in the SRD: the System Reference Document, the rules you actually needed to play the game.

The original SRD was a collection of exported Microsoft Word documents. The rules you needed were in there, but it wasn't very user friendly. Over the years, fans have taken it upon themselves to organize and hyperlink that content, earning the enduring gratitude of countless gamers.

When Paizo launched the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, we stood on the shoulders of the giants who came before us. Open gaming is at the heart of everything we do. What better way to help the fans play their favorite game than to publish the rules, for free, in an accessible and hyperlinked format? And so, the PRD was born: Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Reference Document.

We take our commitment to open gaming seriously, so we update the PRD with the open content from each of our new rulebooks. For the release of Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Combat, we decided to put a little extra into our revision. Take a look at the new Pathfinder Reference Document. Now look at it using your phone, or your iPad. Notice anything different? That's right, it doesn't suck anymore! We've put a lot of effort into making it as useable as possible.

I hope this latest presentation of the rules to the world's best roleplaying game makes lots of people happy. Happy people have a way of becoming happy customers, and that's the key to our ability to keep on producing great content for your game.

P.S. The current PRD consists of over 2,000 files and more than 50,000 hyperlinks and is produced by tiny robots from our original InDesign documents, so there are bound to be some problems. Please post here if you find any.

Gary Teter
Software Developer

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Heroes, Not Monsters

Friday, September 16, 2011

All 40 miniatures for December's Pathfinder Battles: Heroes & Monsters are currently in production, and we can't wait to see how the digital renders and practical sculpts (more on those next week) will make the transition to the final product. We've seen the actual production miniatures from the very first nonrandom set, Beginner Box Heroes, and the miniatures actually improved with every step of production, starting with the digital sculpts and moving through the paint master stage to the final production figures.

We've already shown off some of the nastiest critters in Heroes & Monsters, so this week we thought we'd reveal some of the heroes in the set.

Below you'll find digital renders of the Half-Orc Barbarian and Seelah, Iconic Paladin. Remember that the colors on the final miniatures will look a bit darker and more "realistic" than those shown on the digital images below, but the contours of the figures and the general color scheme will give you an excellent idea of how the final miniatures will look.

Next week, we'll take a look at some of the figures in the set that were sculpted practically (rather than digitally), and reveal a little bit about the process of how these miniatures are made.

If you like what you see, head over and preorder your Heroes & Monsters minis today, or take advantage of our brand-new Pathfinder Battles Ongoing Subscription to give yourself the best chance to complete your Heroes & Monsters set before they run out!

Erik Mona Publisher

Pathfinder Fan Fiction Contest Winners!

Thursday, September 15th, 2011

It’s that time again! After many sleepless nights combing through huge snowdrifts of printouts, the good folks over at Pathfinder Chronicler were able to whittle down this year’s entries into the Second Annual Pathfinder Fanfiction Contest to the final five—or rather, due to a tie, the final six:

“Gozreh Provides” by Laura Bowlby
“Bend as the Willow” by Dawn Fischer
“Politics of Hell” by B. R. Bearden
“The Grey Tern” by Andrew Crossett
“Completing the Circle” by Todd Stewart
“Luck's Allegiance” by Alex Lindsay

As has now become tradition, the judges were kind enough to invite me to step in as a guest judge for the last round and cast the deciding vote. All of the candidates did an excellent job—the caliber was truly top-notch, and all six do the fanfic genre proud—but ultimately, only three people could take home the fabulous prizes of $100 in store credit for first place, and $50 each for second and third. And this year’s winners are:

First Place: Andrew Crossett for “The Grey Tern”

Second Place: Todd Stewart for “Completing the Circle”

Third Place: Dawn Fischer for “Bend as the Willow”

Honorable Mention: Though there’s no actual honorable mention prize, I wanted to call out “Luck’s Allegiance” by Alex Lindsay. While the other stories ultimately won on the strength of their writing, Alex really blew me away with his snappy dialogue and sense of adventure.

For a complete list of the Top 20, as well as many more awesome Pathfinder stories, head over to Pathfinder Chronicler. And while we’re on the subject, I want to note that each of the finalists will be appearing in the second Pathfinder Chronicler print anthology. Ted Thompson and the rest of the Chronicler folks really knocked us out last year with their lovingly crafted and high-quality anthology, which included a gorgeous cover by Pathfinder artist Eva Widermann. Well, this year they’ve decided to keep the tradition going with an equally stellar cover from Pathfinder artist Carolina Eade, previewed here for the first time! Both covers are beautiful, and I think I speak for all of us here at Paizo when I say that these are the sorts of things that make us so unbelievably proud of the Pathfinder community. (What’s more, I hear rumors that Ms. Eade will also be providing interior illustrations this year...)

Congratulations to everyone who competed, and I look forward to seeing you all again next year!

James Sutter
Fiction Editor

The Seventh Execution

by Amber E. Scott

Chapter Two: The Faithful False

We retreated into a network of side streets where we could escape if necessary and where we'd easily hear anyone approaching. The night was cool enough to frost our breath. The smell of refuse lingered beneath the familiar city smells of dirt, sweat, horse dung, and boiled potatoes.

When I thought us safe, I turned and held up a hand. “Speak quickly.”

“First let's make certain I have the right person. You are Tibeth, servant at Mirford Manor?”

I nodded, never taking my eyes from the man's face. A muscle in my calf twitched, as if reminding me that flight was still an option.

“My name is Bradach,” he said. “I have traveled many miles and followed convoluted divinations to find Mirford Manor, and you.” He lowered his voice further. “I am on a mission, a dangerous one, involving the house at which you work. I had hoped—”

I held up my hand again. “Before you speak further, you should know that whatever this mission is and however far you've come, you have the wrong person if you think I would do anything to betray my master. He is a good and patriotic man. I would sooner go straight to him with all you've said and risk punishment than be involved in a plot against him.”

Bradach raised an eyebrow. “Your devotion is admirable, and unexpected. Are you not a slave?”

My shoulders lifted and brow furrowed as I took a deep breath. “Servant, if you please. My family has willingly served the Mirford family for three generations. My master appreciates the qualities we bring to his household. In my youth, I was educated and trained in many skills beyond a simple kitchen slave's abilities. So you see, I have no wish to betray the man who has been so kind to me.”

“I do see.” Bradach rubbed his chin. “Yet I must ask, do you know what role your master serves in the city?”

“He is a member of the Revolutionary Council,” I said. “Everyone knows as much. He assists the city in protecting itself and works to uncover those who would harm us.”

“Those who would harm you.” There was no question or malice in Bradach's voice, but I took offense nonetheless.

“Traitors. Sympathizers. Rats that gnaw at the foundation of Galt. My master finds them and has them executed.”

“And every executed person is guilty?”

“Y-yes. Of course, yes.”

"Bradach would undermine the very heart of the Revolution."

“Not a convincing reply.” Bradach's voice was smooth and even, almost gentle. “You're certain only the guilty lie with Razor Jenni?”

“What do you want with me?” I spoke too loudly and cupped my hand over my mouth, hushing myself.

Bradach glanced over his shoulder to ensure we were still alone. “I come from the River Kingdoms. I had expected to find a slave, ill-treated, who would sympathize with my cause. My case may now be harder to make.”

“What,” I repeated, “do you want with me?”

“The River Kingdoms are free, and I wish to spread their message across the land.” Bradach spoke as if he hadn't heard me. “I have my own reasons for wanting to start here. I have researched a spell—it's untested, but I believe it will help release many innocent souls.”

“What is this spell?”

“If you're not willing to help, I'm not sure I should tell you.”

“If you won't tell me, I don't know if I'm willing to help.”

Bradach studied me. I flushed. My quick retort had shown my hand. I was entertaining the idea of helping him, or at least not hindering him. If only he hadn't asked are you certain...

It was her or me!

“The spell,” he finally said, “should release the spirits trapped in Razor Jenni. Though those executed will remain dead, their souls will be freed to travel on to whatever reward or punishment they merit.”

I drew in a sharp breath. The great terror of a final blade is not that it is an instrument of death. As the condemned marches up the wooden steps to where the weighty frame holds its razor edge aloft, his fear comes from the knowledge that there is nothing for him after death. His soul will remain trapped in that bloody blade. It is this fear, my master says, that deters so many from considering or attempting treason.

Then why do so many die? I wanted to ask. If it deters them, then why do so many die? But I dared not ask. Those who ask make that grim march themselves.

“Free their souls...” I whispered.

“Yes.” Bradach's voice grew eager, almost desperate. “To remain trapped forever in that horrible device—I cannot even find words to describe it. Some of those spirits may be guilty, yes, but they were people, people with families, friends... lovers...” He struggled to maintain his composure. “I am here to test the spell. If it works, I will use it to free all such imprisoned. Will you help?”

“What do you need me to do?” I asked.

∗ ∗ ∗

He needed me to betray my master.

Chores always filled my days, and I worked as hard as I could to distract myself from Bradach's proposal. That afternoon I stood in the manor's kitchen, trying to find comfort in the crackling fire. I had not committed myself to Bradach's mission yet, but had asked for time to think about it. Now I wished I had given him either a firm yes or no; the internal debate that kept surfacing in my mind wore me out more quickly than washing windows.

It seemed simple to say no, easy to say no, right to say no. The moment I fixed it in my mind that I would say no, though, Bradach's question resurfaced: Are you certain they were all guilty?

Then I would think of her, and my thoughts would fly apart again.

More than two seasons had passed with no arrests or investigations led by my master. Panic had grown within me. “Those without use to the nation are the first fingered as traitors,” my father always said, and my master had many enemies.

She had arrived in the city the previous week, a human woman traveling alone. I found no relatives of hers in Edme. I followed her. She visited unsavory elements in town, asking questions about noble families executed during the start of the Revolution. One night I observed her prowling around the ruins of an old manor house. She uncovered a book, one of the family ledgers in which the nobles recorded births, weddings, and deaths.

Eager to present my master with someone, I turned her in without further investigation. She was obviously looking for a tie to her family, seeking to prove her noble lineage. The decadent nobility had condemned Galt to years of oppression under imperial rule. To willingly seek out a connection to them was indefensible.

She tried to defend herself. She claimed to be the child not of the noble family, but of the servants who had worked in the manor and had helped overthrow their masters. Her parents, she claimed, were commoners lost in the Revolution, and she was searching for relatives who might have survived. Others had tried such stories before, but she spoke so clearly, so simply, that I believed her.

Or did I? I gasped as I sliced the kitchen knife slid off the carrots and over my finger. Blood pooled on the chopping block. I had no proof of her innocence, but her calmness and certainty in the face of her accusers had caught in my memory.

When she mounted the steps for her final meeting with Razor Jenni, I told myself it was her or me.

“Are you all right?”

I squeaked and spun around. The master stood there, looking at me with concern. He had changed out of his work clothes and into a simple navy robe and slippers. A wooden medallion displaying the flag of Galt hung from his neck. Though I remained young even after my many years of service, he showed signs of age. His face displayed new lines every year, and gray streaked his hair.

“It's nothing, sir,” I said. I wrapped my finger in a handkerchief. “A bit of carelessness on my part.”

“Be careful with yourself. I can't afford to lose my best servant.” He smiled down on me and I nodded. “I'll be leaving in the morning for Isarn. Can you have my things packed and brought down before I retire?”

“Yes, sir.” I swallowed. “That's earlier than usual. Is anything wrong?”

He raised an eyebrow. “A simple schedule accommodation. Should I be concerned about something?”

My mouth was dry. I had to swallow again. “The execution last month... I hope my evidence was sound enough. Those who seek your position might try to discredit you by casting doubt on my findings.”

We had never talked so openly about my work before. Always I reported my investigations to him, clearly and concisely, but said nothing about my motivations, or his. The master crouched down and put a hand on my shoulder. It covered my arm halfway to my elbow.

“Tibeth, there is nothing for you to worry about. Your findings were sound, and had they not been, I would have found ways to compensate.” He squeezed my shoulder lightly. “You continue to find suitable targets and I will ensure there's suitable evidence. I rely on you, you know. You keep both my position and Galt safe.”

My head spun. I thought for a moment I might faint. I forced myself to relax and smoothed the expression from my face. “Yes, sir. I understand.”

He left me standing next to the bloody carrots. I slumped against the counter until the dizziness passed.

For his spell, Bradach needed a bit of heartwood from the tree that died to make Razor Jenni's frame. My master wore a bit of that wood around his neck. I never saw him without it.

I went upstairs to my attic room and laid a handkerchief over the sill as if to dry it, a sign Bradach and I had arranged last night. The wizard would see it and know to meet me in the university quadrangle at midnight. There I would give him the medallion and help set the souls in Razor Jenni free.

∗ ∗ ∗

I stood at the foot of the stairs leading up to my master's room, summoning the courage to take the first step.

In my service to my master, and to Galt, I had followed traitors and seditionists through dark and abandoned streets. I had unlocked windows and searched people's houses for evidence. Once, I had even been forced to fight for my life when I encountered a looter in the building I'd come to search. Still, I had never felt the nervous dread I felt now as I looked up that shadowed staircase.

When I could bear the tension no longer I took the first tentative step. It was easy to make my way silently up the stairs; I knew the creaky boards by heart.

I reached my master's door and stopped. My pulse thrummed in my ears. The door latch stood at shoulder height to me, and I could peer easily through the keyhole. I saw only darkness and heard the even breaths of my master as he slept. When I lifted my hands to the lock, the muscles in my fingers twitched as if rebelling against the act.

I knew of a trap on the door, a simple spring-loaded needle coated in a toxic substance. My master left the trap unset during the day, when I might need to enter his room, and set it every night before sleep. I lit a candle and worked carefully by its meager light. I had seen traps like this before and cautiously traced my way down to the triggering wire. I snipped the wire in half with a tiny blade. I carried the rest of my tools as well as a small dagger, though I could never attack my master. The tumblers in the lock gave me more trouble than the trap did, and it was several minutes before I finally turned the last one over. I blew out the candle and eased the door open.

The familiar objects of the room seemed sinister in the moonlight. The bed, with my master slumbering quietly beneath the quilts, sat in one corner of the room. Four wooden posts, each one twice as tall as I, held up the bedframe. I saw the medallion hanging from its leather strap on the post flush in the corner.

I padded to the side of the bed. My master did not stir. Chill sweat covered my body and made me shiver. I rested my hands on the quilt and, with precise movements, pressed down until I had the leverage to pull myself onto the bed.

My weight was so little that I barely made a dent in the mattress. Still, I waited until I was certain that my master slept soundly before I rose. My shoeless feet found it easy to keep purchase on the lumpy surface. I took slow and shallow breaths between each step, straining to hear any whisper or rustle to signal my master's wakening. I stopped next to the pillows. My master's head rested inches away. He lay on his back, looking untroubled in sleep. Guilt stabbed through me.

Before I could change my mind, I placed one hand on the wall to steady myself and reached with the other. I stretched to my limit until I could grab the medallion with one swift clutch.

It seemed as though a thousand bees stung my palm at once. I howled and fell backward onto the bed. The amulet flew from my grasp. My master woke instantly, bellowing and thrashing in the bedclothes. I rolled off the bed and hit the floor with a gasp, the wind knocked out of me.

I felt a peculiar pang of betrayal. My master had not told me he kept his medallion warded.

A foot crashed down next to my head. I rolled away, sucking in breath as my lungs began to work again. I scrabbled madly on the floor for the medallion. There wasn't much light but I remembered the sound of the medallion landing and followed my instincts.

“Tibeth!” my master shouted. “Tibeth!” It wasn't until afterward that I realized he was probably shouting for me to come, not yet recognizing the thief on the ground before him. I heard him draw a blade from a scabbard. My hand closed over the smooth wood of the medallion.

There was no shock this time. I scrambled to my feet. A sword blade came slicing down. I threw myself to the side. The sword bit into the wooden floor and spat splinters at me. I spun around, disoriented, trying to find the door.

My master raised the sword again and paused, holding the blade aloft. “Tibeth?”

I ran out the door and down the stairs, into the night, holding the medallion before me like a shield.

Coming Next Week: Final blades and first steps in the final chapter of "The Seventh Execution."

Amber E. Scott is the author of "The Swamp Warden" and several chapters in "The Compass Stone: The Collected Journals of Eando Kline," as well as numerous Paizo RPG products such as Heart of the Jungle and Halflings of Golarion. She writes from her home in Canada, where she lives with her husband, Jason, and her two cats, Dabu and ZugZug.

Art by Mike Capprotti.

Pathfinder Battles Subscriptions Go Live!

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Ever since we announced our Pathfinder Battles prepainted fantasy miniatures line in partnership with WizKids, members of the Paizo community have wanted a way to subscribe. Due to the special nature of randomly assorted blind-packaged miniatures produced by another company, it’s taken us about a month to pull together the appropriate website code to make it happen. I’m pleased to announce that today we are ready to reveal the Pathfinder Battles subscription plan, as well as some associated details about how you can make sure you don’t miss the exciting (and extremely limited-edition) Huge Black Dragon premium miniature from December’s Heroes & Monsters set! Best of all, the entire system is ready immediately, and you can begin your Pathfinder Battles ongoing subscription today!

Our new Pathfinder Battles ongoing subscription allows you to specify the number of cases you would like to receive of each major Pathfinder Battles set release. The first set, Heroes & Monsters ships in December, with a follow-up set, Rise of the Runelords, in June. We currently anticipate that future sets will appear about every 4 months.

In addition to major randomly packaged sets, WizKids plans to release several nonrandom Encounter Packs. These packs are not included in your subscription, but your subscription will allow you the opportunity to purchase them at reduced cost.

Each major Pathfinder Battles set will also include at least one limited-edition premium miniature. For Heroes & Monsters, the premium miniature is the fearsome Huge Black Dragon ($14.99), usually available only to retailers on a 1-per-case basis.

Your ongoing Pathfinder Battles subscription provides the following benefits:

• The right to purchase one limited-edition case premium miniature at 75% off its normal retail price per case ordered.
• Discount code good for 20% off our price on one Encounter Pack per case ordered.
• 20% off our price on paizo.com purchases of loose, unpackaged Pathfinder Battles miniature singles to help you fill in your collection.

We expect all of our Pathfinder Battles sets to sell out relatively quickly, as the red-hot demand for this product has exceeded our expectations. An ongoing Pathfinder Battles subscription is your best chance to get the latest figures before they run out!

Sign up today to ensure that your Pathfinder Battles ongoing subscription starts with the very first release, Heroes & Monsters. Only those who preorder by October 1st and subscribers will be guaranteed a chance to purchase the Huge Black Dragon premium miniature, so we encourage interested parties to preorder or subscribe as soon as they can. We will continue to offer Heroes & Monsters as the starting point of your subscription as long as we can guarantee that we will have enough premium miniatures to cover subscriber demand. When this is no longer the case, we will shift subscriptions to begin with the following release.

We’ve assembled a handy Frequently Asked Questions to cover the subscription plan in greater detail, and plan to monitor the comment thread of this blog post to handle any questions we haven’t thought of yet.

Thanks for your patience with us as we’ve put this new subscription option into place. We hope you’ll consider it worth the wait. You won’t have to wait much longer, though, for the Heroes & Monsters are on the march!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Something is Coming!

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Stay tuned. Something is coming. Something awesome.

Pathfinder Society Welcomes New Campaign Coordinator, Venture-Captains!

Monday, September 12, 2011

On Thursday of last week, Paizo announced the hiring of Mike Brock as the new Pathfinder Society Campaign Coordinator. Mike has been one of the campaign's most prolific and successful regional coordinators in Atlanta, Georgia since the venture-captain program was launched a year ago, and we're all excited to see what great new innovations he can bring to the Pathfinder Society Organized Play campaign as a whole. Mike won't start for another few weeks, as moving from Atlanta to Seattle is quite an endeavor, so hold off on asking for rules clarifications and the like, but feel free to congratulate him and wish him the best of luck here or on the existing congratulations thread.

In addition to announcing Mike as the new Campaign Coordinator, it's also my pleasure to announce another wave of venture-captains! Some of these newly appointed regional coordinators will be working in areas that have long been crying out for a venture-captain, while some will be stepping into the rather large shoes left empty when Mike leaves Atlanta to come work at Paizo HQ. If you're in one of these venture-captains' regions, drop them a line to see how you can help grow Pathfinder Society in your area. Conversely, if there still isn't a venture-captain in your region, check out the details on applying for the position here.

Atlanta, GA
Kyle and Nani Pratt
kyle.pratt@georgiapfs.org & nani.o.pratt@georgiapfs.org

Boston, MA
Don Walker
BostonPFS@gmail.com

Dallas/ Ft. Worth, TX
Jon Cary
DFWVentureCaptain@gmail.com

Iowa City, IA
Todd Morgan
PFSIowa@gmail.com

Washington, DC
Dan Simons
pfsventurecaptaindc@gmail.com

Congrats again to Mike and all six of our new venture-captains, and thanks for all your hard work thus far! The Pathfinder Society is in good hands and can only get better from here.

Mark Moreland
Developer

Heroes & Monsters Preview

Friday, September 9, 2011

We're only a month away from the release of our very first prepainted miniatures set, Beginner Box Heroes! Production samples of the actual final miniatures arrived in our offices last week, and everyone here was absolutely amazed by the quality WizKids was able to put into the models. People are going to flip out when they see the intricate patterns on the back of iconic cleric Kyra's cape or the fine details of iconic thief Merisiel's armor. I know it's difficult to believe until you're actually holding the minis in your hand, but a lot of folks here at Paizo—no strangers to prepainted miniature collecting—have called these the best-looking prepainted miniatures they have ever seen.

Very soon, we will be posting high-quality photos of the production samples so you can see these beautiful miniatures yourselves. Also very soon, we will be posting details of how you can subscribe to our ongoing miniatures line, Pathfinder Battles, and how you can preorder or subscribe to make sure you have a chance to get the exclusive limited-edition Huge Black Dragon special miniature that crowns our first full set of Pathfinder Battles miniatures, Heroes & Monsters.

Until then, I thought I'd tide you over with a look at digital renders of two of the nastiest critters in the Heroes & Monsters set, the Lich and the Medusa! WizKids is presently working on making these digital renders into molds from which the production minis will be cast. The final colors on the models themselves will look a little more "realistic" than the images you see here, but the outlines of the figures themselves and the general color scheme are right on the money.

Stay glued to the Paizo Blog for regular updates and image reveals of the additional miniatures in the Heroes & Monsters set, and order or subscribe by October 1st to make sure you get a chance to purchase the Huge Black Dragon!

Until then, feast your eyes on these treacherous bad guys, but do yourself a favor and don't stare into the eyes of the Medusa!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Illustration by Kieran Yanner. Widescreen version here.

Planets in Peril!

Thursday, September 8, 2011

The latest release from Planet Stories, Robert Silverberg's The Planet Killer's: Three Novels of the Spaceways, is now blasting off from the Paizo warehouse. Kieran Yanner, who has illustrated all three of our Silverberg omnibuses with an eye-catching, nostalgic look, is in top retro-SF form once again in this new Planet Stories wallpaper!

Christopher Carey
Editor

The Seventh Execution

by Amber E. Scott

Chapter One: The Watcher Watched

Her or me. It was her or me.

After the execution, after too many sleepless nights, afraid to face the waiting nightmares, I had to put the matter behind me.

"It was her or me," I declared, then made myself believe it. If I stopped, though, if I ceased whispering my mantra under my breath when I was alone, if I left off repeating it in my mind until I nodded off at night, the horror of the day returned. It seeped into my thoughts in sudden and startling ways. Firelight glinting on a kitchen knife recalled Razor Jenni's blade. Wagon wheels rumbling on the cobblestone street brought back the murmuring crowd. Raw meat on the cutting block, waiting for dinner—

Her or me.

I had worked hard all day. Now that night had come I found that sleep would not visit. I lay motionless on my cot, eyes fixed on the ceiling, listening to the house settle around me. This used to be my favorite time of day, when I could rest my body and free my mind, letting my fancies take me to lands free from toil and fear. Now my fancies took me to very different places. I distracted myself by running through the list of chores for the next day: stop the wood-cart when it came around and purchase two bundles on account, put a roast in at noon so that it would be ready for dinner, take the curtains down in the library and wash and press them, clean the windows while the curtains hung on the line. I hated windows more than any other chore. While a stepstool and creative leveraging allowed me to do human-sized tasks in every other area of the master's house, windows required a ladder and endless climbing up and down.

I'd lifted a pot full of soup earlier that day and aggravated an old strain in my back. My head pounded like the drums before an execution. I sat up. The moonlight coming through the gabled window illuminated the old boxes and trunks piled in the room. Most halfling servants have to be content with half-rooms under stairs, attached sheds half the height of the rest of the house, or even cupboards. To sleep in an attic, even one with a close and slanted ceiling and mice that ran over me in the middle of the night, was luxury.

I rose from my cot and stretched, trying to ease my aches. The floorboards felt cool under the curls of hair covering my feet. I padded to the window and leaned on the sill.

The quiet streets of Edme stretched away, disappearing into a maze of stone walls and peaked roofs. I often stood here, looking for furtive movements or cloaked figures, any signs that Cheliax worked to invade our free nation with their bound devils and sorcery. My father had served my master's father and remembered the start of the Red Revolution and the oppression that came before it. When others were in earshot, he would tell me stories of Chelish dominance and the nobles' excesses, a time when halflings were downtrodden "slips" and not respected servants. When we were alone, he cautioned me that those without use to the nation were the first fingered as traitors.

"As long as you keep finding spies and turncoats for the master, you'll never find yourself in Razor Jenni's arms."

"In Galt, it's best to never be noticed at all. Fortunately, halflings are good at that."

There are always traitors in Galt. I had become an expert at spotting them by the darkness in their eyes and the rhythm of their gait. My master traveled to Isarn once a month to serve on the Revolutionary Council, and he used my eyes to improve his standing there. Together we had sent six traitors and Chelish sympathizers to their final rest. Six that I am certain were guilty.

And one that I am not.

My mind threatened to sprint down those familiar paths once more. I focused instead on the dark street below, watching for unusual activity. The moon was out, just past half full and waxing. My eyes quickly adjusted to the little light. Edme's resources grew leaner with each passing season, and more than one citizen crept out at night to rifle through abandoned houses. My perch allowed me to watch for such activity, and my experience helped me separate desperate looters from dedicated traitors.

I stayed at the window until I started shivering. I stretched, and was ready to return to my cot when movement in the street below caught my eye.

I stopped in mid-stretch, holding myself still. A human figure crouched in the alley across the street, wrapped in a dark cloak and hood. I couldn't see the figure's face, but his height and manner of dress suggested it was a man. I watched, waiting to see what business the fellow had so late. He pressed against the wall of the alley, motionless save for small movements of his head as he surveyed the street. The man's focus was not on the street itself, but only the building opposite him. The building in whose attic I stood, watching him in return.

He was spying on my master's house.

He must have seen me, I thought, before recalling how difficult it is to see inside an upper-story window from the ground, especially when the person at the window stands only head and shoulders above the sill.

The watcher looked up just as I stepped back. I hesitated, wondering whether he had seen me after all, fighting the temptation to step forward again and make sure I had gone unnoticed. No, no time for that. I grabbed my cloak from its peg near the door and hurried down the stairs.

My sleeping clothes are almost identical to my working ones: a thin shirt and brown linen trousers. My cloak, though, is dark blue-gray, purposefully dyed to help me blend into the night. I threw the cloak over my shoulders and pulled it tight in front. I don't wear shoes. I let myself out the back door not more than two minutes after I had first spotted the watcher.

Halfling senses are sharper than human ones. We can't see any better in the dark, but we're attuned to details. Especially here in Galt, where we live so close to death, halflings must remain alert.

I crept along the side of the manor until the mouth of the alley opposite me came into view. It stood empty. I could hear footsteps, though, muffled and growing fainter. I dashed across the street, my feet almost noiseless against the cobblestones.

I had to work to catch up. Even at top speed I moved slower than humans did. My biggest advantage was that the watcher didn't seem to know the city well, while I could navigate the streets with my eyes closed. The moon vanished behind clouds twice, and the tall buildings around me cut off much of the light. Several times I had to slow down lest I trip in the dark or splash through a puddle. My heart beat a little faster every time I had to slow. The watcher's footsteps grew fainter. If I didn't make up the distance quickly, I was going to lose him.

The watcher's footsteps doubled back. The remains of an old lecture hall loomed before me. It had burned down at the start of the revolution. Sooty timbers leaned drunkenly toward each other. Puddles of rainwater glimmered between piles of broken glass and charred rubble. I held my breath and listened. The scent of old fire stung my nose. The watcher was south of me, circling around the building. I tucked the hem of my cloak into my waistband and climbed into the ruins.

I scrambled up one of the leaning timbers. The wood, soaked with countless rains, was rotten and soft as a carpet. The timber collided with one of its fellows at a crazy angle. I leaped from one to the other. My feet slid on the sodden wood, and I windmilled my arms to keep balance. When I'd righted myself I paused, listening. The watcher was still moving.

The timber shifted a little as I ran down its length. A mess of fallen boards crossed the center of the room. I clung to the timber and slid over the edge. Carefully I dropped down onto the boards. Mud and broken glass lay thick around them. I hastened across, my breathing coming quick and ragged as I picked each careful step.

One of the boards slid out from under me. I hopped to another, hoping it would hold. The planks clattered. I froze and listened.

The watcher stopped. I bent my knees and huddled as close as I could to the ground, envisioning the fastest way out of the building and back home.

Then the watcher started up again. I gave him as much lead as I dared before continuing across the ruin. I reached the other side just as he approached. I breathed a little more easily. Now I could keep up with him for certain. I concealed myself behind a pile of rubbish and waited for him to pass.

At the same time, I heard more footsteps from the other end of the street. Quiet boots, low voices, a sharp laugh. Looters. Most criminals in Edme were driven by desperation, but lately more sordid individuals had come to the city. They were violent men who followed rumors of abandoned treasure-vaults. I hesitated in the shadows. Before I could decide what to do next, the watcher darted straight for my hiding place.

As I had guessed, he was a human man. The moonlight robbed his form of color, but it seemed his skin was a light brown shade similar to my own, and his hair and eyes were both dark. He pressed against the wall and slid down to conceal himself behind the refuse pile I was using. I held my breath and, for a wild moment, thought he might not notice me.

Then the watcher looked down and saw me crouched next to him. His eyes widened.

The sounds of the looters grew louder. I put my finger to my lips and shook my head.

The watcher nodded and kept silent. The looters came abreast of us, three of them dressed in dark clothes with weapons held openly in hand. They carried empty packs strapped to their backs, waiting no doubt to be filled with artifacts of pre-Revolution Galt. The watcher held still next to me, so tense I could almost hear his muscles hum. After a dreadful minute, the looters passed by into the darkness.

The watcher let out his breath in a sigh and straightened. He was short for a human, less than twice my height. "I appreciate your silence," he whispered.

"I've no wish to run afoul of that type," I replied. "You take a risk being out so late."

"As do you." He looked me over. "You've been following me, haven't you?"

I clenched my hands. The man had good ears to have heard me, and I had lost any element of surprise. I readied myself to run, but risked a direct question first. "You were watching the Mirford estate. I want to know why."

The watcher smiled. He crouched down to put himself at eye level with me.

"I was looking for you."

Coming Next Week: Moral quandaries and dark magic in Chapter Two of "The Seventh Execution."

Amber E. Scott is the author of "The Swamp Warden" and several chapters in "The Compass Stone: The Collected Journals of Eando Kline," as well as numerous Paizo RPG products such as Heart of the Jungle and Halflings of Golarion. She writes from her home in Canada, where she lives with her husband, Jason, and her two cats, Dabu and ZugZug.

Art by Mike Capprotti.

Beginner Box Sneak Preview

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Learning to play the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game is about to get easier than ever before, as in just a few short weeks the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Beginner Box hits the shelves of a game store near you! With the imminent release of this mighty boxed set—filled to bursting with easy-to-master rules, multiple adventures, creature tokens, dice, a Flip-Mat play surface, pregenerated character sheets, tons of tools to start building your own campaign, and much, much more—here's the first of several previews to whet your appetite for innovative new ways to tell the stories you've always wanted to tell and bring the adventure of tabletop roleplaying to whole new audiences.

To start things off, check out a few pages from the Bestiary chapter of the new Game Master's Guide, or one of the four pregenerated character sheets included in the set, this one detailing everything you'll need to play the dauntless cleric Kyra.

Game Master's Guide Bestiary Preview: From the heart of the Beginner Box's 94-page Game Master's Guide, here are eight fearsome and familiar foes, exhibiting just a hint of their streamlined rules, and proving that easy to use doesn't mean any less deadly. Download the PDF preview (1.6 MB zip/pdf)

Cleric Pregenerated Character Sheet Preview: What good is a pregenerated character if you don't know how to use it? Check out a complete Beginner Box pregenerated character sheet, designed to not only allow players to dive into the action immediately, but also explain each key ability and character feature at a glance, making sure players are spending their time adventuring, not looking up rules. This sample sheet is only one of four included in the Beginner Box. Download the PDF preview (1.8 MB zip/pdf)

The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Beginner Box releases this October, but be sure to check back right here in the coming weeks for more details, discussions, and exciting revelations about the newest and most exciting way to learn and play the Pathfinder RPG!

Wes Schneider
Managing Editor

Illustration by Dmitry Burmak and Daryl Mandryk. Widescreen version here.

For Glory, Not Gold!

Friday, September 2, 2011

A lot of folks have long been clamoring for more Norse-inspired gaming goodness, and we've got that coming for you to the axe-hilt in the upcoming Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Lands of the Linnorm Kings. To get you in that northern Inner Sea mood in the meantime, here's an awesome Linnorm Kings wallpaper featuring the art of Dmitry Burmak and Daryl Mandryk.

Christopher Carey
Editor

Free Stuff on Our Website!

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Check out our Community Use Package!

So some of you may or may not know that we updated some parts of our Community Use Package the other day. Some of you may or may not know what that even means, which is a darn shame, since we put out some really cool, really free stuff that people don't even know about. In addition to the Player's Guides for each new Adventure Path we put out every six months, below is a list of some neato things that we put on our site that you can use for free under our Community Use Policy.

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Reference Document
At Gen Con, I realized that a lot of people didn't know that you don't even need to buy most of our products to enjoy them, and that we put up all our rules on our own website for free. It's kind of this insane marketing scheme we have, where we like our customers so much that we give you all the rules you need to play our game for free, and it totally works. It's called the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Reference Document, and it's a giant archive of all our rules, so that you can play the game without even opening your book up. It's searchable, official, totally free, and updated often.

Community Use Package
The Community Use Package consist of files we provide freely on our website, including big ol' maps of our world, symbols to put on your own maps, character sheets, and other cool icons and logos to use as you may. We're pretty down with our fans using things we make to express their appreciation for our products, and you can use a lot of our campaign setting stuff for your own needs as long as you comply with our Community Use Policy.

Pathfinder Society Introductory Scenarios
Pathfinder Society Organized Play is getting pretty popular. We just kicked off Season 3 of Pathfinder Society a couple months ago, and to commemorate the event we released three free full-length scenarios to introduce new and veteran players alike to the exciting world of our organized play campaign! Scroll down to the bottom of the linked page here and check them out! In addition, you can get yourself a free copy of the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play on our website as well.

Free RPG Day
If you don't know about Free RPG Day already, you've been missing out. But that's okay! Because you can still download the products we release on these esteemed occasions on our website. Our last Free PRG Day product was the module We Be Goblins, which is an absolute blast, and in the past we've put out the much-acclaimed Master of the Fallen Fortress module and the Pathfinder RPG Bonus Bestiary, which includes plenty of baddies to throw at your players.

Patrick Renie
Developer