A short and sweet preview blog this week, focusing on some of the Large miniatures in the upcoming Rise of the Runelords set of Pathfinder Battles prepainted plastic miniatures. We’re still sorting out the fine details of product format and exact release date, so again, there’s no product page for this set, although I have reason to believe that we’ll have good news to report on that front shortly.
In the meantime, I have more images of paint masters to show you! This time, I’m taking a tight focus on stone giants, the major threat of the fourth chapter of the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path, “Fortress of the Stone Giants,” by Wolfgang Baur!
If you’ve got a copy of that adventure, take a look at the cover. You’re about to see a lot of it in glorious three dimensions. Starting here:
This Stone Giant is a spitting image of a creature from the Wayne Reynolds cover of “Fortress of the Stone Giants,” and I think he may be one of the best prepainted stone giants ever created in plastic. Because you will need a lot of them, these guys are at the uncommon rarity.
You fight a lot of stone giants in “Fortress of the Stone Giants,” and some of them have different statistics. For that reason and to mix things up visually, we’ve included the uncommon Stone Giant Champion, complete with a boulder raised high to crush your player characters.
Also from the cover, the Dire Bear makes a great companion to a band of stone giants, or as a “special friend” for your druid character. He’s also a Large uncommon.
The spellcasting stone giant Mokmurian is one of the primary villains of “Fortress of the Stone Giants,” and WizKids did an excellent job bringing him to life in three dimensions. Note the clear blue magical energy flaming from Mokmurian’s right hand, as well as the complex gold pectoral, belts, armbands, and skirt hem on this miniature. This rare miniature makes a wonderful leader for your Pathfinder Battles stone giant warband, and we’re thrilled to have him in the set.
There are, of course, more giants in the Rise of the Runelords set, but those will have to wait for future Fridays!
2012 marks Paizo’s 10th anniversary. I plan to do monthly blogs for the rest of the year that relive the highlights (and some of the lowlights) from our first ten years of business, and then I’ll take a look into the future as the year comes to a close. There will be side anecdotes and hopefully more than a few embarrassing pictures. And at the end of it all, I hope our readers will have a better sense of where Paizo has been—and where we’re going!
The paizo.com home page in 2002.
The seeds of Paizo Publishing were planted in late 2000: I was working at Wizards of the Coast as the Brand Manager for Star Wars when the seemingly annual Christmas layoffs claimed me as their victim. As I was walking around the building saying my goodbyes to a lot of good friends, I mentioned to a few of them that I thought Hasbro might decide to divest themselves of parts of their business in the next few years and, if that were to happen, they should feel free to give me a call.
My partner Vic had recently departed his previous job as well, so 2001 was a year of relaxing for us; we traveled a bit and spent a lot of time building up our Star Wars collection. But by the end of the year, the two of us were stir crazy. So we were both relieved when, shortly before Christmas, Johnny Wilson, Group Publisher for the Periodicals division at Wizards of the Coast, called me to let me know that Wizards wanted to divest itself of its magazine business, which at the time included Dragon, Dungeon, and Star Wars Insider magazines, as well as the Official Star Wars Fan Club for Lucasfilm. I was a longtime subscriber to Dragon and Dungeon, so that was right up my alley, and the thought of running the Star Wars Fan Club and publishing Star Wars Insider excited both Vic and myself. Our own experience with magazines was limited, but Johnny had been in magazines for ages, so we felt we had our bases covered.
We met with Johnny in early 2002 to start planning the company. Johnny taught us what he called the “three-legged stool” model of the magazine business. Magazines needed income from three sources: subscriptions, newsstand sales, and advertising. If you ever let one of those three “legs” suffer, the whole would become unstable. (It took us a couple of years to figure out that there was a major problem with this model, but that’s a topic for a future installment.)
One of the earliest decisions we made was naming our new company. Johnny, being a religious scholar, had the name “Paizo”—biblical Greek for “I play”—floating around in his head for a number of years. It fit our gaming company nicely, and we could get a trademark for it, so we settled on it quickly. Of course, if we would have realized how easily it was going to be mispronounced over the years (pay-zo, pi-at-zoe, paz-zo, even pee-zo) we might have changed our minds and settled on something easier to pronounce.
We went over the financials Johnny had, and it looked like a promising business. Over the next few months, we had numerous meetings with Wizards and Lucasfilm, both of whom approved our plans, so we were good to go! We set up Paizo Publishing as an LLC with three owners: myself, Vic Wertz, and Johnny Wilson.
Paizo's first office was on the far right of the ground floor of this building in Bellevue.
We had our first bit of great luck when our real estate agent found us an office space that had been vacated in a rush by another company—it was still fully furnished, including desks, chairs, a photocopier, and even a postage machine. We paid the landlord $1 for all of the equipment, a fantastic deal which kept getting better as we explored our new digs—we found a $20 bill in one of the drawers, and there was over $100 in prepaid postage in the postage machine! We’ve moved twice since then, and the postage machine is long gone, but we still use the copier and a lot of the furniture—it was the best dollar we’ve ever spent.
We took over the entire magazine division from Wizards lock, stock, and barrel—all of the department’s employees signed on with Paizo, and Wizards gave us a nice deal on their computers, office supplies, printers, back issues, and pretty much anything else we could load into our moving truck. We made a couple new hires to round out our administrative staff, and we officially started operations on July 1, 2002.
Our initial staff was as follows:
Administrative Team
Lisa Stevens: CEO
Johnny Wilson: Publisher
Vic Wertz: Technical Director
Mary Franklin: Director of Operations and Marketing
Wailam Wilson: Corporate Admin
Publishing Team
John Dunn: Director of Production
Pierce Watters: Circulation Director
Jefferson Dunlap: Prepress Supervisor
Theresa Cummins: Production Specialist
Dawnelle Miesner: Ad Traffic Manager
Dragon Team
Jesse Decker: Editor-in-Chief
Matt Sernett: Editor
Stacie Fiorito (now Magelssen): Associate Editor
Lisa Chido: Art Director
Dungeon Team
Chris Thomasson (now Youngs): Editor
Erik Mona: Editor
Kyle Hunter: Art Director
Star Wars Insider Team
Dave Gross: Editor-in-Chief
Michael Mikaelian: Managing Editor
Vic Wertz: Editor
Scott Ricker (now Okumura): Art Director
Scott Ricker (now Okumura) looking up from his gig art directing Star Wars Insider.
We continued the production schedule that Wizards had set up for the magazines, and finished the issues they had in the pipeline as we worked on their followups. The first all-Paizo issue of Dragon was #299, followed by the milestone 300th issue, which included a special sealed-content section covering The Book of Vile Darkness. In all, we produced four issues of Dragon that year.
Dungeon was bimonthly at the time and had two issues come out under Paizo’s watch in 2002. Issue 95 also had a sealed-content section like its sister periodical. Dungeon garnered Paizo our first ENnie Award, for Best Aid/Accessory.
We did quite a lot with Star Wars Insider and the Official Star Wars Fan Club in 2002. We brought the Bantha Tracks fan section back to the magazine for the first time since the late 1970s. It had also been a while since the Fan Club had done a membership kit, and we put together a great one. It included the following:
Official Star Wars Fan Club Membership Card
Letter to members from George Lucas
Exclusive 3-D fold-together mini-standee
Three travel destination postcards from the galaxy far, far away
Travel stickers from exotic Star Wars destinations
A letter from myself as the President of the Official Star Wars Fan Club
We also were able to procure the official Attack of the ClonesIMAX posters and banners to sell to Star Wars fans everywhere (heck, we still have them available for sale today). We also managed to arrange a great subscriber premium, a limited-edition LEGO TIE Fighter Mini Building Set.
But things weren’t all rosy. While Johnny knew everything about actually producing magazines, it turns out that he had never been exposed to any of the financial details. In particular, newsstand distribution terms were far more complicated than we’d anticipated. It took us a while to find an accountant that could make sense of the hideously complex reports we were getting, which thoroughly obfuscated the answers to seemingly simple questions such as “how much do we get paid, and when?” Once we negotiated our way though it all, we realized that the time it took to get paid for a given issue was many months longer than Johnny expected, and the distribution fees involved were also higher than we’d been led to believe. That meant that we were going to have to stretch our startup capital much longer than we’d intended.
Also, along with the Star Wars Fan Club, we had inherited the phone number 1-800-TRUE-FAN, which was printed as part of a “join the Fan Club” blurb on the back of every Star Wars product produced in the previous few years. That seemed like good marketing, but it really meant that we were paying a lot of money to answer calls from five-year-olds who wanted to talk to Luke Skywalker, or from slightly more sophisticated nine-year-olds hoping to speak with George Lucas. We dropped the 800 number as soon as we could reasonably phase it out.
Paizo receives its first ENnie as part of the second annual ENnie Awards, held on a makeshift stage in the hallway of the MECCA during the last Gen Con in Milwaukee. Left to right: Eric Noah, Russell Morrissey, Erik Mona, Chris Thomasson (now Youngs), Ryan Dancey
We had also continued using the out-of-house subscription fulfillment service that Wizards had used for the magazines, and we soon learned that their costs were much higher than we’d expected. They handled all customer service related to subscriptions, and charged us based on each customer contact—there was a fee for every letter, email, and phone call they received, and another fee for every reply they made. We soon realized that meant they had no incentive to solve problems quickly—in fact, they’d make more money if it took multiple contacts to resolve an issue! It became clear that we’d save a lot of money—and provide better service—if we could bring subscriptions and customer service in-house. That became our first major goal for 2003.
We ended the year with a multi-course holiday dinner for the employees at my favorite restaurant at the time, Gene’s Ristorante in Renton. Chef Charles Maddrey created a feast for us, and lots of wine and beer were served. Even though things weren’t working out exactly as planned, we were hopeful and wanted to celebrate the founding of Paizo and looked forward to what the new year would bring!
Employees who started later in 2002:
Grace Liang, Corporate Accountant
David Erickson, Corporate Accountant
Matt Beals, Lead Prepress Operator
Employees who left in 2002:
Jefferson Dunlap, Prepress Supervisor
Grace Liang, Corporate Accountant
For myself, 2002 will always be remembered for the excitement of starting something new and for the realization that I had a lot to learn when it came to the magazine business.
Lisa Stevens CEO
The Paizo Company Logo
Once we had settled on the name of the company, Johnny had Art Director Kyle Hunter take a stab at some logos for the newly minted corporation. There were two basic styles: one was a calligraphy letter pi fused with a smoke monster, and the other was the same letter pi in the shape of the now familiar golem. Each of these creatures was given varying sets of eyes to convey different moods. From top left: Fangeye, Cyclops, Grin, Glare, Shades, Mongo, Spacey and Vigilant (the logo we ended up choosing). With the design settled, Kyle then did a number of different color treatments. We eventually went with the now-familiar “Paizo purple,” although Kyle was angling for the rusty color you can see in the bottom sample of his business card.
Kyle Hunter’s first takes at a Paizo logo and designs for the first Paizo business card (in a few different color schemes). We ended up picking the business card design on the far right of the second row.
Erik’s Memories of Year One
The first half of 2002 was a strange time to work at Wizards of the Coast. On one hand, the Hasbro purchase was still recent, and the luster of big bonuses and watching friends with lots of seniority get new cars and houses was still relatively fresh. On the other hand, Wizards was busily streamlining their business to focus on “core competencies,” and starting in 2000, lots of people lost their jobs in a series of layoffs.
Erik Mona and Kyle Hunter discover a haunt near their desks.
Despite individual successes at work, there was a strong undercurrent of “I’m sure I’m going to be fired soon” that seemed that year to be even more potent than it had been in the past couple of years. I had only recently been transferred from the RPGA Network to the Periodicals Department, and the two magazines I was shepherding at the time—Polyhedron and the Living Greyhawk Journal—had become sections of Dungeon and Dragon, respectively. I was really enjoying the challenge of integrating these sections, and was doing some of the most fun creative editorial work of my career, but it soon became clear that magazines were not a safe place to work when the company was paring its focus to just its core game business.
About this time, our Group Publisher, Johnny Wilson, began whispering about his plan to save everyone’s jobs and ensure that the venerable magazines of Dungeons & Dragons would continue indefinitely. He had found some investors interested in taking over the magazine business in the likely event that Wizards cut it off, and in his impish way he named the effort “La Cosa Nostra,” or “our thing.” Yes, that’s also the name of the Mafia, but Johnny has an evil sense of humor for a guy as religious as he is, and he’d rub his hands together while talking about his diabolical plan. Coming from between his rosy cherub cheeks, his words filled us all with hope at a time when it was in extremely limited supply around the office.
I was much relieved to learn that Johnny’s mystery investors turned out to be Lisa Stevens and Vic Wertz, two of my earliest Seattle friends. Lisa gave me my first real break in the industry as a continuity consultant for the Greyhawk products she was managing in the late 1990s, and I knew that she and Vic knew enough about business and were the kind of game-loving advocates that it would take to make a project like this work.
Chris Thomasson (now Youngs) and Erik Mona at the Paizo booth, Gen Con 2002.
They were (and are) major Star Wars collectors, and many of us around the office joked that the real reason Vic and Lisa wanted to run the magazine business was to add Star Wars Insider to their considerable Star Wars collection, but my time working on Greyhawk with Lisa convinced me that the Dragon and Dungeon elements were just as important—if not more important—to their interests. I wasn’t worried at all. In fact, once I learned Lisa and Vic were our potential saviors, the only real question was when we were going to move out of the building. My stress evaporated with that revelation, and as I recall things, we were all pretty excited about moving on to the next phase of our professional lives.
As it happens, I am a collector too, so one of my favorite early Paizo memories involved physically loading up all of the department’s assets into a moving truck headed to the new Paizo offices. Johnny suggested that we leave all of the back issues at Wizards, mostly because hauling them all down to the truck would take hours of physical labor, and nobody really wanted all those old magazines anyway. Lisa and I refused to let that happen, knowing just how valuable those dozens of boxes would be, and how criminal it would have been to throw them away. So long after most of the staff had gone home, Lisa, Vic, and I (and perhaps others I can no longer remember) worked into the early morning hours to load those back issues onto the truck.
Even as we loaded them up, Lisa explained (and I well knew) that we weren’t just salvaging the old issues for nostalgia. “Someday we’ll have a website where we can sell these to people who want them,” she said. “We are going to make a ton of money off of these things.”
We still sellthose back issues today. That website grew to become paizo.com, one of the internet’s leading hobby stores. Even from the very beginning, Lisa showed that the company would be managed with a balance of genuinely geeky love for the game and strong business sense. It’s the main reason I’ve stuck around here every year since that first night we loaded up the truck with old back issues, and it’s the reason why the company has been able to survive and grow stronger far longer than many companies in this industry.
Erik Mona Publisher
Lisa Stevens at the Paizo booth, inside the Wizards castle at Gen Con 2002.
Dave Gross checks out the new Paizo digs before we move in. (The photocopier in the back is part of the best dollar we ever spent.)
Jesse Decker with a coveted window seat.
Matt Sernett doing his best to ignore the camera.
Johnny’s wife Wailam Wilson holds down the front of the office.
The innwife woke me at dawn. I’d spent the night beside the fire. Someone had picked my pocket during the night, so the gold Norret had given me was gone. All I had left was the little horn spoon.
The innwife made it clear that if I bought breakfast or even ale, I could stay, but if not, I should go. I left, stepping out into the cold morning.
Cries of “Gardyloo!” came from up and down the street. Maids and goodwives threw open windows, emptying chamber pots. Piss and night soil spattered the cobbles, running down to the grate that led to the sewers below. Horrible stories were told about those sewers, but nothing could be more awful than the stench. I wished I had one of the paper nosegays Norret and I had spent hours making, but had to make do with the woodsmoke on my clothes.
A moment later, I realized I was crying.
I bit my lip and forced the tears back. Life in Galt was harsh, and I had no illusions. Madame Eglantine was a witch, and she’d warned us not to pry into her business. What that business was, I could only guess. Summoning devils like the vile Chelaxians? Worshiping nightmares from beyond the stars? Smuggling nobles out of Galt?
Whatever it was, it was awful enough that my brother had decided to do something about it. But the witch had won.
How she had won was the question. My brother could be injured, dead, drugged, or even turned into a toad for the witch to feed flies and taunt.
Given Madame Eglantine’s ties with the Revolutionary Council, the cruelest possibility was that he would join the next cart of condemned to feed the guillotine.
The window of the uppermost gable of the house at the top of the street popped open and a familiar female voice cried out a warning. The night soil flew down and the window snapped shut, the little diamond panes frosted from the inside to ensure the old woman’s privacy.
She was unusually late. Normally Madame Eglantine would have done this before dawn, giving her time to go down to the kitchen and fix breakfast for the guests.
I steeled my courage and made my way back to the familiar house. I slipped in as one of the other boarders stepped out—the old wizard Norret had got the manuscript from, off to take his morning constitutional before returning for breakfast.
The rooms Norret and I had shared were bare as when we moved in. The only change was a pile of ashes in the grate. The air smelled strongly of irises and alchemist’s fire.
I made my way to the dining room. The other boarders greeted me kindly, inquiring as to when Norret would be by and how his research was going. I shrugged. The old wizard returned shortly, reeking of cherry tobacco and snuff.
A half-hour late, Madame Eglantine came in, bearing a tray heavy with pork pies and mirabelle plums. “My pardon, gentlemen. There will be no croissants this morning. I missed the baker’s boy when—”
“Where’s my brother?”
The old witch looked at me, shocked, but quickly regained her composure. “My dear child, you’re still here? I thought you left with him last night. Your brother gave notice and cleaned out all his things.”
“I waited at the tavern. He never came.”
A look passed among the guests, a sad one, and the old wizard turned to me and said, “Did he leave you no money?”
“A little. My pocket was picked.”
There were more sad looks and tut-tutting. The old wizard produced a few silver coins and pressed them into my hand. “You must take care of yourself now, Orlin.”
Madame agreed. “I’m not in the business of charity. You’re welcome to stay for breakfast, but you’re almost a grown man. Inquire at the workhouse, or perhaps with the army.”
“My brother would not abandon me.”
She looked very sad, but it was an actress’s look from a melodrama, a practiced expression of grief that had nothing to do with the cold glittering little black eyes behind the half-moon spectacles. “I’m sorry, but you are not the first child in Isarn to believe that, nor will you be the last.”
“People are only human,” the old wizard agreed sadly.
I did not mention that my brother had given up a fortune to bring me back to life. I only burst into tears and ran from that house, unable to think how to save Norret.
I had no way of knowing that he was not already dead. But if you’re from Galt, you know that the only truly final death comes from one of the Final Blades.
No one knows that better than myself. Even coming back wrong is better than not coming back at all.
My handkerchief fluttered out of my pocket, drying my tears without me touching it.
“Th-thank you, Rhodel,” I snuffled, retrieving it. I blew my nose and put it away.
I still had hope. The witch had gone with the lie that Norret had abandoned me, not that he’d pried into whatever awful thing went on in her attic. That meant that she’d have trouble having him arrested and sent off to meet Madame Margaery.
The Gray Gardeners always asked questions, sometimes even after people died.
I thought about what I knew of Madame Eglantine. The only way into her apartment was the door at the end of the upstairs hall, set with many locks and charms. Once I’d glimpsed a spiral stair beyond it, thick with cobwebs. I could only guess that there would be another door with far more dangerous locks at the top of the stair. All the windows locked from the inside. To get up to the gables would mean scaling three stories and a slate roof. The boarding house also had a climbing rose—an eglantine, like its owner. The vine was heavy with little white blossoms, thick with thorns, and infested with famished bees, the fat little garden spiders that preyed upon them, and the wasps that preyed upon them in turn.
Madame only left her attic to fix breakfast and supper, meet with tradesmen, and tend her beloved garden. The only time she left the house was to attend an execution, which was a general holiday. That was also the only time the cook fires were banked.
I saw a halfling walking down the street. He was wearing a short cap and a pair of heavy gloves, and had a wire brush over his shoulder. The only parts of him that weren’t covered with soot were the gilded buttons on his coat.
I stepped into his path. “Teach me your trade.”
The halfling looked up at me and laughed. “Not that I ain’t always lookin’ fer apprentices, but ye’re too tall, lad, and y’look like ye’re gonna get a dem site bigger before ye’re done.” He then turned more serious. “Parents tossed ye out? Tell y’wot. Y’can touch me buttons fer luck fer free and be on yer way with me best wishes. Sound right?”
“How about I buy you a glass of wine and you tell me about your trade?”
“Halfling size or human size?”
“Your choice.”
He grinned. “That’d be halfling size. It’s bigger.”
I ended up buying the whole bottle with a couple of the wizard’s silver pieces, but found I what I needed to know. Most of what I needed I already had—a cap and a pair of stout gloves. What I didn’t have, I didn’t need either. I had no interest in cleaning Madame Eglantine’s chimney, with or without a wire brush.
The halfling did an excellent impression of the mistress of the boarding house: “‘Yes, citizen, I am quite aware of the perils of chimney fires. Be that as it may, I have spells to clean my chimney, and I’m more limber than I appear. Indeed, I think you’d be quite surprised at how small a space I can fit into...’” He snorted. “Nasty old harridan. Lost a few snakesmen to her back in the day. Steer clear of that one if’n y’know what’s good.”
“Snakesmen?”
“Burglars,” the halfling confessed drunkenly. “Second-story men. Never seen hide nor hair of ’em ag’in. Bet she turned ’em inta mice an’ fed ’em to the cat.”
Feeding someone to a familiar was awful magic, but Madame Eglantine did not have a cat that I knew of. The only pets Madame appeared to have were garden spiders.
There were a great many of them in the garlands of eglantine that twined around the boarding house. I climbed the rose the next day, after watching Madame and half her boarders leave for the executions. I couldn’t believe my luck—the windows of Norret’s and my old rooms had been left open to air. They still smelled very strongly of iris.
I brushed the little spiders from my clothes, then went to the fireplace. It was still warm. The hearth fire had been banked in the kitchen. But not for long.
I took the wine bottle from the inn, reached up the flue, and dropped it down the chimney.
There was dim tinkle and the sound of a small explosion. Norret had taught me the formula for extinguisher grenades. It had taken the last of the wizard’s silver at the apothecary, but was worth it.
I waited for the fumes to clear, then stuck my head up the flue. It was dark, and soot drifted down over my face. I did as the chimneysweep had told me. I tied my scarf over my face and pulled my cap low over my eyes, then worked my way up slowly.
There were handholds in the brick, but the safest way up was bracing my back against the back of the chimney and my feet against the front. I wormed my way upward, higher and higher, until I found the next flue, the one that led to Madame Eglantine’s attic apartment.
I came down carefully, expecting that I might step directly into a cauldron, but her fireplace only had an iron hook at the back. It held a slab of Madame’s delicious bacon smoking over the hob. Another hook held a kettle for Madame’s tea. The fire was out save for a few banked coals, but the ashes smelled of applewood.
"Madame Eglantine is more than she appears."
I moved the fire screen aside and ducked out into the apartment, shaking the soot off onto the hearthrug. The apartment was the most cobwebbed place I’d ever seen. Madame might want her guests to tidy up after themselves, but had clearly never seen fit to clean her own rooms. What I had taken for frosted glass was a thick film of cobwebs on the inside of all the windows. It made the light far dimmer than day, but still brighter than it had been in the chimney.
There were cases of books and bric-a-brac, shelves containing the oddments and curios of a lifetime. Then I turned and saw the mantel. My heart stopped cold.
Where a scholar might keep the bust of a great philosopher, or an artist might place a single skull for still lifes, Madame Eglantine had done them one better. On the mantel was a row of bell jars like you’d use for growing vegetables or protecting mantel clocks. But under each jar was a severed head, preserved by magic or alchemy, fresh as they day they were chopped. Their eyes were wide and staring, their mouths half open. I expected them to start speaking any moment.
They did not, but as I stumbled away, I wished they had, for they could have warned me not to look at what I saw next.
Stretched out on a table was a corpse—without its head, without its hands, without a great many parts. At first I thought Madame Eglantine must be an anatomy student or necromancer, but then I saw the chart, like a doctor might use, but marked like a butcher’s with notes like brisket and good for paté. I realized that Madame Eglantine must be some horrible hag or ogre wife like in the stories. Suddenly the bacon hanging on the hob didn’t seem so appealing.
Then I saw Norret.
He was poisoned. I sensed it immediately. He was hanging in a great spiderweb strung in one corner. I rushed to him, but before I touched him, I stopped, remembering the terrible stickiness of such webs from the bard’s stories. I ran and got the fireplace poker and used it to rip the webs away.
He was still alive, but paralyzed and poisoned. And it was then that I sensed poison again. But this poison was moving.
It was a spider. A garden spider like the little ones in the roses outside, squat and brown and marked with a cross like a festival cake frosted to keep pixies from dancing on it. But this spider was the size of a crab.
It scuttled toward me. I smashed it with the fireplace poker, hitting it with the hook. It hissed like a pastry dropped into hot fat and scuttled away. I stepped back. Then the hearth broom levitated, swatting at it—Rhodel trying to help, but only swatting it on the backside.
It leapt at me.
I swung the poker, but it went wild. I lost my grip, the iron bar striking one of the bell jars.
It shattered. The head bowled across the floor, eyes blinking.
I caught the spider. It bit at me, drooling poison, but my gloves were stout. I shoved it against the mantel with one hand. With the other, I reached for my belt knife, hoping to stab it. My hand closed around something smaller than expected, and I realized that I had grabbed the little horn spoon instead.
It didn’t matter. The handle was ivory and pointed, and had come from a unicorn. I jammed it in, point first, again and again, stabbing it over and over until the horrible monster vomited blancmange. It died with a shudder.
I was crying again. I went and got the poker and used it to rip the webs away from Norret. Somewhere in his gear he had a jewel that had once belonged to Dabril’s duke, a magic ruby set in a glove that could neutralize poison. If I could just find it, I might heal him, and we could both escape this chamber of horrors.
“I believe,” said a voice behind me, “you are looking for this.”
I turned. Madame Eglantine stood framed in the doorway, taking Norret’s jeweled glove out of her knitting bag.
Coming Next Week: Further horrors in the final chapter of Kevin Andrew Murphy’s “The Perfumer’s Apprentice.”
Kevin Andrew Murphy is the author of numerous stories, poems, and novels, as well as a writer for Wild Cards, George R. R. Martin's shared-world anthology line. His previous Pathfinder Tales stories include "The Secret of the Rose and Glove" (also starring Norret) and "The Fifth River Freedom," the fourth chapter of Prodigal Sons in the Kingmaker Pathfinder's Journal. For more information, visit his website.
It’s time to address some FAQs! These answers will be added to the official FAQ later this week.
How is the negative energy affinity monster ability (Bestiary 2, page 299) supposed to work?
The intent of this ability is that the creature is healed by negative energy (like an undead) and harmed by positive energy (like an undead); this is automatic and has nothing to do with the intent of the target or the energy-wielder. However, as written, the ability is a bit confusing because of the phrase “reacts to,” which doesn’t have a clear definition. This ability will be changed in the next printing of Bestiary 2.
Update: Page 299—In the description of the Negative Energy Affinity ability, replace the current entry with the following:
Negative Energy Affinity (Ex) The creature is alive, but is treated as undead for all effects that affect undead differently than living creatures, such as cure spells and channeled energy. Format: negative energy affinity; Location: Defensive Abilities.
Is the aquatic sorcerer bloodline (Advanced Players Guide, page 136) supposed to get geyser as a bonus spell at sorcerer level 9, even though that’s normally a 5th-level sorcerer/wizard spell and unavailable to sorcerers before caster level 10?
Yes, and the sorcerer learns it as a 4th-level spell. Note that geyser is also a 4th-level druid spell (available at character level 7), so the aquatic sorcerer gaining it at character level 9 as a 4th-level arcane spell isn’t too powerful.
Can a magus use spellstrike (Ultimate Magic, page 10) to cast a touch spell, move, and make a melee attack with a weapon to deliver the touch spell, all in the same round?
Yes. Other than deploying the spell with a melee weapon attack instead of a melee touch attack, the magus spellstrike ability doesn’t change the normal rules for using touch spells in combat (Core Rulebook 185). So, just like casting a touch spell, a magus could use spellstrike to cast a touch spell, take a move toward an enemy, then (as a free action) make a melee attack with his weapon to deliver the spell.
On a related topic, the magus touching his held weapon doesn’t count as “touching anything or anyone” when determining if he discharges the spell. A magus could even use the spellstrike ability, miss with his melee attack to deliver the spell, be disarmed by an opponent (or drop the weapon voluntarily, for whatever reason), and still be holding the charge in his hand, just like a normal spellcaster. Furthermore, the weaponless magus could pick up a weapon (even that same weapon) with that hand without automatically discharging the spell, and then attempt to use the weapon to deliver the spell. However, if the magus touches anything other than a weapon with that hand (such as retrieving a potion), that discharges the spell as normal.
Basically, the spellstrike gives the magus more options when it comes to delivering touch spells; it’s not supposed to make it more difficult for the magus to use touch spells.
It is a rare occasion when a person can combine two fun events into one. On this Monday after the Super Bowl, I get to do just that!
First, I want to welcome two new Venture-Captains to the ranks in areas that have been in serious need of strong organization for some time. The first is St. Louis, Missouri. Originally, St. Louis wasn’t on my list. However, that quickly changed when Brett Sweeney emailed his interest in becoming a Venture-Captain. He provided a very good resume and some outstanding answers to my interview questionnaire. There already seems to be a very strong base of players in the region and I am excited to see how Pathfinder Society grows in St. Louis, as well as the rest of Missouri, now that we have the entire state covered with an awesome group of Venture-Officers.
I also get very excited when we are able to assign a Venture-Captain to a region, or in this case a state, that has had little to no Venture-Officer presence, but has been longing for someone to step up to the task of organizing Pathfinder Society. I’ve known Martin Shelby for more than 10 years, have played roleplaying, board, card and miniatures games with him during that period, and know his organizational and gaming skills are up to the task. When he moved from Atlanta to Nashville last year, I already had my sights on setting him up as a Venture-Captain there. We talked about it last year at Gen Con and he wasn’t prepared to take over the reigns. However, five months later, he has decided that he would like to see how fast he can grow Pathfinder Society in middle Tennessee. He will be our first Venture-Captain in Tennessee and I foresee good things happening for the growth of Pathfinder Society in the state.
Now, on to the second fun event for this week—another holiday blog (and anyone who knows me knows how much I love a good brew)! Creative Director James Jacobs wrote the below description of Merrymead and you will find a special Pathfinder Society Chronicle sheet you can download and apply to a Pathfinder Society character. Merrymead is mentioned on page 248 of Pathfinder Campaign Setting: The Inner Sea World Guide.
The month of Calistril is much anticipated, if only because it signifies the end of winter and the inevitable (and usually much welcomed) onset of spring. And no time is more infused with this eager anticipation than the second day of the month—a day set aside in most areas of the Inner Sea as the holiday known as Merrymead. A key element of Merrymead, of course, is the consumption of the last of the previous season’s alcohol. Traditionally, this is intended to be little more than a communal sharing of mead supplies (a legacy of the holiday’s original origins in central Druma), but today, most celebrants use Merrymead as an excuse to get completely smashed on whatever source of booze is available. In high societies, aristocrats celebrate with the uncorking of bottles specifically set aside for the event, while in the city slums, roving gangs of celebrants carouse from bar to bar. It is here that the notorious “mead riots” generally happen, when not-quite-drunk-enough merrymakers, faced with the inevitable situation of there being more carousers than alcohol, grow violent and destructive. Cities with strong histories of mead riots generally draw upon additional troops from the militia to help keep the peace... yet sometimes, it can be hard to draw upon those troops when they themselves have been looking forward to their own Merrymead celebrations!
Welcome to our new Venture-Captains and Blesse... hic... Happ... hic... fun Merrymead all!
Pathfinder Battles Preview: A Second Look at Rise of the Runelords
Friday, February 03, 2012
Last week I previewed several miniatures from our upcoming Rise of the Runelords Pathfinder Battles prepainted miniature set, scheduled for an early summer release. WizKids is still finalizing the details on the product mix and exact release date, so while we do not yet have a product page for the set, I DO have some more really cool images to show you of paint masters!
To recap, a “paint master” is an early output of the miniature painted as a guide to the factory artists who will paint the final production run. So far, we’ve been really impressed with the factory’s ability to match the quality of our paint masters, so we’re pushing things a bit with this latest release to ensure that you receive the highest possible quality miniatures we can deliver.
So these images don’t look exactly like the final minis will look, but this is what they’re shooting for, and I suspect the final product will be very close to what you see here.
These miniatures support the Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition, a massive hardcover collection of our very first Adventure Path that we’re releasing this summer as a special 10th Anniversary present to ourselves (and to you!).
Up first this week is the Ghoul, a common miniature that represents a key enemy in the Adventure Path’s second installment. I’ve always been fond of ghouls as deadly undead menaces for low-level parties, and this guy looks great, nasty long tongue and all! (And no, his left arm isn’t quite so straight in real life.)
If you thought ghouls were terrifying, wait until you get a load of the Denizen of Leng, another common who will come in handy as your players reach the second half of the Adventure Path. Drawn to the world from an otherworldly plateau and possessed of weird eldritch powers, this alien mystic subs in nicely for any kid of oddball spellcaster eager to keep his ugly mug hidden behind soiled linen strips.
This miniature, the uncommon Wraith, is a good example of something new we’re trying with this set—clear plastic! When appropriate (as in the case of incorporeal undead), we plan to produce certain miniatures in this set with a translucent plastic, adding to the otherworldly effect. This figure is an almost direct translation of the wraith illustration from the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary, but it took us several tries to get a workable sculpt from the waist down, as the original art is not particularly helpful in this regard. I’m really happy with how he turned out.
Last up today is another clear plastic miniature, the relentless Scanderig (or Forgefiend). This original creature made his first appearance in the original Rise of the Runelords campaign, and countless player characters have since been stuffed inside its fiery belly. He is both Large and rare, and in person he looks absolutely amazing. Note the painted “bars” on the back of the mini. The original illustration didn’t show the creature’s back, so our master painter added the lines with paint to create a sort of grill effect. We didn’t so much care for that, so the final miniature will have an “open” front and back, which ought to help light shine through the red plastic, enhancing the fire effect.
One of the cool things about this second set of Pathfinder Battles miniatures, for us here at Paizo, is to see original Pathfinder creatures in plastic. The Scanderig is just one of many in the Rise of the Runelords set, but the others will have to wait for future Fridays, and future Pathfinder Battles previews.
Voting for RPG Superstar Round 2 continues, and the competitors are getting anxious. To give them something to do, here’s a sample boards-friendly monster stat block. Competitors, feel free to practice your Round 3 monster challenge using this format—you’ll be able to copy and paste this into your entry and maintain proper formatting.
[b]----- Special Abilities -----[/b] [b]zzName (Ex/Sp/Su)[/b] zzDescription
Notes for the Competitors
Here are some tips for using the above stat block, and building stat blocks in general.
## is a placeholder for a number, so an entry like "Init +##" should be something like "Init +2" or "Init -2" in your monster stat block.
zz is a placeholder for anything other than a number (obviously, "zzSize" means you should replace it with a game term for size, such as "Medium," not "zzMedium").
When you are finished, your monster stat block should not have ## or zz in it at all.
If your monster doesn't have an ability mentioned in the sample stat block format (such as DR, SR, Immune, an "plus" effect for a melee or ranged attack, a conditional skill bonuses, or racial skill modifiers), delete that ability and its placeholders. For example, if your monster doesn't have damage reduction, delete the "DR ##/zzMaterial" and the semicolon after it so the line starts with "Immune."
If your monster has an ability that isn't presented in the sample stat block format (such as Spells Known), add it to the stat block, making sure to put it in the correct section of the stat block (for example, Spells Known goes in the Offense section) and match the bold and/or italic format for that ability as shown in a printed stat block.
If the monster doesn't have Feats, Skills, or Languages, delete the entire Feats, Skills, or Languages line.
If your monster has Space 5 ft. and Reach 5 ft., delete that entire line (the default is a monster with that size and reach).
When you are finished, your stat block shouldn't have any "blank" entries like "DR —."
The Defense, Offense, Statistics, and Ecology lines have "-----" at the beginning and end to visually offset those section headers. This is because the messageboard code doesn't allow you to underline text, and this is an easy and clear way to duplicate the printed stat block format for this purpose. Do not tamper with those lines.
In a printed stat block, the individual listings for the spell-like abilities are indented, but it's difficult to make that work in the messageboards, so if your monster has spell-like abilities, just use the non-indented format as presented in the above sample stat block.
If your monster has a new ability (such as "Arcane Vengeance" or "Eyeball Eater"), you must explain it in the Special Abilities part of the stat block.
If your monster has a common ability from the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook (such as sneak attack) or a universal monster rule from the Bestiary or Bestiary 2 (such as grab or stench), you do not need to provide the description of that ability in the Special Abilities part of the stat block (we assume the reader knows how sneak attack, grab, and stench work, or can look them up in the appropriate book).
Voting closes on Monday, February 6th and the Top 16 winners are announced on Tuesday, February 7th. At that time we’ll reveal the “twist” for Round 3!
Norret had theories, but then my brother always had theories. It’s part of an alchemist’s job. He’d heard some story about assassins wanting to kill an ancient king, and rather than do something obvious like stab him, they got a girl and slowly fed her poison until she was immune but it oozed out her pores. The plan was that once the king made love to this girl, he’d die.
It seemed rather unlikely to me, since it hinged on the king actually wanting this one girl, but the assassins in bards' stories were never the ones who came up with practical plans. In any case, Norret wondered what happened to the “poison maiden” after that. It might also explain how Madame Eglantine’s husbands died.
He also mentioned something called an upas tree, a poisonous mulberry travelers said grew in Tian Xia. The perfume from its branches was supposedly so deadly that it would kill everything in fourteen miles. Were such a tree to have a dryad, that fey woman would undoubtedly be just as toxic.
This was a rather frightening thought, but as I remarked, if there were an upas tree growing somewhere in Isarn, someone would have noticed by now.
Norret’s third theory was that maybe Madame Eglantine was a toad witch like the legendary Crapaudine, mother of Coco the cockatrice, who everyone sang dirty songs about back in Dabril. If she’d used witchcraft to turn herself human, she still might detect as poison to my unicorn-horn senses.
I didn’t think Madame Eglantine had enough warts to be a toad. I also couldn’t picture a toad knitting. But being a witch and brewing so many poisons that some of them stuck to her? That seemed likely.
In any case, her food wasn’t poisoned and she was quite a good cook. It was hard to get food in Isarn, especially meat, but evidently proximity to the Revolutionary Council had its benefits. For our first supper there, there was a beautiful pork roast with gravy, fresh bread to sop it up, and baked apples. After months eating at second-rate inns or choking down my brother’s cooking, it was the sweetest meal I’d ever tasted.
My brother is a very good man and a good alchemist, but not a good cook. It’s a horrible thing to say about a Galtan, but it’s true. If you gave Norret a chicken, he’d be more likely to blow it up or bring it back to life than turn it into anything decent to eat.
The other boarders were mostly scholars, and while they were also appreciative of Madame’s cooking, they told us to get used to pork. There was occasionally goose for holidays, but meat mainly consisted of pork roasts, stews, dumplings, sausages, and even wonderful things like smoked ham and bacon and pork-liver paté, all accompanied by bread from the baker and fresh produce from the garden. The working theory was that Madame Eglantine had a longstanding affair with a high-ranking member of the hog butcher’s guild. There were also jokes about sympathetic magic and Madame using witchcraft to turn men into pigs, but the resident wizards all agreed there was no more magic in the meat than good Galtan cooking, and the only way anyone was going to turn into a pig was through gluttony.
Norret was a bit more worried because the elixir that brought me back from the dead was philosophic mercury, the same magic quicksilver that had gotten into his eye when he cracked the philosopher’s stone hidden in the duchess’s basement. “It’s an amalgam,” Norret explained. “The philosophic mercury mixes with natural magic and enhances it. I used eyebright to heal my eye, so the mercury fumes bonded with the residue. The unicorn’s horn is suffused with healing magic, so it brought you back to life and also let you detect poison. If the mercury were to alloy with other substances...”
I was horrified. “You mean if I eat enough pork I’m going to turn into a pig?”
Norret looked thoughtful. We were back in our chambers with the door locked, so he had his eye patch flipped up. The iris of his left eye was shimmering and silver like a mirror. “Probably not all at once,” he said at last. “You’d probably just grow orc tusks first. They’d actually be boar tusks, but everyone would think you were a half-orc, so it would still come to much the same thing.” I was even more horrified until he tousled my hair and I realized he was making fun of me. “Relax. I’ve got a present for you. I know you’ve been complaining about my cooking, and there was trouble getting food before, so I made this...”
He reached into his pocket and took out a silver nutmeg grater. He flipped the catch and inside it were little ivory nuts. They were part of the unicorn horn that had resurrected me. There was also a longer bit, the tip of a spiraled horn. Norret had shaved it down even further. As he took it out, I realized that he’d carved it into a horn spoon like you’d use to eat eggs.
“Watch.” Norret took one of his alchemist’s bowls and placed the spoon inside. All at once it began to leak white fluid. It rose up, higher and higher, thick and pasty until it threatened to overflow the sides, at which point Norret removed the spoon and pushed the bowl toward me. “Here, taste it.” He handed me the spoon.
I half expected it to crawl out of the bowl, some horrible animate pudding or jelly like they told nightmare stories about late at night in the taverns, but while it quivered, it stayed where it was. At last I put the spoon in and took a taste of the white pudding. It tasted... like paper maché, with maybe a bit of goat’s milk.
“Do you like it?” my brother asked proudly. “It’s blancmange. Your favorite!”
I remembered. Our mother used to make blancmange for Crystalhue. It was a pudding of rice and almonds with maybe a bit of shredded white chicken breast if we were lucky, flavored with rosewater and once a pinch of cinnamon smuggled in from Katapesh. “It could maybe use a little rosewater...”
Norret gave a wry smile. “I tried to add that, but it wouldn’t take. But at least we do have plenty of rose oil on hand.”
While my brother couldn’t cook, he could make rosewater. It made the pudding taste better, if not much.
That said, the ivory spoon was a very thoughtful gift, and amazing magic besides. “How does it work?”
“Spontaneous generation.” Norret said this as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “The same way that barnacles drop into the sea to become geese, the alicorn produces unicorn milk and bone porridge.” He grinned proudly. “It should be very nourishing. My friend Melzec once told me about a dwarf whose son was suckled by a unicorn and grew to become a giant.”
I stopped eating. “So if I eat this I’m going to turn into a giant?”
“Well, probably not all at once.” My brother looked thoughtful. “I’m tall so you’ll probably be tall anyway, and you could always stoop. And it’s better than boar’s tusks.”
All at once the bowl levitated into the air and the spoon flew out of my hand. Norret opened his mouth to say something more, but the spoon flew in, feeding him a spoonful of bland blancmange like he was a very large baby.
Sometimes being haunted by a dead strumpet isn’t that bad.
“Maybe you could find a way for us to see Rhodel,” I suggested.
Norret opened his mouth again, but every time he did, he got another spoonful of pudding. Eventually he just nodded.
Another thing you should know about my brother is that when he’s given a task or a puzzle, he sets to it with a single-minded passion. He’d already talked to enough necromancers about my condition, so he knew about folk who could see into Pharasma’s realm. Finding an alchemical formula to do that, however, was the trick.
As much as I love my country, I also have to admit that many of Galt’s best wizards died or fled during the Revolution and took their books with them. What’s left are fragments, but fortunately Madame Eglantine’s boarding house had a number of residents with some of these fragments, and Norret was able to trade secrets. One wizard sold him a formula for a costly ointment that was supposed to allow one to see through illusions and deceptions. A bard told a story about another salve that allowed a midwife to peer into the First World of the fey.
There was no recipe for that second salve, but while inquiring about it, Norret was able to bargain for a copy of a manuscript the wizard claimed had come all the way from the Library of Leng.
I’d never heard of Leng, but Norret was certainly excited about it, so I guessed Leng was some dead noble.
In any case, the manuscript was partially burned and written in strange runes, but Norret was able to translate the most important bit: a method to see through the doors of reality into the chambers beyond.
There were pages of complicated illustrations showing rays coming out of eyes like Calistria’s daggers, pictures of all sorts of undead—horrible things like glowing skeletons and men flayed alive—and requirements for everything from alchemically purified pitchblende to the perfume of “the flower of the messengers.” There were even partial instructions for forging a magic ring.
Norret thought that wizards were always overcomplicating things with rings, which he thought they used for status more than anything else. Beyond that, the iris of the eye was a ring already. The “flower of the messengers,” it turned out, was another iris, as “a message” is what an iris meant in the language of flowers.
The iris was also the flower of Isarn, the ancient crest of the city. Set into the curve of the river, Isarn had a huge number of the flowers fluttering along her banks like yellow flags. Before the Revolution, the royal irises could only be picked with the king’s permission, on penalty of death. After the Revolution, there was no king, but the penalty was the same.
It was a deed that could have cost us our heads many times over, so Norret and I gathered the armloads we needed in the dead of night. Dodging the city watch and patrols of the Gray Gardeners, we took the flowers back to the boarding house. We wrapped them in greased cloths so they would breathe their perfume into the fat as they died, then cleaned ourselves up and went and ate the leftovers from Madame Eglantine’s excellent supper.
Three days later, the iris pomade was washed with alcohol, then evaporated down to a golden perfume absolute. Norret mixed this with the yellow powder he’d extracted from the pitchblende. “All right,” my brother said, holding up the few precious golden drops, “let’s see if the librarians of Leng had their manuscripts in order...”
"Orlin is no ordinary child."
He tilted his head back and dripped the drops into his left eye, blinked a few times, then looked at me. His left eye changed from quicksilver to gold and began to glow. “Orlin, are you all right?” He took a step back, a shocked expression on his face.
“I’m fine, Norret.”
He continued to look disturbed, then looked at the door. He stepped toward it, then bumped into it. “Is there a door here?”
“Uh, yes...”
He began to look at his hand then, clearly fascinated, looking at it as if he’d never seen it before. “I’m... not undead now, am I, Orlin?”
“I hope not.” Honestly, my brother’s left eye was glowing like they say the eyes of liches do in all the stories.
He stepped back toward the worktable, bumping into it. “Fetch me the lead foil. It’s right there.” He pointed at his backpack, but I had to sort through several inner pouches before I found the one he wanted. Norret took it from me quickly and held it up, covering his eye, then breathed a sigh of relief. “There, that’s better...”
“What’s better?” I asked.
“Those old wizards, they weren’t as foolish as I thought. This phenomenon would be much better with a ring you could take off...” He took the lead sheet away from his glowing eye and looked at me, then moved it back. “Hand me the tin snips, would you?”
I found them, and the metal punch too, and Norret quickly fashioned an eye patch from the lead, which he placed over his regular eye patch.
“So you’re not seeing Rhodel?”
Norret chuckled darkly. “No. Very much not so. I’m so used to looking at alchemical allegories and metaphors that I failed to read the literal meaning. The wizard’s method for looking through doors into the chambers beyond? It’s not for looking into Pharasma’s realm, or the First World either. It’s for looking through actual doors into literal chambers beyond. It also lets you see bones through flesh, or even look through walls.”
He paused then, glancing at the ceiling. Our rooms were on the uppermost story of the boarding house, and on the other side of the ceiling was Madame Eglantine’s attic apartment.
Norret flipped his lead eye patch up, then went pale. He stepped about, looking, then looked back at me. “We can’t stay here, Orlin. We have to go.” He covered his eye back up, almost as an afterthought.
“What?” I said. “And miss supper? Madame said she was serving croque-monsieur with ham!”
Norret looked like he might never want supper again. “No. We won’t be having supper here. Gather your things and go wait for me at the tavern at the bottom of the street. There is something I must do here first.”
“What’s going on? What did you see?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“What? I’m not a child. I’m almost twelve! I’ve even been dead!”
“Yes,” Norret said, “but I’ve been to war and you have not.” He took me by the shoulders and looked me squarely in the eyes. “Trust me, there are some things you see that can never be unseen, and will haunt you worse than any spirit.” He glanced apologetically to the air. “Present company excepted.”
The last time I had seen my older brother this serious was when I asked what had become of our father and our brother Ceron. I knew he was trying to protect me. I trusted that he’d give me an answer in his own time, so I went to the tavern at the bottom of the street and waited.
He never came.
Coming Next Week: Mysterious disappearances in Chapter Three of Kevin Andrew Murphy’s “The Perfumer’s Apprentice.”
Kevin Andrew Murphy is the author of numerous stories, poems, and novels, as well as a writer for Wild Cards, George R. R. Martin's shared-world anthology line. His previous Pathfinder Tales stories include "The Secret of the Rose and Glove" (also starring Norret) and "The Fifth River Freedom," the fourth chapter of Prodigal Sons in the Kingmaker Pathfinder's Journal. For more information, visit his website.
Our Top 32 contestants have submitted their Round 2 new organization concepts! These round two submissions have been revealed to the general public with judges’ comments. Discuss the entries and vote for your favorite! Voting ends on February 6 and the Top 16 by votes will move on to Round 3. You can change your mind anytime until voting closes Monday, February 6 at 2 p.m. Pacific time.
The ultimate winner of RPG Superstar, announced April 3, 2012, will write a Pathfinder Module to be published in early 2013. The 2011 RPG Superstar champion module, Sam Zeitlin’s The Midnight Mirror, releases in April 2012.
Behold, the beaming excitement of the new interns! (Shhhh... Don’t tell them that enthusiasm is about to wither away as they enter the Editorial Pit of Despair known as crosschecking every feat, spell, trait, and magic item in the Advanced Race Guide.) Everybody, please give a warm welcome Alexandra and Jerome!
Christopher Carey Editor
Hi, I’m Alexandra and I’m a new Paizo intern here in the Editorial Department. I’m not quite sure exactly everything I’ll be doing, but I’m very excited! I’ll know I’ll be showing up around the messageboards so here’s a little about me:
I’m currently going to college and finishing up my AA in Digital Gaming while working about 25 hours a week at my part-time job, doing this internship, and trying to have a social life. In my free time, I love to play RPG games and post on Tumblr. My friends and I run a Dragon Age fan blog there. Dragon Age is one of my favorite games but I’m currently playing Skyrim whenever I can. I really like to read fanfiction and write my own short stories. My favorite TV show is Supernatural, and even though it’s totally ruined now I still love it.
I’ve lived in the same place forever, so after I get settled with my life, I hope to do a lot of traveling and exploring of other cultures to feed my inspiration. I’d love to go all over Europe and Southeast Asia and check out all the fashion and food. I’m Jewish, so I’d also love to visit Israel and finally learn Hebrew.
Well, there’s me. Thanks for reading!
Alexandra Schecterson Editorial Intern
Hello!
This is Jerome, one of the new interns here at Paizo Publishing. It’s my first month on the job, and I’m excited to discover what makes Pathfinder tick. At first blush, the answers seem to be coffee, banter, and hoards of figurines!
I’m a relative neophyte to the RPG scene, having discovered Pathfinder only a few years ago. However, in the short time that I’ve been playing and GMing, I’ve become enamored of the creativity and collaborative spirit that Pathfinder brings out in people. I’m excited to see those same attitudes at work within the Paizo staff.
I’m a long-time strategy and athletic gamer with roots in Go, soccer, and 8-bit cartridges. I continue to game regularly, and have burgeoning interest in independent game design. I’ve also pursued (with varying degrees of success) kung fu, story games, Starcraft, ballroom dancing, and girls. My childhood habit of reading has blossomed into a love of writing that promises to delight and infuriate me to the grave and beyond. Hopefully I’ll have the chance to try my hand at writing for Paizo someday soon!
I’m excited to be working with Paizo, and look forward to seeing you all on the messageboards!
The Dawn of a New Era: Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play, Version 4.1
Monday, January 30, 2012
Illustration by Kevin Yan
When I arrived back in late September as the new Pathfinder Society Campaign Coordinator, I had hundreds of people requesting hundreds of changes to the way Pathfinder Society Organized Play was run. It was definitely enough to make my head swim with all the different requests and it took me a few weeks to get a grip on the way change should be handled. Pathfinder Society has some very good things going for it, but there were some rulings and fundamental practices that needed to be looked at to see if we could make organized play better.
The first step was to talk with Developer Mark Moreland. He was the current institutional knowledge on all things Pathfinder Society. I rolled of out my list proposed alterations and requests and we talked for the first few weeks about what could be changed, what should be changed, and what should remain the same. After quite a few hours-long meetings, we finally knew what improvements we wanted to focus on. I also want to take a quick second to thank Mark for all of his help, not just on the guide but with everything, in helping me to transition into this position. Without his help, thoughts, insight, and advice, this job would be a tenfold more difficult than it has been. Mark was the caretaker for a long while for Pathfinder Society and I appreciate everything he did to bring it up to the level it is today. He has more love and has poured more heart and soul into the campaign than anyone else I know and I thank him for that.
After my list of goals and changes was completed, I approached the Venture-Captains and Venture-Lieutenants for their input. I felt it was important to get more ideas and different perspectives from the leaders of Pathfinder Society. There was much debate and discussion. Changes and tweaks were made to refine the direction I wanted to take Pathfinder Society. After a week or so, we finally decided that most changes were in good working order. However, we felt, as a group, that it was important to hear what the fanbase had to say about such sweeping changes to organized play. We knew that there would be people who were outright opposed to some of the changes while others would wholeheartedly agree with them. Whatever the outcome, we still felt it important to allow folks to have their input heard. So, I listed a series of proposed changes on the Pathfinder Society General Discussion messageboard.
After a week or so of listening to input from players, GMs, coordinators, and store owners, we brought all the discussions back to the Venture-Captain messageboard. We held firm to some of the changes we believed in, but altered other proposed rules changes where all of you made very good points. Once we had all the rulings in place for after a final review, I wrote them into the new Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play, Version 4.1.
I will post a complete list of changes, additions, and deletions that vary from version 4.0 to version 4.1 on the Pathfinder Society General Discussion messageboard. However, I did want to list some of the bigger changes here.
We added all current Paizo shirts as available for a reroll.
We have changed the way pregenerated characters work. Gone are the days when playing a pregenerated character in a scenario for the first time left the player empty-handed. Now, if the player is playing a non-1st-level pregenerated character, he or she may choose instead to apply the Chronicle sheet to a newly created 1st-level character.
We added a new chapter titled, Chapter 6: Sanctioned Modules. There are big changes to sanctioned module play. Gone are the artificial leveling up or down of a character. Now, the sanctioned modules must be played by a character within one level of the module’s starting level. I know this is not a popular decision for some. However, campaign leadership feels this change is what is best for the campaign. Death and use of consumables now have consequences. New Chronicle sheets have been completed for all 15 sanctioned modules that adjust the wealth received to be in line with wealth received when playing the equivalent number of scenarios. These Chronicle sheets are available for download on their respective product pages.
We have opened up play beyond 12th level. While there are no 13th-level or higher scenarios on the schedule, a retired Pathfinder Society character may play and continue to advance in levels utilizing the sanctioned modules. To facilitate the higher-level advancement, the Fame and Item Purchases chart has been expanded to an upper limit of 99 points of Fame and 800,000 GP. Guidelines for purchasing scrolls of levels 7, 8 and 9 have also been included.
A section on alignment infractions has been added.
There are a few more changes and those will be detailed in the post on the Pathfinder Society General Discussion messageboard. I want to thank Mark, the Venture-Officers, and the fanbase for input into the new guide. I think the changes are what is best for the campaign, will help to strengthen the campaign for the future, and make the overall organized play experience a better one for new and veteran players alike.
On a side note, the guide’s numbering system is off due to the first season of Pathfinder Society Organized Play being labeled Season 0. At Gen Con this year, we plan to align the guide’s version number with the current season. Instead of listing the Season 4 guide as version 5.0, it will be titled Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play, Version 4.2. Once Season 5 is upon us at Gen Con 2013, the guide will then be titled as version 5.0 and we will move forward from there.
Mike Brock Pathfinder Society Campaign Coordinator
Pathfinder Battles Preview: A First Look at Rise of the Runelords
Friday, January 27, 2012
These last few weeks it’s seemed like even the weather has been conspiring to delay a big preview of Rise of the Runelords, the next set for our Pathfinder Battles prepainted miniatures line. I snuck an image of the shaggy Yeti in last week’s preview blog, but until today, the stars have not quite been right to begin our previews in earnest.
No longer! The Runelords have been slumbering for too long, and they demand to be unleashed upon the world! Our long wait is finally at an end, and I’m ready to blow the lid off the first batch of preview images from this upcoming set!
WizKids is still finalizing the specific details about when specifically the set will release, how it will be packaged, and how much it will cost (which is why we haven’t posted a product page yet). Yesterday, we finally revealed the first Pathfinder Battles Encounter Pack, Champions of Evil, which features repainted figures from Heroes & Monsters in a convenient non-random format. You know exactly what you’re getting in this new set of 6 miniatures, which includes three Zombies, an Evil Cleric, a Succubus, and the evil Scarlet Gargoyle. The whole pack ties into our Free RPG Day adventure, Dawn of the Scarlet Sun, which releases in June. If you haven’t seen the Champions of Evil sculpts and paints yet, hop over to the product page and check them out! They’re really cool!
You know what else is cool? The Human Ranger from Heroes & Monsters! This guy is probably my favorite player character-appropriate figure from the first set, but thanks to a series of mix-ups we never managed to reveal a good picture of him here on the blog. Because I’ve been promising it for a couple of weeks now, I thought I’d sneak him in here, even though he’s not a Rise of the Runelords miniature.
Heck, if you like the way this figure looks, you can order him directly as a single. While you’re doing that, feel free to browse the other Heroes & Monsters singles to fill out your collection or simply pick up your favorites from the set without worrying about the randomness of individual boosters.
But you didn’t come here for Heroes & Monsters images. You want the new, fresh meat. You want RISE OF THE RUNELORDS!
And I am here to deliver. This first batch focuses on paint masters of several creatures from the first half of the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path, which releases in June as a deluxe hardcover Anniversary Edition that compiles all six adventures and key associated material from Paizo’s very first Adventure Path. We’re thrilled to get a chance to go back to where it all started, and update everything to the new Pathfinder RPG rules.
We’re also thrilled to be working with WizKids to present prepainted plastic miniatures to support the campaign. The full set includes a nice mixture of “generic” creatures drawn from the campaign’s encounters as well as specific NPCs from the adventures themselves.
One of the greatest encounter areas of the campaign’s first installment, Burnt Offerings, is the goblin enclave of Thistletop. While the goblins themselves will appear in a future preview blog (and there are some really awesome ones in this set), today’s preview starts with a look at some of the locale’s other denizens.
Up first is the Bugbear Hero, a common figure that represents the bruiser Bruthazmus, the bodyguard of the adventure’s arch-villain, Nualia (more on her in a future preview). Of course, when you’re talking about a bugbear that wears a necklace of elf ears, “Hero” is a relative term!
Up next is the fiendish spirit of Thistletop, the evil Malfeshnekor! This uncommon figure comes on a Large base, and towers over the goblins who honor and fear him.
On your journey back to the town of Sandpoint from Thistletop, be sure to watch the skies for this screeching Harpy, a common figure. This Medium creature has beautiful wings, nasty claws, and sharp teeth. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
One of the coolest things about the Rise of the Runelords set for those of us here in the Paizo offices is that it offers us the first chance to create prepainted miniatures of creatures that are uniquely “Pathfinder”. Here we have a common Sinspawn, the servitor slaves of the ancient Runelords, stirred once more to life with the reawakening of Runewells all over Varisia.
Speaking of sin, check out this amazing fiend we like to call the Treachery Demon! If you thought the Ettin from Heroes & Monsters was big, you’re going to choke when you see this titan hit the table. I have a new-ish GI Joe action figure on my desk, and the Huge Treachery Demon towers over him. It probably goes without saying, but this guy is a rare.
Speaking of rares, check out this Young Red Dragon! As a Large figure, this guy looks down on your player characters with childlike innocence, ready to engulf them in its fiery breath! The sculptors perfectly captured the likeness of this dragon’s illustration. The only thing that makes me happier than this dragon is the OTHER dragon in the Rise of the Runelords set, who is even BIGGER and even AWESOMER.
“Awesomer.” That non-word is probably the best summary of the entire Rise of the Runelords set. We’re enormously proud of the final figures in Heroes & Monsters, but WizKids really upped their game with this second set. Every single mini in this one is a winner, and we haven’t even shown you some of the absolute coolest miniatures in the set yet!
Tuesday, we announced the Top 32 for RPG Superstar. Now those lucky, skilled gamers are hammering away at the Round 2 task of designing a new Golarion organization. Their submissions are due Friday, secretly reviewed by the judges over the weekend, and go live for voting on Tuesday, January 31. Good luck to the Top 32!
If you submitted a wondrous item and didn’t make it into the Top 32, don’t lose heart! One, not winning your first RPG Superstar is a fine tradition upheld by 2009’s winner Neil Spicer and 2010’s winner Matt Goodall—you now have a year to practice and hone your craft for the next competition. And don’t forget to stop by the Official Critique My Item Thread to get some feedback on your item from the community and perhaps the judges!
I’m also doing something new this year. During the selection process, the judges set aside items that may be suitable for the Top 32, usually ending up with 40–60 items that they winnow down to just 32 plus four alternates. If your item is on the following list, your item was on that longer list but didn’t make that final cut. To help improve your skills, if your item is listed here and you’d like me to give you feedback from the perspective of a Paizo developer, reply to this blog post and I’ll repost your item with my feedback—the same sort of feedback I’d give to a new freelancer.
Note: Only the items in the following list get this special treatment... I don’t have time in my work schedule to give feedback on hundreds of items.
Also, requesting feedback means you won’t be able to submit this item next year, as the judges will know who you are and therefore your item won’t be anonymous anymore. Fortunately, a true superstar has more than one awesome idea, and you should be able to take what you learned this year and create something even better next year!
Bracers of Versatile Channeling
Compass of the Void Shaper
Darklight Candle
Dust of the Shaitan
Facsimile Stone
Gloves of Theurgy
Gunhunter's Coin
Meridian Needles
Mirror of Monstrous Echoes
Necklace of Mirrored Alignment
Orb of the Dawnflower
Periapt of Continuous Haleness
Ponderous Pebble
Scatterself Stone
Shelyn's Thrush
Stubborn Nail
Torc of Zealous Tenacity
Vest of Second Skin
Viperfang Scabbard
Walking Stick of the Revered Elder
They say the wickedest thing about the old nobles was that they were always coming back from the dead, 'cause folk never came back quite right.
They don't know the half of it.
I swore.
"None of that, Orlin," my brother corrected. "We're in Isarn now. Remember your manners."
"But Norret!" I pointed. "Look! She's at it again!"
Indeed she was. One of the little bouquets from my tray had floated in the air, high over the crowd waiting for the executions, and up to one of the windows of the House of Joy.
That's what they call the temple of Calistria in Isarn. Back in Dabril, Calistria's temple was just the beekeeper's house, and no one besides him did much in the way of worship. In Isarn it was one of the old palaces. But instead of nobles, each window had a beautiful woman or a half-dressed man.
Each also had a window box of carrots instead of flowers, since the Revolutionary Council had recently declared that everyone, even the temple of Calistria, had to grow vegetables, and use horse manure besides.
It made the city stink even worse than usual. That's why we were selling nosegays.
Norret swore too, an expression I'd never heard before. I guessed he'd picked it up soldiering. He followed it with a growl: "Rhodel..."
That was the name of the old strumpet back in our town before I died. Before she died, too, and went off to serve Dabril's patron goddess, Shelyn.
I should probably have mentioned the dying bit.
I died, I guess. All I know is I had a fever and I had this dream. There was a beautiful lady who wanted me to come with her, and a grave lady who said that I couldn't because there was someone else coming for me. Then the beautiful lady made me a bed of roses, told me to sleep, and I did.
I swear they were Shelyn and Pharasma, the actual goddesses. I mean, who else could they be?
The next thing I knew, I was being woken up by a pretty girl a little older than me, maybe sixteen summers, and she definitely wasn't Shelyn or Pharasma. She said she was Rhodel, and she looked sort of like the old Dabril prostitute, only young and pretty. Rhodel told me she was a friend of my brother's, and I should come because he was waiting for me.
So Rhodel took my hand, and next thing I'm standing in the town graveyard, it's winter, and Norret's there, but he's all grown up. Last I saw him, he was barely older than I am.
He used to be fun, too, but now he's all learned and trained in alchemy, which is what he used to bring me back. Of course my brother doesn't know everything, since he didn't expect he'd get Rhodel in the bargain.
He spent what coin we had to talk to some necromancers, and they told him stuff about "psychopomps" and "spirit guides." Even Norret was confused by all of it, which is saying something. Me? All I know is that I came back from the dead and now I'm being haunted by a dead harlot.
A dead harlot, I should add, who was currently taking one of our boquets to a living one. Not that you're supposed to call the priestesses of Calistria that, since they're "sacred prostitutes," and when they're not turning tricks or playing them, they're getting revenge, and they ride around on wasps the size of ponies. This one was tarted up in a gown of yellow-and-black oiled silk, and even had a fuzzy black-and-gold-striped muff to match. Except that it wasn't. It took wing, and I realized the muff was a bumblebee the size of a lapdog.
The bumblebee bumbled around the nosegay, caught it with its claws, then brought it back to its mistress. She took a whiff, smiled, then looked down from her balcony and gestured for Norret and me to come up.
The guards let us use the outside stair, and next thing the sacred dollymop was rising from her divan. Excepting my dream-Shelyn, she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen, with honey-blonde hair done up in patriotic Galtan braids and three patches shaped like daggers rayed around her right eye. She was dressed a lot sluttier, too.
"What a delightful tussie-mussie." She smelled the flowers again. "These blossoms are mere tissue paper, but their scent is fair enough to fool a bee." Hers sat on her shoulder, eyeing the bouquet with eyes like perfume-bottle stoppers. "How can this be?"
I half expected Norret to explain how he'd found the secrets of the perfumers' guild hidden in the diary of the Duke of Dabril, and how we'd been using them to make fake flowers, but all he said was, "Ah, fair lady, the flowers are false but the scents are true. Floral essences from the fields of Dabril..."
She laughed lightly. "I've heard tell of the legendary artisans of some Mwangi queen, able to craft false blossoms so lifelike that they fooled all but Calistria's bees. You, it seems, have done them one better. But I wonder... can your false flowers be used to encode a message like a true tussie-mussie?" She looked at the bouquet, inspecting the blossoms. "Ah yes, here's honeysuckle, for ‘the bonds of love'... And vervain—that's ‘sorcery,' yes?" She looked at Norret and then at me. Rhodel had picked up another of the nosegays, and it was floating. I reached out and grabbed it back. "Ah yes, definitely ‘sorcery.' Your assistant is far too young to be a wizard, but definitely has the mage's hand."
She was wrong on both counts, but not by much as I realized both of my actual hands were still steadying the tray, while my spirit's hand was on the tussie-mussie and was playing tug-of-war for it with Rhodel. It must have looked like two invisible bridesmaids wrestling for the right to be the next one married.
Like I said, people never come back from the dead quite right. The overpriced necromancers told Norret stuff about spectral hands and phantom limbs. All I know is that my soul isn't tied to my body as tightly as it should be and that's not good.
The Calistrian dollymop sniffed her bouquet. "And lavender... That's either ‘devotion' or ‘distrust'... I forget which. I'd have to check my floral dictionary." She looked closer. "Or is this sea lavender? And what is that?"
"‘Sympathy,'" Norret supplied quickly. "And you are correct. It is sea lavender."
"The ‘sympathy' that's used by sorcerers or the type that goes with tea?"
"Does it matter?"
She dimpled. "Always." She tucked the nosegay into the front of her bodice, between breasts each bigger than her giant bee. "A worshiper of Blackfingers, I take it?"
"What makes you say that?"
She winked and gestured to Norret's face. "It's not a mask, but a patched eyed gives an air of mystery..."
"Just a war wound," my brother explained self-consciously, leaving important bits out, like the fact that he'd since used alchemy to heal it, or that he'd also got some magic mercury in it, making it look a bit odd. And in Galt, odd was not good unless you were looking for a place in one of the tumbrel carts headed for the guillotine.
One of those was finally headed through the crowd now, and a cheer went up.
"Oh come, join me," the woman said. "Only the tricoteuses have a better seat..."
"The knitters," Norret explained to my baffled expression. "The market women there."
I looked. Right in front of the Monolith, Isarn's prison and Hall of Justice, was the guillotine with its famous Final Blade known as Madame Margaery. And right there before Margaery's basket with the very best front-row seats was a group of women like you'd see at any market, with aprons and white caps fitted with ribbons. Every last one of them was knitting.
"How might we address our hostess, O beauteous demimondaine?"
Norret liked big words and flowery talk, but from the way she laughed and smiled, I guessed that this was a really nice word for ‘dollymop.' "You may call me ‘Mistress Philomela.' And this," she said gesturing to her giant bumblebee, "is Honeybun."
"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mistress Philomela. I am Norret Gantier and this is my brother and apprentice, Orlin."
"A Calistrian priestess can be a good friend to have, but you don't want to get on her bad side."
I tugged my forelock. "Pleased to meet you."
She made space for us on the divan, which was feathery soft and upholstered in yellow silk, the brocade done with a pattern of vines and blossoms and what looked like skulls. "The fell and fabled creeper," Mistress Philomela explained, seeing Norret's interest in the floral theme. "The pollen produces the most fabulous yellow dye and is of great use in charms of passion and fascination."
"Truly?" asked Norret, touching the silk.
"So I've been told," the dollymondaine admitted. "It's from before the Revolution. It might be saffron from Jalmeray or just common dyer's weld." She smiled conspiratorially. "I've also been told that if you can obtain honey from that particular vine, you can make a mead that acts as a love philtre." She reached for a decanter filled with a pale golden liquid and poured each of us a crystal flute full, as well as a shallow dish for Honeybun. The bee crawled off her shoulder and began to lap it up. "This hydromel comes from the flowers of Calistria, the honeysuckle that we... used to grow here," she finished lamely, looking at the window boxes filled with carrots and horse apples.
Her look continued beyond. Ever heard the expression "to look daggers" at someone? Well, these weren't just normal daggers, but Calistria's, tipped with all of the revenge goddess's wasp venom, and they were aimed straight at the line of knitting women in front of the guillotine. I half expected the three little patches on Mistress Philomela's face to go flying after them.
"A toast," she said, raising her glass, "to the wisdom of the market wives who convinced the Revolutionary Council that every citizen, regardless of station or vows, should grow a victory garden of vegetables, to feed themselves and the hungry folk of Isarn..."
"To victory," said Norret, raising his glass.
"And horse apples," I said, raising mine.
Mistress Philomela nearly choked, then added smoothly, "Yes, and to the wisdom to use the effluence of the streets to fertilize our gardens..."
She and Norret both drank, and I did too, after checking for poison.
I don't quite understand it, but Norret said he used unicorn horn in the potion to bring me back to life, so some of the unicorn's magic must have stuck to me. Which means I can tell if there's poison in something.
There wasn't any poison in the hydromel beyond a bit of alcohol, so I drank it. Then I drank some more. And a little more after that. It was good. I was only able to watch a couple beheadings before my own head hit the pillow at the top of the divan and I fell sound asleep.
I awoke in a room that was definitely not the balcony of the temple of Calistria. Instead of soft silk and swansdown, my pillow was linen over bedstraw, and the room was plain and a little cobwebbed. My brother was there as well, talking to one of the market women. She had her knitting put away, but the bag was by her feet, and she looked very old—at least fifty.
"So who told you I had a room for let?" the woman asked.
"Someone in the crowd," Norret lied. I know when my brother lies—the corners of his eyes go all crinkly. "I gave them a nosegay and they gave me some advice. Said you ran a boarding house with good food and weren't averse to alchemy or magic since you had some skill yourself."
The woman clicked her front teeth together. "Well, that much is true, but—" She paused, and then her small black eyes met mine, magnified and multiplied by little half-moon spectacles that made her look like she had four or more eyes. "Ah, he's awake."
She turned to me and I became acutely aware that my bed was in the corner of the room. "Young citizen, your brother informs me you're called ‘Orlin.' You may address me as ‘Madame Eglantine' or ‘Grandmother Eglantine,' as you prefer, or just as ‘Madame' or ‘Grandmother.' I will not answer to ‘Eglantine' by itself, for only my husbands addressed me as such, and they are all now dead." She smoothed her skirts. "Aside from that, a few other rules: I serve breakfast a half hour after sunrise and supper an hour before sundown. If you arrive at other times, you must make do with what's on the sideboard. The only exception is on days when there is an execution, when I shall be joining my fellow ladies for our knitting circle. On execution days, I set out a cold buffet. Take what you need but leave the rest for the other guests. Don't be greedy but don't expect there will be anything left by suppertime either."
She placed her hands on her hips, her long fingers digging into the fabric of her apron. "As you're from Dabril, I also expect you to be of great help to me in the garden." She fixed me with a steely glare. "Beyond that, both I and my guests value our privacy. That means that locked doors are to be respected and keyholes are not to be peeped through. This goes especially true for my private apartments in the attic. If you pry, you may get what you deserve. That said, if someone breaks into your chambers and blows themselves up with, say, an exploding book, you are responsible for both the damage and the cleaning."
She paused then, placing a finger to her lips, then added, "As for cleaning, I expect you to tidy up after yourselves. The only thing I forbid is harming the spiders, both in the garden and in the house. They are here to catch the dirty flies and those nasty wasps. Leave their webs alone and let the little darlings do their work. Any questions?"
I could only shake my head dumbly.
"Good," she said. "Welcome to my house. I expect to see you tomorrow at breakfast."
With that, she left, and the door latch clicked shut behind her.
Norret turned to me and I said one word. "Poison."
"What?" said Norret.
"Poison," I repeated. "I'm detecting poison."
Norret didn't normally question the new sense I'd picked up, but he glanced to the door and then back. "The old lady? She has poison, or she's been poisoned?"
"Neither," I said. "She is poison."
Coming Next Week: Magical investigations gone awry in Chapter Two of Kevin Andrew Murphy's "The Perfumer's Apprentice."
Kevin Andrew Murphy is the author of numerous stories, poems, and novels, as well as a writer for Wild Cards, George R. R. Martin's shared-world anthology line. His previous Pathfinder Tales stories include "The Secret of the Rose and Glove" (also starring Norret) and "The Fifth River Freedom," the fourth chapter of Prodigal Sons in the Kingmaker Pathfinder's Journal. For more information, visit his website.
Paizo Publishing today announced the finalists for RPG Superstar, the largest open-call tabletop roleplaying game design contest in history. Judges Ryan Dancey, Clark Peterson, Sean K Reynolds, and Neil Spicer selected the Top 32 from hundreds of submissions in an initial contest to design a wondrous item using the rules from the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, available in stores and in electronic form on paizo.com. The Top 32 wondrous items are now on display at paizo.com, complete with judge commentary and additional comments from 2011 RPG Superstar finalists Sam McGowan, Jerral Toi, and winner Sam Zeitlin. Gamers are invited to contribute their own comments to the entries.
"RPG Superstar is a unique opportunity for gamers to become professional designers and for Paizo to discover new, talented writers," said judge and Paizo game developer Sean K Reynolds. "As a developer who regularly works with about a dozen notables from previous competitions, I look forward to seeing these designers grow and improve over the next four challenges. Congratulations to this year’s Top 32!"
The Top 32 finalists (and their winning wondrous items) for RPG Superstar 2012 are (in alphabetical order):
2012’s alternates are Benjamin Medrano, Andrew Newton, and Alex van der Kleut.
UPDATE: Anthony Guillotte, a Top 32 contestant, elected to drop out of the competition, and Jason Neals failed to complete an organization, allowing Andrew Newton and Benjamin Medrano to advance from alternate to the Top 32.
The Top 32 will now be required to design a concept for a new organization to the specifications of the RPG Superstar judges and submit that concept by 2:00 PM Pacific time on Friday, January 27. These round two submissions will be revealed to the general public on January 31 with judges’ comments and the public will then get to discuss the entries and vote for their favorite. Voting ends on February 6 and the Top 16 by votes will move on to round three.
The ultimate winner of RPG Superstar, announced April 3, 2012, will write a Pathfinder Module to be published in early 2013. The 2011 RPG Superstar champion module, Sam Zeitlin’s The Midnight Mirror, releases in April 2012.
This week we’re shipping Game Mastery Plot Twist Cards: Flashbacks, a sequel to the original Plot Twist Cards deck. The point of using Plot Twist Cards is to break out of the mindset that you have to have a precise rule for everything that happened, happens, or could happen in a game. You don’t have to explain why the paladin never mentioned his days as a street thief, or how the “Abyssal bloodline” sorcerer is suddenly manifesting nagalike powers. In a world where magic is real, genetics are subservient to magic, and a spell can create or alter memories, revealing a previously unknown backstory is easy.
Designer Rob Heinsoo and I call this the “soap opera reveal” of character development—as in, “your grandfather wasn’t a powerful sorcerer—he was actually a demon!” Amnesia, secret plans for vengeance, evil twins, clones, demonic possession, dream sequences, mind control, undiscovered siblings, psychic visions, and characters coming back from the dead are all perfectly plausible elements of a Pathfinder campaign. James Jacobs used a derro lab full of clones of Wes Schneider’s character in the Shadow under Sandpoint campaign. Monte Cook used a memory-erasing witch to have his Praemal campaign PCs re-explore a lair they had already explored. Chris Perkins played identity-switching twin elf brothers in Monte’s original Ptolus campaign. I used a dream sequence orchestrated by mi-go to retcon some campaign-derailing events in my Exiles of Zirnakaynin campaign caused by “evil sibling” Rob McCreary and James’s demon-possessed bard.
Using narrative tools like this, even though there aren’t specific rules for them (What’s the saving throw DC to resist a dream sequence? What’s the Perception DC to realize your ally is actually her evil twin?) lets a GM create interesting story arcs for a campaign. Likewise, a player can use these tools to explain gaining an unusual ability, feat, spell, or even something as mundane as suddenly investing 5 skill ranks in a new skill. For gamers hesitant to go outside the bounds of the rules, Plot Twist cards give players and GMs a way to fiddle with bits of the story under agreed-upon constraints.
(As a side note: The woman in the Shadenfreude card illustration is based on Paizo Art Director Sarah Robinson. I can neither confirm nor deny that the illustration is based on an actual event.)
How have you used flashbacks, amnesia, twins/doppelgangers, and similar “soap opera reveals” in your campaign? Would you like to see more examples of doing this, or rules establishing a framework for doing so?
With the coming of the new year, we continue to grow Pathfinder Society at a tremendous rate. With that, I want to make sure we have good leadership in place so that continue to grow and expand. Over the past few months, we added three more Venture-Captains who have not yet formally been introduced, and today we are adding even more to the growing list of Venture-Captains.
I am excited to add three new areas to our Venture-Captain regions. The first is Kansas City, Missouri. Seth Brummond fills an important role in an area ripe for growth and that has been wanting a Venture-Captain. Not only will he be serving western Missouri, but will also be able to help organize and coordinate growth of Pathfinder Society in eastern Kansas.
The second new area is Albany, New York. The capital region of New York has seen an explosion of growth in Pathfinder Society activity over the past several years and I look forward to seeing the direction Evan Whitefield takes Pathfinder Society.
The third new area is Houston, Texas. I know that Houston has seen sporadic Pathfinder Society play and is just waiting for someone to step in and get things organized. Robert Vaughn is just the person to hit the ground running as we watch the Houston Lodge grow.
We also have had two Venture-Captains step down due to real-life responsibilities. I wish fair winds and following seas to both Rene Ayala from Arizona and Neil Shackelton from Toronto. Both of them have done an outstanding job establishing a foothold for Pathfinder Society in their regions and the new Venture-Captains have big shoes to fill.
Assuming Rene’s responsibilities, Jason Leonard has been appointed as Venture-Captain of Arizona. Assuming Neil’s responsibilities, Robert Trifts has been appointed as Venture-Captain of the Ontario region of Canada.
In addition to the new Venture-Captains above, we have added the following Venture-Lieutenants to help some of our current Venture-Captains reach out to areas in their regions that are either too far away to cover on a regular basis, or are too numerous to cover at all. They include the following:
Albany, NY – Brett McLean
Arizona – Cody Lucas
Central/Southern Illinois – Shaun Burton
Indiana – Chris Bonnet
Oregon – Todd Tepper
San Diego, CA – Terence Brawley
Virginia – Jeremy Hitchcock
Wisconsin – Matthew Starch
Melbourne, Australia – Ryan Koetsveld
Ontario, Canada – Jeff Mahood
Denmark – Jacob Trier
We are still in need of additional Venture-Captains in some regions and you can find the list here. If you are interested in applying, please contact me after reviewing the application process in the previous link.
Mike Brock Pathfinder Society Campaign Coordinator
Pathfinder Battles Preview: When Hell Freezes Over
Friday, January 20, 2012
Say, how long does it take to thaw out a goblin? Illustration by Liz Courts
With the arctic devils locking Paizo HQ in sheets of ice and the staff responsible flung to the far corners of snow-locked Seattle, I'm afraid to report that there can be no Pathfinder Battles preview blog today (or blog of any kind, sadly).
Pray for the weary souls of Paizo, cut to the bone with cold, trapped within their mountain fastnesses.
We will reward your patience with a double-sized Pathfinder Battles preview blog next week, with the first amazing images from the next set: RISE OF THE RUNELORDS!
Watch out for yetis (which, by the way, are in the set!).
...Although it looks like this Yeti seems to have escaped!
It snows in Seattle every now and then. Usually not much, but when the entire region is on a 90 degree incline, a little goes a long way… toward sliding your vehicle into a freezing body of water. Some of you might remember the mixture of caution, fear, and hilarity that lead to my own snow-stranding last year. That totally had no influence on the fact that I now live amid the apartments typically referred to here as Paizo East, a whopping three blocks from the office. So, when the Great Flurry of ’12 hit, I sledded down the hill to collect the blizzard of “Out of the Office” e-mails. Lets see what we’ve got:
Not even the Paizo golem is immune to the snowmageddon! Illustration by Liz Courts, Snowed In Specialist
Jerome Virnich, Editorial Intern
Wes. Unfortunately I'm under the weather, both literally and figuratively. Still planning on being there on Friday. Hope you're well!
Mike Brock, Campaign Coordinator & Survivalist
Hi all. After sliding backwards down the 150 yard hill in my apartment complex, I gave up trying to drive to work. I hear Seattle has a great bus system so went to their website. My results from here to work:
Trip Planner
Error Planning Trip
(#20007--Trip not possible)
Modify Trip
So, looks like I'm working from home today.
Judy Bauer, Disaster Opportunist
Mutinying for Snow Days! In a shocking twist, I'll be editing from home again today. Currently rolling on the AP adventure.
Jason Bulmahn, Senior Snowman Wrassler
Yetis stole my car. I am pretty sure they are doing donuts in the intersection. Sean, Judy, and I are going to be staying home today. I've got work banked up still and will be taking breaks to yell at those damn yetis. Stay warm everyone.
Erik Mona, Snowscarred
Folks. After last year's 520-ocalypse, I'm playing it safe with the snow this year. I've got a pile of work to do here at home today, so I'll be editing and working on emails all day today (and possibly tomorrow, given the way people on the radio are freaking out). If you need me, please call.
Lisa Stevens, Lives on a Mountain
You Redmond folks don't know what snow is! And this with the snowpocalypse major snow not even fallen yet! You may not see us until spring! :)
[Picture of Hoth omitted]
From the incomplete nature of this list I can only assume that many others are wandering about disoriented or huddled cozily in their tauntauns. Some though—like James Sutter who owns a parachute and had a toboggan delivered to the office last week—we might never see again.
"We let them out!" Fife said, his voice edged with panic. They dashed through the tall grass, Fife following in Darvin's wake.
"You can't be sure of that," Darvin said, though he suspected the truth of it.
"We've as good as killed that village!"
"Fife," Darvin said, spinning around to grab his brother by the shoulders, but the halfling ran a good dozen paces behind the longer-legged human. Darvin dropped his hands. "By the Gods, your voice carries."
"Darvin!" Fife protested.
"Fife," Darvin warned, and kept pace with the halfling as he whipped by. "As you said, the creatures had already venturing out to slit the throats of farmers. They could leave the manse."
"Then why not kill everyone?" Fife said, "I'll tell you why. Because they only murdered those who stole from their master. But once you broke the seal on the door..."
"So it's my fault?" Darvin demanded.
"You just had to kick down the door."
"It was in the way!"
"It had a handle!"
"Oh." Darvin slowed down a touch. "That part won't be in the tales, will it?"
"Come on, you egomaniacal yak!"
The pair had reached the stables on the edge of the village, the Andoren draft horses within snorting and tramping the ground in their anxiety. All around them, shouts and cries of terror sounded from villagers driven out of their homes by the things that crawled through their windows. Villagers gripped pitchforks and sickles tightly, a few hefting rusting blades of a more martial nature.
Too much, Darvin thought. He slowed and stopped, the horror of it driving stakes through his feet. He watched numbly as Fife ran to people, trying to get them to move, to act, to do something to pierce the same fear that poisoned Darvin. Nobody heard the halfling, however; to them all he was a child to be set aside with both hands, even when he kicked and pulled the crawling thing off a terrified farmer who rolled around in the dirt.
Fife looked to Darvin for help, but Darvin backed away—one step, then two before he forced himself to stop. Only one thing mattered, he forced his fear-addled brain to concede. Only one person.
Darvin grabbed Fife by the shoulder.
"We have to go," Darvin whispered, and began pulling Fife along as the halfling bucked and screamed...
∗∗∗
"No, Darv!" Fife said, trying to free himself from his brother's iron grip.
"Come on," Darvin said, hoarsely, pulling the struggling halfling against his will.
"No! Stop!"
"We have to go!" Darvin shouted, dragging Fife off his feet, but the halfling managed to jerk away, ripping his shirt in the process.
"We have to save them," Fife said, staring up into his brother's eyes.
"We can't!" Darvin said, looking around.
Fife hesitated a moment. "Darvin, the hero of the Mad Necromancer's Wars, pulled his trusted blade from its sheath."
"What?" Darvin said, blinking.
"He set his eyes upon the imperiled village, ready to leap into—"
"What are you doing?" Darvin said.
"In—into the fray," Fife continued staring all around him as cries shot from the shadows like arrows.
"Stop it! That's just make-believe," Darvin shouted. "This isn't one of your blasted stories!"
"Everything's a story!" Fife shouted back with a voice that felt ready to tear itself apart. "Who says my stories aren't the ones we haven't lived yet?"
Darvin stared down at the halfling as though studying an alien, unfathomable thing. Then suddenly, he shook his head, his eyes focusing. "By the gods, you are mad."
"Only a little," Fife said, smiling sadly. Then he continued. "Darvin, hero of the Mad Necromancer's Wars and champion of plump maidens, princesses, and swordswomen everywhere, unsheathed his trusted blade and leapt into the fray...."
A small smile flickered on Darvin's lips. He inhaled sharply. "Right. Hero. Just make sure it's a suitably epic recounting." Then he darted into the crowd, forcibly pulling the men and women into fighting circles around the children.
Fife nodded gratefully and then set to kicking and stabbing at the hands that scrabbled after them. A handful of villagers fought to remove a hand about the throat of another man—the merchant Cullins, Fife realized. Harvander was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he was already dead, or fled.
The halfling gripped his small dirk tighter and ran toward the men. He jostled for place and edged the blade for the hand about Cullins' throat. The bladed fingers were squirming for the merchant's jugular.
"No, you'll hurt him!" someone yelled, but Fife ignored him. He deftly sliced the first dorsal tendon between the thumb and forefinger, and the hand came loose easily. The men stamped it into the ground as Cullins coughed for breath. He rose to his feet with a heavy hand on Fife's shoulder and checked his neck with the other. It bled, but not so fiercely that he'd die.
Fife looked around, desperate for a solution as they ran for the nearest circle of armed farmers. The hands darted in and out of the shadows of the buildings, nicking and slicing with their blades before vanishing again. Several bodies lay where they had fallen, still and no longer bleeding. Others crawled or were dragged to safety, and yet the hands galloped fearlessly on the tips of their sometimes broken digits, eager for mayhem, unfeeling of pain.
The realization thundered inside Fife like a storm overtaking the plains. He grabbed Cullins' arm just as they reached the circle of men and women.
"Is the temple sanctified?" Fife asked.
"Well, the priest diddled Farmer Hoskin's daughter there," one of the men added helpfully.
"Once!" a slender, bearded farmer (who Fife could only assume was Hoskins) replied.
Cullins ignored the other. "It should be," he said.
"Get everyone there. Go! It should protect you!"
Cullins nodded and shouted at the others to join him as they ran for the simple stone building at the crest of a small hill. Fife let them go and turned back into the town to find his brother.
∗∗∗
Darvin knew he was no hero, but argue that with the adrenaline coursing through his veins. He noticed the villagers running for the hill, the cry carrying through the crowd to "Fight your way to the temple!" Though instinct screamed at him to run, Darvin helped with the retreating stragglers, fending off the hands that leapt and flew at them.
He heard a cry from a nearby house—a woman's voice, or perhaps a child's. Two men glanced at the home, but continued retreating. Darvin wanted to join them, but forced himself to remember Fife's words.
"Darvin, hero of the Mad Necromancer's Wars..." he muttered. The phrase was oddly comforting. He ran for the doorway, crushing a hand that scampered near—far too near—under a hard boot.
The unlit, one-room, wood-and-mud home lay disheveled. Straw bedding was scattered underfoot, the stone hearth gasping out its last ember warmth. Backed into the far corner, a young woman grabbed whatever lay in reach—wood figurines, serving plates, clay cups—and lobbed them at the three hands that advanced on her like a pack of jackals.
Darvin acted before he could talk himself out of it, stabbing the closest hand perched on the small table through with his blade. The impaled hand wriggled and jerked on the end of his dagger, and the other pair turned on him instantly.
Furiously trying to whip the dying hand off his dagger, Darvion grabbed the table and flipped it over between him and the advancing monstrosities. It barely slowed the pair down as they sprang over the wood.
One hand leapt for Darvin's shin, nicking it as he tried to sidestep. Hot pain flared up his body and his pant leg grew wet; he fell backward as the other hand tried to run between his splayed legs.
Darvin slammed his foot down again and again on the nearest hand, trying to crush it, then settled for pressing it down into the floor with his heel. The impaled hand continued to jerk at the end of his blade, and Darvin slammed the dagger into the ground, pinning the monster to the irregular slats of the wooden floor. But he'd lost track of the third hand that had drawn blood while the one under heel struggled to free itself.
Darvin couldn't move. He heard something behind him and craned his head around as a shadow moved in the corner of his eye. Fife materialized into view like a ghost, stabbing the third hand through with his dagger, continuing to slam his tiny blade home until it stopped moving.
"Help me," Darvin said as he struggled to kick the trapped hand under heel with his other boot, pain shooting along his wounded leg. Fife set about helping Darvin dispatch the two pinned creatures before both men had a chance to stop, breathe, and finally stare at the wide-shouldered, wide-hipped woman huddling in the corner.
"A plump maiden," Fife whispered to him. "I told you my stories just hadn't happened yet."
"Indeed," Darvin said, grinning at the woman and straightening his clothing.
∗∗∗
"Perhaps Darvin might one day prove a hero after all."
As Fife suspected, the hands couldn't cross the temple's threshold. And slowly, the men and women of the village dispatched the single-minded hands, with rocks, pitchforks, and scythes.
When Darvin and Fife approached the temple gate with the woman, however, Cullins stepped in the way and whispered, "You two best be going."
Fife, full of heroic charge and heart thundering with nervous excitement, said, "But we just saved you!"
Cullins studied the halfling, his eyes hard. "You brought those creatures here, did you not?"
Fife and Darvin exchanged quick glances. "Not deliberately," Fife said. "And they were already escaping before, weren't they? Because the townsfolk looted the manor."
"You sent us there," Darvin said quietly, a dangerous new note in his voice. "You have equal guilt in this."
Cullins nodded. "Perhaps," he said, looking at the bewildered villagers. "But you're outsiders here. This is the only courtesy I can give you. Go, before they regain their senses enough to blame you for this mess. Frightened people do that."
Fife wanted to argue more, but he felt Darvin's hand on his shoulder. "Let's go," Darvin said.
∗∗∗
Dawn touched the horizon, a passing glimpse of what the day could be, and Darvin watched his brother carefully. The halfling had a tendency to brood, weighed down by his thoughts and crushed by self-criticism. Unlike most people with his disposition, however, Fife had turned that brooding into a fine art, and Darvin could see the parables of disappointment in his brother's stories, the roads of regret for paths not taken except, perhaps, in longing dreams and sidelong glances. The business of the village weighed even heavier on him for that.
Darvin nudged Fife.
"What?" the halfling demanded sourly.
"Are you getting shorter?" Darvin said.
"What?"
"Isn't that how it works with halflings? The older you are, the shorter you get?"
"Are you mad, you self-involved moose?"
Darvin shrugged. "Then maybe it's just you," he said cheerfully, and continued onward despite the pain in his bandaged leg.
∗∗∗
They walked in silence a bit further, Fife glaring up at Darvin. The human's chirpy attitude and perpetual grin suggested that all trouble was destined to flow off his back. But Fife knew better. His brother needed anchors in this world, an emotional connection to guide his feet along the path. Darvin tended to hurdle obstacles, attracted by bright shiny things, almost entirely self-involved. The number of times Darvin nearly got himself killed staggered and frightened Fife. If Fife hadn't been there, to give Darvin pause, to remind his brother that they shared in the repercussions of Darvin's actions, then Darvin would have suffered for his enthusiasms. For that alone, Fife was glad to be a burden that only brothers shared.
Still, it didn't mean that his brother didn't get on his nerves occasionally.
A wicked thought occurred to him.
"Say, Darvin," Fife asked casually, "do you know what the word ‘incontinent' means?"
"Sure," Darvin replied. "It means spanning multiple continents, right?"
"Absolutely. I was thinking that my next story of your adventures might involve some jungle exploration in Garund."
Darvin grinned broadly and gripped the halfling about the shoulders. "See, that's why you're the writer!"
Fife nodded. "And you the hero," he said. "Oops—I meant the incontinent hero."
Darvin accepted the title with a bow and a flourish, and the pair continued on toward the next town, the rehearsing of another tall tale under way.
Coming Next Week: The return of Norret the Galtan alchemist in Kevin Andrew Murphy's "The Perfumer's Apprentice."
Lucien Soulban is an accomplished fantasy and science fiction author who's written shared world fiction for White Wolf, Wizards of the Coast, Black Library, and more, including the novels Blood In, Blood Out and The Alien Sea. For more information, visit his website at www.luciensoulban.com.
I’ll be honest with you. I love maps. I always have, so when Erik, Wes, and Jason asked me if I wanted to start designing the Map Packs and Flip-Maps for the GameMastery line, I just yelled, “Gimme!” Then I ran away, laughing manically with my new toy.
This is a section of the “artwork” I sent to Jason for Flip-Mat: Pirate Ship. It’s ugly, but gets the point across, which is the purpose of the sketch.
By designing maps, I don’t mean that I actually do the cartography. That’s a job for far more artistically savvy folk, like the talented Jason Engle, who is currently doing the artistic heavy lifting for these products. But before we can have Jason do his magic, there is a lot of work and planning that goes into each of these products. This week, I’m going to hijack the blog to shed some light on the process of designing a GameMastery Map Pack or Flip-Mat product.
Each map product starts out as a vague concept on the product schedule. I say vague concept, but there is actually a lot of thought that goes into the concept phase. A few of us sit around the table, look at the current map products we have available, determine which ones sold well, which ones didn’t, and rifle though the Paizo messageboards about such products and see what kind of things the fans liked, what they didn’t, and what kind of things they would like to see in the future. Often, a Map Pack or a Flip-Mat is meant to complement Pathfinder products set for release around the same period of time.
For instance, both the upcoming Map Pack: Ship’s Cabins and the Flip-Mat: Pirate Ship were expressly designed to complement the Skull & Shackles Adventure Path. Sure, each of these products features cool ships that you could use in any campaign, but each one also details ships that the PCs actually use in that Adventure Path. Because of this dual purpose, I worked closely with Rob McCreary (Adventure Path developer extraordinaire) to make sure that each map product would have everything that he and the AP designers would need for that project. This give-and-take started with Rob giving me preliminary information about the AP adventures, particularly encounters taking place on the various ships. From there, I put together rough sketches of the maps and had Rob give me feedback on them. That feedback often forced me to go back to the drawing board, create a new round of rough sketches, and then we would start the process all over again, iterating until everything was right.
Jason Engle’s final product using my rough sketch and area descriptions as direction. The final product is beautiful and spot on. Jason rocks!
While the maps connected to the Skull & Shackles Adventure Path were a little more cooperation-intensive than most map projects, every early map product process starts with brainstorming, rough sketching, and making sure all the stakeholders are happy with the initial map design. Once that’s achieved, the next step is to make those rough sketches something more concrete—more than just a bunch of pencil scribbles on graph paper. They have to be something that an artist can understand clearly and easily. This involves cleaner maps sketched with my set of gaudy-but-striking colored pens and a map order that lists all the important details of the map. These refined rough sketches and the map order then goes to the art department. The art director, Sarah Robinson, then takes a look, makes sure it is as clear as possible, asking me questions about things that seem vague or somewhat questionable, revisions are made again if necessary, and then she sends it to Jason for beautification.
The process does not end there, though. Jason sends us his preliminary work on the maps, usually in the form of a black-and-white “sketch,” which is nearly complete, except for the color. We then take a look at his work, making sure that all of the details presented in my initial drawings and map order are all there, and take a critical eye at the often wondrous details he provides. Once that’s done, we either send a list of small changes or—more often than not—just let Jason know that his work is spot on and then move on to the next step: final or nearly final turnover by the artist.
With the color maps in, we look over them carefully, making sure everything looks gorgeous and the details are correct, and then move on to last-minute approvals from all the stakeholders and the business team. On rare occasions, the map goes back for some last-minute tweaking. When we are all happy with the final result, packaging is designed, and the files get sent to the printer.
Lastly, the product gets shipped out to subscribers and distributors. It’s final journey ends with the “ooohs” and “aaahs of players” as GMs everywhere plop the finished product on the game table before uttering that magical phrase, “Roll initiative.”
With a continuing effort to strengthen the entire Pathfinder Society program, as well as to continue tying up lose ends, The Worldwound Gambit by Robin D. Laws has now been incorporated into the Pathfinder Society.
Because of the differences between reading a novel and playing a game, there are specific rules needed for using sanctioned content from a Pathfinder Tales novel during play and we'll be providing a Chronicle sheet for players to use with their characters.
Sanctioned novels you ask? How do you sanction a novel? Because Pathfinder Tales novels are stories first, there is no easy way to sanction items, spells, feats, or other special abilities whole cloth. Therefore, the Chronicle sheets use the following rules.
Only items, feats, boons, or abilities found on the Chronicle sheet are legal for play.
Each player must have a copy of the Chronicle sheet with his or her character at all times.
In order for the Chronicle sheet to be considered legal for play, the player must show to the GM a copy of the Pathfinder Tales novel, either in printed or digital format.
A Chronicle sheet may be applied to each character the player currently has or creates in the future.
GMs are advised to work with players to make the sanctioning of Pathfinder Tales Chronicle sheets easy and fast. As long as the player has her copy of the book, she should be able to use the Chronicle sheet just like any other.
If you would like to learn more about the Pathfinder Tales line, please visit paizo.com or your local bookstore. Other novels in the line include Master of Devils by former Dragon Magazine editor Dave Gross, and Plague of Shadows by Andrew Jones.
Also, don’t forget the awesome Pathfinder Tales Three-for-all sale that is continuing through the end of January. For every two Pathfinder Tales novels you purchase—whether in print or PDF/ePub—you'll get the third for free. Or purchase any two Pathfinder Tales short fiction ePubs and get the third for free. Just add them to your cart, and we'll discount the lowest-priced qualifying item at checkout.
Mike Brock Pathfinder Society Campaign Coordinator
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Pathfinder Battles Preview: A Last Look at Heroes & Monsters
Friday, January 13, 2012
The first set of Pathfinder Battles prepainted miniatures, Heroes & Monsters, formally released this Wednesday. Many of you probably already have your miniatures, or are eagerly anticipating their arrival. Looking over the previews we’ve posted over the last few months, there are still a few minis we haven’t yet shown off in their final form, so if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to take one more pass through this first set before revealing the goods on the next set, which will support the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path.
Last week, I went through final images of several of the monsters from the set, but I managed to miss the nasty Orc Brute, which is actually one of my personal favorite figures from the set. I’m astounded by the detail WizKids got into the commons in this set, and this guy is no exception. As an aside, some folks have asked me about the names of some of these figures. I decided to call this guy an “Orc Brute” because he looked bulkier than the Orc Warrior. If you’re looking to emulate this figure with Pathfinder stats, I suggest adding the advanced simple template to the orc warrior and swapping his weapon to a club. Voila!
Speaking of commons, I’m quite pleased with how the Watch Guard turned out. His lantern lights the way through dark city streets, and he’s sure to come running 3d6 rounds after your player characters scream out for his help.
This common Watch Officer started out life as a Watch Captain, but I didn’t quite feel that his pose sold the “awesomeness” of a captain, so I busted him down a rank or two. I do hope to get a genuine Watch Captain into the line at some point. When that happens, you can expect him (or her!) to share the same color scheme and costume details of these two watch figures. Making “like” creatures look alike is a big goal for Pathfinder Battles, and one I hope we can continue to build on in future sets.
This “hero” doubles quite nicely for a villain, since he looks like he’s about to emerge from his hiding place in the shadows to stab you in the back. We call him the Human Rogue, and whether you use him as a player character or a common thug, he definitely comes with the right tool for the job.
Is the item in the hands of this uncommon Human Druid a bedroll? A really big scroll? I’m honestly not sure, even today, but I do think she looks pretty nifty. This figure doubles nicely as a noncombatant townsfolk or tribal character, though those blue crystals hanging from her belt have got to be worth something!
The uncommon Elf Wizard is captured in the act of casting a spell. The figure features a neat color gradient on the skirt of the robes that gives it a nice texture effect.
The uncommon Dwarf Fighter is pulled from the back cover of the Inner Sea World Guide, making him a sneaky actual Pathfinder NPC masquerading as a simple player character figure. Don’t tell the high court of the Five Kings Mountains, but High King Borogrim the Hale has been slumming it!
This uncommon Half-Elf Cleric worships the crusader goddess Iomedae, and comes complete with a holy symbol and a cool graphic on her tabard. She also works great as a paladin or fighter, depending on your mood. Just don’t make fun of her bowl haircut. I hear she’s pretty touchy about that subject!
And that’s it! Looks like my art team forgot to take a picture of the Human Ranger (one of my favorites in the set), so I guess next week we’ll just show a picture of him and put off the Runelords previews again.
JUST KIDDING!
We’ll add him as a special bonus image to next week’s blog, which I promise is going to melt your brains with awesomeness. I can’t believe how great these Runelords minis look! Best of all, we’ve photographed paint masters of almost the entire set, so we should be able to jump right into the good stuff immediately.
That’s not too difficult, because as far as Rise of the Runelords is concerned, it’s all good stuff!
I hope you’ve enjoyed these Heroes & Monsters previews. We’ve now posted singles for sale to help you complete your sets (don’t forget that case subscribers get a discount on singles orders!). If you haven’t yet placed your Heroes & Monsters case or brick orders, I suggest doing so soon. These minis are moving much faster than we anticipated, and they will not be around forever!
As the four judges whittle down the RPG Superstar wondrous item “keeps” pile from about 60 to just 32 + 4 alternates, I thought we could take some time to hear from two of our guest judges for Round 1—Sean McGowan and Jerral Toi, who made it to the Top 4 last year. Take it away, gentlemen!
Sean K Reynolds Designer and RPG Superstar Judge
∗∗∗
RPG Superstar has, over the past few years, become as much a part of my holiday season as any family traditions I may have grown up with. It’s just not a proper winter wonderland ’til there’s a big, pretty link to the Superstar forums on the left side of the Paizo page. (Plus, it serves as a reminder that I need to start getting some shopping done.)
Paizo has created a great annual event with this contest, and much like the Macy’s parade or the New Year’s Eve ball drop, I hope it never goes away, but just stretches on into the future leaving an infinite number of superstar winners in its wake. Leaving aside the fun factor (and that’s a lot to leave aside...) it’s a great experience to just be able to see new RPG writers developing.
The first two years of the contest, I had a blast just being a spectator and kibitzing from the sidelines. The next two years I was lucky enough to make it in as a contestant. As one of the Top 4, I was thrilled at getting the chance to write a Pathfinder Society Scenario for Paizo, and loved the experience. This year, I’m enjoying the role of guest judge for Round 1. I’m very much looking forward to participating in the contest in this new fashion, not least because I’m a deeply impatient person and getting to see the Round 1 entries a week before they’re public is awesome.
Sean McGowan RPG Superstar Guest Judge
∗∗∗
2011 was a crazy year. The RPG Superstar contest was one of the most stressful, yet fun and exciting times of my gaming history. In the end, I placed in the Top 4 and was given the opportunity to start edging my way into game design freelancing. In addition to working with Mark Moreland on Pathfinder Society Scenario #3–09: The Quest for Perfection—Part I: The Edge of Heaven, I also infiltrated the kobold mines and snuck an article featuring alchemist archetypes into Kobold Quarterly 19. Right now, I am working on a series of steampunk-themed projects for Nevermet Press.
Publication, however, is only one of the many good things to emerge from competing. The contest forced me to reexamine several previously engrained thoughts and habits pertaining to writing and gaming. During the contest, the judges and broader audience shared a lot of information and advice about gaming, writing, and the RPG industry, as well as personalized and individual feedback. Where else can you get good and immediately applicable advice like this?
I am looking forward to learning even more in 2012.
Darvin cursed himself for not thinking, for not realizing how Fife would react. He'd raced halfway across the circular chamber, running for the door, when he realized something was amiss. He couldn't feel Fife's familiar presence, that steady pressure by his side. Darvin turned to see Fife frozen near the collapsed passageway. All around them, from the shadows of the laboratory, a legion of amputated hands rushed forward on blade-sheathed fingers, skittering like spiders in a mad dash for the intruders.
"Spider," Fife said breathlessly as Darvin ran back to him, scooped him up, and dropped the halfling over his shoulder.
"Not spiders!" Darvin said, hoping to cut his friend free from his terror.
"Spider!" Fife yelled, and batted at Darvin's back.
"Ah!" Darvin cried, surprised, and a hand dropped away from his backpack. He booted it away quickly, before it could spring back up onto its fingers.
"Runrunrun!" Fife screamed.
Darvin hesitated. The hands converged on them the same way water flows down the slope, their fingers blurs of galloping motion and the opportunity for escape gone in an instant. Two more hands appeared from the hole through which they'd entered the room.
Darvin leapt into action, taking long strides, hurdling amputated hands that leapt and grabbed for them. He spun this way and that, clumsily avoiding attackers as his companion's weight threatened to topple his balance. Fife protected his back, wildly swinging his bag of notebooks at the hands lunging at them from behind. One such assault thwacked Darvin on the backside.
"Ow!" Darvin yelped. "That was a corner!"
"Run!" Fife replied.
The hands closed in, barely heeding or pausing at the blows that sent them careening back. They outnumbered the pair, and Darvin could only react, not make any real progress. He threw Fife on the high workshop table, breaking vials and scattering jars and books, before leaping atop it himself. The hands scrambled up the sides of the table.
We're surrounded, Darvin realized.
∗∗∗
Fife swung his bag like a mace, shattering glass and dislodging metal fingers that crested the lip of the table. Behind him, Darvin stomped digits and booted away hands, but the crawling horrors possessed a heedless relentlessness. They landed a few feet away on the stone floor, recovered almost instantly, and scrambled back for the table.
"We're dead!" Darvin screamed. "We are so very much dead!"
Fife wanted to respond, but hearing his brother's panic only tightened its grip around his own throat, stopping him from speaking. The hands had them trapped, a dozen feet away from the other door and under the relentless assault of their diminutive foes. This is all my fault. He had dragged them into this misadventure. "I'm sorry," he managed.
A pair of hands grabbed Fife's waist, and before he realized what was happening, Darvin had hoisted him up, toward the wagon-wheel chandelier above their heads. Fife barely had time to grab it before Darvin let go.
"Save yourself!" Darvin said.
The wheel swung on a rusted chain, creaking and groaning. Particles of dust trickled down from the chain's anchor in the ceiling. Fife managed to slip upward through the spokes and atop the wheel before he looked down. The table looked like an island in a relentless sea of moving hands. The smell of rotten eggs and decaying flesh drifted up from the mess.
"Darvin! Climb!" Fife extended his arm down to pull up his brother. Darvin busied himself kicking the hands away, trying to keep track of the table's four sides. His movements grew frantic and wilder as exhaustion weighed more heavily upon him.
When Darvin didn't respond, Fife stretched down and grabbed for his brother in desperation, catching only a handful of the man's long, sandy hair.
"Ah!" Darvin cried, trying to kick the hands, maintain his balance, and not have a halfling-sized fistful of hair torn out by the roots.
"Jump up!" Fife ordered.
"My hair!"
"Damn your hair! Jump!"
One of the amputated hands grabbed Darvin's ankle, and he kicked it away before jumping up. He grabbed the spokes. The wheel creaked, the chain groaned, and the pair swung ponderously to and fro. The hands jumped up on the tabletop and jockeyed for position. A few of them tried springing up to grab Darvin's feet, but he pulled his legs up quickly and threaded them through the spokes.
"Now what?" Darvin asked, whispering and looking at Fife through the gap.
"I have a plan," Fife whispered back.
"Why are we whispering? They don't have ears... do they?" He craned his neck to look back down at the hands.
"Climb up," Fife said, even as something in the ceiling creaked loudly.
"It won't take my weight!" Darvin hissed.
"Exactly," Fife said, grinning. "Now climb!"
∗∗∗
Darvin remained dubious as only an older sibling could. Now atop the wheel, he froze and grimaced as more dust poured through the ceiling bolts and the wood complained beneath them.
They would fall. That much he knew, looking down at the table with all the hands jumping up, trying to grab at them.
"Now what?"
Fife grinned in response and pushed himself up from his belly before thrusting himself down. The chain screeched in complaint and the wheel wobbled.
"Wait!" Darvin said. "What're you—"
Fife pushed again. "Help me!" he said.
Darvin suddenly understood. "The gods save us from your lunacy!" he said, and braced against the ceiling, pressing down against the wheel with his legs.
"Are they tiny gods?" Fife asked.
The chain didn't snap, but instead broke from the ceiling anchors and dropped them, heavy wheel, unspooled chain, and all. The chandelier struck the tabletop with a crash of falling mortar, breaking glass, and the squish-thud-crack of pulped hands. The impact hammered the air from the brothers' lungs.
"What fell force created and compels the bladed hands?"
Hands crawled away, their fingers snapped, small bones exposed. Some lay dead like curled-up spiders. Others rolled away to safety.
"We killed them," Fife whispered, but Darvin pulled him away.
"C'mon! Let's go!"
They bolted for the door even as the surviving hands sprang or wobbled to their digits. Ignoring whatever shock or injury the intruders had meted out, the hands immediately set after them in hot pursuit.
Darvin pulled at the door and sighed gratefully when he realized it wasn't locked. In fact, the passageway angled upward. The two brothers ducked through and Darvin slammed the door shut behind them, laughed despite himself—a desperate, exhausted bark of triumph and relief.
Then he caught Fife's expression. Following his brother's gaze, Darvin looked down and saw the small square at the bottom of the door, crowned by a hinge. Darvin knew he should understand what it meant, but his adrenaline-addled brain wasn't quite up to the challenge.
"What is—?" he began, but Fife interrupted him.
"It's a dog door!" the halfling cried.
That's silly, Darvin thought. "But I didn't see a—"
The first hand barreled through the swinging door, and Fife stamped desperately on it. The door shuddered as multiple thuds struck it, and several hands wedged at the small access as they all struggled to get through next.
Darvin acted, kicking the hinged flap and scattering the hands back into the room. He turned to find Fife no longer kicking the hand in question, but instead jumping up and down with both feet, knees as high as his chest, vigorously stomping the amputated monstrosity into the ground.
"Die, spider!" Fife screamed. "Die, die, die!"
"It's already dead, dead, dead," Darvin said, and grabbed Fife, pulling him along the passageway. The human did pause, however, and stomp heavily on the hand one last time before the pair bolted.
They ran hard, past shadowed corners and down strange passageways. Fife glanced through doorways, almost distracting himself once when he spied ancient tomes lining long bookshelves in one study. Darvin, however, grabbed Fife and pulled him along; he knew well how the halfling's natural curiosity overcame his survival instincts.
Finally, the corridor dead-ended at a doorway, the wood etched with strange arcane patterns of sweeping, curving meridian designs. Darvin glanced back behind them, but the stampede of hands was nowhere to be seen. He raised a foot to kick open the rune-marked door.
"No!" Fife screamed, and tackled Darvin's thigh.
Darvin grabbed the wall for balance and tried to shake his friend loose. "Do you mind?" Darvin asked, calmly.
"You don't know what those markings mean!" Fife said, arms wrapped tight around Darvin's leg. "It could be trapped!"
Darvin sighed. He just wanted to get away from here, from the village, from this entire ordeal as soon as possible. "Why would anyone trap their home?"
"Why would he lop off hands and animate them?" Fife asked, letting go.
"Maybe he couldn't afford a full staff?" Darvin offered.
"The point is, who knows what he was thinking?" Fife said. "Remember the Tale of the Moaning Virgin's Ghost?"
"You mean the one you wrote?"
"Yes."
"Actually," Darvin said, "I've been meaning to talk to you about that one. I don't think you thought the title through."
"Darvin!" Fife said, eyeing the door. "What I mean is, I research my material for authenticity. The wizard in that story trapped the door to keep something inside. It's based on a real spell!"
Darvin thought for a moment. "Alright," he said. "In that story, how did I open that door?"
"You..." To Darvin's satisfaction, Fife hesitated.
"I kicked it open, didn't I?" Darvin demanded.
"Yes," Fife said. "But that was a story. And you got cursed in it."
"Right," Darvin said, and kicked open the door.
The runes splintered under the breaking wood, glowing brightly for a moment before fading from the frame. Fife groaned in worry, but Darvin shoved his way through.
Fresh air swept across them, driving away the pungent, earthy smell of decay and replacing it with the dewy wetness of night and grassy hills and wind-ruffled trees. Moonlight filtered through the branches and the pair pushed forward, thrashing their way through the bush that hid the doorway and its rocky outcropping. The air felt infinitely better than the stink of death behind them.
Darvin collapsed on the grass, staring up at the night sky and laughed gratefully. Fife did not join him. Instead, the halfling peered back through the shrubs, checking the passageway they'd left.
"We lost them," Darvin said. "Stop worrying."
"They're tireless," Fife said thoughtfully. "Single-minded. Why'd they stop?"
"Maybe they can't leave the ruins."
"They've killed local farmers. They go out."
Darvin sighed and struggled to sit up. "Then why, oh great storyteller?"
Fife shook his head. Darvin could tell he didn't know, but the halfling examined their surroundings. Darvin glanced around as well.
They rested on the side of a great hill, one wave in a sea of green rolling dunes that stretched out in all directions. The clouds had rolled away, the face of the moon showing at full light this evening. Even Darvin could see clearly, though he trusted Fife's eyes more in the darkness. He peered into the countryside, noting the green and rocky landscape, this cluster of stones one of many among the companion hills.
Further south, below them, lay the dotted lights of the village, silent and tranquil in the distance. Then something caught Fife's attention and he waved frantically, pointing down the valley.
Between them and the village, the tall grass rustled and small dark things scrambled over the rocks, some slower than others.
"The hands," Fife said, horrified.
Darvin followed the line of movement, projecting their path until his eyes came to rest on the sleepy collection of buildings in the distance.
"We have to go," Fife said. "They're going after the village!"
Coming Next Week: A chance at handy victories and handsome rewards in the final chapter of Lucien Soulban's "Fingers of Death—No, Doom!"
Lucien Soulban is an accomplished fantasy and science fiction author who's written shared world fiction for White Wolf, Wizards of the Coast, Black Library, and more, including the novels Blood In, Blood Out and The Alien Sea. For more information, visit his website at www.luciensoulban.com.
As Ryan Dancey, Clark Peterson, Neil Spicer, and I work our way through the last wondrous item submissions for RPG Superstar, I've come to realize two things. One, magic item stat blocks convey a lot of information, and two, many people don't understand what goes into a magic item stat block. In this blog, I'll dissect a magic item stat block and explain what goes where, and why.
Item Name: This section is self-evident. The magic item name header in the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook looks like this is in all caps, but it's just a text style—don't type yours in all caps!
Aura: This section exists so the GM can quickly tell a player what schools of magic the item uses. This is noteworthy only if the PC fails the Spellcraft check to identify the item and needs an idea of what it may do. Auras are always written as "faint," "moderate," or "strong," plus the appropriate school or schools, and perhaps a subschool if relevant.
CL: The caster level tells you what caster level the item operates at. This means you don't have to specify a caster level in the item's description—if you find an orb that can create a fireball, it doesn't need to say "fireball (10d6)." Unless otherwise specified, the item uses this caster level for all of its abilities. The caster level should include the ordinal abbreviation for that number: "CL 1st" instead of just "CL 1," "CL 2nd" instead of just "CL 2," and so on.
Slot: This slot tells you which of the magic item "body slots" the item uses (Core Rulebook 459). If you have to hold the item in your hand (like a rod of wonder) or if it doesn't use a slot at all (like an ioun stone), it's listed slot is "none." (Paizo used to put a dash there for slotless items but no longer does it that way.)
Price: This is the item's market price—how much you'd pay for it if you bought it from an NPC. This is never expressed as a fraction or decimal; "12 gp, 5 sp" is correct, "12.5 gp" is not, nor is "12 1/2 gp." If the item costs more than 999 gp, put a comma in to separate the thousands ("20,000 gp" instead of "20000 gp" or "20.000 gp"). If your item costs more than 200,000 gp, it's probably an artifact rather than a regular magic item. If the item has several types (like a figurine of wondrous power) with different costs, each is listed here, separated by commas.
Weight: This is how much the item weighs, in pounds (abbreviated "lb." for 1 pound or less and "lbs." for 2 or more pounds). Most common items in the game have a specific weight, just for consistency. For example, boots weigh 1 lb., so players don't have to remember different boot weights. Some light items, like gems, headbands, and rings, have a standard weight of "—," which means individually their weight isn't important (though the GM can rule that a chest full of them has weight). When in doubt, find a similar item in the Core Rulebook and use the listed weight.
Description (Header): This is a text format we call a "breaker"—the all caps and lines above and below the text are just an applied style. Like the title, don't type this line in all caps, and don't add underlining.
Description (Paragraph): The paragraph description of a magic item should say (1) what it looks like, (2) what the item does, and (3) how often you can use the item.
Normally, using a magic item is a standard action. You shouldn't give an item a shorter activation time than that because it messes with the "action economy" of the combat round—a player who tries to create a faster item is trying to do more than one magical thing per round.
Whether or not using an item provokes an attack of opportunity is built into how it's activated (Core Rulebook 458). This means for command word items you don't need to say that it's a standard action to activate and that it doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity—that's assumed for all command word items. In fact, the assumption is if an item doesn't say how you activate it, it's a command word item.
Magic items that have effects requiring saving throws should include those saves in the item description. If it's duplicating a spell, the default save DC is the minimum for casting that spell: 10 + 1.5 x the spell's level.
If you refer to specific spells, italicize them, like fireball or pearl of power. If you refer to feats or skill names, capitalize them, like Power Attack, Weapon Focus (longsword), Perception, or Knowledge (local). There's very little else in the game that always requires capitalization—you don't capitalize class names (cleric), race names (dwarf), combat maneuvers (grapple, trip), or other specific rules (breath weapon, drowning, trample, poison).
Construction (Header): Like the Description header, this is not all caps and not manually underlined.
Requirements: This section is all the stuff a character needs to create the item using an item-crafting feat. List the crafting feat first (capitalized), followed by spell names (italicized), followed by any other requirements such as needing ranks in a skill (capitalized) or an ability like channel energy.
Cost: This is the item's sale cost—how much a PC could get for selling it to an NPC. This is always half the item's Price (with the exception of magic weapons, magic armor, and items with expensive material components or foci, because the extra cost is factored in differently). If your item's Cost isn't half its Price, you've done it wrong. All rules for the Price apply to the Cost (no decimals, no fractions, separate variants with commas).
Phew! That's a whole lot of nitpicking, but it can make the difference between a professional-looking item and an amateur-looking one, and between a reasonable item and an overpowered item.
For PaizoCon 2012, we plan to make this the biggest and best PaizoCon yet! I am scheduling 150 tables of Pathfinder Society over three days. In addition, we are bringing back the Grand Convocation interactive. Finally, we are debuting the GM 101 sessions that will hopefully be a hit so we can continue to offer it at future shows. It should be an awesome time.
I need a minimum of 45 volunteer GMs for Pathfinder Society games and I'll keep taking volunteer GMs until the slots are filled! I also need 2 Volunteer Assistants for the show—these folks will not GM, but will instead help me run Pathfinder Society HQ and will be our go-to guys and gals for all things Pathfinder Society. There may also be special or unique roleplaying opportunities to play the part of a NPC in the Grand Convocation, so please let me know if that is something that might interest you. However, do not narrow your choice to a specific NPC as it may remove you from consideration.
Below you will find the reward structure for volunteering at PaizoCon 2012. Keep in mind that you're volunteering for slots, not a specific event. We will let you know the slots you have been assigned to before the lottery goes live. This should allow you plenty of time to plan a schedule with your friends who are also attending PaizoCon 2012. Please let me know via email which days you will be at the convention and how many slots you are volunteering for at PaizoCon 2012.
Volunteer Tiers and Rewards
Volunteer Assistant: 2 needed, treated as a Tier 1 GM
Tier 1 GM Volunteers: Tier 1 GM volunteers are my everyday GMs. They are invaluable to making the show a success! Tier 1 GMs must select and volunteer for a MINIMUM of 5 slots. Tier 1 GMs may feel free to volunteer for more than 5 slots if they so desire. I only have room for 20 Tier 1 GM volunteers so don't delay in volunteering for this tier. Volunteers will be chosen on a first-come, first-served basis, though I reserve the right to select volunteers who have previously worked for Paizo over new volunteers. Please do not volunteer for Tier 1 if you have any doubts that you'll be able to attend the show. Tier 1 GMs receive:
A FREE 3-day PaizoCon 2012 badge
A $10-per-slot voucher for Paizo.com credit, useable at the show or anytime after, including with your subscriptions.
A special Pathfinder Society GM boon available only at PaizoCon.
Tier 2 GM Volunteers: While the rewards for volunteering for this tier are smaller, the majority of my volunteers will come from Tier 2. Tier 2 GMs must volunteer for a MINIMUM of 4 slots. Tier 2 GMs receive:
A FREE 3-day PaizoCon 2012 badge
A $10-per-slot voucher for Paizo.com credit, useable at the show or anytime after, including with your subscriptions.
A special Pathfinder Society GM boon available only at PaizoCon.
Tier 3 GM Volunteers: This is the minimum volunteer level. Tier 3 GMs must volunteer for a MINIMUM of 2 slots. Tier 3 GMs receive:
A $10-per-slot voucher for Paizo.com credit, useable at the show or anytime after, including subscriptions.
A special Pathfinder Society GM boon available only at PaizoCon.
While we will gladly accept anyone who wants to run just one slot during the show, there are no rewards for doing so other than our thanks.
When volunteering, please be specific about what days you are volunteering for. I will assign folks to scenarios on an as-needed basis, so you really only need to tell me the day(s) you're volunteering for. I will update the needs in the thread below as I receive volunteers, so you may look there to remain up to date on where we still need help. Lastly, you must have a paizo.com account and you must include your paizo.com email in your email or I won't be able to get you a badge (obviously this is only for volunteers who are volunteering for 4 or more slots).
Slot 1: Friday 8 AM to 1 PM Slot 2: Friday 1 PM to 6 PM Slot 3: Friday 7 PM to 12 AM (Grand Convocation Interactive) Slot 4: Saturday 8 AM to 1 PM Slot 5: Saturday 1 PM to 6 PM Slot 6: Sunday 9 AM to 2 PM
All PaizoCon 2012 volunteers please email me at mike.brock@paizo.com with the subject line PaizoCon Volunteer.
Thanks in advance for volunteering, good luck, and have a great spring convention season!
Oh, and one more thing! Don’t forget, next Monday Paizo Fiction Editor will be hanging out in the Paizo chat room at starting at 6 PM PST. Come talk fiction!
Mike Brock Pathfinder Society Campaign Coordinator
Pathfinder Battles Preview: One More Look at the Bad Guys
Friday, January 6, 2012
January 11th is the official release date for Pathfinder Battles: Heroes & Monsters, our first big set of prepainted miniatures produced in cooperation with WizKids! That means we have only two more chances to show off the final sculpts of minis we've previously revealed only as digital renders or pre-production samples. A few commenters on last week's preview blog also suggested some size comparison shots, which we've thrown together below.
Two weeks from today, we'll begin to reveal some of the amazing miniatures in store for our next set, Rise of the Runelords. We now have photos of paint masters for about half of that set, so you can expect to see some amazing, full-color images pretty much immediately.
But that's the future, and the first set isn't even out yet. It deserves just a little bit more time in the sun.
Once again, these are photos of actual miniatures from the Heroes & Monsters set. Enjoy!
Up first we have the Zombie, a common menace that can't wait to sink its teeth into your player characters. As I chronicled several preview blogs ago, this guy started out with a kind of goofy "dancing" pose, but his revised look is more of an undead lunge, and I'm really pleased with how he turned out.
This rare Werewolf retains very little of his original clothing, and almost none of his humanity. The black paint scheme perfectly matches the common Wolf in this same set, giving you both bestial forms of a lycanthropic menace.
This haunting fellow, the rare Spectre, is enormously spooky. The detailed sculpt of his wispy bottom half looks really great in-hand, as many of you will no doubt discover only a few days from now.
Here we have the uncommon Venomous Snake, looking like it's slithered directly off the page of the Pathfinder Bestiary. Ssssssweet!
Speaking of snakes, who better to accompany the Venomous Snake than the rare Medusa, one of the best sculpts in the set? WizKids did a great job capturing the likeness of this iconic creature, and I'm willing to bet she becomes one of the break-out favorites of the set.
And here's my absolute favorite of the bunch, the rare Ettin. I don't think there's ever been a better prepainted mini of this two-headed giant, who absolutely towers over the other figures in this set.
Don't believe me? Check this out:
See what I mean? This guy is huuuuuge. Ok, he's actually Large, in game terms, but he really pushes the envelope, and is sure to elicit gasps from your players when you plunk him on the table!
Of course, the special promotional Huge Black Dragon (who actually is Huge) is the real masterpiece of the set. Here he is standing next to the Medusa, who really ought to start fast-talking soon. Acid breath cuts right through stone, so I imagine it does a good number of filmy white cloth and slightly scaly skin...
That's it! The final look at the monsters of Heroes & Monsters. Next week, we'll take one more look at the heroes, and after that, we're off to Varisia to take a very early peek at the Rise of the Runelords!
Only five days until the official release of Heroes & Monsters! Order your copies today before they are gone forever (something I suspect will be happening sooner rather than later)!
Greetings, potential superstars! This is just a warning that the deadline for your Round 1 wondrous item submission is tomorrow at 2 PM Pacific Time!
What's that? You say you haven't submitted an item? Why not? You have nothing to lose by submitting an item. Every year, most of the competitors who advance to Round 2 planned their item ahead of time, but we always have a few who decided at the last minute to participate. There's still time tonight to prepare yourself and submit a cool item.
Even if you don't think you're going to win, you should submit something anyway. Your wondrous item may have exactly the sort of creativity the judges are looking for. You may end up writing professionally for Paizo. Wouldn't it be cool to get your name on a Pathfinder RPG book? Wouldn't it be cool to get paid to write roleplaying games? This is an incredible opportunity, and if you don't submit something by tomorrow, you'll have to wait until December next year to try again.
"Ohhh," Fife groaned. He tried moving, but the world refused to comply, spinning underneath him the way it did. His bones ached and his skin felt like someone had rubbed it with the uncomfortable side of a bar of pumice. He opened his eyes and stared up at the sky—specifically, at the distant hole in the ceiling that revealed the wet gray skies of Andoran.
"That's right..." Memories began to fall back into place for the halfling. The desperate townsfolk who bought their fake luck charms. The murder of farmers. The ruined necromancer's manse. And...
"The hand!" Fife sat up from his throne of rubble, looking for the amputated hand that had sheared Darvin's rope and sent them both tumbling through the weakened floor into the darkness below the manse's basement. He saw no sign of the hand in the brick-lined cistern, but dark waters and shadows lapped at the islands of debris and ribs of shattered timber. Darvin lay atop one of the mounds, eyes closed and body utterly still.
"Darvin!" Fife scrambled over to his compatriot. Darvin didn't respond, even after Fife pulled at the lapels of his beaten leather coat. Left with little recourse, Fife drew back his arm and slapped Darvin hard enough for the sound to echo through the cistern.
"OW!" Darvin shrieked, his eyes flying open. Fife, however, did not let go. "Fife! What in—?
"You know those moments in the story when one hero thinks the other dead, begs him not to die and shares some deep personal truth?"
"Vaguely," Darvin said.
"And then it turns out the other one was only faking his injuries?"
"Oh, yeah?" Darvin said, this time a touch sheepishly.
"This is not one of those moments," Fife said, shaking his brother.
Darvin did nothing to stop him. "But I love those moments."
Fife let go of Darvin's coat and stood. "You weren't unconscious."
"Fife is rarely the hero of his own stories."
"I'm hurt you'd think that," Darvin responded, propping himself up on an elbow and cradling his aggrieved cheek.
"Darvin," Fife warned, looking around. They were well and deep under the manse, the walls too sheer to scale. He leapt to another small island to get a look at a nearby passageway.
"I just want to be held!" Darvin called after him.
Fife ignored his brother. "The hand...?" he asked.
"Somewhere up there, no?" Darvin stood and dusted himself off. Fife could tell he was trying to act unworried, but it was still an act.
"Let's hope so," Fife said; a shiver tore through him.
"It's not really a spider, y'know." Darvin said gently.
Fife waved away his friend's concern. They weren't supposed to talk about the incident—before Darvin's mother adopted Fife as her own and the pair became siblings. He had never told Darvin how his own mother died, but his brother knew it involved a... a....
"It's close enough," Fife said, his voice cracking. He sniffed the air, smelling the earthy stench, and pointed down the rounded corridor. "There's a breeze coming from that direction."
"You mean the breeze with the slightly pungent aroma of rotting meat?" Darvin grabbed the collar of Fife's jerkin and spun him in the direction of another corridor. "That's why we're going down the one that doesn't smell like Death's warm armpit"
"Darvin—"
But Darvin made his way, rather awkwardly, along the small islands to the other corridor. He jumped into the cold water at the head of the corridor and tried not to grimace as the brackish liquid sloshed around his waist. "Oh look!" he said. "I can stand here." He grinned back at the halfling.
Fife glanced at the other corridor. Something scrapped against rock with a light echo, the sound dying quickly. Darvin seemed not to notice, but the halfling suddenly doubted the wisdom of his own choice. Fife turned, took a few quick strides, and launched himself onto his brother's back.
"Changed your—" Darvin began.
"I'm keeping the books dry, you oaf," Fife grumbled.
"Of course." Darvin said as they waded into the waterlogged corridor with its irregular bricks.
The corridor eventually ended at a brick wall with a sluice gate at one end and a moss-covered brick platform with a door to the right. The water reeked of stagnation and decaying sewage. The door bulged out, the wood splintered and cracked under weight.
They stood well to the side as Darvin struggled to pull the wedged door open. When it finally gave, it popped with a rumbling force that slammed Darvin into the wall. The stone and wood spine of a collapsed ceiling tumbled out.
The pair examined the landslide a moment, noting the gaps between timber beams and under larger rocks.
"You can crawl through there," Darvin said, pointing to one of the larger rabbit holes.
"What?!" Fife shouted, barely stopping his voice from squeaking. "Why me? It's large enough for you, too."
"Because you're tiny," Darvin announced.
Fife glared at him. "The gods curse you for that."
"Are they tiny gods?" Darvin asked, grinning.
Fife didn't bother bruising his already soiled dignity, and instead removed his backpack, shoving his cloak inside. "Remember, if I die, it'll be on your head."
"It'll be a tiny funeral," Darvin said cheerfully.
The tunnel was small. Not so tight that Fife felt pressed in, but not so wide that his breathing didn't rabbit faster. Darvin would have a hell of a fit inside, and that made Fife smile.
Obstructions jutted out at sharp angles. Fife crawled over and under them, elbow over elbow, pulling and scraping skin, snagging clothing and tearing fabric in small nicks. Every foot deeper into the burrow tightened a fist around his chest, and panicked thoughts butterflied in his head. He stopped, almost gasping, wanting to crawl back out before the tunnel snapped its teeth around him.
He stared ahead and squinted; did the passage open up, or was that the illusion of desperation? Fife wanted to push forward, but as he watched, a shadow moved against shadow, pebbles clattering in its wake.
Something waited for him just past the opening. He froze.
∗∗∗
Darvin considered lighting a torch to see better; Fife had vanished up ahead, the darkness swallowing him up.
"You okay up there?" Darvin shouted down the throat of the tunnel.
"Shh!" came the response.
"You ‘shh!'" Darvin cried back.
"SHHH!" Fife hissed more urgently.
Darvin almost shouted back at his companion, but a splash caught his attention. He spun around as more splashes followed, echoes that danced along the walls of the tunnel and up his spine... then nothing.
Darvin tiptoed to the edge of the platform. The dying ebb of waves lapped against the stone. Something coursed under the water, casting ripples, heading straight for him.
Unbidden, his memory suddenly offered up a crystal-clear image of the severed hand dancing on the fraying rope, finger-blades flickering.
Darvin bolted for the small hole, shoving Fife's bag in first and crawling after it. Rocks and the tips of broken timbers poked and jabbed him. The bag snagged and he struggled to push it forward despite the tearing sound that followed. The tunnel pressed against him, and he wrenched his shoulder pushing himself through.
"Fife!" Darvin shouted.
"Shh!"
"Move!"
"For the love of our mother, shh!" Fife cried back.
"Stop telling me to shush! The hand's behind me!"
"No it's not," Fife shouted, far closer than Darvin would have thought. "It's in front of us."
"Behind!" Darvin insisted. The bag hit resistance, and Darvin looked up at the blackened soles of Fife's feet. Something scampered in the tunnel behind Darvin, and more stones tumbled from their perch. He couldn't see past his own body, however, and opted to push instead.
∗∗∗
Fife felt something press against his feet and almost shrieked in terror. He raised his head to see Darvin shoving his bag—shoving Fife—toward the opening a handful of feet away and the noise that had turned into an impatient clicking, like the tapping of metal fingers.
"No, Darvin!" Fife shouted. He pressed his hands against the rocks and kicked at the bag.
"Stop that, you lout! Something's behind me!"
Before Fife could protest, Darvin gave another shove, sending the halfling toward the hole and pinning his hands under his body, squashed tight against rock.
The mummified hand leapt into the opening, its tensing fingers covered in blades. Fife screamed. Darvin screamed in response, though unlikely for the same reason. Or maybe it was. Fife didn't care.
The hand scampered forward on its fingers, and Fife struggled to free his arms. Darvin pushed him another inch closer. The hand was, for the lack of better measurements, only a handful of feet away.
Fife rolled to his side, pressing his back painfully against the rubble until his arms popped free, his fingers aching and bruised. The hand sprang toward him, fingers propelling it forward. Naturally, Darvin pushed him again, screaming something about the thing at his feet and life having failed his expectations. Fife couldn't reach the dirk at his belt, but in the attempt his hand rubbed against the bamboo quill in his breast pocket. He grabbed it and swung hard, stabbing the amputated hand as it came within an inch of shaving his eyebrows.
Fife stabbed the hand again with the sharp quill, his vision red pinpricks of focus and flushed hot with blood. Suddenly, the lip of the tunnel loomed and he found popping free like a cork, shoved out by a panicking Darvin. He barely had time to roll nimbly away before his human companion came crashing down as well, almost crushing him.
∗∗∗
Darvin pushed to his feet quickly, pulling on his sheathed dagger to defend himself, the stuck weapon flopping uselessly against his leg. The skittering in the tunnel grew louder.
Darvin glanced up just in time to catch a scurry of movement and the gleam of red eyes. It took him a second to register that second part before several large and frightened brown rats tore out of the tunnel, screeching in protest. They ran past Darvin and a prone Fife, who pulled away from the rodents, before scrabbling through cracks in the wall.
"Rats!" Darvin exclaimed, laughing in relief. "All that nonsense for rats!" He noticed the amputated hand, its fingers curled up like the legs of a dead spider. "When did I do that?"
"You?" Fife stood and drew himself up to his full three-foot height. "That was me!"
"Really?" Darvin said. "That sounds more like something I'd do."
"I killed it!" Fife said, then seemed to startle as he realized what he'd said. "Me! I did that! I killed it! I'm the hero of the village." He held his bamboo quill aloft like a champion wielding a blade, or at least a really big turkey leg. "The quill is mightier than the sword!"
"Now that's just silly," Darvin said. "Hyperbole will get you killed. Especially in a sword-versus-quill fight." He looked around the chamber.
The world seemed to slow, dread flowing back into him like cold water into an empty cup. "Fife," Darvin said quietly, "don't turn around."
Of course Fife turned around. As soon as he said it, Darvin realized how foolish the statement was. Turning is precisely the first thing one does when told "don't turn around." It was an inherent contradiction, much like when someone says, "This tastes horrible... here, try it."
They stood in a circular domed chamber, a door against the curve of the opposite wall. In the center rested a huge table with its sides flanked by drawers and the top covered in beakers, jars, books, powder packets, measuring tools, and innumerable other instruments. Above the worktable hung a wood-wheel chandelier crusted in wax.
Twenty tables lined the curving walls, and upon each lay a corpse in some advanced state of decay.
"Darvin," Fife whispered.
Darvin touched his brother's shoulder. "I told you not to turn around." In retrospect, though, Darvin wasn't sure how he expected Fife to continue without turning around.
"No," Fife said, nodding to the bodies; all manacled, Darvin now noticed. And all missing their hands.
"Oh," Darvin said.
And from all the dark places in the room and the large cracks in the floor came a scurrying of movement.
Coming Next Week: Things get further out of hand in Chapter Three of Lucien Soulban's "Fingers of Death—No, Doom!"
Lucien Soulban is an accomplished fantasy and science fiction author who's written shared world fiction for White Wolf, Wizards of the Coast, Black Library, and more, including the novels Blood In, Blood Out and The Alien Sea. For more information, visit his website at www.luciensoulban.com.
Everyone loves goblins, right? And by extension, folks are keen on their goblinoid brethren, the militaristic hobgoblins and the sadistic bugbears. Well, this month we introduce a new goblinoid subtype humanoid to Golarion—the kijimuna, a native of the Dragon Empires of Tian Xia. These CR 2 creatures are known for their wild, bright red hair and their wide, mischievous grins, and enjoy fishing almost as much as playing pranks and practical jokes on unsuspecting targets. Much like their Inner Sea cousins, kijimunas have a deep-seated fear of a single creature, in this case the octopus, and when faced with an octopus, a kijimuna either flees in terror or desperately fights. Unlike the other goblinoid races, however, kijimunas are not innately evil, and typically have chaotic neutral alignments.
The Paizo offices are closed today as we all celebrate another orbital cycle around the sun, and it’s likely many of you fine Paizo blog readers are off today doing the same. But that doesn’t mean everyone should relax. No, the fine RPG Superstar judges are working hard to pare down the entrants in this year’s contest to the 32 best submissions, and since their judging duties are in addition to their everyday jobs, a day off is a great time to make headway on the daunting task.
For those of you playing at home, a holiday is also a great time to get your Round 1 entry polished off and submitted. There are only a few days left to submit your wondrous item for review and a chance to make the Top 32 and move on to Round 2 of RPG Superstar 2012, so don’t miss out! The deadline is this Friday, January 6; see all the rules and submission guidelines here.
May 4712 AR be the best year yet for Paizo, RPG Superstar, and all of you—our faithful fans and constant customers. Desna smile upon you!
Pathfinder Battles Preview: From Digital Renders to Final Product
Friday, December 30, 2011
When we first started revealing images from the Pathfinder Battles Heroes & Monsters set, all we had to show off were the very earliest computer-rendered images from the first few weeks of production. These gave a good idea of the quality we were shooting for with this first set of prepainted miniatures, but the digital renders lacked some of the depth and paint steps of the final miniatures.
Now that we’ve revealed the complete set in one way or the other and we stand on the precipice of the actual release, I wanted to go back through the set and update a few minis that you’ve only seen in digital form thus far. Below are actual photos of actual miniatures from the Heroes & Monsters set.
This little guy was one of the very first digital renders we revealed way back in August. Here’s the wily Gnome Fighter in all his final glory, complete with a tankard on his belt and bright orange hair to terrify his enemies. This uncommon miniature comes packed with the Dire Rat we showed off two weeks ago.
Next up is the rare Half-Orc Barbarian, one of the set’s most complex figures in terms of pose and detail. This figure looks wonderful in-hand, and makes a fantastic mini for the archetypal, well, half-orc barbarian. Good? Bad? He’s the one with the axe.
This rare Vampire, on the other hand, is all bad guy. WizKids did a great job bringing out the complex detail on the Vampire’s stylish armor. Whether he gets you with his upraised sword, his nasty fangs, or his essence-draining touch, the Vampire will get you one way or the other.
This sexy lady with red demon wings is looking for a good time, and promises a kiss you will never forget (note: do not actually make out with your Pathfinder Battles figures). She’s the rare Succubus, and she’s not pleased with your remark that Bettie Page hairdos are so 2002.
This bad boy, the rare Troll, leaps off the cover of the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary to menace your gaming table. Sure, he looks a little like he’s got his hands in the air like he just don’t care, but those jazz hands will tear your player character to shreds, which will then be devoured by his jazz tusks. He will kick your azz.
Also awesome: The more than 25 paint masters for the next set, Rise of the Runelords, that WizKids brought over for approval this afternoon. I won’t be revealing any of those until after Heroes & Monsters is out, but when I crassly mentioned how I thought you guys would react upon seeing them, James Jacobs was friendly enough to offer two G-rated corrections. In his words, you will “poop your pantaloons,” or “brown your britches.”
I couldn’t have said it better (or cleaner) myself!
Greetings, potential superstars! There’s been some discussion about the Round 2: Organizations challenge, as smart competitors want to start working on a Round 2 submission early just in case they make it into the Top 32. While we haven’t finalized the rules document for Round 2 yet, we have decided the Organization format will match that in the Inner Sea World Guide, which looks like this:
Organization Name
Alignment: [two-letter abbreviation] Headquarters: [location] Leader: [character name] Structure: [multinational corporation, military hierarchy, orders of crusading lawbringers, loose affiliation of like-minded explorers, religious cult, assassin’s guild, and so on] Scope: [regional, national, or global (specify region or nation, if any)] Resources: [property, valuable assets, castles, fortresses, equipment, network of local agents, informants, safe houses, and so on]
[100-word introductory paragraph summarizing the organization.] Structure and Leadership
[100 words on this topic.] Goals
[100 words on this topic.] Public Perception
[50 words on this topic.]
Note that the organizations in the Inner Sea World Guide are approximately 1,400 words, so your submission write-up is a lean, stripped-down version of that. If you don’t have a copy of the Inner Sea World Guide handy, here’s the entry for the Aspis Consortium - (3.9 MB zip/PDF) from that book that you can use as a model for your write-up.
Your organization should be something PCs would normally oppose or come into conflict with, not an organization a typical heroic PC would join. The organization doesn’t necessarily have to be villainous, but it should definitely be a potential antagonist.
Full details (including a BBcode-formatted template for this challenge and an example organization from the Inner Sea World Guide) will be available next week. In the meantime, use the above information to guide your design for Round 2.
Remember, the deadline to submit your wondrous item is January 6th! You can’t submit an organization in Round 2 unless you make it into the Top 32 by submitting a wondrous item!
The ancient mechanisms thundered, the giant gears crushing boulder-sized rocks between their iron teeth and spitting out rubble in disdain. Beyond them, the furnaces set into the stone dwarf mouths glowed with Abyssal fury and spewed rivers of molten rock destined for the deeper bowels beneath Darkmoon Vale.
Darvin couldn't concern himself with that, however. To his left, Fife—halfling, adopted brother, and friend—lay unmoving on the giant conveyor belt that ferried him closer to the hungry gears eager to gnash him into bloody pudding. To Darvin's right, however, the beautiful Princess Miranna dangled from a metal chain, her once stunning gown in tatters and hanging only by the curve of her ample hips and shoulders. Inch by inch, the mad, twisted dwarves from beneath Darkmoon Vale, long forgotten by wind and sunlight, cackled monstrously and lowered Miranna closer to the vat of molten ore.
Darvin couldn't save them both, he realized. Or could he? He glanced left at Fife (still unconscious as the belt carried him doomward), then right at Princess Miranna (screaming his name, the vat warming the pads of her naked feet). Then up at the dwarf king, Madbeard IV, who laughed maniacally at his evil cunning, the Necklace of Fortune's Charms with its dozens of luck rings hanging from his neck. Finally, Darvin looked down at his hands, and at the only thing he hadn't yet spent or broken in their quest to uncover the Vale's secrets: a lockpick.
It would have to be enough.
"Too late!" Madbeard IV cried triumphantly, his half-burned face twisted in a sneer, the rings of his necklace jangling. "You cannot save them both!"
Darvin grit his teeth and steeled his jaw. His voice, low and dangerous, sliced through the clamor.
"I'm thirsty," he said.
∗∗∗
"What?" an old man asked, leaning so far forward that he almost spilled from his chair.
"I'm thirsty," Darvin repeated. He smacked his lips as though dismissing a bad taste. "Where's that serving wench?"
Three of the men shouted for another barley stout from the kitchen. Fife pretended to annotate the ledger on his lap, but a sideways glance told him the story. Seven men and two women sat around their table, on the edge of their seats. They eyed the necklace hanging in Darvin's languid grip, a handful of rings all that were left of its charms.
When the black-haired lass appeared from the kitchen carrying a serving tray, they motioned her over impatiently.
She set the drink down, at which point Darvin rolled his eyes. "Damn it all... Fife, old friend, I've forgotten my monies upstairs. Go fetch my purse?"
Fife nodded and jumped down from his large chair.
"This won't take a moment," Darvin said.
"Here," one of the men said, slapping down coin on the serving tray and glancing at the necklace of lucky rings. "Go on with your story. The lockpick?"
Darvin nodded as Fife quietly took his seat again. The halfling tried not to smirk. Darvin had them wrapped around his finger.
It was only when Fife glanced again that he saw the two men seated away from them, in the shadows. Neither appeared to be smiling.
When the evening ended, Fife followed Darvin as he swept into their room. The human collapsed into the hay bed with a groan, his belly distended. "I may have eaten too much," he admitted, draping an arm over his forehead.
"No no," Fife said, closing the door, "you had to eat all that food before it threatened anyone else. You're a hero."
"I am, aren't I?" Darvin said with a chuckle. He jangled the copper necklace, now bereft of its rings. "We need more charms for tomorrow night. I had them eating out of my hand."
"Oh, so you did leave some food?" The halfling sat on the opposite bed and opened a leather-bound book that swallowed his entire lap. "I hadn't noticed."
"Pff. You halflings eat like birds anyway." Darvin glanced over to see if he'd hit a nerve, but Fife pretended to study the page.
"Now... you got the princess's eyes wrong," Fife said. "You called them blue when they're supposed to be sea-green."
"So?"
"It's the reason why Madbeard IV decides to sacrifice her. Because of his promise to the Mage of Conqueror's Bay."
"So!" Darvin said.
Fife sighed. "The waters of Conqueror's Bay are green!"
"Fife," Darvin said, "nobody here's been to Nidal. We haven't been to Nidal—or Darkmoon Vale, or anywhere else for that matter. Nobody's going to notice."
"Authenticity is key. Speaking of which, it's getting harder to keep track of your... embellishments."
"I go with the moment," Darvin said, closing his eyes.
"For example, I never described the princess as a ‘plump sausage.'"
"Some moments are better than others," Darvin said, grinning. "Besides, I grow bored. Have you written something new?"
"I'm working on it," Fife said, flipping through pages. The comment rankled him. Like it was that easy to create something worthwhile.
"You worry too much," Darvin said. He sounded like he couldn't fight the iron weights of sleep any longer.
"Darv... did you notice those two men seated away from everyone else?" Fife asked.
But Darvin was already asleep, and soon Fife was fast dreaming as well.
∗∗∗
It wasn't the two new men in the room that awoke Fife that morning. It was Darvin's deep snort that did the trick. For a moment, the halfling had forgotten where they'd taken shelter, then it slowly bubbled to the surface... the Andoren inn, the food and drink, another community entertained and bilked.
"Hello," Fife said to the seated man. The intruder wore a grey tunic with a thick peppered mustache, and had shoulders wider than Fife was tall.
"Mmm... ‘ello," Darvin muttered back and then turned over. He snored almost immediately.
The human who stood behind the seated one was black haired and balding, his arms thick with equal measures of muscle and fat, his face knotted in a disapproving scowl. Neither man appeared armed; Fife remembered them both from last night as the pair who had watched them from the shadows.
"Darvin, we have guests," Fife said.
"Mmm... are they pretty?" Darvin muttered.
"Give him a moment," Fife said, smiling nervously at the visitors. "His instincts are slow to start, but you'll find none sharper."
"I hope so," the seated man said in a deep voice.
Darvin cheered softly. "Huzzah! Fife's voice has finally broken."
∗∗∗
"For an ordinary merchant, Cullins is exceptionally persuasive."
"You don't look like much," the standing man said. He'd introduced himself as Harvander, Master-at-Arms for the Merchant Cullins. Cullins remained seated, his arms crossed as though daring someone to entertain him and certain they'd fail.
"It helps if people underestimate us," Darvin said, splashing his face with cold water from the rinse bowl. The shock jolted him awake. Fife handed him the washcloth. "Lulls them into a false sense of security."
"I assure you, it's working," Cullins replied.
"Good," Darvin said, deciding to smile at the insult. "How may we be of service?" He already knew these two would be tough to charm or crack.
Harvander paused and stage-whispered in Cullins ear, "I don't think this is a good idea."
Cullins shrugged. "They die, we don't pay them."
"Die?" Fife said.
"Pay?" Darvin said at the same time.
"The village is cursed," Cullins said. "For five years, we suffered under the rule of Malificar—"
"Who names their child Malificar?" Darvin whispered to Fife, but Fife shushed him with a motion.
"He blighted our crops," Cullins continued. "He raised the dead and conducted foul, perverse experiments on our livestock."
Fife elbow-jabbed Darvin in the ribs just as a snarky comment rose to the human's lips.
"We killed him for it," Harvander said flatly. "A year ago, in fact. And we destroyed his manse."
"But the killings didn't stop?" Fife asked.
Darvin noticed the halfling squirming eagerly in his seat, and realized he was in trouble.
"Foolish locals," Harvander replied. "They looted his stead and awoke... something."
"There's been a death every week or two since," Cullins said. "Their throats opened."
Fife smiled up at Darvin. This is fantastic! his expression read, but Darvin tried to look indifferent.
"Over thirty deaths in total," Harvander replied. "All farmers or travelers, their throats slit cleanly."
"We've searched the ruins during the daytime, but at night, nobody dares approach the property." Cullins studied them both and then tossed a leather pouch to Darvin. The pouch clinked when he caught it, and the weight felt solid. "Silver—not a copper piece among them. Yours if you help us."
"If not," Harvander continued. "Well, there's no telling what the hard-working people of this town would do to the liars who sold them cheap trinkets as luck charms."
∗∗∗
Harvander escorted them through the gray drizzle to the ruins of a manse outside of town, then left them to their business.
Only a shell remained of the main building, the wings of the manse upright except for a collapsed roof, the middle of the home burnt and in rubble. A mess of blackened timbers and shattered bricks reached plaintively for the dismal skies.
"We should run," Darvin said.
"They need our help," Fife replied. The halfling poked about with his walking stick, deftly jumping across patches of floor that would have collapsed under a human's weight. Darvin envied him that grace.
"This isn't one of your stories," Darvin warned. He paused near a hole and peered down. Here, a fire-eaten grid of floor beams separated the main floor from the dark pit of the basement.
"This is better!" Fife replied. Grinning madly, he pulled his cloak over his head to ward off the rain, opened a small ledger, and began jotting something down.
"What do you think you're doing?" Darvin asked. He tested one of the beams, but it groaned; Darvin backed away.
"Recording every detail," Fife replied, and then read aloud, "The heroes stood over the black gulf, staring intently into the abyss."
"All the while" Darvin continued, "Fife unaware that his partner was about to kick him over the edge."
"Not in character," Fife responded absently. "Let's go down."
Darvin peered over the edge. "How?"
The halfling looked around, and Darvin followed his gaze over to a debris slope of collapsed bricks, timber, and furniture mounded up on the floor below.
"Follow me," Fife said, slapping the book shut and jumping from beam to beam, seemingly oblivious to their poor state. He reached a broken ledge, the remnant of the floor abutting an exterior wall, and from there jumped down to the slope. From beam to tabletop to broken wall, he reached the plank-floored basement in a series of deft hops, barely disturbing the slope.
"You next!"
"Not on your life, you malnourished hummingbird!" Darvin called down, then quietly cursed the easy grace of halflings. Darvin took looped rope from his bag and secured it to an exposed foundation stone. "You know," he said, "I bought this rope strictly for show." He swung his legs over the side and, inhaling, lowered himself into the darkness. His heart beat harder.
"Hey," Fife chirped, peering at a hole in the floor. "There's a level below this."
Darvin concentrated on his descent. He spun gently and dropped in fits and jerks. He flailed his legs trying to steady himself and quickly found his world spinning even faster around the axle of the rope.
"Darv," Fife said, with concern in his tone.
"I've got this," Darvin said, but the taste of breakfast in his mouth told him perhaps not.
"Darv!" Fife shouted. "Above you! Spider!"
Darvin jerked his head up and saw it: a fist-sized spider descended down the rope.
No, he realized. Not a fist-sized spider, but—
"It's a hand!" Darvin shrieked. "A fist-sized hand!"
Runes marked the amputated hand, the skin gray, wrist terminating at a bronze band. The knuckles were exposed to the bone, and the fingers sheathed in steel blades.
A rock careened through the air, missing the hand. Darvin swung around to find Fife aiming again.
"Don't make it mad!" Darvin screamed.
"How do you make a hand mad?" Fife screamed back.
The hand twirled around the rope once, and then the line creaked. Darvin realized too late that the creature had just cut halfway through the rope with its fingers. Braiding frayed with a snapping sound, and before Darvin could drop down, the rope broke completely.
Darvin fell ten feet, the planks of the basement floor shattering under his weight. Then both he and Fife were falling once more, down into the darkness that yawned below the basement.
Coming Next Week: The further misadventures of Fife and Darvin in Chapter Two of Lucien Soulban's "Fingers of Death—No, Doom!"
Lucien Soulban is an accomplished fantasy and science fiction author who's written shared world fiction for White Wolf, Wizards of the Coast, Black Library, and more, including the novels Blood In, Blood Out and The Alien Sea. For more information, visit his website at www.luciensoulban.com.
Last week Sean shared a list of the featured races appearing in the Advanced Race Guide. He’s a softie, intoxicated with a dose of holiday cheer, and was hopped up on the sugary goodness that is Andrew Vallas’s mom’s delicious baklava. (She sends a care package with enough for everyone in the Paizo offices just in time for Christmas and it is marvelous. Phenomenal even...but I digress.)
This week, you get me. I’m not nearly as charitable, I’m a bit of a humbug, and all my baklava is long gone, so I’m going to make you work for the next preview. As Sean explained last week, Chapter 3 of the Advanced Race Guide provides information about 14 uncommon races. Below you’ll find the first letter of the name of each of those races. Let’s see how long it takes you to correctly guess them all.
Using the Beginner Box to Create a Pathfinder Society Character
Monday, December 26, 2011
I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday and is looking forward to an exciting new year. I am sure quite a few folks gave or received the Beginner Box as presents this past weekend. Inside that box, there is a flyer for Pathfinder Society that includes a link to the website but no explanation of how to integrate the play or rules from the Beginner Box into use for Pathfinder Society play.
One of the earliest experiences I had during my first week at Paizo was Erik Mona, our publisher, handing me the Beginner Box and advising me we needed to have a guide that allowed players to create a legal Pathfinder Society character using just the Beginner Box rules. As I had not seen it until that moment, the task seemed quite daunting.
Like many of you, I had looked forward to the release of the Beginner Box with much anticipation and I liked what I found inside. I was scheduled to go to a trade show the following week and the airplane flight gave me plenty of time to read through everything in the box. The pawns also served as a good conversation piece for the people seated near me on the plane between Seattle and Chicago. It was at 36,000 feet that I started formulating ideas of what I thought should be included in a character creation guide.
Once I was back in Seattle, I posted a list of ideas and solicited suggestions from the Pathfinder Society Venture-Captains and Venture-Lieutenants. We brainstormed a good bit about what I had missed that should be included or what I had placed in it that should be taken out. We worked at the phrasing of sentences, brainstormed several more times about missed ideas, and finally arrived at the finished free product. The guide provides a step–by–step walkthrough of the Pathfinder Society character creation process while referring you back to the Hero’s Handbook. These instructions allow for a seamless transition from the Beginner Box to Pathfinder Society play. A special thank you goes out to Boston Venture-Captain Don Walker for his incredible amount of wordsmithing that went into the final document.
If you have any questions, especially if you are new to Pathfinder and Pathfinder Society, please visit the Pathfinder Society messageboards. Our Venture-Captains and Venture-Lieutenants are more than happy to answer any questions you might have, whether they are about how to find a local Pathfinder Society game or about how some rule works that is found in the Core Rulebook but not in the Beginner Box.
If you have never experienced Pathfinder Society, I encourage you to make a New Year’s resolution to give it a try. If you can’t find a game in your area, there are options for play-by-post Pathfinder Society sessions. If you are a veteran of the campaign, I look forward to working with you in 2012 to make Pathfinder Society even better than it is now.
Brick up your chimney and hide your dogs and horses! The Holiday Goblin is coming to town!
The Paizo staff are taking a break today. The blog will be back to normal on Monday, with some important information for Pathfinder Society members. Happy holidays, everyone!
Illustrations by Eva Widermann and Wayne Reynolds. Widescreen version here.
Dragon Empires Gazetteer Wallpaper!
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Check out this great wallpaper for the Dragon Empires Gazetteer, courtesy of two of the nicest and most talented artists in the business—Wayne Reynolds and Eva Widermann!
Salim slipped through the pools of shadow cast by branches and shrubs, trusting to his robes to break up his outline and make him invisible. Around him, the sounds of the night creatures were sporadic and tense. Expectant.
Connell slid along beside him, still wearing his peasant disguise. Salim had to give him credit—the eidolon was surprisingly graceful. Ahead, the manor house stood huge and whitewashed at the end of the drive, its windows cavernous and dark save for three in an upper corner, which glowed with dim red light.
As welcome as the shadows were in hiding their approach, Salim would have preferred to come during daylight. Yet he had wasted too much time trying to convince Father Adibold that Salim and Connell would do better alone than with his assistance.
It was utterly stupid. The priest's little mob of peasants would likely scatter at the first sign of a walking corpse, and those who stayed would be slaughtered. Worse, if this Lord Mirosoy had advanced to making ghouls, then every farmhand who fell would rise again shortly to add to his army.
The old priest and his son might have been more useful—the man claimed to have some magic yet, and the boy's armor was solid. Yet Salim had seen enough in the priest's eyes to know that it wasn't worth it. For all that Adibold talked of the Pharasmin Penitence, that hopeless splinter sect of ascetics and self-deniers, it wasn't religious fervor that made Adibold cut himself, or so eagerly throw himself and his only son into harm's way. It was grief for his dead wife. Perhaps even a desire to join her early.
Salim understood that all too well. But the boy still had plenty of years left, and suicidal warriors were a liability.
In frustration, Salim had even attempted telling the old priest part of the truth: that Lord Mirosoy wasn't acting of his own accord, but rather had been enchanted by a cursed magic item.
The priest would have none of it. "I've seen souls corrupted by a shiny coin, or a bit of bare thigh. The nature of the temptation is unimportant."
At last, once it became clear that even the prospect of killing a potentially innocent man wasn't enough to dissuade the priest—"sorting good from evil is the Lady's job, not ours"—Salim had given in and agreed to join them in their attack at dawn.
Which is why he and Connell were out here in the dark, with the sun still hours below the horizon.
Salim caught the eidolon's eye and nodded. The eidolon had given him the layout of the house, and they'd decided on the servants' entrance around the side rather than the grand double doors that faced the drive. It was time to break with the road and circle left.
Something shot out from the brush near Salim's feet.
Without thinking—because in combat, acting was always faster than thinking—Salim drew his sword and slammed it down, pinning the scurrying shape to the earth. The creature squeaked once and expired.
"Mouse," he whispered, and withdrew his blade, rodent still clinging to its tip. He started to scrape it off against his boot, then stopped.
The thing's ribcage was hollowed out, the flesh rotted away from tiny bones. Salim's sword had spitted it neatly, yet its back legs still kicked feebly.
Another tiny form catapulted itself from the bushes. Before Salim could move, Connell leaped, springing forward with the grace of a cat and coming up an the undead rat in his hands. The eidolon popped it into his mouth, bones crunching, then looked back at Salim and smiled.
Perhaps the eidolon would be more useful than Salim had expected. Connell swallowed and asked, "Scouts?"
Salim nodded. It seemed Mirosoy wasn't totally without defenses. He slipped the twice-expired mouse from his blade and ground it under his boot heel before continuing on.
The servants' entrance was unguarded. From the tree line, it was a solid hundred feet of open lawn to the steps up to the back porch, and then the door. Salim covered it at a run, body bent almost double, sword under his robes to avoid reflecting the moonlight. Connell paced him. At the door, they paused for a moment, listening. When nothing revealed itself, Salim nodded to Connell and thumbed the latch.
Beyond lay a long hall, its wood-paneled walls lit only by the feeble shaft of moonlight from the open door, quickly disappearing into utter black.
Salim smelled it first—the charnel stench of putrefaction. He thrust out an arm to stop Connell, but the eager eidolon had already bounded into the corridor.
A hand reached from the darkness.
Salim moved. There was no time to let his eyes adjust, so he closed them and let his ears and nose guide him past the struggling eidolon, deeper into the dark.
Something rose up in front of him, grave-wet and stinking, and he brought his sword out and down, feeling it cleave through cheese-soft flesh. The thing gave a sigh and fell heavily into him, knocking him back into the wall and what felt like a tall table or stool. His free hand closed on a smooth, heavy object, and he brought it down hard on the thing in front of him, then spun to skewer a new attacker to his right. Back toward the entrance, Connell shouted something.
They were stuck. Salim might be able to keep this up indefinitely, but there was no telling about the eidolon, and they needed to move fast if they wanted to retain the element of surprise. Gritting his teeth, Salim reached out and touched the goddess.
It was only a second, but it was enough. The Lady of Graves flowed through him in a black rush, as grotesque and violating in its own way as the creature putrefying on his feet. The energy passed through him and into the blade of his sword, and cold steel flared with ghostly incandescence, lighting the hallway.
There were only three zombies, all dressed in the rotting finery that had probably once been the best clothes the little town could offer. Two lay at Salim's feet, his sword having severed the fragile magic that kept them animated. Down the hall, Connell struggled with the third. The eidolon had dropped his disguise, and the long neck of his true form snaked around the back of the zombie's futilely chomping head, wrapping it like a boa constrictor. Long jaws locked around the undead creature's skull. There was a twist and a pop, and the last corpse dropped to the floor and lay still.
Salim looked down at his off hand. The object he held was a stone bust of a young man, handsome in a vaguely arrogant and pupilless sort of way. He held it out toward the eidolon. "Your boss?"
Connell nodded.
Salim let the stone drop onto the corpse it had clubbed, then wiped his sword on the tattered linen shirt. He gestured down the hall.
"You know the house," he said, "but don't leave my side unless I tell you to. Are we clear?"
Connell bobbed his head in what appeared to be genuine contrition and led the way deeper into the house.
The manor was a shell. Though the pair passed several well-appointed sitting rooms, with plush armchairs and walls of bookshelves or big bay windows overlooking the moonlit grounds, the layer of dust at the entrance to each argued that no one had bothered with them in some time. Connell avoided the showy front half of the house, with its hangings and sculptures like the one Salim had appreciated, and instead led them through a series of narrow, more utilitarian corridors and staircases. Salim kept the light from the sword carefully banked and focused by a fold in his cloak, yet nothing stirred in the dead house. If it weren't for the slight but ever-present scent of decay, Salim might have thought the place a summer home, packed away for storage while the lord was away.
At last they came to a door whose bottom edge was limned with the same red light they'd seen from the road. The eidolon's barely existent lips moved, and after a second Salim realized Connell was attempting to mouth the word "workshop." Salim nodded, and the eidolon turned the knob. The door swung open.
The room was large, the kind other lords might put to use as a ballroom or formal dining room for parties. The huge set of windows they'd observed earlier cast moonlight on the hardwood floor, yet this illumination was overpowered by red lights that floated like swamp fire at the room's far end. The glow from these flying lanterns was soft, and cast a flattering glow over the guests. No doubt that generous lighting would have kindled more than one midnight romance among the figures standing in a knot on the dance floor. Except that the guests were dead.
As one, the corpses turned to observe the newcomers. These, too, were still dressed in their funeral finery, some in the clothes of peasants and merchants, others in simple shrouds marked with the symbol of Pharasma. There was no pattern to their features—young and old, male and female all stood with the awkward stances or constricted limbs of rigor mortis. A few had clearly been magically preserved for their funerals, and even now were only beginning to show the first signs of decomposition. Others were little more than fleshy skeletons, their bones tied crudely together with twine where tendons had fallen away.
Behind them all, a man stood in the center of the lights, obscured from the chest down by a long dining table repurposed as a workbench. Stacks of books and bubbling alembics cluttered every surface, along with stranger implements and silvery surgical tools with whose use Salim was thankfully unfamiliar. Though the man's face was the same as that on the stone head in the servants' hall, this version was older, and so drawn and haggard as to resemble his zombie subjects. Above the face, a black crown of long thorns and vertical spikes pierced and pricked at his brow, holding back long, dark hair.
Lord Mirosoy looked up from the book he'd been studying, yet his face barely registered the newcomers' presence. With one finger still marking his place in the text, he flicked his hand toward his uninvited guests.
"Lord Mirosoy appears to have embarked on some significant life changes of late."
"Kill them," he said, and went back to reading.
The undead convocation shuffled forward.
Connell growled—a deep, resonant rumble in surprising contrast to his usual excited tenor. Three-fingered talons flexed.
"No," Salim said, and put a hand on the eidolon's shoulder.
Connell looked at him in puzzlement, but Salim simply squeezed once and then released him. He stepped forward and drew his sword.
The eidolon might be better in a fight than he let on, but that wasn't the point. Salim had seen enough to tell that these people were no ghouls, no vampire spawn or vengeful wraiths. These were just farmers, their corpses denied the slow transition into the same dirt they worked, forced to walk again at the whim of some spoiled lord.
This wasn't a fight. Nor even an execution.
It was a funeral rite.
The zombies approached, and Salim flowed like a river to meet them.
The undead fought silently, and Salim did the same, the only sounds the swirl of his robes and the wine-glass ring of steel sliding free of flesh, punctuated by the thumps of corpses hitting the floor. They moved to surround him, and he let them, whirling like a dervish, blade kissing them lightly in the only blessing he knew how to give.
Rest, he thought as a child's body slid from his sword, crumpling to the fouled floor. Rest.
And then he stood alone. Around him, the hardwood was covered with bodies, splayed once more in the posture of death that, while undignified, was so much more than they'd had a moment before. He looked down at the corpses and wished them well.
At last they had Mirosoy's attention. The lord looked at them as if dazed, struggling to understand the mess of bodies staining his ballroom floor. "Who are you?" he asked.
"It's me, Master!" The eidolon's voice was the whining, eager tone of a dog hoping to regain its master's good graces. "I've come back to help you! Please don't be angry!"
Mirosoy ignored his creation, instead focusing on the dark-eyed man moving toward him, sword drawn. The lord's voice didn't waver. "And you?"
"Just a friend," Salim said. "One who's come to do you a favor."
His sword lashed out.
"No!" Connell's scream was grief bordering on pain. The eidolon leaped for Salim's back, talons outstretched, but it was already too late. Salim's upward slash carved a shining arc toward Mirosoy's face.
The blade missed the man's cheek by inches. With a tiny clink of metal on metal, Salim's sword caught one of the black, curving thorns of the crown and tore it free from the summoner's head. Mirosoy gasped at the sudden absence, or perhaps at the furrows the embedded thorns carved through his scalp. The crown fell to the table, and Salim followed it down, sword hilt gripped in both hands. Blade met crown with Salim's full weight behind it.
There was a flash that wasn't so much light as its absence, and a high, keening wail that might have been a word, or a name. Then there were only two halves of a crown, the metal seeming to shrivel and fold in on itself like burning briars. The newly rusted slag clattered to the floor and lay still.
"Master!" Connell was past Salim and gripping Lord Mirosoy's shoulders. The noble stood with head hung on his chest, looking ready to fall face-first into his workbench. Slowly, he raised his eyes. "Connell?"
"Yes. Yes, Master." The eidolon was weeping in earnest now, huge tears rolling down the reptilian face. Above them, the rune on his forehead glowed brighter than ever. "I'm back now. I knew it was the crown that sent me away, not you. And now you're free!"
Mirosoy straightened, shrugging off the eidolon's steadying hands. "Yes. Well." He looked over to Salim. "You do realize that's a priceless artifact you just destroyed?"
Salim marveled. Even half-dead and surrounded by his own failure, the man exuded entitlement. Salim looked down at the corpses on the floor, then back at the noble.
"I'm sure we can arrange an accounting of debts." His voice was soft.
The summoner followed Salim's gaze down, then swallowed. "No, that won't be necessary. Clearly, the crown needed to be destroyed. You have my thanks."
Salim inclined his head, unconvinced. Perhaps the crown wasn't as responsible for these atrocities as Connell wanted to think. He opened his mouth to say something—then stopped.
There was a new sound. Salim saw the other two pick up on it as well: a low, muttering hum.
Voices.
Salim moved swiftly to the window. Out in the darkness, a line of torches snaked down the manor house's long drive.
"Damn." Apparently Father Adibold was no longer interested in waiting until dawn.
Salim turned back to Mirosoy. "We need to get out of here. In two minutes, their families"—he gestured to the corpses on the floor—"are going to burn this place to the ground. And you're going to let them."
"Oh?" The noble's lip twitched toward a sneer.
Salim raised his sword suggestively.
"Oh," Lord Mirosoy said again, this time with considerably less vigor. "Well, you see, that may be something of a problem." He raised a hand and gestured to his waist.
"Oh, Master!" Connell's voice was horrified. "What have you done?"
And now Salim saw it. The various beakers and sealed containers on the worktable didn't stand alone. Below the rumpled blouse, several thick tubes snaked out of Mirosoy's abdomen and into the vessels and retorts on the table, steady streams of black and red fluids cycling through them.
Once more, the summoner ignored his servant and spoke to Salim. This time he looked almost embarrassed.
"The crown," he said. "It had several suggestions as to how I might...improve my longevity."
"Lichdom." Salim understood now why the man looked so hollow. He almost spat, but stopped himself for fear of hitting one of the corpses. "You were trying to turn yourself undead."
"Not me—the crown!"
Salim didn't care. "Can you stop it? Reverse it?"
"Almost certainly," Mirosoy said. "But it'll take time. Days."
Behind Salim, the villagers were drawing closer. He could hear individual voices in the rumble of the mob. "We don't have days."
Lord Mirosoy ventured a tentative smile, greasy and anxious. "If you'll allow it, my manor has certain defenses which—"
"No. You've done these people enough harm already." Salim thought hard. "Can you teleport? Move this whole setup somewhere else with magic?"
The noble grimaced. "My studies of late have been focused on other matters."
"Clearly." Salim sized up the various tubes that nosed into Mirosoy's clothing like hungry worms. "And I were to just pull those out?"
"Then I would die. Likely in excruciating pain."
Works for me, thought Salim, but he knew the eidolon would never stand for it. Besides, there was no telling what sort of backlash the expiring spell might generate.
Beyond the window, dozens of feet crunched on gravel.
"I have a suggestion."
Both Mirosoy and Salim turned to look at Connell. The eidolon was holding up a hand, as if waiting to be called on. Salim nodded.
"I have a suggestion," the eidolon said again. With one three-fingered hand, he reached up and touched the amulet hanging from his serpentine neck.
And then there was no Connell. Only a second Mirosoy.
Salim understood immediately. "Connell—" he began.
"They're looking for the master," the eidolon said firmly. "If we give them one, maybe they'll go home."
"They're a mob," Salim pressed, throat suddenly tight. "Even if they think Mirosoy's gone, they'll burn this place down anyway."
"Then you'll have to stop them." The eidolon held out a hand. "Goodbye, Salim. Thank you."
The hand hung there, unmoving. After an eternity, Salim stepped forward and took it. They shook.
Connell looked to Mirosoy.
"It's good to have you back, Master."
Then the eidolon walked out of the room and was gone.
Silence reigned as the two men stood looking at the door where the second Mirosoy had disappeared. Finally Salim spoke.
"If you lived a thousand years," he said slowly, "you would still be unworthy of that love."
"What?"
Salim's glance flicked sideways to the noble.
"That sacrifice. For you."
Mirosoy seemed genuinely puzzled. "It's an eidolon," he said. "I made it to protect me. When it's gone, I'll make another."
Salim stared at him.
Outside, the crowd roared.
∗∗∗
Three empty cups stood at parade rest on the wooden table. A fourth, only halfway drained, stood before them, the officer addressing its troops.
Salim took another drink. Around him, the familiar buzz of the Clever Endeavor continued as usual, a dozen conversations that never happened, between people who were never here and had never met. This time, no one was looking at Salim. That suited him fine.
The wood between his elbows was stained dark with spilled wine. Salim grimaced and set his mug down on top of the splotch, but the cup wasn't quite big enough to hide it from view.
Connell hadn't screamed. He hadn't made a sound at all. By the time Salim reached the front door of the manor house, passing corpses which lay motionless without the crown's animating touch, the worst was over. The bravest of the mob was still hacking away with hoes and scythes, while others shouted encouragement. At some point, someone tore away the amulet to reveal the eidolon's true form, which Father Adibold loudly proclaimed a sign that the noble had been a monster all along.
And then, finally, it was over. With a last gasp from the crowd, the eidolon's body disappeared. Only the bloody stain on the gravel drive remained.
Still giddy with the ease of their victory, the mob might have indeed charged the manor, had Salim not chosen that point to reveal himself. Stepping forth to address Father Adibold by name, Salim announced that the evening's festivities were over, and that he'd dealt with the rest of the lord's creatures himself.
A few of the mob, drunk on blood, had yelled abuse. Salim raised his still-glowing sword, and the newfound bravery dissipated. With Father Adibold at its head, the crowd turned and made its way back toward town. In no time at all, Salim was alone on the driveway. Just him and the stain Connell had left behind.
A single torch, dropped by a villager, still sputtered in the dirt. Salim bent down and picked it up. He looked up toward the manor window, where the red lights still played.
He could finish things. Mirosoy had perverted the corpses of innocents, and attempted to do the same to himself. Salim had executed men for less. He could set the torch against one of the tapestries in the entrance hall and let the whole place disappear.
Instead, he had opened his hand and let the torch drop.
And now he was here.
Salim drank deep, draining the last of the mug. The wine at the bottom had an unpleasant copper taste, and he looked down to see blood pooling there, mixing with the dregs. He put fingers to his nose, and they came away red. He sighed.
"You have a terrible way of announcing yourself, Ceyanan."
The creature across the table was neither male nor female, its pale skin as smooth and inhuman as an alabaster statue. Behind its shoulders, great wings that were half feathers, half shadow flexed once and then furled tightly in the dingy confines of the bar. Gray cloth like funeral shrouds wrapped its waist and chest.
Salim wiped his bloody upper lip with the back of his hand. "You want to tell me why you sent him to me?"
The angel smiled. "What do you mean?"
"Don't play coy." Salim put down his empty mug and leaned back, crossing his arms. "Your boss deals with more complex judgments than Mirosoy's little change of heart on a daily basis. If you hadn't sent me in, the mob would eventually have made it through those zombies and killed him, thus removing any reason for the Lady of Graves to take an interest."
"Many innocents would have died," the angel observed.
"And since when does your mistress give a flying fig about that?" Salim held up two fingers to the barman, who appeared almost immediately with two more mugs.
"Thank you," said Ceyanan, "but I don't drink."
"Who said one of these was for you?" Salim pulled both drinks close.
The angel watched him. "You're an excellent hunter, Salim. Your skill does you credit. But you still have much to learn." White lips twitched higher, the smile becoming almost beatific. "Connell did something very brave today. Out of love and devotion to his friend."
"Who didn't deserve it," Salim growled.
"Does it matter?" The angel's big eyes bored into Salim's. "Is the eidolon's sacrifice any less admirable because of it?"
Salim laughed sharply.
"Is that what this is all about? Teaching me to take pride in my work, even if I don't have any choice in the matter?" He showed his teeth. "Haven't I learned enough about duty? About sacrifice?"
Ceyanan shook its head, half sad, half bemused.
"Maybe not," it said at last. "But don't worry. You will."
"Just what—" Salim began.
But the angel was gone.
Salim stared at the chair where the angel had been. Then down at the stain on the table.
A mug in either hand, he began to drink in earnest.
Coming Next Week: A brand new romp exploring the perils of bragging in Lucien Soulban's "Fingers of Death—No, Doom!"
James L. Sutter is the Fiction Editor for Paizo Publishing, author of the novel Death's Heretic (also starring Salim), and co-creator of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game campaign setting. His short stories have appeared in such publications as Escape Pod, Starship Sofa, Apex Magazine, and the #1 Amazon bestseller Machine of Death, and his anthology Before They Were Giants pairs the first published stories of SF luminaries with new interviews and writing advice from the authors themselves. In addition, James has written numerous Pathfinder supplements, including City of Strangers and Distant Worlds. For more information, check out jameslsutter.com or follow him on Twitter at @jameslsutter.
Now that we’re wrapping up the last of the Advanced Race Guide, we’ve decided to give you a very early sneak peek at some of its contents. While Chapter 1 covers the races in the Core Rulebook, Chapter 2: Featured Races gives more details on many popular but less common races for the game, plus game mechanics like alternate racial traits and favored class options (like you saw for the core races in the Advanced Player’s Guide) and some other neat stuff you’ll find out about later. Here’s the list of races in this chapter, each getting 6 pages:
Aasimar
Catfolk
Dhampir
Drow
Fetchling
Goblin
Hobgoblin
Ifrit
Kobold
Orc
Oread
Ratfolk
Sylph
Tengu
Tiefling
Undine
If your favorite non-core PC race isn’t listed here, don’t worry—there are 14 races getting two pages each in Chapter 3, and the build-a-race options in Chapter 4 give you even more choices.
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