From Baria to Golarion

Friday, October 16, 2009

So, I've made no secret of the fact that I've given large parts of my 25+ year-old homebrew campaign setting, Baria, over to Golarion. One of the more successful of these imports are the Red Mantis assassins—and by extension, their home city of Ilizmagorti. When it came time to assign authors for Cities of Golarion, I was sorely tempted to claim the chapter on Ilizmagorti as my own—I was nervous that even if another author did a GREAT job with the city that the end result wouldn't match my own personal vision of the city. The same goes for the city's map, to be honest. But my work schedule being what it was (I'd already taken up two chapters of Classic Horrors Revisited, alas, I couldn't responsibly claim the chapter of Ilizmagorti for Cities of Golarion as my own. And so, with some nervous fear and much wringing of hands, I gave it up for someone else to write about.

I'm happy to say that what Rob McCreary wrought with his words is exactly what I'd envisioned for the city of Ilizmagorti—he hit every nail square, and the resulting chapter is hands-down my favorite in the book as a result (which is saying something, since there was some tough competition!). Even more exciting, he came up with some concepts that I'd never thought of for Baria's Ilizmagorti—concepts that inspired me in some really fun ways. It's really weird being inspired to write things about something you made up due to someone else's work on that concept! Weird, but wonderful!

Yet as wonderful as Rob's words were, a city can live or die by its map. For Cities of Golarion, we tackled the creation somewhat differently. We hired writers to write the chapters, but we hired artists and cartographers to create the city maps. Long-time readers of this blog might remember earlier this year when I posted the Map Open Call—the results are some of the best city maps that Paizo's had the pleasure to print. Presented here are the two versions of the map of Ilizmagorti—the first one created by Daniel Thomson, based on my outline of what the city should incorporate. The other map is the final version you'll see in the book and in the Cities Map Folio as a four-panel poster. (We've left the tags off of Rob's map so you can ogle the beauty of his work easier.)

Illustration by Daniel Thomson Illustration by Rob Lazzaretti

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Pathfinder RPG Open Call for Pathfinder Society Organized Play

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Hello and welcome to another installment of the Pathfinder Society scenario open call using the new Pathfinder RPG rules! Most months we'll open one of our Pathfinder Society scenarios to you, the general public, to search for new authors and new ideas for use in Paizo's worldwide organized play campaign. We're looking for authors who have a clear and concise writing style, who have solid and creative ideas for adventures, and who are capable in every way of following instructions and meeting deadlines. And while we're seeking new authors through this process, we certainly encourage previously published authors to participate as well.

Speaking of new authors, special congratulations go to paizo.com messageboard regular Yoda8MyHead, who was selected as the author for the previous open call. His scenario, #43: The Pallid Plague, will come out this February. Be sure to pop into the Pathfinder Society messageboards and congratulate Yoda on this assignment!

As always, keep the following guidelines in mind when submitting:

1. Don't break our world. If you submit something that breaks part of our world, it'll be auto-rejected. The scenarios are 4-hour adventures—epic story arcs, world-shattering events, wars, mass famine, etc. don't have a place in them.

2. Understand Pathfinder Society Organized Play before you submit. Specifically, understand that the Pathfinder Society is an organization of vagabond scholars, thrill-seeking treasure hunters, and extreme explorers. They are not necessarily the "good guys," they don't get "hired" for their adventures, and they're not generally looking to make the world a better place. Submitting generic 3.5 "save the day" adventure ideas will decrease your chances of getting to write one. There are plenty of resources out there to give you a feel for the Society: the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play, Pathfinder Adventure Path volume #1, and the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting all have information on the Pathfinder Society.

3. Read one or two scenarios before submitting (particularly 29 through 32).

4. Pathfinder Society Scenarios must be no more offensive than PG-13. Scenarios are played in public at public settings and children will be playing them. Submissions that include violence toward children will be auto-rejected.

5. This is not a contest. This is more like an interview for a job—you're showing me your best idea and I'm deciding if the combination of your idea and writing skill equals you being selected as our next scenario author. We need authors—not winners. And I really want to stress the author part of that. Only send me your best work that is reflective of your writing style. I can teach someone the rules system—I can't teach someone to write.

6. I don't have time to return every submission with feedback. Feel free to post your rejected proposals to the Pathfinder Society messageboards for peer review. For those of you not submitting, please give feedback to those who do and are rejected.

7. Lastly, I posted some general feedback on recent submissions here. Please read that thread before submitting.

Rules for submitting Pathfinder Society scenario outlines are as follows:

1. Based on the guidelines for the current round, write a 750-word outline that includes the following:

a. A title (if necessary, some times they are already titled)
b. A brief introduction that acts as a prologue for the scenario
c. A brief summary of how the PCs proceed through each encounter
d. A brief summary of each encounter—minimum six encounters with one encounter detailed as optional
e. A brief conclusion—what happens if the PCs fail or succeed

2. By the due date, email your outline to josh@paizo.com with the subject line SCENARIO NAME_SCENARIO#_ YOURLASTNAME. Your summary must be in a MS Word document, or a Plain Text or Rich Text Format file—these are files ending in .doc, .txt, or .rtf. Your file must be titled SCENARIO NAME_SCENARIO#_LAST NAME, i.e., PerilsofthePiratePact_17_Dayon.

3. Include your full legal name, email address, physical mailing address, and a contact phone number at the top of your submission—this text does not count toward your word count.

4. Please allow 72 hours for a response before resending your submission.

The current open call is for Pathfinder Society scenario 45—one of the March 2010 releases. The full schedule for this submission period is as follows:

10/15/09—Open call begins

10/30/09—Submissions due by 11:59 P.M. Pacific Time

11/9/09 through 11/13/09—Submissions review completed—selections and rejections notified

Guidelines

**SPOILER ALERT: Do not read the guidelines below if you wish to avoid spoilers for upcoming scenarios.**

Pathfinder Society Scenario 45

Title: none; up to the author
Setting: Absalom
Story: The Minotaur Prince of Absalom has been kidnapped (see pages 35–36, Guide to Absalom ). Why has he been kidnapped? Who did it? Why does the Pathfinder Society care? Your submission must include Grandmaster Torch (see Pathfinder Society scenarios #1 and #14) in one form or another—it's up to you how much of a roll he plays.
Level Range: Tier 1–5; Tiers 1–2 and 4–5

Joshua J. Frost
Events Manager

Ecology of the Pathfinder Product, Part 4: The Editor's Compositional Fitness Challenge

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Illustration by Crystal Frasier

Cave raptors are sated; it's time to blog!

Yes, editing: the sport of grammatically minded kings. So far we've examined the natural growth of Dwarves of Golarion, as well as its invaluable hours of education, and yet we've ignored physical fitness. Without a steady regimen of editing, our little manuscript could turn into a clumsy butterball, drawing ridicule and cruelty from other game products.

To keep a product trim, healthy, and happy, it's going to need editors to run it through its paces.

According to Paizo's editorial tag-team of Christopher Carey and James Sutter, an editor's job involves neither crushing the dreams of authors nor blindly hacking away at text, but instead is a carefully crafted routine to burn off flabby text and improve narrative posture. Like a cephalopod, any quality Paizo product needs to hit the gym regularly to keep it healthy. Just like any fitness-obsessed octopus will hit both the free-weights and the treadmill, Paizo products will rotate their editing to catch problems with grammar, spelling, word choice, continuity, voice, and even the occasional rewrite to adjust the word count. Even the greatest authors will occasionally dip into the candy-coated bacon of purple prose or forget to tie their punctuation, so a good editor can help make sure every product can fit into its cover before the big class reunion.

The amount of editing any given product needs is easily determined with the formula n+1, where n is the amount of time you actually have to edit the book. Because of this conundrum, it's important for editors to make the most of the time they do have. At Paizo, the ideal grammatical specimen sees four editorial passes: two from each of Paizo's own hard-nosed prose-wranglers. A 'pass' is a single read-through. Obsessive-compulsive as any wild pack rat, these editors greedily gobble up any mistakes they sniff out, trading it for proper spellings or active voice. And because anyone, even editors, can make mistakes, multiple passes and different editors help to ensure that no errors go unexamined.

For Paizo products especially, the editors also serve the dual role of security. They stand constant vigil over continuity of Golarion, ensuring that dead NPCs don't crop back up, that cities don't spontaneously shift location, and that worst of enemies aren't running around as BFF. The editors have the blessing and curse to read every product Paizo releases, from thrilling Planet Stories to mysterious modules, and serve as living repositories of the universe.

And yet they stay so svelte, just like the products they care for.

Editing is necessary for the health and longevity of a product. Without it, mistakes, typos, and plain, old dead wood can slip through into the final product, clogging intakes eventually leading to frustration overheating in readers. The heat released by frustrated readers contributes to the inconvenient truth of global warming, melting the polar ice caps, flooding coastal regions, and causing alligator populations to explode. Ultimately, mankind devolves into primitive tribes of swamp dwellers, hiding in terror from the maurading ultra-gators that have made this marshy, dystopian Earth their own!

So to keep your writing trim and healthy, and to ensure the survival of the human race, edit!

Now that our product is happy, healthy, and knows where its going in life, next week we're ready for that special time in every product's life when it truly becomes a book. Next week, we examine layout!

Crystal Frasier
Production Assistant

Carrion Hill Preview #2

Monday, October 12, 2009

The Pathfinder RPG Bestiary has reached our warehouse, and we've loaded it with hundreds of updated monsters for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. However, some of our favorites didn't quite make the cut and had to be left out of the book. Fortunately, we're clever and sneaky, and found a way to get one of the extra monsters into the Pathfinder Module Carrion Hill. After all, in an adventure with Lovecraftian horrors, this shapeshifting creature should feel right at home.

Illustration by Tyler Walpole Illustration by Hector Ortiz

Sean K Reynolds
Developer, Pathfinder Modules

Illustration by Steve Prescott

Countdown to Meltdown!

Friday, October 9, 2009

Well, as any devoted follower of our messageboards or weekly chat room meetings knows, things have been pretty frantic here at Paizo. As it turns out, releasing about 1,000 pages of rules (between the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook and the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary) and moving offices to Redmond, WA, all at the height of the convention season, is a really good way to knock product lines off schedule. We've been scrambling to get things back on track, and I'm happy to report that we're making some really good progress there—in fact, Pathfinder Adventure Path volume #28 is just now heading off to the printer!

This volume's adventure was originally going to be a stand-alone adventure written by me for our Pathfinder Module line. When I kept not having the time to get it started, I realized that it'd make a perfect fit into Council of Thieves. Splitting the writing duty for it with RPG Superstar Clinton Boomer, we explore a "what if?" scenario in this adventure: What if a "nuclear reactor" used a powerful devil as its energy source instead of radioactive material? And what if that infernal reactor had a meltdown?"

Presented is a hint of what's in store for Westcrown when things go bad—part of Steve Prescott's incredible cover for the volume. And that's just what's going on up topside—just wait until you find out what's happening down below in the Nessian Spiral itself!

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Pathfinder Society: Looking to the Future

Thursday, October 8, 2009

The most frequent request I get from players, GMs, and convention coordinators is, "What scenarios will be out by [date]?" I get this question enough that I've decided to keep a rolling 2-to-4 month schedule up on paizo.com/pathfindersociety. This rolling schedule has some unique challenges—for example, scenarios aren't assigned to authors as far in advance as, say, Pathfinder Adventure Paths, and so I often know very little about a scenario coming up in three months beyond a potential title, tier-level, and location. The open call further complicates this as those scenarios are usually just tier-level and location with no additional details.

That said, it seems to me that the most important details for convention coordinators especially is the tier-level of a given future scenario. So we're going to keep you apprised of that, even if we don't know much else about the scenario.

Without further ado, here's a peek at the future scenarios coming from Pathfinder Society Organized Play!

Pathfinder Society Scenario #35: Voice in the Void
Description TBA. Due out 10/28/09.
Written by Rob McCreary
Tier 1–7

Pathfinder Society Scenario #36: Echoes of the Everwar Part I: The Prisoner of Skull Hill
Description TBA. Due out 10/28/09.
Written by Joshua J. Frost
Tier 7–11

Pathfinder Society Scenario #37: The Beggar's Pearl
Description TBA. Due out 11/25/09.
Written by James F. Mackenzie
Tier 1–7

Pathfinder Society Scenario #38: No Plunder, No Pay
Description TBA. Due out 11/25/09.
Written by Larry Wilhelm
Tier 7–11

Pathfinder Society Scenario #39: Citadel of Flame
Description TBA. Due out 12/30/09.
Written by Steven Robert
Tier 1–5

Pathfinder Society Scenario #40: Hall of Drunken Heroes
Description TBA. Due out 12/30/09.
Written by Tim Hitchcock
Tier 7–11

Pathfinder Society Scenario #41: The Devil We Know Part III: Crypt of Fools
Description TBA. Due out 1/27/10.
Written by Larry Wilhelm
Tier 1–7

Pathfinder Society Scenario #42: Echoes of the Everwar Part II: The Watcher of Ages
Description TBA. Due out 1/27/10.
Written by Greg A. Vaughan
Tier 7–11

Joshua J. Frost
Events Manager

Illustration by Craig J. Spearing

Cities of Golarion—Whitethrone Preview

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

One of the six cities presented in Pathfinder Chronicles: Cities of Golarion is Whitethrone, capital of the wintry land of Irrisen, written by Jonathan Keith.

Home to the jadwiga ("children of the witch-mother"), the descendents of the witch Baba Yaga, Whitethrone is a playground for evil nobles, with Queen Elvannia's family enjoying the last few years of its ruling legacy before her mother instills another daughter to rule for a century. The city is home to snow goblins, ice trolls, and even winter wolves and worgs, all of them with the same rights as humanfolk. Visitors must beware, for Baba Yaga cast a spell on the Howlings district that allows the lupines to walk in human form to more easily interact with the two-legged population; the people of Whitethrone know better than to hunt wolves outside the city, or insult the shaggy-haired men and women whose breaths fog the air on even the warmest days.

Sean K Reynolds
Developer, Pathfinder Chronicles

Ecology of the Pathfinder Product, Part 3: An Outbreak of Art

Tuesday, October 5, 2009

Illustration by Crystal Frasier

Cave raptors are sated; It's time to blog!

As it stands, Dwarves of Golarion is now written and assembled by its loving developer. Though awkward and gangly, we can see what it will finally grow up into. But at this point, this happy child is nothing more than a text document in the daycare that is a documents folder, happy rolling in the mud and receiving bowl cuts from mom. But there's an ugly truth for gaming products that this little production goblin's learned at her junior prom: you can be creative and brilliant, but if you don't look good, nobody'll pick you up.

Enter the art order, the good grooming of game design.

The majestic octopus mates for life, and hopes to find a sensitive and intellectually compatible lover that shares its appreciation of American Gothic poetry, but it will make its initial judgments based on appearance and health. Similarly, good art can make a product seem interesting and romantic before the first words are even read. It can make the difference between a product you don't tell your friends about, and one you take home to mom. But like an attractive octopus, a quality illustration must be carefully cared for if it is to be worthwhile.

The art order begins once the text for a product has begun development. By now, the developer knows how everything will shake down, even if the specifics remain a mystery. The developer will sit down with the decorator crab that is the art director, and with careful attention to the budget, they decide how much art the book can stand and what compelling elements to call out in pictorial form. With that list completed, the task is kicked back to the developer and his editorial cronies, who write up brief descriptions of all the illustrations they'll need to get their product a seat at the popular table during lunch.

By now, the art director is already comfortable in its den, combing through the preferred artists list and thinking about what to assign to whom. Just like writers and tutors, different artists' styles lend themselves better to different moods and fit different products*. A happy, bubbly, or wacky artist would be a terrible fit for Dwarves of Golarion's "quiet and cool" attitude, and would be better suited for its goofy sidekick, Gnomes of Golarion. Once the art orders are written, the art director mails them along to the illustrators of choice, together with the promise of great riches.

The first thing received from the artists are those embarrassing family photos we like to call 'sketches.' These are passed out among the editorial and art staff, who make crippling judgments about cowlicks, large ears, and crooked teeth that will haunt the product well into adulthood. They also make note of any changes the artist needs to make.

Finally, the finished images are received from the artists who, like the octopus, die shortly afterwards. This cruel cycle of nature provides the few glimpse of a grown-up, mature product that needs to be home by ten because tonight is a school night.



Illustrations by Jeremy McHugh

The art order is vital in a product's life cycle because it prevents the normally docile artists from breaking free of their enclosures and wandering the streets, mauling and tagging innocent civilians at random. It also serves as the cranial implant that prevents the art directors from seizing the reigns of power and assuming their rightful places as god-kings, directing the entirety of a company's funding into a single, penultimate illustration that makes children weep and grown men fall to their knees in prayer. Very important if you are a company looking to put out more than one product.

By now in the life cycle, our game product has begun to grow up and go through some awkward changes. Suitors have come calling, and its started wearing makeup. Tune in next week when we'll examine how to cope with your precious first draft's frustrating period of editing!

Crystal Frasier
Production Assistant

*Except for Wayne Reynolds, whose art is universal and can bring peace to warring nations.

GameMastery Guide Cover!

Monday, October 5, 2009

I may have mentioned this before, but the main villain of Pathfinder’s first Adventure Path, Karzoug, was no stranger to tormenting PCs. He was one of my homebrew campaign’s major recurring characters—a powerful wizard who served as the true menace behind the throne of an evil warlord. In my homebrew, Karzoug wielded a scythe and had already made the transition to lich and wasn’t as concerned with greed, but he was very much still the campaign’s poster child for “evil wizard.” He eventually met his end when a pair of heroes, the barbarian Verik and the wizard Zefram, confronted Karzoug in, of all places, Baba Yaga’s dancing hut. Karzoug was trying to claim the hut’s legendary power source for his own evil purposes, and while this certainly annoyed Baba Yaga, she wasn’t about to give the PCs uncontested access to her magical fortress. And so these two high-level PCs snuck through the depths of the dancing hut filled with fear about breaking or even touching anything, avoiding every single encounter and trap through an uncharacteristic caution that, in the end, served them quite well. I’d intended them to finally reach Karzoug and have the final battle with the evil wizard after the PCs had depleted much of their resources dealing with the natives of Baba Yaga’s hut, and when they reached Karzoug with much of those resources untapped, I figured they deserved the advantage. Turns out, they needed that advantage anyway. Even in the 1st edition of the game, Karzoug was a menace.

And so, when it came to deciding on a villain to inflict upon Golarion, it was with quite a bit of pride and nostalgia that I resurrected old Karzoug. He’d changed specializations (necromancer to transmuter) and weapons (scythe to glaive) and got a promotion (from the power behind the throne to the guy who sits on the throne), but in a lot of other ways he remained the same. Of course, getting Wayne Reynolds to illustrate him was one of the more surreal moments of my gaming career... and now, seeing him on the cover of our upcoming GameMastery Guide, that sense of surreal pride has returned. Wayne Reynolds has done a fantastic job making Karzoug epitomize the role of "super-powerful wizard." Take a moment to look through all of his stuff! Caged imp, pet blue dragon, throne manacles for prisoners, spellbooks casually stacked to the side, crazy crystal ball with some sort of apparatus wrapped around it, a throne that can probably see—and that doesn’t even touch all of his fancy magical equipment he’s got ready to ruin the next PC to step his way!

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Back from the Future, Part 2

Friday, October 2, 2009

One of the big highlights of Gen Con Australia 2009 was the "What’s Next for Pathfinder?" seminar that took place Saturday afternoon. The Pathfinder players at the show were so excited for this seminar that they took a break from their Pathfinder Society games to attend. Not surprisingly, it was pretty packed.

Although much of what was covered during this seminar had already been announced, there were a few surprises in store, including the final two new base classes being planned for the Advanced Player’s Guide and a special surprise, a first look at one of the base classes from that book. At Gen Con Indy this year, we announced four of the six base classes slated to appear in the Advanced Player’s Guide: the alchemist, the cavalier, the oracle, and the summoner. During this seminar, the final two were revealed: the inquisitor and the witch.

The inquisitor class is going to look a lot like your Van Helsing-type character, dedicated to hunting down and killing monsters. This means that the class is going to have a fair number of skills and some limited divine spellcasting ability. In addition, the inquisitor is going to have the ability to designate a foe during combat, and the longer the combat progresses, the more damage he will deal to that foe in combat. Unlike a ranger, the inquisitor’s abilities are not based on monster type. Instead he has to carefully study his targets, learning how to more effectively deal with them as a combat progresses. Higher-level inquisitors will learn how to exploit monster weaknesses and possibly even add additional weaknesses to a monster using special attacks.

The witch class is going to be a class that fully embraces both the arcane and divine spell lists, taking select spells from each to make for one intriguing list. The big news for the witch is the focus on her familiar. This will function like a wizard’s familiar, but with additional powers and abilities, with maybe a few extra limitations thrown in to balance out the rules. You can also expect some new mechanics for witch curses, through some new spells and class features.

While the crowd was certainly excited to hear about these new classes, the room grew rather quiet as I handed out a sample oracle character for them to analyze. But rather than leave you out in the cold, here is that character, updated with the most recent version of the class.

Sample Oracle
This sample shows one of the first builds of the new oracle class. The relevant class abilities are summarized, but they do not include additional bonuses that Areanna would gain at higher levels. For example, at 9th level, Areanna’s form of flames ability improves, allowing her to assume the form of a Medium fire elemental.

Areanna
Female human oracle 7
CG Medium humanoid
Init +6; Senses Perception –1
Defense
AC 19, touch 14, flat-footed 16; (+5 armor, +1 deflection, +2 Dex, +1 dodge)
hp 49 (7d8+14)
Fort +4, Ref +5, Will +5
Offense
Speed 40 ft.
Melee +1 flaming shortspear +7 (1d6+2 plus 1d6 fire)
Ranged dagger +7 (1d4+1/19–20)
Special Attacks fire breath (2/day, 7d4 fire damage, DC 17), form of flame (Small fire elemental)
Spells Known (CL 7th)
3rd (5/day)—cure serious wounds, dispel magic, fireball (DC 17)
2nd (7/day)—aid, augury, resist energy, summon monster II
1st (7/day)—bless, cure light wounds, divine favor, produce flame, remove fear, shield of faith
0 (At Will)—guidance, light, purify food and drink, read magic, resistance, stabilize, virtue
Focus fire
Statistics
Str 12, Dex 14, Con 13, Int 10, Wis 8, Cha 18
Base Atk +5; CMB +6; CMD 18
Feats Combat Casting, Dodge, Eschew Materials, Improved Initiative, Mobility, Nimble Moves, Toughness
Skills Acrobatics +12, Intimidate +14, Knowledge (religion) +10, Perform (dance) +14, Spellcraft +10
Languages Common, Ignan
SQ oracle’s curse (speak in tongues), orisons, revelations (cinder dance, fire breath, form of flame)
Combat Gear elemental gem (fire), elixir of fire breath, wand of cure light wounds; Other Gear +1 flaming shortspear, daggers (4), +2 studded leather armor, cloak of resistance +1, ring of protection +1
Special Abilities
Cinder Dance (Ex): Areanna’s base speed increases by 10 feet. At 5th level, she receives Nimble Moves as a bonus feat.
Fire Breath (Su): As a standard action, Areanna can unleash a 15-foot cone of flame from her mouth. This flame deals 1d4 points of fire damage per level, maximum 10d4. A Reflex save halves this damage. The save DC is equal to 10 + 1/2 her oracle level + her Charisma modifier. She can use this ability once per day, plus one additional time per day for every four oracle levels she possesses.
Form of Flame (Su): As a standard action, Areanna can assume the form of a Small fire elemental, as elemental body I. She can use this ability once per day, but the duration is 1 hour/level.
Speak in Tongues: In times of stress, Areanna speaks in tongues. Whenever she is in combat, she can only speak and understand Ignan. This does not interfere with spellcasting, but it does apply to spells that are language dependent. She gains Ignan as a bonus language.

As you can see, oracles are spontaneous divine spellcasters, working in a manner similar to sorcerers. Instead of bloodlines, each oracle has a focus (fire in Areanna’s case). At 1st level, 3rd level, and every four levels thereafter, oracles can select one revelation from their focus to learn. These revelations grant them special powers and abilities, such as the ability to breathe fire, turn into a fire elemental, or even call down a storm of fire (Areanna is not quite high enough level for that one). In addition, oracles must select a curse at 1st level. These curses are a mixed blessing, with each one limiting the oracle in one way, while granting special bonuses in other areas. Areanna’s curse is perhaps one of the easiest to deal with, which is why it grants one of the smallest bonuses.

Well, that about wraps up my summary of Gen Con Australia 2009. I want to thank Ian Houlihan, the convention director, for bringing me down to the show, Mark Rogerson, the events manager, for showing me a great time in Brisbane, and Peter Ball, the seminar manager, for setting up some great panels. I am hoping to make this show a regular in my convention schedule. Maybe next year, you will too.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

Back from the Future, Part 1

Thursday, October 1, 2009

After a lengthy, globe-trotting adventure, I am finally back and well rested from my journey to the future. I am here to tell you that Gen Con Australia 2009 was a big success! For those of you that missed it, I thought this would be a good time to recap my trip to Australia and the news from the con.

Flying to Australia is hard, even if you are not very tall. The plane ride from LA to Sydney alone took about 14 hours. Arriving in Brisbane (two days after I left thanks to the international date line), I was greeted by some of the friendly con staff and some truly terrific weather. I spent some time exploring the city, including a wonderful tour down the Brisbane River, but no trip to Brisbane would be complete without paying a visit to the Australia Zoo (of Steve Irwin fame). When we arrived, Mark, my incredibly helpful guide, explained that most of the animals inside were ready for their tryouts to get into Bestiary II. Let me tell you, the animals in Australia do not disappoint!

From Koala's to Kangaroos, the Australia zoo is a real "hands on" experience, allowing you to feed and get up close to all of the animals. Except for the large and hungry ones, such as their extensive crocodile exhibits. Lucky for us, we showed up in time to catch one of the crocodile feeding demonstrations. Yeah, I am beginning to think that CR 2 might be a bit underrated. We also got to take a good look at the Cassowary, one of the world's biggest and deadliest birds. Apparently, the claws on its toes can rip a man open with relative ease. Terror bird anyone?

After the zoo, it was time for the Gen Con Australia to get underway. There were thousands of folks at the show, playing board games, card games, miniature games, and many RPGs. The Pathfinder RPG fans were there in force, playing a lot of Pathfinder Society games thanks to the tireless efforts of Stephen White (DarkWhite to those that lurk on the boards), who organized and ran more tables than any sane man should. Much of my time was spent talking to fans, participating in a host of seminars, and signing books (I may have signed over 50% of the Core Rulebooks on the continent).

Of course, the big seminar that everyone was waiting for was the "What's Next For Pathfinder?", where I spilled the beans on the final two classes to appear in the Advanced Player's Guide, set to release next August. But that was not all. I had another surprise in store for the attendees—a first look at one of the new classes. Tune in tomorrow for all the juicy details!

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

Seekers of Secrets: Journeys and Rewards

From Baria to Golarion

Pathfinder RPG Open Call for Pathfinder Society Organized Play

Ecology of the Pathfinder Product, Part 4: The Editor's Compositional Fitness Challenge

Carrion Hill Preview #2

Countdown to Meltdown!

Pathfinder Society: Looking to the Future

Cities of Golarion—Whitethrone Preview

Ecology of the Pathfinder Product, Part 3: An Outbreak of Art

GameMastery Guide Cover!

Back from the Future, Part 2

Back from the Future, Part 1