With the GameMastery Guide off to print we need something new to start teasing you all with, and while the Advanced Player's Guide seems logical, being our next next big release, I like monsters more. So where should we look for previews of Bestiary II? Why, no farther than Pathfinder Adventure Path #33, as we've got a few homeless horrors in there that will be creeping into October's tome of terrors. See for yourself. And no, none of these are new creations for Bestiary II.
At long last the GameMastery Guide has left the building. Turns out these big books take an incredible amount of work and cause a good deal of sanity damage, but after finally flipping through the color proofs, it looks absolutely incredible. In the coming weeks leading up to this monster's release we'll be showing off some of the coolest parts, but for now, take a look at a few shots from the GMG's final days of development.
Testing out Chapter 5's random treasure generator. I think Josh got a potion of aid.
Yeah. A measly potion.
We started a contest seeing who could roll up the most valuable item. Lisa always wins.
Turns out there's a LOT of tables in this book. The ones here are just for the chapter on rewards.
My proxy. Allowing me to be in two places at once and make well-considered decisions.
Chris Carey and Jeff Alvarez pitch in for the book's penultimate layout checks. Art Directorix Sarah Robinson oversees the process.
Why is this happening in my office! Sutter and Judy Bauer enter the fray.
James uses charts to detail an NPC alter ego, then goes on to name, captain, and crew a ship with just a few random rolls.
And now we all get to take a long break and finally rel—hold on, the Advanced Player's Guide is due WHEN?!
It seems like I’m the guy who usually ends up running the game, so when Sean announced that he was going to run a high-level campaign where all the PCs would be demon-worshiping drow nobles, I jumped at the chance to play. After all, high-level play, demons, and drow are three of my favorite things! You got a first look into the mayhem of our first session last week when Sean showed off his creepy black light, but today I’m going to tell you about my character. Like it or not!
Photography by James Jacobs
Alivorah Azrinae (CE female drow noble bard 7/demoniac 6) is something of a troublemaker, even in drow society. She's gotten in hot water with the Azrinaes many times in the past for cavorting and fraternizing with other houses—she thinks of herself as a spy, and loves learning secrets about other people and organizations. Her main problem is that she doesn't follow orders well and doesn't like divulging secrets without learning a secret in return—a trait that makes her not very helpful as a spy to anyone but herself. As a demoniac, she bears the mark of Abraxas on her right shoulder as a pale tattoo-like marking. Currently, she's a bit agonized by the fact that she actually knew a few secrets about the attack on the Azrinae family—had she divulged them, she could have possibly saved her house from being exiled. Her main goal now is to see that the Azrinae family gets to return to Zirnakaynin in a greater position of power than before. And if she gets herself a promotion in the family to a position of greater power, all the better!
The attached picture features the miniature I’m using for Alivorah, standing next to her entry on the family tree chart that Sean provided us. The mini (which was painted for me by the always-awesome Stephen Radney-MacFarland, who’s mini-painting skills are SIGNIFICANT) is one I originally used for Jason’s campaign a year or so ago, but since Jason quit running that game, I saw this as a great opportunity to use my cool drow mini again, even though she doesn’t really match the type of gear Alivorah carries. Also, those with keen eyes will note that Alivorah is the sister of Rob McCreary’s character, and that Josh is playing her uncle and Crystal her aunt. Should make for some interesting dynamics around the table!
As for that bit about being a “demoniac,” well... that’s a prestige class I’m taking the opportunity to playtest during this campaign. Originally presented as the 5-level demonic initiate prestige class in Pathfinder Adventure Path #15, this class is being upgraded to a 10-level prestige class and renamed to “demoniac” (the noun definition of which is “a person seemingly possessed by a demon or evil spirit”—it’s not a prestige class for characters who make smart decisions regarding the well-being of their immortal soul). Full details on the demoniac prestige class will appear in the upcoming Lords of Chaos: Book of the Damned Volume 2.
And for those readers who don’t care about my new character (you’re dead to me!), here’s a quick preview of some of the content I’m working on for Lords of Chaos—the beginning of Abraxas’s entry in Chapter 1: The Abyss and its Lords! (Note! The following hasn’t even been through development yet—some elements are certain to change by the time it sees print later this year.)
Abraxas
Master of the Final Incantation
Male demon lord of magic and forbidden lore
Cult
Temple libraries, reliquaries, vaults
Worshipers drow, sorcerers
Minions mariliths, xacarbas (see Pathfinder Bestiary II), serpentine creatures
Sacrifice spellbooks, magic scrolls, those who reveal secrets
Obedience Self-flagellate with a small whip or tree branch, punctuating each stroke with utterances of mystic words of power. Gain a +4 profane bonus on saves against written magical effects, such as sepia snake sigil or symbol of death.
Boons
1: Secret Lore (Sp) Gain one of the following spell-like abilities: identify 3/day, augury 2/day, or illusory script 1/day
2: Heretical Revelation (Su) Up to three times a day you can whisper terrible secrets to an adjacent target as a standard action. The target can resist with a Will save (DC = 10 + 1/2 your HD + your Charisma modifier). If the target fails its save, it is stunned for 1 round, then confused for 1d4 rounds, and then nauseated for 2d6 rounds. This is a mind-affecting effect.
3: Penultimate Incantation (Sp) You affect a single creature within 60 feet with a targeted greater dispel magic. Each spell or effect dispelled inflicts fire damage to the target equal to the result of your caster level check made to dispel the magic.
In a fit of madness, I decided to run a high-level playtest so we could have an ongoing idea of how high-level play works in the Pathfinder RPG. In a fit of double-madness, I decided it would be an "evil" game. Triple-madness means everyone is playing a drow noble from House Azrinae in the Darklands. The result is Exiles of Zirnakaynin.
As I'm a miniatures geek, this meant painting up a bunch of dark elf PCs and NPCs, plus other Darklands monsters and underground terrain. As I'm a science geek, I painted many of these things with fluorescent paint highlights, glow-in-the-dark paint, or glow-in-the-dark varnish so they react to a black light.
This photograph is from our first session, where the PCs (and associated undead and eidolon minions) and soldiers of House Azrinae line up on the eastern wall and tower of the House grounds (with the riding-lizard stable in the foreground) to defend against an attacking force of half-fiend minotaurs, enemy drow soldiers, some treant-like fungus creatures, and a few other surprises not yet on the map.
Given that here at Planet Stories we recently wrapped up production on Hugh Cook's Brobdingnagian-sized 464-page sci-fantasy adventure The Walrus & the Warwolf, I figured it's about time to show off the book's awesomely monstrous cover art by Keiran Yanner, and also to share with you what the book's presenter, award-winning novelist and builder of fantastic worlds China Miéville, has to say about Hugh Cook in his introduction. So without further ado, take it away, Mr. Miéville...
Illustration by Kieran Yanner
Of Hugh Cook's extraordinary, underrated, bizarre and hysterical decology, Chronicles of an Age of Darkness, The Walrus and the Warwolf has long been a, if not the, reader favourite. Let's be clear: the whole series urgently needs rediscovery—each book (all standalone) for its own specifics, as well as for the astonishing audacity with which Cook tangles them. Not only do they cross over and back and through each other book to book, but like a kind of pulp Rashomon-monger, he might repeat the exact same scene several books apart, described from two contradictory points of view, so only the most faithful readers will get the joke. The hope is that having been hooked by the following story of Drake Douay, readers will go on to The Wizards & the Warriors, The Women & the Warlords, and the later, more arcanely double-W-ing titles (from which paradigm Cook, with the torturous rigour of any Oulipian prankster—like Georges Perec, who wrote an entire novel without the letter "e"—admirably refused to budge. The Werewolf & the Wormlord? Really?).
But while every one is a must-read, it's easy to see why The Walrus and the Warwolf is perhaps the favourite. This epic picaresque of Drake's adventures is astoundingly full of stuff, precisely the stuff that gets our sweet spots. Pirates! Monsters! Wizards! Battles! Pirates! Sex! Pirates! Misunderstood robots from an ancient high-tech past! Really excellent monsters! Etc! Also pirates!
...On the question of monsters, Cook brilliantly has it both ways. On the one hand, what we want from our fantasy beasts is familiarity. We want to see what an author can do with the traditional figures we know well—the gryphons, the unicorns, the... alright, let's use the D-word... the dragons. On the other hand, especially in these post-Lovecraft days, we want monsters that are completely new, totally alien, without any remembered fabular cognates. These are quite contradictory ways of relating to fantastic bodies, and authors generally simply have to choose one or the other to indulge. Cook, however, refuses to. Instead, he draws a border—a physical border, at the bottom of his map. To the north of it live dragons and their familiar folkloroid compadres; to the south, the Swarm, incomprehensible insecto-alien monstrosities, like the Neversh, of terrifying, carefully described but almost impossible to visualise alien forms. So by a kind of Promethean arithmetic, Cook just adds the new-monstrous to the old...
Paizo challenged amateur game designers from around the world to show off their skills in RPG Superstar 2010, the third season of Paizo's search for great undiscovered game designers. Judges Clark Peterson of Necromancer Games and Paizo's own Sean K Reynolds and F. Wesley Schneider narrowed the field to 32 would-be RPG Superstars, and guest judges including game designer Greg A. Vaughan, cartographers Corey Macourek and Robert Lazzaretti, and Paizo’s Creative Director James Jacobs, plus last year's finalists Kevin Carter, Eric Bailey, Matt Stinson, and 2009 RPG Superstar Neil Spicer provided their advice as the contestants answered each new challenge.
In the final round, we asked this year's Top 4 to propose a 32-page Pathfinder Module for use with Paizo's Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Contestants Alexander MacLeod (Raleigh, North Carolina), Jim Groves (Ontario, Oregon), Matt Goodall (Cheltenham, Victoria, Australia), and Matthew McGee (Davis, California) responded with four excellent submissions, but there can be only one RPG Superstar 2010, and so after the judges offered comments, the general public selected one winning proposal to be published by Paizo in early 2011.
Congratulations to Matt Goodall for his victorious proposal, Cult of the Ebon Destroyers. Here's a brief description of the adventure from Matt Goodall’s winning RPG Superstar 2010 submission:
Now is the time to bring down the Ebon Destroyers!
Too long have the secretive Vudran cultists known as the Ebon Destroyers gone unpunished for their crimes of murder and assassination. Too long has the Isle of Jalmeray suffered from their deadly machinations. The Thakur of Jalmeray has outlawed the cult, and received in response an ultimatum stating that if he doesn’t revoke his edict, he and his family will die before the month is out. The PCs must locate the Ebon Destroyers’ hidden temple headquarters, battle the cult leaders, and save the Thakur himself!
Cult of the Ebon Destroyers is an adventure for 8th-level chararacters, written for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and compatible with the 3.5 edition of the world's oldest RPG. Inside you'll find intrigue and espionage in the slums and palaces of the city of Niswan and a perilous trek through the dense jungle and rugged hills of southern Jalmeray to the depths of a diabolical shrine.
As RPG Superstar 2010's Grand Prize, Paizo will contract Matt Goodall to write Cult of the Ebon Destroyers, which we will release as a Pathfinder Module in January, 2011.
But you don't have to wait until January to reserve your copy! Head over to the new Cult of the Ebon Destroyers product page here on paizo.com to preorder your copy of Matt Goodall’s winning adventure! If you're already a Pathfinder Modules subscriber, Cult of the Ebon Destroyers will arrive as part of your subscription.
On behalf of our judges as well as the whole Paizo Publishing family, congratulations to
Alexander MacLeod, Jim Groves, Matthew McGee, and Matt Goodall. Though only one earned the title RPG Superstar 2010, you'll likely be hearing from all of them, and from other RPG Superstar 2010 contestants, in the months and years to come.
And we'd like to offer one final thanks to you, the readers of paizo.com, and to anyone who submitted an entry or voted during RPG Superstar 2010.
And for those of you who didn't, RPG Superstar 2011 is less than a year away!
Every other Thursday evening, I run my "Shadow Under Sandpoint" campaign for the editorial folks. I started the game several months ago for three reasons—as a team-building exercise, as a way for we editors to get more familiar with the game we created, and because it sounded fun. Several of the PCs from this campaign appear in the recently released NPC Guide, in fact... but not all of them.
When Rob McCreary joined the Paizo editorial team, I invited him to join the game (which brought our total number of players up to a staggering total of nine!). After a false start with a half-orc (who soon left the party to seek fame and glory as our iconic inquisitor), Rob settled on a gnome summoner inspired by another of our new iconic characters. Yet unlike the iconic summoner, who has some sort of weird chicklizatrice type monster as an eidolon, Rob went for a different critter entirely.
His character is named Balazar, and his eidolon is named Rummy-Tum-Tugger (no relation to a certain similarly named feline superstar). When Rummy-Tum-Tugger first showed up, I asked Rob to describe him, but that didn't really help. It seems that every session, something new comes up and folks have to revise what they think Rummy-Tum-Tugger looks like. "Wait, his teeth shoot ice?" "Huh? He has six limbs?" "He's PURPLE?"
There's only one solution. A contest!
Break out your pencils, pens, paints, and Photoshops, because whoever draws Rob the best and most accurate depiction of Rummy-Tum-Tugger not only gets the satisfaction of helping my poor group of PCs visualize what their newest member actually looks like, but I'll sweeten the deal by sending that person a copy of the NPC Guide, signed by the entire Paizo editorial staff!
To enter, simply email your illustration to me at james.jacobs@paizo.com as a .jpg attachment by the end of the month—keep the file small (600 KB or less). Rob will then pick his favorite picture of them all and that'll be the winner, and we'll show it off in a blog post at the start of April.
And now, the details! Rummy-Tum-Tugger is a Medium-sized eidolon. He's got the quadruped base form, and looks vaguely like a purple badger with six legs, each leg tipped with scary sharp claws. His jaws are filled with BIG sharp teeth that are caked with even sharper razor-sharp ice. Oh, he also has a gore attack. Some sort of horns or spikes or something. Did I mention he's purple? He also wears an amulet of mighty fists. And he can talk. And he likes cheese, but since he's lactose intolerant poor Balazar has to constantly watch Rummy-Tum-Tugger's cheese intake.
Official Call for PaizoCon and Gen Con Volunteers!
Friday, March 19, 2010
Hello!
This is the official call for volunteer GMs and assistants to help Paizo Publishing run events at PaizoCon 2010 and Gen Con 2010. (If you're looking for the Origins Game Fair volunteer thread, click here.)
Paizo Con 2010
For Paizo Con 2010, I need a minimum of 20 volunteer GMs for Pathfinder Society Organized Play and I'll keep taking volunteers until the slots are full! Below you will find the reward structure for volunteering at PaizoCon 2010 as well as the events and slots for which I need volunteer GMs. I also need 2 volunteer assistants for the show—these folks will not GM, but will instead run Pathfinder Society HQ and will be my go-to guys and gals for all things Pathfinder Society. Volunteers must volunteer for a minimum of 2 slots and the volunteer assistants are volunteering to split time at HQ for the entire show. PaizoCon 2010 volunteer GMs and volunteer assistants receive the following:
(Volunteer GMs) A $10 per slot credit voucher for the Paizo sales area
(Volunteer Assistants) A $15 per slot credit voucher for the Paizo sales area
All PaizoCon 2010 volunteers can email me: josh@paizo.com with the subject line PaizoCon Volunteer. I can only take volunteers for Paizo Con who have purchased a badge to the show.
Keep in mind that you're volunteering for a slot, not a specific event. I'll assign people to events inside the slot they've volunteered for and I won't take requests.
For Gen Con 2010, I need a minimum of 50 volunteer GMs and I'll keep taking volunteer GMs until the slots are filled! I also need 3 Volunteer Assistants for the show—these folks will not GM, but will instead run Pathfinder Society HQ and will be my go-to guys and gals for all things Pathfinder Society. This year I'm also seeking 4 "booth volunteers." These folks must be highly knowledgeable about all of Paizo's products lines, must be well kept, clean, and professional, and must be able to stand and move for up to 6 hours at a time. Booth volunteers will work the Paizo booth sales floor, answer questions, and let Paizo employees know when product needs to be restocked. Booth volunteers will not work the register and will not have access to the back area of the booth. Below you will find the reward structure for volunteering at Gen Con 2010 as well as the events and slots for which I need volunteer GMs and booth volunteers.
Keep in mind that you're volunteering for a slot, not a specific event. I'll assign people to events inside the slot they've volunteered for and I won't take requests.
Volunteer Tiers and Rewards
Volunteer Assistant FULL! No more needed.
Booth Volunteers FULL! No more needed.
Tier 1 GM Volunteers
Tier 1 GM volunteers are my workhorse, every day GMs. They are invaluable to making the show a success! Tier 1 GMs must select and volunteer for a MINIMUM of 8 slots. Tier 1 GMs may feel free to volunteer for more than 8 slots if they so desire. I only have room for 24 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 won't be able to attend the show. Tier 1 GMs receive:
A FREE 4-day Gen Con 2010 badge
A FREE 1/4 of a hotel room in the Marriott Downtown Indianapolis
A $10 per slot voucher for the Paizo booth (to be used in the Paizo booth on Sunday only)
A FREE autographed copy of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Advanced Player's Guide hardcover at Gen Con
A FREE limited edition Paizo Publishing Gen Con 2010 T-Shirt
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 4-day Gen Con 2010 badge
A $10 per slot voucher for the Paizo booth
A FREE limited edition Paizo Publishing Gen Con 2010 T-Shirt
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 the Paizo booth
A FREE limited edition Paizo Publishing Gen Con 2010 T-Shirt
Volunteering for One Slot
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 slot you are volunteering for. I will assign folks to scenarios on an as-needed basis, so you really only need to tell me the slot(s) you're volunteering for (since I won't take requests). 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 gencon.com account and you must include your gencon.com account # 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).
Who am I kidding, I relish airing our dirty laundry in public, but professionalism and good taste often makes doing so... "inadvisable." But this is a special situation and in this instance it's easy to talk around the specifics so to protect the innoce—well, in this case, to protect the guilty. As we've been trying to show off our editorial processes with this project, even more reason to let you all in on how things sometimes play out around here.
The product in question: From Shore to Sea, our Pathfinder Module partnered with Wolfgang Baur's patron-fueled Open Design venture.
The topic: Sometimes we get screwed.
So, let's backtrack a little bit. Here's something most folks didn't notice—unless you've been getting emails from me or really enjoy reading the credits pages of our projects. Around October of last year my title here at Paizo totally didn't change. What comes after that title did, though. Thus, "Managing Editor of Pathfinder" became "Managing Editor of Paizo Publishing." The distinction: now I'm not just in charge of making sure everything runs smoothly for Pathfinder Adventure Path, but everything else we publish too. And, as a special bonus challenge, that it all happens in a timely manner. That's been the real trick. It's like telling someone to build a number of towers (one for each product line) but, hey, for fun, let's start at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon, in this case, is our "schedule debt," a sizable hole with depth markers called Dragon and Dungeon magazines, the Pathfinder Campaign Setting, the Pathfinder Core Rulebook, and other beautiful fiascos that have gradually meant nearly everything we publish has fallen off its intended tracks. A real nasty peril when you've got thousands of gamers rightly demanding the products they've subscribed to and expect from month to month. But with my shiny Paizo-brand carrot and Paizo-brand stick, and the incredible efforts of our insanely talented and even more dedicated designers, editors (with a special nod to Judy Bauer, Chris Carey, Rob McCreary, and James Sutter), and folks at all levels of the company who have sacrificed nights, weekends, sleep, and meals to write and edit, those towers have reached up and up toward the light. The first tower to break the surface was the Pathfinder Module line with From to Shore to Sea, scheduled to go to print, on time, March 5th.
Or rather it would have, if the art we ordered actually came in. Oh, I don't just mean came in on time, I mean, was going to come in at all. What we got on the due date instead of a half dozen illustrations was an apology from Joe "You'll-Never-Work-in-this-Town-Again" and a very empty "good luck!" Lame. Now, art directorix Sarah Robinson is a goddess for a variety of reasons, but the power she employed in this particular crisis was to bat her eyelashes via email and coax a whole host of fantastically talented artists to take up the slack, and in record speed. What that did mean, though, is that instead of going out on time, From to Shore to Sea is now going out next week, three weeks behind my precious schedule. Ugh.
Illustration by Dan Scott
Wolf set us up with this great plan, author Brandon Hodge pulled together a fantastic adventure, the Open Design patrons made a host of inspired suggestions, and Rob developed this thing into a fine addition to our Pathfinder Modules line in record time. And Dan Scott, our ever reliably awesome cover artist, did the incredible cover I’ve attached here. (Again, Dan: great and timely work. We love Dan’s stuff.) Yet despite top-notch materials and everyone who touched the adventure doing heroic work, sometimes things still don't work out the way they should. Sometimes it makes things frustrating and stressful, but never, ever boring.
From Shore to Sea will be awesome, there's no doubt about that, and I'm more excited about this one than I am about most. But, sadly, this one has had a bumpy journey, and my first tower breaking the surface will likely have to wait for City of Strangers in the Pathfinder Chronicles line later this month. Missing a deadline sadly isn't something new, so don't go adjusting orders or rechecking release dates; this happens sometimes and no one outside this building ever hears about it. Our website and warehouse teams are also quite adept—to our chagrin—at picking up our slack. And, should all our plans continue to work and there are relatively few additional catastrophes, you shouldn't ever hear me griping about our "editorial debt" again.
So just a heads-up for all the folks who have been invested in and keenly anticipating Open Design's From to Shore to Sea: it's awesome and it's coming, but sometimes the path from author to your hands has some unanticipated adventures. And expect a very boring blog post from me in a few months announcing that all our product lines are, at last, shipping to the printer on time. It might not matter much to folks outside these offices, but here, it's going to be cresting the top of a very tall hill.
The Top 4 contestants have each written a proposal for a Pathfinder Module to be published for Paizo's Pathfinder Roleplaying Game! Regular judges Clark Peterson of Necromancer Games, and Paizo's own Sean K Reynolds and Wes Schneider have reviewed each proposal along with Pathfinder Creative Director James Jacobs, our guest judge for the round. Vote for your favorite submission by March 22, and on March 23, we'll announce which contestant you've crowned RPG Superstar 2010!
This is it folks! The finalists have put their pens aside, the judges have had their say, and now it's up to you. At 2:00 PDT this afternoon voting to decide this year's RPG Superstar begins. Make sure you're back here to check out the four fateful adventure proposals, one of which will soon begin on the path to actual publication. Your opportunity to vote ends Monday the 22nd, so make your choice carefully as it all comes down this! Good luck to all the finalists and may the best designer win!
As I mentioned back on the 22nd of February, the owlbear sort of ended up being the mascot for the Kingmaker Adventure Path. I also hinted that our poor mascot was going to have something of an unlucky streak. Turns out... the bad luck hits more or less immediately—in the second Kingmaker adventure, "Rivers Run Red," the PCs start to build their kingdom and tame the wilderness of the Stolen Lands. That's bad news for the owlbears, as you can see here.
Don't worry, though, because our unlucky owlbear is destined for greater things than merely providing a pile of experience points for some overzealous archer! It's just that the owlbear won't be all that aware of his fame when it finally comes!
Today is the deadline for this year's Top 4 RPG Superstar competitors to hand over their adventure proposal. This weekend, the judges—including guest judge James Jacobs—review the proposals, and on Tuesday they go live for public voting.
Alexander MacLeod, Jim Groves, Matt Goodall, and Matthew McGee have been plowing through the rounds of the competition since December of last year. Now they're in the home stretch. It's been interesting watching them respond to the challenges and criticism each round, and I'm looking forward to their final submissions. Whoever wins gets a contract to write a 32-page adventure module for Paizo—and bragging rights for having the design chops to beat out the competition!
Here at Paizo, the normal process for ordering a map for an adventure or sourcebook goes something like this: First the author sends us a map of the imagined area, drawn out to the best of his or her abilities. With that in hand, we check it thoroughly for any contradictions with existing continuity, and redraw or retag sections as necessary to correct mistakes, make the map more interesting, or simply increase legibility. We then hand the map over to Art Director Sarah Robinson, who sends it off as reference to a professional cartographer. Once the professional version comes back, we check it against the original and make changes as necessary. It's a process that happens every day at Paizo.
And then, once in a great while, an author turns the whole system on its head.
In this case, that's Tim Hitchcock, who provided such amazing map turnovers for several locations in Heart of the Jungle, our guide to the Mwangi Expanse, that we couldn't in good conscience send them all away to a cartographer. Instead, we're doing something we very rarely do, and including several of Tim's original art pieces—such as this rendering of Usaro, city of demon-worshiping apes—as player handouts, perfect for GMs who want an in-game reference they can show their players. Between the loads of professionally rendered, heavily tagged maps and Tim's pages torn straight from an explorer's diary, this book is one of the map-heaviest supplements we've ever done, and I can't wait to hear what GMs think when this experiment finally hits bookstores.
One of my favorite parts of being an editor at Paizo is getting to read about the new monsters in each bestiary before they come out. My favorites are the ones whose descriptions make me shiver with a delicious sense of horror and disgust. If the players facing these foul beasts make the same expression that I do reading about them, GMs will be richly rewarded for including them!
Last week, James Sutter was casually describing some of the nasties in Heart of the Jungle as he handed over a copy of one of the chapters: "You know, giant botflies, giant leeches, and [...]" Oh sorry, could you repeat the rest of that sentence? I couldn't hear you over the sound of my inner child screaming in fear.
Illustration by Andrew Hou
You see, when I was about 10, I was reading my dad's Dragon magazine back issues while en route to a week of camping in northern Minnesota, and I came across an article called "Ecology of the Giant Leech." The description of foot-long ribbons of muscle whose bite you can't even feel slowly fattening as they fill with your blood horrified me—suddenly I was terrified to be spending a week canoeing and swimming in leech-infested waters. ("Leech-infested" is not an exaggeration; the water along the shore of every beach and campsite was thick with six-inch-long leeches.)
I studied over the article again and again, poring over the stats and descriptions of their attacks and vulnerabilities, so I'd know how to defend myself when the time came. (You can laugh, but clearly, it worked!)
Now giant leeches are back—and I can't wait to read about them again! Partly because I love being creeped out by things that go bump in the water, and okay, I confess, partly to learn whether leech-fighting methods have evolved over the years.
GMs, you're going to love these wriggly critters: monsters based on one of nature's actual horrors, and whose attack is so insidious that victims may not even notice until it's almost too late. The only thing more priceless than the expression on your players' faces when they find a couple giant leeches draining one of their comrades—and wonder about that crawling sensation on their own backs—will be the look on their faces when they realize they have to cross that swamp again on the way back.
One of the neat peripheral elements of the GameMastery Guide—aside from 300+ pages of hardcore GM focused tools and rules—are new chapter openers. You know, the big pictures with the little stories next to them that start every section of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook. Those. Our own Fiction Editor James Sutter is tackling these, and there's something really cool about finally getting a bit of a story to go along with some of the coolest scenes in the Pathfinder cosmology. For example, here's Chapter 6's opener, along with its companion, the cover to The Great Beyond.
"Sing the songs with us, O bastard prince!" The keketar's voice was high, euphoric. Several of the words formed shapes in the air, one turning to a centipede that writhed as it drifted away.
"Join us in the dance and we will remake you/make you so beautiful. We will sing the stars from the sky/sea."
"I'll pass," Seltyiel grunted. Beneath them, the islet was already crumbling. It wouldn't last another minute under the keketar's influence.
The hell with it. He'd only get one shot anyway. Summoning the last of his magic, Seltyiel leapt backward, out into empty space..."
And expect 8 more just like this in the upcoming GameMastery Guide!
Here's some more bonus material for the Pathfinder Module Realm of the Fellnight Queen. The RPG Superstar 2009 adventure by Neil Spicer originally included some additional random encounters at the beginning of Part 2: Lost in the Mist, but they were cut for space reasons. Adding these encounters helps to reinforce the eerie atmosphere of the mist.
Mist Random Encounters
Roll on the following chart to generate a random encounter for each day spent in the mist.
Roll
Type of Monster
CR
1
Desperate Townsfolk
—
2
Missing Lumberjacks
—
3
Spirit Moss
—
4
Amnesiac Elf
—
5
Pit Trap
3
6
Unicorn Sighting
—
7
Giant Bees
6
8
Will-o'-Wisp
6
9
Dire Bear
7
10
Fellnight Spriggans
8
Amnesiac Elf: A half-elf named Carith (N male half-elf warrior 2) wanders this part of the forest. He had the misfortune of falling victim to a pixie memory loss arrow (Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 228) and now finds himself lost in the mist. If the PCs escort him to a safe place (for example, leaving him in the care of other good-willed forest creatures), award them experience for a CR 3 encounter.
Desperate Townsfolk: A Perception check (DC 20) detects cries for help in the fog. If the PCs respond, they discover a family of four with a stuck wagon fleeing Bellis. A DC 30 Strength check can get them moving again (multiple PCs can assist in moving the 10-foot-by-10-foot wagon, one per square adjacent to the wagon). A Diplomacy check (DC 20) convinces them to return to town for their own safety. If the PCs free the wagon or convince the family to return to Bellis, award them experience for a CR 2 encounter.
Dire Bear: The PCs blunder into the path of a dire bear that a short time ago hungrily raided a giant beehive. Unfortunately, he's still hungry and can smell the PCs through the fog.
Fellnight Spriggans: Four Fellnight spriggans deserted Rhoswen's army to explore and pillage on their own. They attack the PCs on sight (see page 7 of Realm of the Fellnight Queen).
Giant Bees: A nest of giant bees has recently had its hive disturbed by a dire bear. Three of the bees now angrily search the mist for creatures to attack.
Missing Lumberjacks: The PCs happen upon a ruined Lumber Consortium camp littered with debris. Thorn darts riddle the tents and supplies. A DC 15 Survival check determines at least nine lumberjacks have gone missing from the site. A search of their belongings discovers 38 gp, 42 sp, 118 cp, a brass cup engraved with the likeness of Cayden Cailean worth 25 gp, and a masterwork throwing axe.
Pit Trap:
Devarre the druid has laid traps to capture animals. Along a narrow deer trail lies a camouflaged pit trap (see Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook 420) designed to catch a bear, covered by leaves and baited with a honey-covered shoe.
Spirit Moss: A patch of spongy gray-green moss covers the sides of a massive log. A Knowledge (nature) check (DC 20) identifies the substance as spirit moss (Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting 217). Those consuming it suffer 2d6 points of Strength and Dexterity damage (no save), but temporarily gain the ability to speak with dead (CL 10th). A character who makes a Survival check (DC 16) may harvest enough for two preparations.
Unicorn Sighting: Any character making a Perception check (DC 20) notices a horse-like figure in the mist. As some of the fog drifts past, a unicorn meets their gaze and then gallops away, teleporting if the PCs try to pursue it.
Will-o'-Wisp: A will-o’-wisp uses the fog to mimic the voices of desperate townsfolk trying to leave Bellis, pretending to be lost in the mist or stuck among the thickets. It draws unsuspecting victims into a patch of brambles, a ravine, or a swampy area (see Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook 427).
One of my first duties at Paizo was to create some random encounter tables for the GameMastery Guide. It took more than three workdays, and by the end of the process I was seeing tables in my sleep. It was a little bit like the first time you play Guitar Hero, and you look away from the screen and think the world is scrolling up for a couple seconds. Except with tables. But, I'm done with that, so that's kind of neat. Now I can dream about normal things, like giant robot rock operas and going to Chipotle with my ex-boss of three years. Rest assured, GMs, there will be no shortage of random encounter tables for when your PCs randomly wander off into the woods, or cave, or different plane of existence. I've even snuck out a piece of art from the book by artist Kieran Yanner.
On a completely different note, I GMed a Pathfinder game yesterday, and it totally rocked. I'm always the GM, so it's not like it was a new experience or anything, and I've been running Pathfinder since it came out, but I finally figured out a core component to any tabletop roleplaying game: roleplaying.
You see, for quite some time, I was having trouble encouraging my players to roleplay. I'm the type of person who writes out the five-page character background when I'm a player, and I will totally handicap myself and give myself silly stats and gear if it matches my character concept. I don't expect every player to do this, but it would be kind of cool if my group got into character every now and then. Being a fairly chill GM, I wasn't going to force them to roleplay against their will or anything, since that would kind of defeat the purpose of playing a game. No, what I wanted was for them to want to roleplay.
So, I've been thinking of ways to do this, and I stumbled upon a rather valuable, yet seemingly obvious, idea. The notion was simple, and I presented it to my group before the game. "Alright, guys, I'm thinking of trying this new thing; everything you say at the table is in-character, unless you preface with 'Out of character,' and it can only be game-related at that." They were all kind of like, "Hmm, I dunno about this, Patrick, but we'll give it a shot for an hour and see how it goes."
One hour later: awesomeness. Few distractions, if any; everybody's talking with epic accents and saying ridiculously metal (aka really, really cool) things; and we're all getting really immersed in the game. The dark and brooding wizard was dark and brooding; the charming bard was courting the maiden he had saved from a coven of hags; the druid was giving the totally rad armor of a fallen cleric to the church instead of selling it for mad gold; and the summoner was poring over books in the library and hypothesizing the origins of the mysterious crystals they had found in the abandoned temple. This group of hack-and-slashers actually began to care about the adventure and NPCs I had crafted for them. Success.
I guess my point is that even if you think you know your group (mine consists of close friends), they can still pleasantly surprise you, given the opportunity.
Top 10 Reasons I Love Manly Wade Wellman's Who Fears the Devil?
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
The original Planet Stories edition of Manly Wade Wellman's Who Fears the Devil? is due to hit the Paizo warehouse later this month, so I thought I'd share the top 10 reasons why it's one of my favorite Planet Stories books to date. Drum roll, please!
10. How many pulp writers do you know who were nominated for a Pulitzer?
9. Prose as sweet as country dew on a summer's morn.
8. That magical silver-strung guitar!
7. What, are you kidding me? Silver John is an inhabitant of the Wold Newton Universe.
6. Dude... introduction by SF legend Mike Resnick!
5. Carl Kolchak ain't got nothin' on Silver John.
4. Because I hark when Greg Bear, Robert Silverberg, and Karl Edward Wagner tell me I should.
3. Evadare...Evadare...
2. It's like Johnny Freakin' Cash meets the Cthulhu Mythos.
You have chosen the Top 4 contestants, and they're working on their final challenge! Each contestant will write a proposal for a Pathfinder Module for Paizo's Pathfinder Roleplaying Game! Regular judges Clark Peterson of Necromancer Games and Paizo's own Sean K Reynolds and Wes Schneider will review each proposal along with Creative Director James Jacobs, our guest judge for the round. Your votes will determine which contestant will have his winning module published by Paizo!
Here's a bit of bonus material for the Pathfinder Module Realm of the Fellnight Queen. The RPG Superstar 2009 adventure by Neil Spicer originally featured this character in one encounter, but she ended up on the cutting room floor to make the adventure fit the page count. Now she's back and ready to annoy some PCs!
Spoiler:
Arvormeigh originally appeared in the Upper Pool area of the Dead Man's Drop encounter, along with an allied Large water elemental (CR 5), for a CR 7 encounter. If your PCs are especially tough, you could add her to the encounter as presented in the adventure, resulting in a CR 8 encounter.
ARVORMEIGH CR 5 XP 3,200
Female nixie rogue 5; (Pathfinder RPG Bonus Bestiary 15)
NE Small fey (aquatic) Init +6; Senses low-light vision; Perception +8 DEFENSE AC 18, touch 18, flat-footed 11 (+6 Dex, +1 dodge, +1 size) hp 43 (7 HD; 2d6+5d8+14) Fort +3, Ref +13, Will +4 Defensive Abilities evasion, uncanny dodge; DR 5/cold iron; SR 12 OFFENSE Speed 20 ft., swim 30 ft. Melee short sword +11 (1d4/19–20) Ranged+1 shortbow +12 (1d4+1/x3) Special Attacks lure (as harpy's captivating song, DC 16), sneak attack +3d6 plus 3 bleed Spell-Like Abilities (CL 12th; concentration +16)
3/day—charm person (DC 16)
1/day—water breathing TACTICS Before Combat Arvormeigh observes intruders from the pool while in fish form to discern their intent. Then she reverts to her natural form to drink her potion of resist energy before swimming to the water's surface to speak with them. A Sense Motive check (DC 22) detects the nixie stalling for time during the conversation—she waits only long enough for the next obscuring mist from the wardstones before attacking (see Hazard). During Combat Arvormeigh knows the pool well enough to time the waves of mist to her advantage. On any round while her vision remains unimpeded, she keeps her distance, rising from the water to shoot opponents with her bow and making sure to use her Deadly Aim feat and bleeding attack ability if possible, selectively targeting spellcasters with sleep arrows. During rounds with the obscuring mist in place, Arvormeigh uses her lure ability instead, drawing victims into the pool and the waiting vortex of her elemental ally. She uses sneak attack underwater on anyone left in the pool. Morale As the final guardian of the wardstones, Arvormeigh fights to the death, only temporarily retreating to drink her potion of cure moderate wounds before resuming the attack. STATISTICS Str 10, Dex 22, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 21 Base Atk +4; CMB +3; CMD 19 Feats Deadly Aim, Dodge, Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Weapon Finesse Skills Acrobatics +14, Bluff +12, Craft (jewelry) +5, Diplomacy +12, Escape Artist +15, Handle Animal +12, Knowledge (nature) +10, Linguistics +5, Perception +8, Perform (dance) +12, Perform (sing) +12, Sense Motive +8, Stealth +17, Swim +17 Languages Aquan, Elven, Sylvan SQ amphibious, change shape (Small or Medium aquatic creature, beast shape I), rogue talents (bleeding attack, combat trick), trapfinding, trap sense +1, wild empathy +13 Combat Gearpotion of cure moderate wounds, potion of resist energy (electricity) ; Other Gear+1 shortbow, sleep arrows (6), cold iron arrows (20), short sword, aquamarine necklace worth 250 gp with matching bracelets worth 50 gp each
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