Paizo Publishing's 10th Anniversary Retrospective—Year 3 (2005)

Laying the Foundation

Thursday, May 31, 2012

This blog entry is the fourth in a series of blogs commemorating Paizo's 10th anniversary.
Click here to read the first installment.

At the start of 2005, the loss of our friends and co-workers who had worked on Undefeated and Amazing Stories still lay heavily on our hearts, but the feeling in the company that we had already hit bottom and there was nowhere left to go but upward was oddly hopeful. Nevertheless, there was a lot of revenue that still needed to be made up for from the loss of Star Wars Insider a year and a half earlier. If we were going to be just the Dragon and Dungeon magazine company, we would still need to get much leaner, which would mean more layoffs—something none of us wanted to go through again. Instead of retreating, we needed to secure new territory.

In January, the top managers in the company met at my house. The goal was to find new uses for Paizo's existing people and skills, with an eye toward quickly increasing revenue. Instead of focusing on actual product ideas at this meeting, we were looking for broad categories of things we were already good at. Here are the strategies we devised that afternoon:

1. Use our strong position in the distribution chain to help other publishers get their products into game stores, taking a bit off the top for our efforts.
2. Increase paizo.com sales by expanding the scope of products available on the website through partnerships with other publishers, who would in turn bring in new customers for us.
3. Expand our license for Dragon and Dungeon to create official non-magazine Dungeons & Dragons products—especially those we could base on in-demand but out-of-print material from the magazines.
4. Create generic gaming accessories that would appeal to our RPG customers.
5. Expand Paizo into areas of gaming outside of RPGs that would spread our risk around.

The tower of Shackled City hardcovers at Gen Con was as tall as some of our customers!
6. Expand our subscriber base for Dragon and Dungeon while continuing to make those businesses more efficient.

With those in place, we next had a brainstorm session with the entire Paizo staff to come up with some product ideas that might fit those strategies. A key rule of brainstorming is that you don't critique any ideas at first; you just write them down and discuss them later... so everything got recorded for posterity: the good, the bad, and the ugly. (See below for the results of our brainstorm.) Some of these ideas came to fruition, including the compilation of comic strips, the DM Workbook (which turned into our Campaign Workbook), preprinted plastic/vinyl maps (which evolved into the Flip-Mat line), and a few others. Some were just plain silly, like LARPing with paintball rules, the swimsuit edition, minted Greyhawk coins (though the GameMastery Campaign Coins line comes close), cereal bowls, and replica D&D artifacts. (That last one, and some of the others, also involved a lot of wishful thinking about things that our license with Wizards of the Coast didn't even begin to cover.)

Now that we had a plan, we spent the rest of 2005 executing it. The most visible result was probably our first two hardcover books. The Shackled City hardcover compiled the first-ever Adventure Path into a huge 416-page book. Magazines have a short shelf-life by design, and The Shackled City was originally spread across 11 non-consecutive issues of a magazine that was still bimonthly at the start, so the first chapters of the AP had already been out of print for over 2 years. Because D&D 3.5 had been released during this time, we also needed to update the first few chapters from 3.0. We generally fine-tuned things throughout based on customer feedback, and we even had Chris Perkins write a whole new adventure to fill an XP gap. James Jacobs slaved away many an evening—on top of his normal Dungeon duties—getting this book ready to go. We released it just before Gen Con, and had a huge stack of them for sale at our booth.

The full Greyhawk map from Dungeon 118–121.

At the end of the year, The Shackled City's sister book was released. The Dragon Compendium Volume 1 (yep—we had hoped to release additional volumes in subsequent years) compiled some of the top articles from the long history of Dragon magazine, updated to 3.5 where necessary. Erik Mona spent many an evening going through the entire Dragon archive and tagging pages for future reference. To this day, our archive copies have those little tags sticking out of the top of every issue, a testament to how thorough Erik was in his task!

We brought Dungeon one of the most highly anticipated events of its history at the beginning of 2005. Back in the days of Team Greyhawk at Wizards of the Coast, we had begun making the Greyhawk map to end all Greyhawk maps. We pored through every Greyhawk source we could find and made sure every single location ever mentioned was on the map. Sadly, the project was shelved at the time. However, when Paizo was looking for something to help raise awareness of the new and improved Dungeon, we hit upon the idea of breaking that enormous map into four parts, which we released in consecutive issues. Dungeon #118–121 ended up being some of the most popular and best-selling issues in the magazine's history.

The Age of Worms Adventure Path kicked off in 2005.

Another big change for Dungeon was making the Adventure Path a monthly feature. Beginning with Erik Mona's now infamous adventure "The Whispering Cairn" in Dungeon 124, the new Age of Worms AP brought new stories every single month, climaxing in the demigod Kyuss's attempt to enter the world of Oerth. From that point in July 2005 onward, we've scheduled a new Adventure Path installment every single month!

Dragon didn't have any earth-shattering events in 2005, just a refinement of the changes we'd debuted at the previous Gen Con. A couple of regular articles in particular had become reader favorites: One was James Jacobs's "Demonomicon of Iggwilv" articles, delving into the details of D&D's biggest bads. Fraz-Urb'luu and Zuggtmoy had their fiendish plans unveiled in issues #333 and #337 respectively. We started Sean K Reynolds's "Core Beliefs" series, which covered Greyhawk deities in the same depth that Faiths and Pantheons had brought to the Realms gods. We also started the "Worm Food" series, providing information especially useful to folks playing though the Age of Worms Adventure Path running over in Dungeon.

While our first two hardcovers were certainly the stars of the 2005 lineup, we also launched another line of products which has been much more prolific over the intervening years. GameMastery was envisioned as a line that would provide GMs with a wealth of tools that they could use to augment their ongoing campaigns. Our first product was the Compleat Encounter line, which brought to reality an idea I'd had for years. In my own campaigns, I struggle when my players have random encounters that turn out to be more substantial than an orc or two. I'd always wanted a line of products that would give you a map, a couple of miniatures, and a mini-adventure that you could just plop into your campaign. I really wanted the miniatures to be prepainted plastic, but that was beyond our capabilities. My good friend Bob Watts (formerly at Grenadier, Heartbreaker, Ral Partha, and Games Workshop) helped Paizo create our first unpainted metal miniatures by getting us in touch with the best sculptors, painters, mold makers, and miniatures spinners. All we needed was somebody to draw the maps and write the adventures.

For the first two releases, we turned to longtime Dungeon cartographer Chris West for the maps. Wayne Reynolds provided us with design sketches for minis that we turned over to sculptors Neil McKenzie and Dennis Mize. And Mike Mearls wrote the adventures, using one of our spare desks as his part-time office. Dark Elf Sanctum and Death Shrine of the Ninja Cult released in September and October, and saw pretty good sales for a miniatures product. In the subsequent months, further Compleat Encounters were written by James Jacobs, Keith Strohm, Jason Bulmahn, and Sean K Reynolds, with Corey Macourek contributing maps and Andrew Hou designing minis. Some of the villains that would become iconic in the not-yet-even-dreamed-of Pathfinder campaign setting saw their births in this line, including the Whispering Tyrant and the Gorilla King. Ultimately, though, the line was more effort than it was really worth, and because the cost of metal for making the miniatures skyrocketed that winter, we decided to end the line in April 2006. (For trivia buffs, this line provided three of the very few Paizo products that were cancelled after being officially announced: Fane of the Black Adept, which would have been written by Wes Schneider; and Stand & Deliver and War Golem Factory, which hadn't been assigned to writers.)

Compleat Encounter: Dark Elf Sanctum was the first GameMastery product.


Map Pack: Village kicks off this popular GameMastery product line.

The other GameMastery line that debuted that year, Map Packs, have done quite a bit better for us. We kicked off the line in November 2005 with the now sold-out Map Pack: Village. Using the same 5" x 7" map tile configuration that we created for the Compleat Encounter line, Map Packs were envisioned as a tool that GMs could use on the fly, giving them high-quality graphics to replace the marker scribblings most of us manage on our own. The fact that we've just released our 37th Map Pack shows you just how successful this product line has been!

In an effort to expand Paizo's business into other types of games, we announced the formation of Titanic Games at Gen Con. Titanic Games found its genesis at the same con the previous year when Bob Watts and I were talking with Cheapass Games proprietor James Ernest. James had built an entire business around the premise that folks tend to have all the bits and pieces they need for most games—dice, pawns, and such—so he could provide high-value games at low cost by supplying only the unique parts—usually, rules, game boards, and cards, printed in black-and-white on thick paper, with clip-art illustrations, often packaged in an unassuming envelope. Titanic Games started with the idea of flipping that premise back around—bringing high production values to some of the most popular Cheapass Games. Of course, we announced that we'd be starting with the number one game in the Cheapass portfolio, Kill Doctor Lucky. James, along with fellow designer Mike Selinker, had a few non-Cheapass ideas kicking around too, including one that we thought could be a real game changer... but that story will have to wait until 2006.

We also took our first shot at using our existing distribution chain to help out other companies in 2005. Order of the Stick creative guru Rich Burlew had already produced two printed compilations of his webcomic early in 2005, and they'd quickly sold out and already needed to be reprinted. Rich had found that sending out all of those books was taking time and effort that he really wanted to direct back to drawing his strips, so he was open to working with us to handle those things for him. We announced our partnership in September, along with the news that Order of the Stick would now appear monthly in Dragon. We had similar deals in the works with other companies; we'll talk about those in the 2006 blog.

The paizo.com online store really started to take off in 2005. We created several strategic relationships with manufacturers and publishers that wanted to get their products into the hands of the growing Dragon and Dungeon customer base. In 2005, among the most successful were a variety of T-shirt manufacturers who began to offer their funny and geeky designs through paizo.com. We also began selling PDFs of Paizo issues of Dragon and Dungeon in March, and added our first third-party PDF publisher, Ronin Arts, in May. And we alerted gamers to the trove of products available at paizo.com by adding a few catalog pages to the back of Dragon. By the end of the year, paizo.com online sales had beaten 2004 by more than 500%.

At Gen Con, Paizo made our return to the ENnie Awards, raking in 4 gold awards and a silver. The awards received were:

Best Cartography—Gold ENnie: World of Greyhawk 4-part map from Dungeon #118–121
Best Adventure—Gold ENnie: "Maure Castle" from Dungeon #112
Best Aid or Accessory—Gold ENnie: Dungeon
Best Free Product or Web Enhancement—Gold ENnie: Dungeon Maps & Handouts (Issues #114–122)
Best Publisher—Silver ENnie: Paizo Publishing

Erik Mona, Jeremy Walker, and James Jacobs accept an ENnie award for Paizo.	Five minutes later, Paizo wins another ENnie. Note the ribbon from the previous award hanging out of Erik's pocket!	Keith Strohm, Vic Wertz and Lisa Stevens accept the silver ENnie for Best Publisher!	The Paizo table at the 2005 ENnies. (Clockwise from the front of the table: Erik Mona, Jason Bulmahn, Jeremy Walker, Wes Schneider, James Jacobs, Keith Strohm, Vic Wertz, Lisa Stevens, and our 2005 Dream Dates)

Winning the silver ENnie for best publisher—an award voted on directly by gamers—was a real validation that Paizo was finally on the right track. We still had a way to go to fill the gap left by the loss of Star Wars Insider, but 2005 showed lots of progress, with our losses being just one-third of what they were in 2004. 2005 would be the last year that Paizo lost money.

Our hard work in 2005 set the stage for Paizo's growth into an RPG powerhouse. Little did we know that more rocky weather would be coming in 2006...

Employees who started in 2005 (in order of hiring date):
Joshua Frost, Sales Manager
James Sutter, Customer Service Representative
Jeff Strand, Warehouse Manager
Drew Pocza, Graphic Designer
Cosmo Eisele, Customer Service Representative

Employees who left in 2004 (in order of their end date):
Rob Stewart
Amanda Titus
Mike Schley
Dave Neri

Lisa Stevens
CEO

James Sutter: The Little Intern That Could

First off, let's set something straight: I started working for Paizo in 2004, not 2005. Sure, I may not have had a desk, or technically been inside the office more than a handful of times. And maybe only Lisa knew my name. But I was there, dang it!

In fall 2004, I was 20 years old. I had graduated from the University of Washington the previous spring, and was scraping by via a combination of freelance journalism for local papers, teaching SAT prep courses to high school kids, and a chunk of change gained by getting my butt kicked on Wheel of Fortune (a story in itself). Having already realized that I didn't want to spend my life covering obituaries and little league games, I was searching the classified ads for some sort of magazine job when I ran across a listing for the Editor-in-Chief of Amazing Stories. The realization that such an important SF magazine—not to mention Dragon and Dungeon—was located just a few miles from where I was living clinched it: I needed to work at Paizo Publishing.

The only problem was that there was no way I was qualified for the Editor-in-Chief position. So instead, I emailed folks at the company trying to find out if perhaps there were any other positions that needed filling—things they hadn't got around to posting yet. Eventually I ended up talking to Lisa, and she brought me into the old office (now the old-old office) for an interview.

Before this blog results in a flood of people asking Lisa for a job, I should emphasize that I already had a pretty solid portfolio at this point—I'd sold more than a hundred articles to various papers, and had a few short stories published in fiction 'zines. In any case, Lisa looked at my credentials, and told me that while there were no editorial positions open, she thought she could find something for me.

Which is how I ended up collecting images for products on the newborn paizo.com web store at a nickel a jpg. Hardly the most glamorous position, but every time I walked into the office to pick up a check, I would look over at the side of the office with the big Amazing Stories banner and think, "Someday, I'm going to have a desk there."

It turned out I was right. After several months of contract work, Lisa brought me in as Paizo's very first Editorial Intern. The position even came with a desk in the Amazing Stories side of the building!

Except that, unknown to me, the entire staff of Amazing Stories and Undefeated had been laid off a few weeks prior. The banner was still there, right above my desk—but now all the other desks were empty. I was alone in a cubicle wasteland.

Still, it didn't matter—I was officially on the inside now. Wes Schneider, himself the youngest person at Paizo until I came along, was the first of the editorial team to make the long walk across the building and introduce himself, exposing me to a wide array of internet humor in an effort to determine my taste. Slowly the other editors—a generally shy and skittish lot—began to get to know me as well, and I ceased to be just "that kid," instead becoming "Sutter."

There were still tests, though. On one of my first days as an intern, Erik Mona walked over and threw a manuscript down on my desk.

"I hear you want to edit," he said. "Let's see what you've got."

I agreed happily, and asked who wrote the document.

"I did," he said.

The mystery manuscript? Erik's first draft of "The Whispering Cairn," the leadoff adventure in the Age of Worms Adventure Path. Sweating bullets, I put my head down and began to edit.

Fortunately for me, Erik found my comments worthwhile, or at least respected a newbie bold enough to question his comma usage. I was judged competent, and turned loose on the Shackled City hardcover, my first real project. Though still working my newspaper and teaching jobs in the evenings, I was elated.

Nothing lasts forever, though. Six months into my internship, management informed me that they were going to bring me on full-time—as the new customer service person! (Back in the day, this was considered a one-person job.)

I thanked them, but pointed out that I was perfectly happy as the editorial intern. They pointed out that they needed customer service, not interns.

So began a six-month stint as Paizo's only customer service specialist. I learned a lot about psychology and human nature in those months, talking people down from canceling their subscriptions, sending out replacement copies, and helping Jeff Alvarez set up our very first warehouse in the building's basement. But my dream of being an editor hadn't died—and in fact came to a head late that year when a local paper began feeling me out for a position as the features editor. Not wanting to leave Paizo, but fearing a missed opportunity, I told Lisa and Erik—and as of the dawn of 2006, I was Dungeon's new Assistant Editor.

(As it turns out, my replacement as the customer service department was this weird guy from Idaho named—I kid you not—"Cosmo." If you've had to deal with him in the years since, I apologize. I trained him as best I could, but some creatures just refuse to be housebroken.)

Not even old enough to drink when I started here—Wes was actually present at my 21st birthday—I've spent more than a quarter of my life working for Paizo. I spent years learning what was cool at the feet of Wes, Jacobs, and Erik, while simultaneously fascinating them with my post-collegiate bohemian lifestyle. (I swear, you eat out of a few dumpsters, and you never hear the end of it.) I published my first adventure—"Shut-In" from Dungeon #128, co-written with Wes Schneider—and used the money to buy my very own copies of the 3.5 rulebooks. I earned the nickname "The Render" from freelancers for my uncompromising evaluation of the slush pile. And I was at ground zero for several of the pivotal points yet to come in Paizo's history, in which we were forced to adapt radically or die.

But it wasn't all work. There was also the Independent Republic of Jamesonia, established when Jacobs and I placed masking tape across the entrance to our shared cube (the one whose window looked out on a primordial swamp). There were the impromptu puppet shows whenever Jacobs got distracted by his pile of stuffed Lovecraft monsters. There was Operation Banjo Thug, an impromptu musical performance from Jacobs and me that caused Wes—the only witness—to question his sanity. There was the time I turned orange for a few months, and the long drive to a cabin in the woods with Wes and Jacobs that resulted in Jacobs calling me "Caligula" for several years.

It's been a long time since those early days. I'm not even "Young Master Sutter" at Paizo anymore—in the editorial department, the new youngster is Patrick "P-Ren" Renie, who no doubt seems just as alien to us with his youthful ways and speech patterns as I did to the other staff once upon a time. From website image-monkey to Senior Editor, I've seen Paizo from just about every angle, and I'm proud to say that we really are a family. A weird one, to be sure, but aren't they all?

James Sutter
Senior Editor/Fiction Editor

Cosmo's Place in the Cosmos

"We have to get you out of Idaho," he said. It was late summer 2005 and my week's vacation in Seattle was coming to a close. Josh Frost, with whom I've been friends since grade school, was lamenting my impending return to our hometown where, we both agreed, I was stuck.

"Then find me a job." It was the same refrain I'd given to all of my Seattle friends that week when the question of my living situation came up.

2005 was not a very good year for me. I was living in small-town Idaho, working a job I hated with few prospects for the future. I made a decent enough paycheck to be comfortable, but I was desperate to get out and short on options.

Two months passed before I received word from Josh: "We have an opening at Paizo for a customer service position. Send me your resume. Now."

I knew that Josh worked for some company in the gaming industry, but I had never heard of Paizo. What I did know, though, was customer service, something I had been doing in one form or another for nearly 10 years. I sent my resume, and immediately went out and bought a copy of Dragon (issue #338, by the way) so I would not be completely clueless if they called me.

They called, and I had one of the strangest interviews I've ever had. Phone interviews are never easy, and I was shocked to discover that, in addition to being interviewed by my potential manager, Jeff Alvarez, I was also being interviewed by the CEO of the entire company. For a customer service position.

This was my first clue that the job would not be like any other.

That year, I had Christmas with my family in Idaho. The next day, I loaded as much as I could into the 1995 Geo Storm that I had bought for $100, and drove to my new life in Seattle. The day after that, I started my new job at Paizo.

Sometime in my first month, I was taking everyone's mail around to their desks. I still did not really know any of these delightful weirdos that I worked with, and I was always intimidated about going into "The Pit." As I quietly crept in, I saw that all the editors were huddled together discussing something very intently, and there was a definite air of "meeting" in the room. I tried not to make a sound, so as to not disturb them. Then I started overhearing what the meeting was about:

"No... if the barbarian goes unconscious, then the rage ends and the temporary hit points are lost!"

"...but that means that any time a barbarian goes into the negs, they just auto-die?!? That can't be right."

The discussion wound on, and I quietly finished distributing the mail and went back to my desk, silently giggling over the absurd luck that had brought me to this place. It was precisely at this point that I realized that I loved my new job.

The thing I was most unprepared for, I think, was the level of empowerment I had. My last job was as a bank teller, where my responsibility was to toe the company line and make the customer accept whatever rules and policies were dictated to me. Rules were handed down from on high, and I was to follow without question.

Not so at Paizo. From the get-go, I was being asked "What do you think?" And my ideas were considered, and implemented if they stood up to the consideration. I could, and would, cry foul if I saw something that I felt was confusing to customers, and I was listened to. At previous jobs, if I ever felt that one of our customers had gotten a raw deal, I would approach management to make it right and just get shot down. At Paizo, if I find something wrong, Jeff's answer is "Well... fix it! Make it right."

For my first year or so, I was the only customer service person at Paizo, but I've never been the only one at Paizo doing customer service. I was (and still am) always getting ninja'd on the messageboards by Lisa or Vic, or any number of other folks. I had thrown my lot in with this strange little company where an entire culture of customer service made me, the low-man on the totem pole, feel like I was a key member of a team.

It was awesome. It still is awesome.

Cosmo Eisele
Customer Service Manager

A Tomb of Winter's Plunder

by Tim Pratt

Chapter One: Taking the Waters

Alaeron sat, naked, on a natural stone bench in the sacred pool, the chest-deep water just a bit warmer than his own blood. He leaned into a fortuitous hollow in the rock, closed his eyes—hardly necessary, considering the depth of darkness in the cave—and let the healing waters soothe him. Or tried to. He'd paid enough to be soothed, at the very least.

The Balneal Springs retreat, nestled in the northern hills of Andoran east of Darkmoon Vale, was home to legendary waters that reportedly cured arthritis, muscle atrophy, toothache, heavy metal poisoning, and spiritual malaise. Alaeron suffered from none of those ailments, which might have explained why he didn't feel particularly cured now. He was young, in good condition (being unusually physically active for an alchemist), blessed with fine teeth, always careful when handling quicksilver and other toxic materials, and possessed with a combination of curiosity and impulsiveness that insured he would never be bored. Despite his rosy health, he'd come to Balneal to take the waters anyway.

And by "take the waters," he meant take the waters. He'd gathered samples from all the other springs on the property already, many of the pools hellishly hot and stinking of rotten eggs (from sulfur, not magic, as some more ignorant folk supposed). The volcanic activity to the north presented itself in a somewhat gentler aspect here, with bubbling hot springs that were locally renowned, if not as famous as the Brimstone Springs of Nidal.

The final waters he needed to sample were here in, Hanspur's Bath—a sacred spring-fed pool deep in a black cave where the foreign river deity was reputed to have paused once, on a journey to the sea. Alaeron's visit to the retreat, and access to this cave, had cost a tidy sum of gold he'd earned translating a profane text for a deranged patron. The profiteering priests who ran the retreat guarded their secrets closely, but despite the enforced nudity in this sacred chamber, Alaeron had smuggled in a bag made of thin watertight material, wadded up and hidden in his cheek. Unfolded and filled, the bag would hold a few precious ounces of liquid. Once full it would be too large to smuggle out the same way, but he had a plan to stash the bag in a dark crevice by the entryway and return later to create a distraction—explosions were quite distracting, he'd found—which would enable him to duck inside the cave mouth and retrieve the bag.

The plan was a bit elaborate, and more than a little dangerous, but what matter was the risk of life and limb in the service of his art? If the waters really were as efficacious as the priests and satisfied customers claimed, their properties should prove useful in his work, and could be diluted to create a score of potions to cure—or cause—an impressive variety of ailments physical and spiritual.

He took the bag from his mouth and prepared to fill it—then froze when he heard a splash on the far side of the pool. He had not been promised a private visit to the healing waters (that option was far too expensive for him), but he'd deliberately come early in the morning, when most of the wealthy visitors to Balneal would be sleeping or gorging themselves at breakfast.

Alaeron wasn't sure whether he should speak, as the etiquette of sitting in a black pool of magical water was not something he'd ever had occasion to learn. Before he could decide, the newcomers began talking.

"It would be an adventure," a voice—male, hearty, and self-confident—said. "The sort of bold act that made the Selmy family great."

"I'm not sure breaking into my dead thrice-great-grand-uncle's crypt compares to traveling to far lands for pillage and war," a second voice said—also male, but rather less hearty and confident.

"Oh, come, your whole family is founded on ancestral fortunes anyway. Raiding your uncle's tomb would be much the same, just... more direct."

"The treasures are supposed to be fabulous," the second voice—presumably a Selmy—said. "But I can't imagine they'd be easy to carry out. Uncle Brant had all his favorite things buried with him. He left us his money, at least some of it, but he was particular about his things, by all accounts. I'm sure there must be protections against graverobbers. Traps, and so forth. I'd rather not die on this trip, Rodrick. I'm here for my health, after all."

Alaeron is more scholar than warrior, but explosives have a funny way of solving problems.

"Nonsense, Simeon," Rodrick replied. "We know about the wards he laid to protect his barrow—only the blood of a Selmy can open the door, isn't that right? The fact that he made it possible for you to open the door suggests he wanted some descendant to come take his treasures away someday, doesn't it?"

"More likely he just wanted someone capable of setting him free if he was accidentally entombed alive," Simeon said. "Or perhaps to return occasionally and leave treasure, or shoo away spiders, or do a bit of light cleaning." A long pause. "My great-grandfather remembered Uncle Brant, from when he was a child and Brant was ancient. He said Brant was the sort of man who'd steal the coins from a beggar's bowl, even though he was rich as Artokus of Thuvia. Brant couldn't remember the names of his own grandchildren, but he had particular favorites among his coins."

"Then it's time someone took a few of those coins off him. No sense letting such precious things go to waste in a hole in the ground. The treasures he looted were precious antiquities when he stole them, two hundred years ago. Imagine what they're worth now!" Rodrick paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was very low, barely audible above the gentle lapping of water. "Or you could ask your father for the money to pay the Ratter the money you owe—"

"Oh, yes, that would go over well," Simeon said dolefully. "You know about mother's gambling problem. If father found out I'd lost that much at Towers, after he'd already spent all this money sending me here to recuperate... Is there no other way? You couldn't loan me the money? You know I'm good for it."

"Alas, I lost my own allowance gambling—though I paid off my outstanding balance, so the Ratter doesn't want to take me in his jaws—and mother won't send another purse for a month. No, it's the barrow, Simeon, unless you'd like to try your luck at busking in the streets for coins?"

"You know someone who would buy the things we found?" Simeon said.

"Oh, yes, indeed. There's a man I know in Almas who pays buckets of gold for relics."

"We could at least look," Simeon said. "The barrow isn't far, less than a day's travel. We could nip inside, and if there don't seem to be any dangers, carry a few things away. I daresay Uncle Brant can rest just as easily less a vase or statuette or two."

"An adventure!" Rodrick said. "Though personally I hope we encounter a ghoul or two. I'd hate to think I sharpened my sword for nothing."

They sat in silence for a while longer, taking in the waters and discussing their plans for departure and the best route, then left to walk down the dark and twisting tunnel back to the light.

Alaeron let his little bag float away. Ah, well. The sacred waters weren't going anywhere. He could steal a dram of those another time. But a barrow full of ancient relics, that could be opened only by the blood of the dead inhabitant's relatives? That was the sort of opportunity that wasn't likely to come his way again.

∗∗∗

Alaeron wasn't much of a tracker—his natural habitat was the laboratory, the workshop, and the library, though he was surprisingly comfortable crawling into dark holes in the ground in search of treasure, both because he was fascinated by history and because a man had to fund his researches somehow. Fortunately, Simeon and Rodrick had said where they were going. Alaeron packed his bags and left his room, which was smaller than his sleeping quarters in Almas and cost as much for three nights as his entire workshop was worth. Only the very rich would consider it reasonable to pay so much for quarters so incredibly spare, presumably because austerity (and magical waters) were good for the soul—but only in moderation.

He walked along the crushed gravel paths, among the ancient weathered statues and small ornamental gardens, to the outer courtyard. The retreat was protected by high stone walls, because while they weren't too close to Darkmoon Vale, incursions from the dark forest weren't impossible.

One of the servants who bustled everywhere at the retreat brought him his horse, brushed and saddled and well fed, and helped Alaeron mount. He needed the help. He'd never been comfortable on horses, and would have hired a carriage (or at least a cart), but wheeled conveyances couldn't make it up the steep paths to the retreat. Alaeron cajoled the horse, a black pony he'd spent far too much money on, to amble northeast, through the lightly wooded foothills. This general area was fairly safe—the guards at the retreat kept the woods free of bandits and monsters, as rich people being eaten was bad for business. The barrow of Brant Selmy was half a day's ride away, at most, and Alaeron followed old colliers' paths through the forest, munching on dried meat and pausing occasionally to let the horse rest, though the pace was hardly punishing.

He didn't want to overtake Simeon and Rodrick. Better for them to arrive first, open the barrow, and delve deep inside. Alaeron was confident that, in the dark, with his experience and the advantage of his extracts and mutagens, he could move past the rich brats, snatch up some choice loot, and escape again unnoticed.

The barrow was unmistakable, an immense mound of earth and rock furred with moss and topped by gnarled, scraggly trees. Rodrick and Simeon had made some token attempt to hide their presence, tying up their horses in a copse some distance away, but this was a little-traveled part of the forest, and they hadn't worried overmuch about being discovered. Alaeron tied his own horse farther away and crept toward one side of the barrow. He hadn't expected this level of pillage when he'd set out for Balneal, and so hadn't packed his full adventuring packs, but he had enough in the way of reagents and elixirs and weapons to manage a brief delve into a crypt.

The door of the barrow was an immense oval stone, scratched a bit from past unsuccessful attempts by graverobbers to pry it open. The door was etched with runes that were faded and worn but still legible, though a few were smeared with what looked like fresh blood, and the stone was tilted to one side, revealing an opening just large enough for a man to slip through sideways. Alaeron crouched when he heard familiar voices inside.

"It's dark in here," Simeon complained.

"That's why we brought the lantern, isn't it?" Rodrick answered cheerfully.

Despite Alaeron's leisurely pace, the rich fools had only just arrived themselves. He was in awe at their slowness. Had they stopped to have a picnic lunch on the way? He decided to wait for them to make it a bit deeper into the barrow, then—

"Watch out!" Rodrick shouted. There was a peculiar sound—the twang of a taut wire snapping, if Alaeron was any judge—and then a horrific, meaty thunk, like a butcher bringing the weight of the cleaver down to crack open a cow's skull.

Rodrick swore, which meant he was still alive. Simeon didn't scream, which meant... something else. They'd triggered a trap. Apparently Uncle Brant wasn't so keen on having his descendants visit after all, or else Simeon hadn't been given the list of dangers to avoid.

"Simeon, you fool," Rodrick said. "Why didn't you look where you were—hold on. Damn it!"

Alaeron tensed, expecting the sound of another sprung trap—which would, at least, leave the barrow free for him to explore—but instead Rodrick just let loose a torrent of cursing. Alaeron slipped inside, hoping Rodrick would be too focused on his misery to notice the intrusion.

The light of Rodrick's lantern, set on a shelf of rock, revealed the barrow's interior to be typical of its kind: walls of timber and earth and stone, faintly rounded roof too low for comfort. A second door stood across the small room, directly opposite the exterior door, and that's where Simeon had met his fate: a length of timber as thick around as a man's waist, studded with stone spikes, had been hidden in a slot on the ceiling, doubtless connected to some tripwire in front of that interior door. Simeon's approach had set off the trap, dropping the log onto himself, and the result was a bit like what happened if you hit a tomato with a hammer. Alaeron realized that he'd never seen the boy in one piece, having only eavesdropped on him in the dark and from concealment.

Rodrick was standing over—or, rather, in—his dead friend, peering at the interior door. The surviving man was dressed in clothes too fine for dungeoneering, though he'd put on a mail shirt, and had a sword at his hip. His boots looked sturdy, at least. Alaeron couldn't see his face from here, but his shoulders were dismayingly wide, and in general he had the kind of muscular and well-proportioned physique the old poets called "thews."

"More runes," Rodrick muttered. "You died for nothing, Simeon—I can't even get in."

Well. There was no sneaking past him and snatching up a few treasures unawares now. Alaeron considered slinking away, but there was a barrow full of relics, with nothing between him and the treasures but a stone etched with magical writing, and he couldn't quite bring himself to leave.

He cleared his throat instead. "Excuse me," he said. "I couldn't help overhearing your problem. I think I can get the door open for you."

Rodrick rounded on him, sword in his hand before Alaeron even saw him start to draw, and roared.

Coming Next Week: Comrades of convenience in Chapter Two of Tim Pratt’s “A Tomb of Winter’s Plunder.”

For More of Alaeron’s adventures, check out City of the Fallen Sky, available now!

Tim Pratt's writing has won a Hugo Award, a Rhysling Award, and an Emperor Norton Award, as well as been nominated for Nebula, Mythopoeic, World Fantasy, and Stoker Awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies such as The Best American Short Stories and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, as well as two short story collections of his own. He novels include the contemporary fantasies The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl and Briarpatch; the Forgotten Realms novel Venom in Her Veins; and seven books in the Marla Mason urban fantasy series (as T. A. Pratt). He edited the anthology Sympathy for the Devil, and the forthcoming Rags & Bones anthology with Melissa Marr. His books and stories have been translated into French, Czech, Dutch, Russian, Greek, Korean, Spanish, German, and several other languages.

Illustration by Eric Belisle.

Pathfinder Society in the Netherlands (or Join the Crew of the Flying Dutchman)

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Illustration by
Christopher Burdett

Last month, we highlighted Croatia, Bosnia, and Slovenia, and Venture-Captain Zrinka Znidarcic's efforts to grow Pathfinder Society there. We now shift our focus back to the northwest and the land of the Dutch. I present to you, Venture-Captain Auke Teeninga's report on Pathfinder Society in the Netherlands.

The Netherlands is a small country in northwest Europe. It borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders with the United Kingdom. The country's capital is Amsterdam and the seat of government is The Hague. The Netherlands, in its entirety, is often referred to as Holland, although North and South Holland are actually only two of its twelve provinces. The Netherlands is a geographically low-lying country, with about 25% of its area and 21% of its population located below sea level, and its name literally means "Low Country."

In 1602 the Dutch East India Company was established. This chartered company is often considered to have been the first multinational corporation in the world and was the first company to issue stock. Its mercantile fleets challenged the best in the world for supremacy, and due to the companies success the Netherlands, enjoyed a so-called "Golden Age" of prosperity. Rembrandt van Rijn, Frans Hals, and Johannes Vermeer perfected their crafts. Christian Huygens and Anton van Leeuwenhoek made amazing discoveries in science. Cities like Amsterdam, Leiden, Utrecht, and Delft started to grow, and their distinctive canals were dug to provide both infrastructure and defensive capabilities.

Nowadays, these same cities are still used as a home base for expeditions. Multiple times each month, teams of explorers from the Pathfinder Society are sent to Golarion to search ancient ruins, collect art and artifacts, and gather knowledge to bring back to the Grand Lodge of Absalom.

I started playing Pathfinder Society at GenCon UK in 2008, and continued to do so at various conventions in the United Kingdom. I wanted to share my enjoyment (and cut back on flight costs to the UK), so I started organizing regular games in the Netherlands in 2010. The Dutch Pathfinder Society has been growing ever since, and currently we've got more than two dozen active players, half of which GM regularly. I've got big plans for 2013, which includes a multi-day, multi-table, Pathfinder Society-only convention like PaizoCon UK, and get players from across Europe to join and share their Pathfinder experience, while at the same time helping us to grow our player base.

Although we have a few stores in the Netherlands willing to host Pathfinder Society games, most of games are run from private homes. The games, however, are open to everyone (as long as they RSVP) and no one has been turned down yet!

In the Netherlands there are also quite a few roleplaying conventions, and the Pathfinder Society presence at these conventions is increasing slowly but steadily. Some of these conventions include:

Ei-Con, Leiden
V-Con, Vleuten
K-Con, Delft
Meetup, Utrecht & Amsterdam

If you live in the Netherlands and are interested in trying out Pathfinder Society Organized Play, join the Pathfinder Society NL forum on Google Groups or send an email to dutchpathfinder@gmail.com for more information. Convention organizers and store owners interested in hosting Pathfinder Society events should send an email to pathfinderbenelux@gmail.com.

If you are in another country and do not have a Venture-Captain, but think you can do as good a job as Auke did above, please do not hesitate to send me a write-up about Pathfinder Society play in your area of the world and include some photos.

Mike Brock
Pathfinder Society Campaign Coordinator

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Big Bads (Volume 2)

Friday, May 25, 2012

Here we are on the precipice of a three-day weekend, and I got so excited I completely forgot to put together a blog for today's Pathfinder Battles preview! So let's cut to the chase and get to the previews of two of the Big Bads from the Rise of the Runelords set of prepainted Pathfinder Battles miniatures!

Both of these characters come from the fifth volume of the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path, “Sins of the Saviors,” by Stephen S. Greer. Last week I revealed some of the rank-and-file badguys from that epic adventure, and this week I've got a couple of significant enemies that perfectly set the stage for the campaign's endgame.

First up we have The Scribbler, the first big villain of the adventure. One of the evil goddess Lamashtu's most powerful mortal servants, The Scribbler dwells very near the home base of your Rise of the Runelords heroes, and he's sure to be a sworn enemy of your player characters. With a nasty sword and a mask covering half his face, The Scribbler easily doubles as a bandit leader or any kind of unique villain your campaign requires. We've placed him at the rare rarity.

Remember the Warriors of Wrath from last week's preview blog? Well, those nasty ladies need a leader, and the good (well, ok, not “good” per se) Highlady Athroxis is quite happy to keep them in line. This high-level eldritch knight Highlady of the Halls of Wrath is ready to unleash some whupass on your PCs with her +3 adamantine flaming ranseur, molded here largely in clear plastic to sell the flame effects. Naturally, this uber-high-level adversary with the shiny clear plastic bits falls into the rare rarity.

So that's it for this week of fun in the sun. Only a few more miniatures to show off, including a “chilly” mini almost no one is expecting to help you cool off on these warm summer days!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Advanced Race Guide Art Preview

Thursday, May 24, 2012

It's time for another art preview from the Advanced Race Guide, hitting stores near you next month!

While I think we can all agree on how awesome the wayang and ifrit are, for me this entire book is made complete by the wide-eyed grippli. I usually try not to make inflammatory statements on the blog, but I feel comfortable saying that anybody who isn't inspired by the adorable courage of this bold amphibian archer is a little bit dead inside.

Illustrations by J. P. Targete, Jorge Fares, Ben Wootten

James Sutter
Senior Editor

City of the Fallen Sky Sample Chapter

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

In City of the Fallen Sky, a young alchemist named Alaeron flees an apprenticeship with the dark scholars of Numeria's Technic League, only to find himself in trouble once more as a chance encounter sends him and several reluctant companions into the jungles of the Mwangi Expanse. Tracked by a high-tech assassin, and armed only with his inquisitive nature—and a few mysterious artifacts stolen from the Technic League—Alaeron must find the ruins of a legendary flying city, or face the wrath of a cruel crime lord...

Chapter Five

A Vote of No Confidence

It's necessary if I'm to do the best possible work for you," Alaeron said, speaking quickly enough, he hoped, to stave off violence. "I just need to return to my workshop and get some of my supplies. An alchemist without his tools is nothing more—as you've so recently pointed out—than a man who stinks of sulfur."

"I can have whatever supplies you need brought here," Vadim said. "Just make a list and give it to Skiver."

"No—no, sir, I'm afraid that won't work, I need my formula book at the very least. It holds all the recipes for my potions and ...other items ...and that's something no alchemist would sell. An alchemist's formulas are highly personal and individual, as important to my work as a wizard's spellbooks, and—"

"I can take him," Skiver said. "It would shut him up, at least."

"Are you sure you want to be out on the street, given your current situation?" Vadim said.

Skiver laughed. "No one's looking for me yet. I've got a few days before I need to worry about showing my face. I can babysit the scholar a bit."

"Fine, fine," Vadim said, "I've spent too much time on this already, just deal with it." He pressed the heels of his hands against his temples, and Alaeron felt a brief and ultimately ridiculous stab of sympathy—the old man looked tired now, and clearly had larger problems than this on his mind. "A speculative venture to the ruins of Kho!" Vadim boomed. "What can I be thinking?"

"It's a gamble, right enough," Skiver said. "Most likely it'll come to nothing. But it could pay off big, and the buy-in's right: all it costs you is leaving three shallow graves empty for a while longer. Seems like a decent gamble. And I've always wanted to see the world."

"I'm hardly likely to take gambling advice from you, old friend," Vadim said, clapping Skiver on the shoulder. "Given your current circumstances. Eh?"

Skiver's smile slipped, just slightly, and his eyes narrowed, but only for a moment. "I can slit their throats and dump them by the docks if you're having second thoughts, boss," he said.

"No, no, by all means, set off on your journey, have your adventure. Just bring me back a souvenir. Say, a chest full of treasures." He jerked his thumb at Alaeron and Jaya. "Or else their heads in a sack."

"The perfect gift for the man who has everything," Skiver said, grin at full breadth again.

"Come on, Jaya," Vadim said. "One of my men will show you your brother." She cast a worried glance at Alaeron, and an even more worried one at Skiver, and then followed Vadim out of the room.

When they were gone, Skiver turned his attention to Alaeron. "All right, scholar. Let's go." He led the way out of the storeroom, through a number of narrow hallways paneled in dark wood. Alaeron considered trying to hit his guide over the head and run away. After all, he didn't have a brother locked up in a cage—there was nothing holding him here but a gentleman's agreement, and Vadim had already proven he was no gentleman. But the fact was, he had to go back to his workshop before he could flee more permanently, and Vadim knew where that workshop was, so giving Skiver the slip now wouldn't help him much: there might very well be armed men waiting for him when he arrived home. But once he was at his lab, in possession of his tools, then the equation would change. It should be trivial to incapacitate Skiver and make a run for it.

Certainly, the possibility of seeing the ruins of Kho was tantalizing, and the chance to spend more time with Jaya had its own temptations. She was treacherous and untrustworthy, certainly, but there was much about her Alaeron couldn't begin to understand ...and he loved nothing so much as the chance to strip a mystery bare. So to speak.

But he had to be practical. Such an expedition would be treacherous, necessitating a voyage across the Inner Sea, a trek across the burning sands of Osirion, and then on into the mountains, and once they got there, they were likely to be slaughtered by monsters in the high passes, or murdered by Jaya's savage relatives—assuming they even existed. If their team beat the odds and actually found the ruins of Kho, who knew what sort of horrors would lurk inside? All that knowledge...but, no, Alaeron had already had his adventure, and returned with his hard-won prizes. He should settle down for a quiet chance at study. He just had to escape from his current predicament first.

Skiver unlocked a heavy wooden door that led outside to a stable smelling of fresh hay and old manure. Judging by the sky, it was late afternoon. Alaeron felt adrift in both time and space.

"Skiver is strangely amiable for a cutthroat."

"Thinking of trying to escape?" Skiver said conversationally. "Can't say I blame you. There's never been a fish on a hook that didn't do its damndest to wriggle free. But even if you did get away from me—which you won't—Vadim's got connections everywhere. He's not a man you want to cross, at least not unless you're in a position to make sure he can't cross you back."

"I will take your words under advisement." Alaeron put all the snobbery and superiority at his disposal into his tone.

"No, you won't," Skiver said, almost mournfully. "But that's all right. No one ever does." They passed through another gate—locked, but unguarded—and into a cobbled side street, and Alaeron's mental map oriented itself: they were in the old part of the city, where some of the great houses of the deposed aristocracy had become private residences for wealthy merchants, or else been chopped up into dozens of apartments for poorer sorts. His workshop was off to the east, not an impossible distance, but a longish walk. "I don't suppose Vadim has a carriage we could use," he said. "Only I'm a bit sore from being beaten over the head and tied to a chair."

"Good for you to walk and work the kinks out, then," Skiver said cheerfully, strolling along the gently curving street past the gates of once-stately residences. "You'd best get used to it, anyway. I'd bet we're going places sensible animals like horses won't go near, so we'll be doing a lot of walking. Your soft little feet will have to get toughened up."

"I think you misunderstand me, sir," Alaeron said with icy dignity. "Perhaps Vadim didn't tell you, but I've traveled to Numeria in the far north, and talked my way into the Technic League, and seen the terrible secrets of the Silver Mount—"

"Oh, Vadim mentioned," Skiver interrupted. "I know what you say you did. But people say all sorts of things. I know a man says he went to Absalom and saw that great cathedral there and someone bet he wouldn't go inside. Now that man, he likes a bit of a gamble, so he couldn't resist. He says he made his way to the center of the cathedral and looked upon the Starstone with his own eyes, that he could have reached out and touched it—but then he decided he didn't want to be a god after all, sounded too much like hard work, so he walked on out again, collected his winnings, and lost it all betting on a pit fight the next day." He gave Alaeron a sly sidelong look. "He says all that. Don't mean it happened. My old mother had a saying for people like him, and for anybody who puts on airs and claims more than they have a right to—‘He's all pointy hat and no magic,' she'd say."

"If you're implying—" Alaeron began.

"Can't say as I blame you. Your back was up against it back there, and no mistake. I'd have said just about anything to keep my thumbs. You just did what you had to do."

"Ah," Alaeron said, hope stirring. "Then would you mind if I, hmm, slipped away? I promise I'd never come within a day's travel of the city—"

Skiver spat on the cobbles. "I said I understood, scholar. I didn't say it was worth my life to get you out of the trouble you got yourself into. No, you'll come along with us. If you're really an alchemist maybe you can at least pour me the occasional drink. Let's get to this laboratory of yours."

They continued walking in silence. Skiver never asked the way to the laboratory, but he kept taking all the right turnings, which meant Vadim and his people were entirely too familiar with the details of Alaeron's life. As they walked, Alaeron looked around the city, trying to memorize every brick and board of its buildings, every twist of its streets, every drifting scent in the air. There was a good chance he'd never see Almas again, and that thought left a hollowness in his chest as echoing as the great chamber he'd discovered in the depths of the Silver Mount.

"Here we are," Skiver said, rapping on the door to Alaeron's workshop. "Guess you'd better open it up."

Alaeron opened the lock, but didn't perform the necessary steps to deactivate the gas trap. It wouldn't kill Skiver, but it would knock him out, and give Alaeron time to gather his things and make his escape before the alarm was raised. "After you," he said, stepping back.

Skiver snorted and drew his long, thin knife. "I don't think so, scholar. Never go through an unknown door first if you can help it. After you." He gestured with his knife.

Alaeron cleared his throat. "Of course. Just, ah, I think I forgot to ..." He hurriedly twisted the lock again, deactivating the trap, while Skiver chuckled behind him.

"What was it?" the man asked. "Crossbow tied to a string?"

"Of course not. Nothing lethal. I don't want dead men in my doorway. Just a trap to release a chemical composition of my own devising."

Skiver shrugged. "Nice try, anyway. But you can still go in first."

Alaeron opened the door and ducked inside. Skiver followed a moment later, eyes taking in every corner of the room, knife in his hand. He slammed the door all the way open, hard, presumably to break the nose of anyone hiding behind it. Satisfied there was no immediate danger, he tucked his knife away, hooked a stool with his foot, dragged it over to one of the dirty windows, and sat down. He licked his thumb and cleared away a little patch of grime on the glass so he could see outside, and alternated between watching Alaeron and watching the street.

The alchemist's travel pack was already prepared. It was just a matter of tucking in the formula books he'd been using most recently, checking the multitude of pockets in his coat to make sure all the appropriate items were in their proper places—it wouldn't do to reach for a flash-bomb and get a stink-bomb instead—and making sure he hadn't left any overly volatile chemicals sitting too close to their reagents. He might never come back here again, but that didn't mean he wanted his father's laboratory to explode.

There was only one little problem. He needed to get his relics from the Silver Mount. And he didn't especially want Skiver to know he had them. He was well armed with weapons now—better armed than Skiver could imagine, Alaeron was sure—but they didn't do him much good in such enclosed quarters. The laboratory was essentially one large room, and tossing a bomb here would hurt him as much as it would Skiver. Damn it, if only the man had walked into the gas trap—

"Who's this?" Skiver said. "There's a big man in the street, he's walked past three times now. You have an appointment today? Somebody come to buy one of your love potions?"

Alaeron closed his eyes. The Technic League enforcer, Kormak. Almost certainly. "I, ah—"

"He's coming to the door," Skiver said, stepping back from his stool. "You got that trap you laid for me all ready to go?"

Alaeron swore and hurried to the door, attaching delicate wires to carefully placed hooks on the door frame, glancing up at the apparatus bolted to a roof beam. "Get away from the door," Alaeron whispered. "The gas is fairly dense, almost a mist, so it shouldn't drift too far, but we don't want to be close to it." Alaeron scurried to the far corner. Skiver gave him a thoughtful look, then went to the other corner, where Alaeron had hung a curtain to separate his sleeping pallet from the workshop proper. Skiver ducked behind the curtain and out of sight.

Alaeron did a rapid calculation of risk. Skiver was probably watching the door and not Alaeron, who was partially screened from view by a battered wooden cupboard full of reagents anyway. The timing hardly seemed ideal, but when would he have another unobserved moment? Alaeron knelt and lifted up a floorboard near the wall. His father had kept an emergency sack of coin in the little space underneath, once upon a time, but Alaeron used it for more precious things. The hole appeared to be empty, but that was a minor illusion purchased from a wizard, so he reached in anyway and drew out a drawstring bag, no bigger than a wineskin, that clinked gently when it moved. Alaeron took the cloth-wrapped items from inside the bag and secreted them in various pockets of his traveling coat before replacing the board.

The door rattled ominously a few times while Alaeron was retrieving his stolen relics, and then there was a horrible squeal as Kormak broke in, prying the door away from the frame. The door popped open and a shadow loomed, filling the entryway.

The canister attached to the roof beam hissed as one of the pulled wires activated it, spraying a dense greenish mist toward the intruder's face. Kormak reached up with one huge hand and wiped at his cheek, grunted, and then fell forward as suddenly and solidly as a chopped-down tree. Alaeron smiled—he'd never actually seen the trap work before, and it was gratifying to know it behaved as designed. He waited a moment for the mist to dissipate, then stepped toward the Kellid. The gas should render Kormak unconscious for a few hours, at least, which was ample time to go through that clanking coat of his and see what kind of devices the Technic League had armed him with. Why, with luck, Alaeron could find items valuable enough to buy himself out of this problem with Ralen Vadim—or even to overwhelm the old adventurer by force, rescue Jaya, and earn her no doubt plentiful gratitude.

He knelt, reached out for Kormak's coat—

And the Kellid lifted his head, gave Alaeron a smirk full of contempt, and seized the alchemist by the throat. As Alaeron choked and scrabbled hopelessly at the man's fingers—how could mere flesh grip tight as iron?—he noticed flashes of silver, like tiny metal corks, in each of Kormak's nostrils. The Technic League used such filters to traverse some of the more poisonous rooms in the Silver Mount—they allowed the wearer to breathe, more or less, while preventing more noxious substances from entering the body.

"Greetings, runaway," Kormak said, and despite sounding nasal and strange from the nose plugs, there was no mistaking the satisfaction in his voice.

Purchase the whole novel here.

Coming Next Week: A brand new, standalone story featuring Alaeron!

Tim Pratt's writing has won a Hugo Award, a Rhysling Award, and an Emperor Norton Award, as well as been nominated for Nebula, Mythopoeic, World Fantasy, and Stoker Awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies such as The Best American Short Stories and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, as well as two short story collections of his own. He novels include the contemporary fantasies The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl and Briarpatch; the Forgotten Realms novel Venom in Her Veins; and seven books in the Marla Mason urban fantasy series (as T. A. Pratt). He edited the anthology Sympathy for the Devil, and the forthcoming Rags & Bones anthology with Melissa Marr. His books and stories have been translated into French, Czech, Dutch, Russian, Greek, Korean, Spanish, German, and several other languages.

Illustration by Eric Belisle.

Advanced Race Guide Preview: Of Dreams and Nightmares

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

While every child may curse her mother as a hag from time to time, changelings are justified to make such claims. Cursed offshoots of hag liaisons in the mortal world who are dropped at the door of mortal adoptive parents, all changelings are affected by their heritage in some way. Some rebel against it, but many come to terms with it, using the power of their heritage for their own purposes or to aid the innocent.

It’s not surprising that many changelings gravitate toward the witch class since that class’s powers complement both the abilities and the theme of the race. In this week’s preview, we will take a look at the first race presented in Chapter 3 of the Advanced Race Guide by sharing the archetype presented in the section: the Dreamweaver, a witch empowered by dreams and nightmares.

Illustration by Rayph Beisner

Dreamweaver (Witch)

A changeling dreamweaver draws upon her hag heritage to ply the dream realms in order to touch mortal minds and souls, for good or ill. A dreamweaver witch has the following class features.

Class Skills: The dreamweaver adds Sense Motive to her list of class skills and removes Healing from her list of class skills. Patron: A dreamweaver’s patron is normally portents or stars (Ultimate Magic 83).

Spells: A dreamweaver replaces some of her patron’s spells with the following: 2nd—sow thoughts (see below), 4th—dust of twilight (Advanced Player's Guide), 6th—deep slumber, 8th—modify memory, 10th—dream, 12th—cloak of dreams (Advanced Player's Guide), 14th—ethereal jaunt, 16th—moment of prescience, 18th—astral projection.

Dream Spinner (Su): At 2nd level, when a dreamweaver casts a mind-affecting spell on a target that is sleeping because of her slumber hex or a spell she cast, she adds +1 to the mind-affecting spell’s DC. If the target succeeds at the saving throw against the spell, it does not wake up, nor does it have any recollection of having resisted a spell. If appropriate, the dreamweaver may incorporate elements of a mind-affecting spell (i.e., sow thought, suggestion, and so on) into the target’s subconscious so it believes the spell’s effects originated in its dreams (the details of how these elements fit into the dream is up to the GM). This ability replaces the witch’s hex gained at 2nd level.

Dream Thief (Su): At 6th level, a dreamweaver can alter the sleeping mind of any creature that is sleeping because of her slumber hex or a spell she cast. She can reshape one of the target’s memories as if using modify memory. Alternatively, she may insert herself into the dreaming memories of the target, prompting the target’s mind to show her some specific information; the dreamer’s subconscious may resist, or try to deceive her with out-of-context memories, similar to the way a corpse can resist when questioned with speak with dead. A Will save negates either effect (DC equal to that of the witch’s hex). Whether or not the save is successful, a creature cannot be the target of this hex again for 1 day. This ability replaces the witch’s hex gained at 6th level.

Dream Possession (Su): At 10th level, a dreamweaver can take control of any creature that is sleeping because of her slumber hex or a spell she cast. This effect functions as magic jar, using the witch’s familiar acting as the soul receptacle. A Will save negates either effect (DC equal to that of the witch’s hex). Whether or not the save is successful, a creature cannot be the target of this hex again for 1 day. This ability replaces the witch’s hex gained at 10th level.

Hexes: The following hexes complement the dreamweaver archetype: charm, slumber (Advanced Player's Guide); beast of ill-omen (Ultimate Magic).

Major Hexes: The following major hexes complement the dreamweaver archetype: nightmare, vision (Advanced Player's Guide).

Grand Hexes: The following grand hexes complement the dreamweaver archetype: eternal slumber (Advanced Player's Guide); dire prophecy (Ultimate Magic).

Come back next week for another preview of the Advanced Race Guide.

Stephen Radney-MacFarland
Designer

A Preview of the Grand Convocation

Monday, May 21, 2012

There are always interesting things taking place in the Pathfinder Society. Take, for example, this message that has been sent out to Pathfinders across Golarion...

Amara Li—Lantern Lodge Leader

Pathfinder,

We hope this message finds you in good health, wherever you are operating from.

This year has seen the Society endure many hardships alongside equal victories. Our achievements in the Ruby Phoenix Tournament have not gone unrewarded, and even now, agents like you are taking on dangerous journeys as a result of our spoils. As these missions come to an end, we look to the new year as new opportunities and challenges face the Pathfinder Society.

In preparation, we invite you, our most prized agents, to attend this year’s Grand Convocation. As it takes place on the grounds of the Grand Lodge in Absalom, you should all know of our yearly gathering. It is here where the best of our agents come to trade tales of their exploits, partake in feats of strength, knowledge, and guile, or even venture off the grounds and take part in specialty missions on our behalf.

Though it has not yet been made public knowledge, we also wish to keep you apprised of a recent development here in Absalom. A member of the esteemed Blakros family, Michellia Blakros, requested the hand of Andoran Major Colson Maldris in marriage. As many of you may be aware, while not a member of the Society, Major Maldris is a sponsor of many Pathfinders and a great ally of our organization. As a complication, the major has opted to reject Michellia’s proposition, unwilling to surrender his name and rank as would be required.

Guaril Karela—Sczarni Faction Leader

The actions of Major Maldris have had dire consequences for our relations with the Blakros family. The Decemvirate agrees that this divide must be mended, and as such we have taken the unique step of inviting the Blakros family to this year’s convocation. It is our hope that Pathfinders such as you will attend this year’s gathering and assist the Society in mending this potentially disastrous divide between our organization and the Blakros family.

As always, your continued efforts are appreciated.

Venture-Captain Ambrus Valsin
Grand Lodge, Absalom

Clearly the other factions are already looking to capitalize on Major Maldris’s rejection of a Blakros offer, so this is gearing up to be a Grand Convocation to remember at both PaizoCon and PaizoCon UK!

If you’re interested in attending the event, make sure you’re registered for PaizoCon 2012 or Paizo Con UK 2012! Registration is coming soon and we plan on keeping Pathfinders (both those in attendance and those off on assignment) up to date on all information up to and following the event.

For Pathfinders looking to research all the related backstory to this year’s convocation, it would be best to read up on the effects of strange monkey idols, ancient curses left by astronomers, and why contracts are important.

So, to sum it all up:

The Grand Convocation is a yearly gathering held by the Pathfinder Society to bring together the best of Pathfinders from across the globe. Taking place on the grounds of the Grand Lodge in Absalom, the convocation is an event where Pathfinders can get together and exchange tales, take part in feats of strength and guile, or be recruited for specialized missions. This year, the event is being honored by the presence of the esteemed Blakros family as well as various other prestigious people from across the Inner Sea, promising to be a convocation to remember!

Expect to see the following:

• Tailored Quests (45-minute to 1.5-hour mini-scenarios)
• Special Side Events (approximately 15 minutes per event)
• Pathfinder Social (A place for people to take part in live-action events)
• Faction Objectives
• And more!

The PaizoCon Grand Convocation 2012 is a Pathfinder Special open to characters of all levels—including those retired characters of 12th level or higher—that will have a direct influence on certain plot points of Season 4, the Year of the Risen Rune.

Mike Brock
Pathfinder Society Campaign Coordinator

Fuel for the Machine!

Monday, May 21, 2012

A gigantic, pepperoni-, tomato-, and beer-scented thank you from all of us here at Paizo to Venture-Captain Jason Roeder (kikai13 on the boards) and the entire Missouri Pathfinder Lodge for the surprise stack of more than a dozen pizzas that showed up for lunch today. It's been a hectic series of weeks here at the office, with teams getting our year's major hardcover release—Ultimate Equipment—out the door, starting up a Kickstarter for Pathfinder Online, working on the debut issue of the Pathfinder comic book, closing out the Skull & Shackles Adventure Path while gearing up for the launch of the Shattered Star Adventure Path, preparing the monthly relaunch of the Pathfinder Player Companion line, and still getting all of our other Gen Con releases off to the printer. We're in the home stretch, but there's still tons to be done before our hardest of deadlines next Friday. But with that in mind, a free lunch (and a few beers care of brewmeister Jeff Alvarez) made for the perfect break before heading back to the grind. Thanks again to Jason, the Missouri Pathfinder Society crew, and all our readers—you all really are the best!

Many thanks from the Paizo staff!

F. Wesley Schneider
Editor-In-Chief

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Of Sins and Saviors

Friday, May 18, 2012

There's something really cool about the fifth volume of the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path, Stephen S. Greer's “Sins of the Saviors.” After venturing through volumes loosely themed around goblins, ghouls, ogres, and giants, this fifth installment kicks the campaign backstory into high gear, with the player characters exploring a vast dungeon known as the Runeforge, a relic from the era of the ancient Runelords themselves.

In fact, during their adventure in the Runeforge, the PCs even get a chance to meet with survivors from that distant era, making this adventure an important pivot point for the campaign, essentially shifting things into the endgame to come in the final sixth volume.

What that means in a practical sense, especially because the PCs are now 12th level themselves, is that they finally get to face off against some pretty kick-ass bad guys who pack a powerful punch. In this week's blog, I'd like to reveal two of those bad guys. While they don't quite qualify as the Big Bads of the adventure (we'll get to them next week), these guys play key roles in important encounters, and are sure to be remembered by your players for a long time to come.

Coincidentally, both also make excellent player character miniatures themselves!

First up is the Warrior of Wrath, the result of centuries of genetic breeding and intense training in the Halls of Wrath, one of the most challenging of the seven sinful sub-dungeons of the Runeforge. These angry eldritch knights are the last of their long line, so it's a good thing the player characters show up to give them a target upon which to vent their rage and aggression! Because you'll need at least 6 Warriors of Wrath to pull off their encounter, we've slotted this figure in the common rarity.

Wrath isn't the only sin to get a sub-dungeon in the Runeforge. In the Shimmering Veils, pride is the sin that rules that day, and perhaps none in all of Golarion are so prideful as the illusionist Vraxeris, once among the most trusted servitors of Xanderghul, Runelords of Pride. Through cunning and the mastery of cloning techniques, Vraxeris has managed to survive in the thousands of years since the fall of the Runelords' ancient empire. Now, his mad simulacra wander the halls of the Shimmering Veils, eager to defeat intruders and certain that they have what it takes to keep their weird dungeon free from interlopers. Vraxeris is slated at the uncommon rarity.

We're nearing the end of the Rise of the Runelords Pathfinder Battles set (though a few super-awesome figures still remain to be revealed!), so I'm slowing things down a bit here in the blog, and plan to show only two figures a week from here forward. My head is already in the NEXT set, about half of which will be showing up at the Paizo offices later this afternoon for final sculpt approval.

The actual final production figures for Rise of the Runelords have started rolling into my office, and I'm pleased to report that the figures match the paint masters with amazing fidelity. Looking at these little pictures on the blog and holding the actual minis in-hand simply don't compare. I can say with honesty that I think the Rise of the Runelords Pathfinder Battles set will be the best and most consistently awesome set of prepainted plastic miniatures released yet for hobby gaming.

Until we put out the next set, that is!

See you next Friday,

Erik Mona
Publisher

Where to Next?

Thursday, May 17, 2012

City of the Fallen Sky, the latest Pathfinder Tales novel, is in our warehouse and on its way to stores and subscribers, offering readers a chance to explore two of the Inner Sea's most fascinating and asked-about settings: the barbarians-and-technology land of Numeria, and the legendary crashed flying city of Kho. Looking back on the other seven books in the line so far, we've been to a lot of great places: Ustalav, the Worldwound, Irrisen—even the Outer Planes. And there's still more coming—I can't wait for people to see Liane Merciel's take on grim Nidal, Robin Laws' depiction of the underhanded politics in Magnimar, or Dave Gross's elven extravaganza in Kyonin. Yet all of it leaves me with a question: with so many choices, where should we take the line next?

That's where you come in. I want to know what parts of Golarion you would like to see a Pathfinder Tales novel or web fiction story about. Are you dying for a book set in Bekzen, or maybe just across the border in Lastwall? Perhaps you want to see more of the River Kingdoms, Jalmeray, or Osirion? Post your suggestions in the comments thread and let me know! Repeats are fine, and while we'd prefer to stay near the Inner Sea, there are no wrong answers—your opinion is your opinion. Remember, we rely on the feedback of readers like you to guide all our projects—and who knows? You might just get that Mammoth Lords novel you've been waiting for...

James Sutter
Fiction Editor

Hell or High Water

by Ari Marmell

Chapter Four: In the Lair of the White Leech

"Which one's the Gullet want?"

"Don't think he cares, long as it ain't one of the new ones. Someone been in there at least a few days."

The two warriors—muscle-bound, covered in scars of both battle and pestilence—waded into the waters, making for the stump from which the pulley could be operated.

"What about that gussied-up Shackles pirate we took? He oughta be about ripe by now, yeah?"

"Yeah, what is he? Two down, four over?" The White Leech reached for the mildewed rope, tugged—and nothing happened. A puzzled glance upward, and he could just barely make out an amorphous shape in the darkness, perched on the block-and-tackle.

"Hey, what—!"

The blood-smeared tooth wasn't much of a weapon, and her left hand was all but useless. But when Ameyanda dropped upon the first of her captors, a feral snarl erupting through bared teeth, it made no difference.

∗∗∗

"Issisk..." Somehow, though the iron stakes allowed little range of movement, Seyusth seemed to slump. "You must understand—"

"Understand? Understand that you murdered your own cohort on your journey to the Terwa? That you snuck back to Haa-Ok and killed Errash, your own mentor, before skulking home with your tales of ambush? You never knew Hasseth survived, did you?"

"I—"

"He ran, Seyusth. The greatest warrior of Haa-ok, and he fled. He thought that, because it was you who tried to kill him, it must have been the will of the shaman. It was not until I spoke to him, in his dying days, and told him that Errash had also been murdered, and the lies you spun of what had occurred, that he knew it was you alone who had betrayed him. Betrayed us!"

"Issisk, listen! Errash wanted the alliance for his own gain, not because the spirits told him so. The others, you... None of you understand what the Terwa Lords are! What we would become, were we to ally with them... The horrors we would have to accept, to inflict... I died with every Haa-Ok life I took, but I could not allow the delegation to deliver us into a devil's bargain for the soul of our people!"

"I do not know the Terwa Lords," Issisk said stiffly. "I know only what you told me of them. How can I know, now, what of that is true?"

"All of it. Issisk, I swear—"

"What I know is that the blood of several Haa-Ok is on your talons. And that this was not your decision to make.

"Some day, Seyusth, the eyes of the White Leech will grow careless, and I will escape. Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps a year from now. But I will make my way home, and I will tell all Haa-Ok what you did. That it was not the wrath of the spirits that allowed an assassin to reach our shaman, but a traitor who knew his magics. And they will make their own choice, as they should have long ago."

"Issisk, please!" It was not a word that came easily to the lizardfolk, above all a practical and pragmatic people. "Please, if your anger is with me, take it out on me. But you will be doing Haa-Ok only harm if you—"

"You have no more words I wish to hear, traitor."

Seyusth was still pleading as his cousin disappeared through the open doorway, followed by the shambling Hasseth. If his people were capable of it, he would have wept.

It was the commotion from outside—running, howling, the thump of fists on armor as wild men worked themselves into a frenzy—that snapped him out of it a few moments later. From here, he could see absolutely nothing of what was happening. All he could tell was that it wasn't a fire.

Which, given the rather damp state of affairs, he'd have known anyway.

The sounds faded into the distance, the night now filled with nothing but the hum of insects and the hoot of a hunting bird. And then...

"Hsst! Seyusth!"

"Issisk knows things he shouldn't."

Ameyanda slipped in through the doorway, carrying one of the White Leech blades. The human looked awful—her eyes were slightly wild, she winced with every step—but it seemed that most of the blood splattered across her armor and skin was not hers.

"We don't have long," she told him, limping across the open chamber. "I left a trail down to the water's edge, and pushed one of the small rafts into the current. Not one with the dead who, uh, row," she clarified. "But we have only minutes before they catch up and realize I'm not aboard."

"Then we had better act, and discuss the details of your miraculous escape another day."

She nodded and halted before him, examining the rough wooden cross.

"Seyusth," she said softly, "there's no way to do this gently, not in the time we have."

"I understand." He squeezed his eyes shut. "Do it."

Even in the blackness, the room spun as she pulled the cross from the corner, twisted it clumsily, and laid it flat. He felt her fingers squeeze between his scales and the curved iron pinning his right arm; saw her flinch from the touch of the necromantic runes; heard the scrape as she braced her feet on the wood.

Wood splintered. Iron screeched. And despite his most adamant efforts, Seyusth screamed.

∗∗∗

When it was done, they lay sprawled on the floor, chests heaving, growing sticky with the lizardman's blood. Ameyanda tried not to stare at the raw meat and exposed tendon visible through the rents in her companion's flesh.

Especially when they began to twitch.

"They still work well enough..." he muttered. His arm shaking, he reached a hand out to the huntress's shoulder.

"Seyusth..."

But he was already speaking in his own reptilian tongue.

Ameyanda gasped as an icy shock ran down her arm, as though someone had replaced her blood with mountain runoff. It faded swiftly, however, and so too did much of the agony in her hand.

Not all—and it still burned with a sickly heat—but any relief was welcome.

"Tomorrow," the shaman said softly, "I can cure the infection. I fear you will have to bear it until then."

"Thank you. I—"

Again he spoke in his own language, and the worst of his wounds began to close over. Much like her own, it was far from a complete cure, but impressive for all that.

"What of Issisk?" she asked, staggering roughly to her feet.

Seyusth's face went tight, as though he'd only just remembered why they'd come.

"He is here. He... ran into the swamp when the commotion began. I must find him before they do."

"Wait just a—"

The shaman staggered through the door, shifting into some sort of ibis, and took to the night skies.

"Grandfather Gozreh damn that lizard! I should—"

The thump-squelch of ponderous footsteps in the mud, and a high-pitched wheezing of animal fury, announced that her time had run out.

They announced, too, who approached.

The room was empty, save for the broken cross. Nowhere to hide. And even after Seyusth's curative magics, Ameyanda didn't think she had it in her to face the Gullet directly.

Her frantic gaze alighted upon the shaman's blood, only just beginning to seep into the saturated wooden floor. With no other choice, she dropped to her knees and began to arrange things just so...

A grunt as he came through the door, a faint creak of wood beneath his feet. She knew what the walking avalanche of flesh must see: Her body, lying crumpled in the midst of a sizable blood pool, her stolen weapon lying beside her. Using techniques she'd learned long ago to avoid the sensitive ears of prey and predator both, she breathed lightly, softly. In the feeble lighting, it should appear she didn't breathe at all.

She hoped.

"Well, haven't you been trouble?" the high, breathy voice asked from behind. "Not as ripe as I'd like, but you'll still taste fine. And more of you to go around, with fewer mouths to feed."

She felt flabby fingers close around an ankle, lift in preparation to drag her from the room...

Ameyanda rolled upright, stomach muscles screaming, and struck. The iron spike that had nailed Seyusth's feet to the cross now plunged through Galgur's own. The lumbering giant shrieked, a sound almost too high to hear, and crumpled, grasping reflexively at the sudden agony.

The huntress's other hand, clutching one of the sharpened brackets that had held the shaman's arms, punched between those toothy ridges and down that screaming gullet. She felt things tear around her makeshift weapon, the skin of his throat quivering obscenely at the touch of the thing's vile magics.

"How does that taste, you motherless hyena?"

Galgur managed a single, wet choke. Blood bubbled up around Ameyanda's hand, and she yanked it back, leaving the cursed bracket behind.

The room shook as the Gullet's body rolled to the floor. Ameyanda decided to believe that her brief gasp was a result of that shuddering, and not a near-sob of relief at the creature's death.

All right, now what?

She had no idea of how quickly the others would return, and she'd never find her way out of here wounded, in the dark, without Seyusth. So what could she possibly...

Ameyanda studied the massive corpse, then the blade on the floor beside the puddle of blood, and heaved a thick sigh. In a day of sickening tasks, what's one more?

At least now she had somewhere to hide...

∗∗∗

"I knew you would run."

Seyusth dropped through the branches, shifting out of bird-form as he landed with a muddy thump. "After what you told me, I knew you would see the sudden commotion as your opportunity. Perhaps even a gift from the spirits."

Issisk straightened, hand hovering near the blade at his belt. "What do you intend?"

"Issisk, please. I will help you get home, and submit myself to whatever penance you see fit, but do not tell the others! Their belief may be all that keeps us from the Terwa!"

"I am not you, Seyusth. I will not deceive our people. I will let them make their own choice. And where Hasseth and the others were tribesmates, I am family. I do not believe you would murder me to keep your secret."

Seyusth lowered his gaze, and Issisk turned to walk away.

∗∗∗

For several days they traveled. They rested as well as they could, in the best shelters they could find, and said little. Finally, they awoke one morning to the welcome sight of the Mwangi jungles against the eastern horizon.

Ameyanda rose, stretched, preparing herself for another day's hike. She eyed the rough blade she carried with distaste and more than a little sadness. Those mambeles had been her trusted companions for years. She could acquire new ones readily enough, but it wouldn't be the same.

Seyusth appeared beside her, also ready for travel—and apparently still digesting what she'd told him over breakfast.

"You really hid inside—"

She shuddered with the memory of the charnel stench, the wet coils looping around her arms, the hot, reeking fat closing in around her. "It worked. And I don't want to talk about it."

"I understand."

"And Issisk?" She hadn't planned to ask; the fact that Seyusth had returned alone was evidence enough of the lizardman's fate. The question just burst out in response to the unwanted imagery he'd inflicted on her with his own comment, however unintended.

"The White Leech reached him before I did," Seyusth's attention fixed on the distant jungle. "I was unable to save him."

"So this was all for nothing."

"I... fear so."

Ameyanda growled and started walking—then stopped once more when she realized the lizardman was still behind her.

"Isn't this about where you turn north, if you're returning to Haa-Ok?"

"I am not returning yet. I owe you—"

"No, we're even. I was repaying a debt."

"Yes, you accompanied me as repayment. But then you saved me, when it would have been wiser to make your own escape from the White Leech."

"I'm not keeping count. And I have my own tasks, Seyusth."

"And I will assist you."

"You owe me nothing, shaman. Go home."

The huntress began to walk once more, and this time she did not look back.

∗∗∗

"Go home."

It sounded nice enough. But Seyusth wasn't certain he had a home any longer. The visage of every relative would be Issisk's dying face; every glance, his eyes; every raised voice, an accusation.

Issisk had been right. He'd felt guilt before, but not until it was one of his own family had he felt like a traitor.

Seyusth had meant to save Issisk, he truly had. But the tribe must be protected. Haa-Ok was safe. The people still believed the spirits disapproved of the Terwa Lords. They were in no danger of losing their identity, their culture, their souls to those monsters. And Seyusth's own apprentice could serve their spiritual and mystical needs for many moons to come.

I can do more good here. Allies among the humans will prove useful, someday, when the Terwa do come to Mwangi.

So he told himself again, and again, in the hopes that he would start believe. Because responsibility was easier to bear than guilt.

Seyusth sighed a very human sigh, and set off after his distant companion.

Coming Next Week: A free sample chapter of Tim Pratt's new high-tech, jungle-exploring adventure City of the Fallen Sky!

Ari Marmell is an author and game designer, and has written extensively for Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, World of Darkness, and more. His novels include the independent dark fantasy novels The Conqueror's Shadow and The Warlord's Legacy, the young adult fantasy Thief's Covenant, and the morbidly humorous The Goblin Corps, among others. For more information, see his website at mouseferatu.com.

Illustration by Jim Pavelec.

Advanced Race Guide Preview: Letting the Cat out of the Bag

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Actually, we are letting the cat out of the book. Last week, after previewing the tengu section of the Advanced Race Guide, we asked you what you wanted to see next. We received many good suggestions, but it seems that many of you wanted to see the catfolk.

These lithe and agile creatures make excellent monks, rangers, and especially rogues, but they also have a mysterious side, as they are sometimes able to control luck and can draw on supernatural powers and spells that are very catlike in nature. This week’s preview examines just some examples of these themes in the catfolk section.

Illustration by Kieran Yanner

Catfolk Rogue Talents

The following rogue talents can only be taken by catfolk.

Deadly Scratch (Ex): A catfolk rogue with this talent can apply poison to her claws without accidentally poisoning herself. A catfolk rogue must have the cat’s claws racial trait and the poison use class feature before taking this talent.

Disarming Luck (Ex): Once per day, when a catfolk rogue attempts to disable a device and fails by 5 or more, she can reroll the check as a free action. She must take the result of the reroll, even if it’s worse than the original roll.

Graceful Faller (Ex): A catfolk rogue with this talent lands on her feet even when she takes lethal damage from a fall. If the catfolk rogue also has the nimble faller racial trait, she takes damage from any fall as if it were 20 feet shorter than it actually is.

Nimble Climber (Ex): A catfolk rogue with this talent gains a +4 bonus on Climb checks. If she has the climber racial trait, she can take 10 on her Climb checks even when in immediate danger or distracted.

Single-Minded Appraiser (Ex): A catfolk rogue with this talent is skilled at determining the value of sparkly things. She can always take 10 when appraising gems and jewelry.

Vicious Claws (Ex): A catfolk with this talent uses d8s to roll sneak attack damage instead of d6s, but only when she uses her claws to make the sneak attack. A catfolk rogue must have the cat’s claws racial trait before taking this talent.

Catfolk Feats

Catfolk have access to the following feats.

Black Cat
Bad luck befalls those who dare to cross you.
Prerequisite: Catfolk.
Benefit: Once per day as an immediate action, when you are hit by a melee attack, you can force the opponent who made the attack to reroll it with a –4 penalty. The opponent must take the result of the second attack roll. This is a supernatural ability.
Special: If you take this feat and don’t already have all black fur, your fur turns completely black when you take this feat.

Catfolk Magic Items

The following magic items are often created and used by catfolk.

Daredevil Softpaws
Aura faint enchantment; CL 3rd
Slot feet; Price 1,400 gp; Weight 1 lb.

Description

This pair of magical softpaw boots (see above) allows the catfolk wearing them to gain extra maneuverability while moving through hazardous areas. As a free action, the wearer can click her heels together to grant herself a +5 competence bonus on Acrobatics checks made to move through threatened squares or to move through an enemy’s space without provoking attacks of opportunity for up to 10 rounds per day. The rounds need not be consecutive. Furthermore, anytime the wearer of the boots successfully moves though the space of an enemy without provoking an attack of opportunity, she gains a +2 bonus on attack rolls against that enemy until the end of her turn.

Construction

Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, cat’s grace; Cost 700 gp

Catfolk Spells

Catfolk have access to the following spells.

Steal breath
School transmutation [air]; Level bard 2, druid 2, sorcerer/wizard 2, witch 2
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target one living creature
Duration 1 round (see text)
Saving Throw Fortitude negates; see text; Spell Resistance yes
You pull the breath from a creature’s lungs, dealing damage and leaving it unable to speak, use breath weapons, or cast spells with verbal components. If the target fails its saving throw, it takes 2d6 points of damage, and it cannot speak, use breath weapons, or do anything else requiring breathing, and a visible line of swirling air leaves the target’s mouth and enters your mouth.
If, during the duration, the target moves out of range or line of effect to you, the spell immediately ends. This spell has no effect on creatures that do not need to breathe air.

Stephen Radney-MacFarland
Designer

The Evolution of the Multipart Scenario

Monday, May 14, 2012

Illustration by Yngvar Asplund

As early as Season 1, the Pathfinder Society Organized Play campaign has featured a number of multipart scenarios—mini campaign arcs designed to tell longer and more complex stories than a single 4-hour gaming session can provide. Whether in the form of four-part series like The Devil We Know, Echoes of the Everwar, and the Tier 12 retirement arc The Eyes of the Ten; a three-part arc like this season’s The Quest for Perfection and last season’s The Heresy of Man and Shades of Ice; or a two-part story such as The City of Strangers, Shadow’s Last Stand, and Before the Dawn, the level of continuity between segments and the arcs’ overall scopes have varied quite a bit in the last three years.

One of my goals as developer of the Pathfinder Society Scenarios line is to make multipart scenarios feel more cohesive and to provide players with a sense of accomplishment for completing these long format series. But finding the right balance of telling compelling, immersive stories and meeting the needs of the organized play campaign’s unique design parameters hasn’t come easy. And we’re still trying out new things.

Earlier this year, we released the Wonders in the Weave series, a Tier 5–9 two-part arc introducing characters to the Hao Jin Tapestry, the private demiplane the Society won as part of the Ruby Phoenix Tournament at the season’s halfway point. In this series, we tried something new with the mutliparters: we provided a boon at the end of the first installment, The Dog Pharaoh’s Tomb that grants no inherent bonuses. But having this boon on the Chronicle sheet immediately preceding the second chapter in the series, Snakes in the Fold allowed characters to earn a second boon that is only awarded for those PCs playing the story in order and without interruption between.

That method worked okay, but we still felt there was room for improvement. So with the release of last month’s Tier 7–11 scenario, Pathfinder Society Scenario #3–20: The Rats of Round Mountain, Part I: The Sundered Path, we had a chance to try a different tack with multipart boons. We were further motivated to push the envelope by the specific circumstances of this mini-arc’s plot: the PCs travel to the center of a hollow mountain in Part I, and then venture into a ratfolk stronghold within the mountain in Part II. It didn’t make sense for PCs to make a long trek, then magically be outside the mountain and even back on the Material Plane doing other adventures, partaking in a Day Job, or even buying equipment, then suddenly be back in the middle of the mountain at the start of the next adventure. If it were so easy to get back and forth from the mountain’s center to Absalom, why did they need to journey there on foot in Part I?

The solution we came up with is this: at the end of The Sundered Path, PCs are given a choice to remain there, forgoing the ability to purchase equipment or spellcasting services, make Day Job checks, or participate in other scenarios, or to hand-wave their characters’ continuity but sacrifice their ability to get a larger boon as a reward for playing the two scenarios back-to-back. Since PCs inside Round Mountain who choose the former are assumed to have been there continually before the start of Part II, Pagoda of the Rat, they won’t receive a faction handout for the scenario, and only need to complete a faction mission if they want to; players doing both scenarios continuously will automatically receive full prestige for the second part of the series. What the other benefits of sticking it out are, I’m going to keep under my hat, but I think folks will be pleased with the rewards.

Be sure to participate in the discussion of this topic below, or on our Pathfinder Society messageboards, and let us know what you think of this experiment.

Mark Moreland
Developer

Pathfinder Battles Preview: A Small Update

Friday, May 11, 2012

We're getting to deep into the previews for the Rise of the Runelords Pathfinder Battles set that I've almost run out of pictures to show you! A handful of minis remain yet to be revealed, but I'm pleased to report that some of them are among the coolest in the set!

Today I'd like to show off two Small miniatures from the set that leave a very big impression.

Up first is the dreaded Kobold Champion! This lizard-like warrior woman might look a bit like a rank-and-file kobold, but she's in fact encountered late in the campaign, and boy does she ever pack a surprising punch! Although the Rise of the Runelords campaign contains only one Kobold Champion, we decided to slot this figure in the common rarity, reasoning that game masters can always use more well-sculpted kobolds to swarm over their players at any level!

It's probably a bit difficult to tell from the small photos here, but this figure has a remarkable number of paint steps for both a common miniature and a Small miniature, making her really stand out despite her diminutive size. From the paint gradient on her legs and tail to the bright blue tongue, this is one of several minis in the set where I think to myself "I can't believe this awesome mini is a common!"

Up next is the Redcap, a fey menace from real-world mythology with a long history in fantasy gaming. To my knowledge, no Redcap has previously appeared as a prepainted plastic miniature, which makes it a great addition to the Rise of the Runelords set. This little guy comes with the appropriate metal boots, oversized scythe, and the eponymous red cap. As fitting the Redcaps' role in the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path Anniversary Edition campaign, we've slotted the Redcap in as a common, so you can easily collect a bunch of them.

That's it for this week's preview. The set contains at least two more size-Small figures, as well as a few more exciting surprises.

There's lots of great stuff yet to come! Enjoy the weekend, and don't forget to get in some gaming!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Kicking Off Pathfinder Online

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

You've probably heard that Paizo is working with Goblinworks to produce Pathfinder Online, a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game. Goblinworks has been giving you snippets of our plans in the biweekly blog posts on goblinworks.com, and we've been getting your feedback on the Pathfinder Online messageboards here on paizo.com. Well, we're now ready to kick off the next phase of Pathfinder Online.

Today we announced a Kickstarter project to help us build the Pathfinder Online Technology Demo. Go take a look at the press release or visit the Kickstarter project page to find out what this Kickstarter is all about, and then come back here so I can share some details you'll want to know. Don’t worry, I’ll wait right here...

...Did you read it? Pretty darn cool, huh?

Goblinworks.com has its own blog today talking about the Kickstarter, so head over there when you're done here for more details on that. What I want to talk about here is the Thornkeep book!

Since the Pathfinder Online Technology Demo itself isn’t something that we can offer to Kickstarter patrons, we had to go outside the box for our Kickstarter rewards, and the Thornkeep book seemed like the perfect answer.

Thornkeep has a Pathfinder Online logo on the cover, but make no mistake—Paizo is handling this book just like any of our other Pathfinder products. It's set in the very same world of Golarion as our other roleplaying products, and contains 100% official Pathfinder campaign setting material for use with the Pathfinder RPG.

The first half of the 64-page Thornkeep book is a Pathfinder RPG sourcebook covering the town of Thornkeep and its surrounding area. Thornkeep is part of the River Kingdoms area, which is the setting for Pathfinder Online. (You could also drop Thornkeep into almost any wooded area in your own campaign setting.) As we mentioned in one of our earliest Pathfinder Online blog posts, Thornkeep is one of three starting locations for PCs in the MMO—it's the chaotic frontier town that Ryan dubbed our "hive of scum and villainy" (think a fantasy version of Deadwood). (You even helped us name Thornkeep in our first online poll!)

We thought it would be cool to allow folks to explore Thornkeep's various dark corners in their Pathfinder RPG sessions before Pathfinder Online is released. We will be using this book as our guide when we're building its digital equivalent. We're even going to have a small dungeon in this book that will map directly to the one featured in the Technology Demo. So not only will you be getting a guide to one of the towns in Pathfinder Online, but you'll also be getting the first look at how content from the RPG transitions to Pathfinder Online, as well as how content from the MMO might find its way to your gaming table!

Rich Baker, author of Thornkeep!

When we were looking for somebody to write the sourcebook material for us, we went to our good friend Rich Baker. This is Rich's first time working on Pathfinder, but he has been involved with classic D&D campaign settings from the Forgotten Realms to Birthright, and we figured it would be fun to see how he would approach Thornkeep! I've seen his partial turnovers already, and they're awesome!

So what about the second half of the book? That's going to be a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of Pathfinder Online, including excerpts from our internal design document, plus design sketches and early artwork for the MMO, as well as essays from Goblinworks and Paizo team members designed to give you insight into the making of the MMO. Consider this a backstage pass to all of the goings-on at Goblinworks!

Of course, we couldn’t have a cool product like this without a Wayne Reynolds cover. The cover image you see here is a mock-up—Wayne should have the real Thornkeep cover done by PaizoCon, and we plan to unveil it at our banquet!

Thornkeep isn't the only Kickstarter reward, though. There are lots of fun rewards for folks at all levels of pledge support! You could even come to Paizo for a day, play a Pathfinder game with your dream Paizo GM, and have a four-hour dinner with your GM, Goblinworks CEO Ryan Dancey, and myself. Check out all of the Kickstarter rewards and help us get to the next step in the development of Pathfinder Online. We wouldn’t be here without you!

Lisa Stevens
Paizo CEO
Goblinworks COO

Hell or High Water

by Ari Marmell

Chapter Three: Over Their Heads

The undead crocodile lashed out with its tail now, rather than its mangled jaw, and Ameyanda could not entirely avoid the blow. She staggered almost to the edge of the wobbling—and now disintegrating—tussock.

For an instant, she seriously considered drawing a mambele across her own throat. Considered, and dismissed.

If they keep me alive, that's their mistake.

Still, she'd prefer not to leave herself helpless. Again she cast about, desperate for any advantage...

And saw it, almost buried in the muck and sticks.

The White Leech who'd struck down Seyusth was moving in on her, again with club rather than blade raised. Even through the rain, the sour reek of old sweat, rotting teeth, and poorly tanned hides was worse than the undead.

She let the club come, raising crossed mambeles to parry only at the last instant, allowing the blow to send her sprawling.

Oh, Grandmother Sun, this is going to hurt!

Agony, white hot and piercing, as her hand came down upon the tiny prize she'd noted a moment earlier. It was crippling, nauseating; her whole body spasmed, and she could feel the object shifting inside the flesh of her palm.

But they wouldn't find it there, and the rain should wash away the worst of the blood before the enemy could grow suspicious.

Racked by pain, Ameyanda didn't have to fake helplessness as the White Leech swarmed over her, confiscating her weapons and tying her arms with rough hemp before dropping her like a sack of tubers into the massive skiff.

∗∗∗

She didn't pass out precisely, but the wash of pain, exacerbated by the rough handling, smothered her mind in a thick caul. It was some moments before she once more became aware of her surroundings.

She shivered, and realized that she lay in water two fingers deep—accumulation from the rain. She was lying on the deck of the skiff, which was now surging through the swamp with that unnatural speed she'd noticed earlier.

And now she saw how.

Clamped to the rear corners of the raft with thick iron spikes, a pair of undead torsos worked effortlessly and tirelessly with heavy poles to keep the craft in motion. Someone had taken a few sizable bites of excess flesh out of one of the torso's shoulders.

Swallowing bile, she scooted to look around. To her right lay one of the men the White Leech had attacked, also bound. Apparently hostilities had resumed after the mutual enemy was down. He sported fresh bite wounds, and was already shivering with fever.

Instinctively, she glanced down at her stomach and legs, searching for similar bites.

"You will not find any," breathed a weak voice from her left. "The obese one did that to him in battle, not after capture."

"Seyusth?" She twisted and flopped to face her companion. "Are you—oh, gods and spirits!"

"It appears," the lizardman said, "that the White Leech has experience countering a shaman's magics."

A pair of small logs had been lashed together with leather straps and hemp, forming a rough T.

And to that, Seyusth had been crucified.

A squared metal stake pinned both feet to the heavy branch. Each arm was nailed down with a length of iron curved in a rough U, penetrating palms and wrists both. Ugly, primitive sigils, etched in corrosion and flaking rust, wound in uneven spirals around the spikes.

No spellcasting, not without his hands. And no shape-changing, presumably, not pinned as he was. Amayanda needed no eldritch knowledge to sense the magics, cold and sickly, emanating from that profane iron.

She couldn't help him. All she could offer was the courtesy of not asking something stupid like, "Are you all right?"

Instead, she asked, "What do we know?"

"Galgur the Gullet always has room for one more prisoner."

Seyusth took a few deep breaths before answering. "Their leader is the big one. The men call him ‘Galgur the Gullet.' From what little I overheard, while he may answer to the White Leech chieftain..."

"Montirro the Thrice-Blind," Ameyanda reminded him.

"Yes. He may answer to this Montirro, but not often. His band controls this region of White Leech domain with relative autonomy."

"Good. I thought we were in trouble there, for a moment."

The lizardman couldn't muster a laugh, but his snout pulled back from his teeth in what Ameyanda assumed was a polite grin.

"Issisk?" she asked after a moment's pause.

"Not here. I never saw the unliving one close, but he appeared the wrong build to be Issisk."

Ameyanda nodded, shifted without thinking, then gasped at the renewed pain.

"I am sorry," Seyusth told her.

"It's not as though I could expect you to rush to help me," she said, struggling for a light tone.

"No. It is my fault you are here. My fault either of us had to be here."

"How is that, precisely?" This was starting to sound disturbingly like a deathbed confession—did lizardfolk do that?—but Ameyanda hardly cared what he was saying. As long as he kept speaking, he was conscious; as long as he was conscious, he wasn't dead.

"Years ago, emissaries of the Terwa Lords approached us. They wanted Haa-Ok to serve them, as a—a stepping stone—in Mwangi. I opposed this, as did many others. To join with the Terwa would be to betray our traditions, our heritage; to become something the world never intended of us. But I was merely an apprentice shaman, and my protests carried little weight. My mentor, Errash, supported the alliance. Further, he claimed the spirits of the Expanse supported it as well."

Seyusth's words were coming slower, now, between heaving, labored breaths. "After several moons of debate and consideration, Haa-Ok sent some of our own to announce our assent to the Terwa Lords. The band was led by Hasseth, our greatest warrior, as a sign of respect. I was to go with them as well, to offer what magical protections I could along the way.

"I proved insufficient. Perhaps we took too long for the Terwa's liking? Perhaps they had some other plot. We never knew. We were attacked along the way; only I survived, due to my magics, and then only barely. But worse, when I finally made my way home, I found that Errash had been slain in his sleep! No agent of the Terwa should have proved able to infiltrate our home, murder our shaman, and depart undetected!

"It could only mean that the spirits had removed their protections from him. They could not, after all, favor such a hideous alliance. Some good came from the catastrophe, then, for while a few of my people still argue, even to this day, to join the Terwa, most are wise enough to heed the spirits' signs."

Seyusth lapsed into a fit of coughing, which in turn tugged at the spikes and set his wounds bleeding anew. Several of the men up front glanced their way, attracted by the sudden spasm. A few laughed; one flicked his tongue in and out, like a reptile.

"How does that make what happened to Issisk your fault?" she insisted. Keep talking. Stay awake...

"I... After becoming shaman to Haa-Ok, I spoke long about the evils of the Terwa Lords and those who follow them. And many of our youth took those lessons deeply to heart. We sent hunting bands far from our territories, in part, to patrol against Terwa incursion from the Sodden Lands. And Issisk's band... I found them well beyond their accustomed terrain. I fear they went looking for the enemy, and it was this that brought them to the White Leech."

"And we're so delighted it did!"

The voice was soft—not with kindness, but like a smothering pillow—and high as a young girl's. Ameyanda looked up at the obese bulk that now kept much of the rain from her skin; she could not even imagine how a body that fleshy could approach so quietly. Or without rocking the entire skiff.

He squatted so that the jiggling of his thighs threatened to slap against their feet. Ameyanda could smell not merely sweat, but mildew and the seepage of open sores.

She could see, too, the cause of his misshapen jaw. His teeth had been removed and replaced, via foreign magics or surgeries, with twin ridges of serrated bone.

As much to keep from gagging as anything else, Ameyanda spoke. "‘Delighted'? Why?"

Galgur ignored the question. "Did we hear," he asked Seyusth, "that you dislike the Terwa lizards? Oh, that's really too bad, since we'll be trading you to them. Not for a while, though. We've a friend who would dearly love to speak with you first!"

The shaman hissed, deep in his throat.

"And you two..." He turned to Ameyanda and the other captive. "We'll put you in the swamp for a time. You'll be so much more succulent after you've softened and ripened!"

It wasn't the laughter and cheers of the White Leech that sent a shiver through Ameyanda's spine, but the string of anticipatory drool that dangled from Galgur the Gullet's maw.

∗∗∗

The village had been built in part on a gentle hillside. It had probably been beautiful, pastoral gardens and fields of crops. But that was before the coming of the eternal storm.

Now most of it was permanently submerged, the wooden buildings rotted to skeletons of what they'd been. A few, however, stood tall enough, and high enough on the hill, that a story or two protruded from the swamp. These, too, harbored the restless stench of decay and rough smears of various molds. Still, with the use of uncountable patches and slapdash repairs, they remained good enough for some.

Galgur's faction of the White Leech called them home.

They'd approached the hillside through a veritable thicket of peculiar reeds. Protruding stiffly, reaching almost a man's height above the waters, they didn't appear remotely natural to their surroundings.

And now Ameyanda knew why.

"We'll put you in the swamp for a time. You'll be so much more succulent after you've softened and ripened!"

Despite her best efforts, or the shame it brought, she'd finally panicked. First the bag, yanked over her head and sealed around the neck with some viscous sludge. It smelled of light tanning and animal fat, and it had one of those long reeds—long, hollow reeds—protruding from one side.

And then she'd felt herself manhandled, strapped by leather cords to a heavy log, and tossed in to lie amidst the others.

They didn't even mean to kill her first. Let her lie, submerged in the marsh, half-buried in muck, until her waterlogged skin came loose on her flesh. Only then, she knew, would they haul her up—a primitive rope-and-pulley system dangled from an overhanging cypress branch—to feast.

So yes, as the world went away save for the sound of the torpid waters beyond the bag and the patter of rain on the surface, gradually slowing as the squall finally passed, she'd thrashed, bucked, screamed in panic.

But only for a moment.

No large animals, was her first rational thought. Galgur and his men wouldn't want anything to rob them of a meal, so they must have some means of keeping the bigger predators away from their "crop." Nets in the water, perhaps. It meant there was nothing—well, nothing large enough to kill her outright—to be attracted by the blood.

And there would be a lot of blood.

Ameyanda pulled her left wrist toward her shoulder, as far as the straps would allow—and then kept pulling. For minutes beyond count, she pressed the ball of her hand against the leather, against the soft wood of the log. The pain was enough to draw another scream. So be it; let them think she howled in terror, if they could hear at all through the breathing reed.

She pushed; she twisted. And slowly, agonizingly, the jagged crocodile tooth—one she'd knocked from the unliving creature's mouth, the thing she'd deliberately fallen upon and concealed within her own meat—slid from her skin.

She'd expected that she might need to free herself of bonds; she'd never begun to imagine the circumstances in which that need would arise.

Her fingers seized up, twitching, and she almost dropped it. The breath caught in her throat as she bobbled at it, and she almost cried in relief when she once more held it firm. The hand was weak, limp with pain and a growing infection she could already feel.

But it would do. It had to do.

In tiny twitches, Ameyanda began to run the edge of the tooth over the leather, again and again.

∗∗∗

"I know what you did."

It was hearing his own language, more than the words themselves, that yanked Seyusth awake through the fog of pain. The room smelled of rotten wood, and as he pried his eyes open, he could see huge blotches of mold and water damage on the walls.

The room was also at a slight angle—no, he was at a slight angle. They hadn't even bothered to stand the stake to which he was crucified straight up; just leaned it in the corner.

And then full awareness finally flooded through him, and he lowered his gaze to the one who'd addressed him.

"Issisk! Leaves and scales, you live!"

The younger lizardfolk stood in the chamber's open doorway, perhaps a bit scrawnier than Seyusth recalled, but healthy enough. He nodded once, but otherwise offered no response.

"They allow you to move freely?" Seyusth asked.

"Largely. They keep eyes on me, to ensure I do not attempt to leave, but otherwise I do as I will."

"A strange sort of imprisonment."

"And what makes you believe I am a prisoner, Seyusth?"

It was, somehow, shocking to the core of his soul and the precise answer he'd anticipated, both at once. "I don't understand. Issisk, why—?"

"They needed another of our people," Issisk said, his voice oddly flat, even for a reptile. "They grew accustomed to having one of us work alongside them, to serve as spy in Terwa territory, or negotiator with their patrols, or scout who could swim farther than any human."

"Accustomed to..." Seyusth was feeling dizzy, and not only from his wounds or the precarious angle.

"The one who had been with them was dying. They were hunting our kind when they came across my patrol. I was the fortunate survivor, and I chose cooperation over consumption. And I had some time to converse with my tribesmate before he died of his illness."

"Who... Who was...?"

"I thought you would never ask."

Issisk stepped aside, and a second lizardman strode—no, shambled—through the door. The dull scales and gaping holes were sufficient to tell Seyusth that this was the undead who had attacked him in the swamp.

But this near, he could also see details he'd missed at the time—including a face that, though partially worn away, he recognized.

"Oh, spirits. Hasseth..."

"As I said, murderer," the younger one hissed, "I know what you did."

Coming Next Week: The gritty, rain-soaked conclusion of Ari Marmell's "Hell or High Water."

Ari Marmell is an author and game designer, and has written extensively for Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, World of Darkness, and more. His novels include the independent dark fantasy novels The Conqueror's Shadow and The Warlord's Legacy, the young adult fantasy Thief's Covenant, and the morbidly humorous The Goblin Corps, among others. For more information, see his website at mouseferatu.com.

Illustration by Jim Pavelec.

Advanced Race Guide Preview: Wark, Wark, Wark!

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Some time ago I played in a campaign that Jason Bulmahn was running. One of the many highlights of the campaign was Chuko. This was James Jacobs's tengu character, who always shouted "Wark!" when he was excited. My whole conception of tengus comes from Chuko. They are strange little creatures that steal and mark things with flags. Tengus can be unreasonable and stupidly heroic. Chuko was not the sharpest egg in the nest, just a strange little outcast in a far-off land. James played it to the hilt. If you get the chance to play Pathfinder with James, make him play a tengu. Oh, and make him wear a silly hat.

Sorry for the last bit, James.

When it came to reviewing the tengu section of Advanced Race Guide, there was a lot that made me shout, "Wark!" I think Chuko would approve! Now I want to play a tengu.

Here are just a few highlights from the section.

Tengu Equipment

Tengus have access to the following equipment.

Illustration by Paul Guzenko

Signal Kite Kit: Though wingless, tengus have long cast their thoughts toward the sky and flight. Built from paper glued to bamboo frames, their kites are painted with various colors and pictures. In addition to flying kites as a leisure activity, tengus also fly kites of various shades and patterns to send signal messages. Tengus have developed an extensive code of signals and can use their kites to display complex messages visible at great distances. A signal kite kit includes six small colored kites that can be hooked together in different patterns to facilitate complex messages. The kit also includes a spool and 300 feet of twine. Sending or interpreting a signal kite's message functions as described in the Bluff skill, but the sender and anyone trying to understand the message must also know Tengu.

Terror Kite: This small kite is usually painted with a fierce face and bright colors and is edged with serrated wooden blades. Its twine is strengthened by soaking it in glue and sometimes with crushed glass to give it a slight cutting edge. The kite has hardness 5 and 3 hit points. Participants in a kite battle make alternating sunder combat maneuvers against each other's kites; each successful maneuver allows a competitor to roll 1d6 points of damage against the opponent's kite. When a kite reaches 0 hit points, it is broken or its string is cut, and its player loses the match. In some matches, points are awarded for touching the kite's top to the opponent's string, with the winner being the first to reach a set point total. Those interested in kite-fighting may select the terror kite as a weapon for the purpose of feats such as Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization, and apply these bonuses on kite damage rolls and on their sunder combat maneuver attempts made while using terror kites.

Tengu Feats

Tengu have access to the following feats.

Long-Nose Form
You can shift into the form of a human with an unusually long nose.
Prerequisites: Character level 3rd, tengu.
Benefit: Once per day, you can assume the form of a human whose nose is the length of your beak. This spell-like ability functions as alter self with a caster level equal to your level. While in this form you gain the scent ability and a +2 bonus to your Strength score. Because your long nose in this form clearly indicates you are not fully human, you do not gain the normal bonus to Disguise checks for using a polymorph effect (however, you could possibly explain the nose as an unfortunate curse or deformity, or hide it with an item such as a plague doctor's mask).

Tengu Spells

Tengus have access to the following spells.

Theft Ward
School abjuration; Level cleric 1, inquisitor 1, sorcerer/wizard 1, witch 1
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S
Range touch
Target one object
Duration 1 day

You ward a single object in your possession against theft. You gain a +10 bonus on Perception checks to notice someone trying to take the object from you.

Hey! Tell us what you want to see next. We want to know what you're excited about.

Stephen Radney-MacFarland
Designer

Pathfinder Society in Croatia, Bosnia, and Slovenia (or South Eastern Europe Calling)

Monday, May 7, 2012

Last month, we highlighted Denmark and Venture-Captain Diego Winterborg's efforts to grow Pathfinder Society there. We now shift our focus to southeast Europe. Venture-Captain Zrinka Znidarcic's report on Pathfinder Society in Croatia, Bosnia, and Slovenia was a very interesting read for me and I hope all of you find it interesting as well.

It is interesting being a Venture-Captain of the only multinational region that encompasses three different countries (one of them being in the European Union). But, here we are, after barely 9 months of Pathfinder Society presence and it's already been a wild ride. From what I can tell, this presence promises to continue and grow.

Geographically speaking, Croatia is a small sliver of a country squished between Slovenia to the northwest and Bosnia and Herzegovina to the southeast. The capital of Croatia is Zagreb and this is the home base for Pathfinder Society in the tri-country region.

It all started like anywhere else—with a home group and an overeager GM. I started gaming in 1996. After many years of playing, graduating from the university, moving back home, and trying to find somebody to GM fantasy roleplaying games, I learned that the only way to make anything happen game-wise was to go ahead and do it (contrary to my usual disposition). I started my GMing career in 2003, and as soon as Pathfinder Roleplaying Game appeared, we switched all the characters and never looked back, going on to play Pathfinder Adventure Paths (which we still do to this day).

At the time, Croatian fantasy fandom had just two significant gaming conventions—Sferakon (the oldest Croatian convention established in 1979) and Istrakon (established in 2000). At some point, Sferakon had organized RPG events, but none since 2002. Most people were quite happy with having home groups and there was little organized public play.

With only two gaming stores that didn't do so well—one closing its business and the other changing owners a few times and giving up on ordering RPG books—there was no local support for RPGs.

The region didn't fare well either. Our northern neighbor, Slovenia, organized several gaming conventions that didn't really take root and the fandom had retreated mostly into individual home groups. Bosnia and Herzegovina is still an unconquered land with almost no RPG players I am aware of (please email me if you live there and are interested in organizing Pathfinder Society).

But, several things happened. A lecture on the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game at Istrakon 2010, followed by two tables of demo scenarios, gained traction and interest and we had a fair number of interested players at Istrakon 2011. At the end of August, my Venture-Lieutenant, Maja Skvorc, and I announced the first PFS event in the only friendly local gaming store, Carta Magica. We just wanted to see what would happen. With over 20 people showing it for that first game day, it was clear there was a real interest for the Pathfinder RPG and Pathfinder Society in Zagreb.

Currently using Carta Magica as the base for regular weekly sessions, we now count on three tables (generally 12–16 players) on regular basis. Higher-level characters are still a small minority so we've just started scheduling one table for them. With the fluctuation of players, we already have more than 70 people signed up on Warhorn.net for our scheduled events. It is also interesting to note that most players are in their mid-twenties and younger, and among the GMs, we have both experienced and new ones. In fact, several of the most active GMs started playing tabletop roleplaying games initially with Pathfinder Society.

Meanwhile, in Zagreb, a group formed in 2011 called SRP (Section for Roleplay) founded by Ana Rajner and Bozo Spoljaric. This was the first such group dedicated to roleplaying games of all kinds (tabletop and LARPs) with the goal of promoting and enabling play. Besides regular lecture-a-week (Pathfinder RPG was their first), they also started organizing Game Days every 2 to 3 months. This is where Croatian Pathfinder Society attracts the largest numbers of players. So far, we have hosted three such events and we see promise of even greater growth.

Another association is being established as we speak at Igranje.org. They not only have tabletop games as primary interest, but will also be able to provide completely free venue for Pathfinder Society Organized Play.

It is really amazing to watch how tabletop gaming has emerged in Croatia during the last year, and hopefully this is just the beginning.

Istrakon 2012 featured the first multiplayer session, Year of the Shadow Lodge, and was the first big convention with a strong organized play presence. With 12 tables in 2 days, it was a great success.

This year, Sferakon was the host of Eurocon 2012 on April 26–29. Being mostly a literary convention, never known for any significant gaming program, it was a great start for Pathfinder Society at the oldest Croatian convention. Most importantly, a group of Slovenian players were present all 3 days. They are more than willing to start growing Pathfinder Society in Slovenia and we're already making plans for the first Pathfinder Society event there.

The future looks bright and interest in the game keeps growing as more people are coming back to the hobby. Two new regional conventions have been announced, one in Sarajevo this summer and one in Slovenia this November, and that will be an excellent chance to start increasing Pathfinder Society outside our home base.

In the end I want to send a huge thank you to all the GMs for their hard work, to all the players who are the lifeblood of Pathfinder Society, and all the organizers who give us the support to share the hobby we all love. I want to especially thank Mike for having the faith in us and giving this weird little region a chance.

If you are in another country and do not have a Venture-Captain, but think you can do as good a job as Zrinka did above, please do not hesitate to send me a write-up about Pathfinder Society play in your area of the world and include some photos.

Mike Brock
Pathfinder Society Campaign Coordinator

Pathfinder Battles Preview: The Gross, the Bad, and the Ugly

Friday, May 4, 2012

We're getting close to having revealed all of the miniatures in the upcoming Pathfinder Battles set, Rise of the Runelords! It seems like only a few weeks ago that I started showing of sculpts and paint masters, but in fact it's been months, and as I type this the production run of miniatures is trundling through the factory. All of the paint schemes have been approved, all the decisions have been made, and now all that's left is the waiting for the early August release.

Well, the waiting and a few more previews, that is!

Two weeks ago I promised something ugly, and today I'm fulfilling that dark pledge with three figures from the murkier side of the set. These are nasty dudes you definitely don't want to run into in a dark alley, and all three of them make creepy additions to your game table.

Up first is the Ogrekin, a nasty in-bred half-ogre whose clan is the centerpiece of “The Hook Mountain Massacre,” the third chapter in the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path. With rippling muscles and a deformed (really gross) head, this bruiser wanders the wilderness looking... well, let's just say he's “looking for love,” and leave it at that. This common miniature is technically Medium-sized, but he's pushing the top-end of that scale, and makes for a really intimidating figure.

Faceless Stalkers were created in ancient times by the mysterious aboleths as interlocutors with the various air-breathing races of the surface world. Via a painful biological process, the creatures can warp and contort their form to take on the appearance of an enemy. When not pretending to be your wife or best friend, these guys run around in the gross, misshapen form revealed here. The photograph above doesn't quite show off the nasty detail of reddish ink in all of the nooks and fleshy crannies along this guy's skin (especially on his back). The Faceless Stalker is statted up in Bestiary 2, but even if you don't have that resource, this common figure doubles as any kind of hideous humanoid. Ick!

Last up today we have a friendly neighborhood initiate in the local cult of homicidal slasher maniacs, known to the denizens of Varisia as the Skinsaw Cultist! This common figure makes a nice rank-and-file cultist. His skinsaw mask and war razor root him firmly in the Pathfinder Campaign Setting, while his robes and general creepiness make him a good troop-builder for a wicked cult in any campaign.

That's it for this week. I've only got a few more sculpts to show off, but I promise that some absolutely amazing stuff is still waiting to be shown! Come back next week for another early look at Rise of the Runelords Pathfinder Battles miniatures!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Hell or High Water

by Ari Marmell

Chapter Two: Murky Waters

"I know that the Imjaka, dwelling so near those reaches, have made a greater study of these ‘scavenger gangs' than I," Seyusth continued. "That, Ameyanda, is why I come to you, though finding you proved far from simple."

This time, Ameyanda didn't bother to suppress her sigh. "All right," she said, once more hefting her pack. "Lead the way, shaman, and tell me what you know."

Seyusth spoke of his travails as they began to walk, and the huntress—so far as her exertions allowed—listened.

"It was over half a moon," he explained, "before we realized that the hunting patrol was overdue. Another moon, and more, before I could make my own apprentice ready to see to Haa-Ok's needs during my prolonged absence. And then, as I told you, almost another moon still before I finally tracked down the remains of Issisk's band."

"Remains?" If this lizard is hauling me into the Sodden Lands to retrieve a body...

"A smattering of parts, not entirely rotted into the soil. No intact bodies, and no remaining tracks. So I spoke a time with the serpents and birds and toads of the area."

"Of course. Who wouldn't?"

"It was then I learned that Issisk was led away in chains, the others slain and their bodies taken. And I learned that the attackers were not my people but humans, both living and unliving."

Ameyanda staggered to a halt, her skin breaking out in goosebumps despite the sapping heat. She swallowed hard. "Unliving? Your cousin was taken by the dead-who-walk?" She'd never faced such horrors herself, but the folklore of her people was rife with them.

"Alongside the living, yes."

She felt her lips moving in silence. Seyusth watched her, unblinking.

"Does this pose a problem for you?" he asked finally.

"A problem? I think this is a bit more severe than a ‘problem'!" Still, it was enough to stiffen her resolve. She'd almost announced that she was going back, but no.

The Imjaka repay our debts. Ameyanda would not be the one to violate that tradition, no matter what.

Especially not when that one detail—the presence of the dead-who-walk—was indeed sufficient to suggest to her which of the savenger gangs they sought.

The White Leech. Grandmother Sun, help us...

"Seyusth is a powerful shaman, but woefully ignorant regarding the Sodden Lands."

"All right, shaman. Follow me; I know who you're searching for."

They trekked beneath shrouding canopies of leaves and low-hanging lianas, over fallen logs and rotten fungi, through brambles and ferns glistening with condensation and sticky secretions. Seyusth slipped through without effort; thorns and foliage ran off him like water. Ameyanda, for all her skill, had a harder time. More than one scrape or sting brought a grunted curse, and her resentful gaze on the lizardman's back nearly set his vest to smoldering.

Embarrassment, more than pain, chafed her. It had been many years since Ameyanda had required anyone else to slow their passage through even the wildest jungle.

"You are certain this White Leech is the band we seek?" Seyusth asked.

"They're the only border scavengers who make use of the dead-who-walk. Rumor and tales have it that their chieftain, Montirro the Thrice-Blind, learned his necromancies from the Koboto people themselves."

"I had heard that the Koboto sacrifice anyone who nears their lands."

"True."

"Then how—?"

Ameyanda shrugged. "As I said, rumor and tales. But that the White Leech raises the dead is no mere tale. I know warriors who have seen it themselves."

"But can you be certain the White Leech is the only such band?" he pressed.

"As certain as you can be that Issisk still lives."

The following miles passed without further conversation.

∗∗∗

They crossed no border. No fences, no signposts; no mighty river or towering escarpment marked the transition.

The trees grew sparser, their roots and branches more crooked. Fern leaves and winding briars gave way to hanging mosses and slender reeds. The lush scent of loam and sprouting things wafted away beneath the odor of rot and stagnant pools.

The mud grew thicker, more greedy as it tugged at scaled or sandal-wrapped heels. Worse, it became vaguely caustic, just enough to cause irritation and a sanity-threatening itch.

By the time they'd passed beyond the mud flats into the swamp proper, the filthy, lukewarm water was almost a relief.

This far from the sea and the eternal hurricane dubbed the Eye of Abendego, the Sodden Lands were indeed simply a swamp, if a swamp with abnormally deep patches and river-like currents. Ameyanda knew that the further west they progressed, the worse it would become. Mires of impossible size, plague-bearing floodwaters as deep as any lake, a barrage of wind and rain so constant as to wear down the heaviest stone.

They shouldn't have to go so far—to the huntress's knowledge, the White Leech operated primarily here in the outskirts—but even this was far from pleasant.

When the shallow marsh began to develop waves high enough to slap at her chest, and a tepid, breath-like gust began to herald the promise of rain, Ameyanda pulled a face and reached out to stop her companion in his tracks. Already she had to raise her voice to be heard over the building winds.

"We're not going much farther in this without a raft of some sort," she told him, running a hand through the stubble on her scalp. It itched, and retained a surprising amount of water, but she hadn't had the opportunity to shave her head in days.

Seyusth stepped aside to haul a thick vine from a nearby cypress. "Use this to secure yourself."

"Secure myself to wh-augh!"

Ameyanda leapt backward, splashing murky water in all directions, as the shaman shifted. One moment, a lizardman; the next, over the span of seconds, his limbs drew into his body and thickened, his torso elongated, his snout lengthened. His pebbly flesh bulged in some spots, smoothed in others.

Lurking in the water, eyes and nostrils protruding menacingly, was a full-sized crocodile.

"Warn me before you do that!"

The crocodile, in a very familiar and languid expression, blinked.

"You can't speak when you've turned yourself into an animal?"

Blink.

"Oh." Ameyanda stepped forward—less gingerly than she felt—looped the vine around the reptile's chest, and climbed aboard. Not the most comfortable mount, but it must beat walking.

After hours of being tossed about by the beast's wriggling swim, her arms and legs bruised raw against its knobby hide and savaged mercilessly by vermin both above the water and below, she wasn't so sure of that anymore.

Early the following day—not that one could tell it was day, given that the pounding rains still hadn't moved on—Seyusth apparently scented or detected something. With an abrupt twitch that nearly unseated his partner, the crocodile shot through the swamps on a new course.

Ameyanda, who knew that asking him what they were doing was a waste of time and breath, instead wasted that same time and breath in a litany of curses.

A reed-covered hillock was their destination. Seyusth had barely climbed atop the rise before shifting back into his natural shape. Anyone with lesser reflexes than the huntress would have been sent sprawling.

"You have some steed etiquette to master," she groused at him. "Why—?"

"There." Black talons pushed a tuft of reeds so she could see. "Are those White Leech?"

In what amounted to a wide corridor of swamp hemmed in by cypress walls, a pair of skiffs moved sluggishly across the water. The wood of the haphazard vessels was stained with old blood—old and dry enough that the rain washed absolutely none of it away. The men aboard were clad in tatters and leather scraps, held together by everything from cowhide straps to sodden twine, and armed with roughly hammered and sharpened scrap metal. One man poled each of the skiffs, while the others argued over the choicest cuts of... something that had once drawn breath.

"Difficult to tell," Ameyanda told him, struggling to peer through the downpour. "We're in their territory, but I wouldn't know how to tell the White Leech by sight. They... No," she said with sudden certainty. "They're not White Leech."

"How do you know?"

"Because," she said, pointing at the ominous shapes suddenly looming from the corridor of trees, or rising from beneath the swamp to surround the skiffs and their frantic crew, "I'm fairly sure those are the White Leech."

They seemed no more than phantoms, obscured by the downpour. Some of the silhouettes that formed from within the trees, or from deep within the murky waters, appeared humanoid. Others were most assuredly nothing of the kind.

That the first group they'd spotted were thrown into utter panic by the arrival of the second was clear enough, but precisely who the newcomers were, or what about them was so horrifying, neither the brown-skinned huntress nor the green-scaled shaman could see.

The feeblest remnants of what might have been shouts or screams drifted through the downpour.

"We must get nearer!" Seyusth yelled in her ear.

"How wise of you, great shaman," Ameyanda retorted with bitter sarcasm. "And how do you suggest we..." But the lizardman had already dived into the choppy swamp.

"Spirit-damned lizard," she hissed at the fading ripples. He'd retained his natural shape, but even so, Ameyanda knew she couldn't match his speed in the water. Still grumbling under her breath, she hung her quiver of spears across the thickest reeds—the weapons would just float away anyway—checked that both mambeles were snug in their sheathes, and waded reluctantly into the waters.

Even over the course of only a few dozen paces, the treacherous mud, the submerged and rotting logs, and the abnormal waves conspired to constantly alter the depth of the swamp. At times she was submerged to the waist; at others, the crests of those waves passed over her head, slapping her across the face with filthy water and reeking algae. Still, she preferred to wade, though she was a strong swimmer; she wanted to keep her feet under her and her eyes at least mostly clear.

She finally clambered once more onto a solid surface—a floating tussock of sticks, moss, and mud—and spent a moment gasping for breath, coughing up water, and trying with all her might to strangle the lizardman with her eyes. "Some of us," she began, "do not swim like—"

"Look."

Whatever protests remained died in Amayanda's throat.

One of the primitive skiffs had already been overturned, partly smashed to kindling by a reptilian juggernaut of flaking scales and protruding bone. Two more crocodiles—though these two were alive—had surfaced alongside the undead monstrosity to snap at men in the water. Nearby, bobbing almost peacefully in the currents and waves, five of the dead-who-walk, naked and sloughing waterlogged flesh, advanced on the remaining raft.

Beyond those, the huntress could begin to make out the details of the larger force emerging from the tree line. A skiff of prodigious size, stained white, led the way, followed by two of more traditional girth. The men standing on those skiffs, hooting worse than the charau-ka and waving rusted blades overhead, wore leather armor clearly formed from a wide variety of creatures. Not a single greave, spaulder, or breastplate matched any other, and while some were obviously crafted from the tanned hides of swamp beasts—crocodiles and great snakes, primarily—others appeared mammalian and even, on occasion, humanoid in origin. A few of the latter still sported locks of hair, flapping wildly in the rain.

At the forefront, bellowing to shame an enraged elephant, was the most monstrous man—if man he was—Ameyanda had ever seen. Easily half again as tall as she and monstrously obese, he must have outweighed any three of the others put together. Rolls of fat, maggot-pale and glistening with rainwater, bulged from between the slapdash components of his armor. He carried a hammer, its head large enough for a halfling to have used as an anvil, waving it about with apparent ease. His head and jaw seemed subtly misshapen, but that could have been an illusion of distance, combined with his straggly, sickly hair—thinning up front, hanging to his shoulder blades behind.

That mass of flesh and his smaller allies blocked Ameyanda's sight of whoever or whatever poled the skiff from the rear, but it shot forward with startling speed, seeming to crush the waves before it. Already they were near enough to their victims for the most lithe of the White Leech warriors to leap from one raft to the other.

"We," Seyusth announced suddenly, a gleam in his golden eyes, "could certainly do with local allies. The enemy of my enemy, as your people say..."

Had Ameyanda not been so astonished, so horrified and repulsed, by the blasphemies of the White Leech—had she not still been trying to gather her breath—she might have stopped him. As it was, by the time she registered what he was doing, it was already too late.

"Seyusth! Damn it!"

The shaman rose, arms held high. The combatants might not have noticed his appearance, distracted as they were, until the first of the lightning bolts roared from the heavens.

Several of the White Leech fell to the deck of the skiff or into the ever-hungry waters, their bodies blackened. Their gelatinous mountain of a leader recoiled, one arm raised to protect his face. The skin along that arm, and across his gut, turned red, then black, but he hardly seemed to notice.

Almost immediately, every eye present scanned their surroundings and fixed on Seyusth. Though the attack had not come from him directly, nobody was stupid enough to think the stroke a coincidence.

The lizardman opened his mouth, perhaps to shout something to the men he'd meant to rescue, when the entire mass of humanity and undead—including those whom the White Leech had just been slaughtering—began shoving their rafts through the water, closing on the startled shaman.

"The scavenger gangs," Ameyanda hissed through heaving breaths, "always band together against outsiders!"

"I see..."

"Get us out of here!"

Seysuth stepped to the far side of the floating tussock, presumably to once again assume his own crocodile form and carry them beyond the reach of the slower skiffs.

The undead crocodile erupted from the swamp like a breaching whale.

The snout, a battering ram of dead scales, rotting flesh, and stained bone, slammed the shaman backward to land sprawled, half in the swamp. It spun, its jaws a gaping pit to the Abyss. The overwhelming miasma of decay, to say nothing of the sprayed droplets of liquefying muscle, nearly paralyzed the Imjaka warrior.

Nearly.

Ameyanda leapt from the quivering mass of vegetation, tucking her knees high, just barely clearing the oncoming snout. Crying aloud, she kicked down with both legs, slamming the jaws together and down into the tussock. Now crouched atop the shambling horror, she drove both mambeles deep into its flesh.

Muscle tore; bone splintered; chipped teeth flew to land scattered amidst the twigs. For a living creature, a fatal blow.

For the unliving crocodile, an inconvenience.

"Seyusth!" She stepped off the mangled snout, blades raised. "I could do with some—"

The sound of splashing water, thrashing limbs, and the impact of something on roughened flesh suggested that the shaman had his own problems.

The crocodile snapped, attempting to skewer her with the edge of a broken jaw. Ameyanda backpedaled, seeking any escape, and glanced over her shoulder just in time to see Seyusth fall.

A handful of the dead-who-walk had followed their crocodilian ally through the waters and clambered atop the floating isle. One lay, truly dead, lacerated by the shaman's spear; another had been brought down by a second lightning bolt from on high. But even as Seyusth turned to handle a third, a head broke the surface of the swamp—a humanoid head not mammalian, but reptilian.

Seyusth froze, his whole expression slack. Ameyanda could only assume he was trying to tell if the unliving thing was the missing Issisk. And in that moment of distraction, one of the White Leech leapt from the skiff—gods and spirits, how did that ponderous vessel move so swiftly?—and slammed a thick cudgel into the lizardman's skull.

A cudgel... yet he carried a serrated falchion in his other hand.

Ameyanda saw the grin of the monstrous fat man, the clubs and ropes held by his fellows, and knew they had something far worse than a quick death in mind.

Coming Next Week: Capture by the scavenger gangs in Chapter Three of "Hell or High Water."

Ari Marmell is an author and game designer, and has written extensively for Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, World of Darkness, and more. His novels include the independent dark fantasy novels The Conqueror's Shadow and The Warlord's Legacy, the young adult fantasy Thief's Covenant, and the morbidly humorous The Goblin Corps, among others. For more information, see his website at mouseferatu.com.

Illustration by Jim Pavelec.

PaizoCon 2012: Register Your PaizoCon Events!

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Are you coming to PaizoCon 2012? Want to run one or more events during the show? Attendee event submission is now open! All you need to do is copy and paste the following event questionnaire into an email sent to events@paizo.com, and we'll consider your event for the convention. Make sure to answer all questions for every event you plan to run at Paizo Con.

This event submission process is for attendee-run games; don't submit Pathfinder Society events here. Once attendee event submission has closed on May 11, we'll schedule attendee events, special Paizo-staff games, panels, and other events into a master schedule that participants will select in the standard “event lottery” fashion.

For each event you'd like to run, please provide the following information:

1. Event Name
2. Event Description (up to 200 words)
3. Category (RPG/Workshop/Panel, etc.)
4. Organizer Name (include email address as registered on paizo.com)
5. Game Master Name
6. Game/Rules/System (3.5 OGL, Pathfinder RPG, etc.)
7. Game Edition (3.5 OGL, Pathfinder RPG, etc.)
8. Will you be providing pregenerated characters? (Yes/No)
9. Age Rating (10+, 13+, 17+, etc.)
10. Game Complexity (Normal, Hard, etc.)
11. Experience Required (Novice/Veteran/Varies, etc.)
12. Are there prizes awarded? (Yes/No)

Remember, please copy and paste the above 12 questions into your email for EACH event you plan to run at PaizoCon. Send your completed attendee event descriptions to events@paizo.com. Attendee event submissions are due 5/11/12, and the full event lottery will be posted shortly. Space is limited, so not all events will be scheduled.

We look forward to another great year at PaizoCon, and attendee events are a huge part of what makes the show so exciting! Make sure you get your details in soon, and we'll see you at PaizoCon 2012!

Jeff Alvarez
Vice President of Operations

PS: Regularly scheduled Wednesday web fiction will go live tomorrow!

Advanced Race Guide Preview: Kill it With Fire!

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Everyone knows goblins have an unnatural love of fire. They love to see it flicker and burn to the sounds of their enemies' screams. While goblin adventurers, in an effort to get along with other more squeamish races, may control their pyromaniac urgings, others learn to harness that power and focus it into devastating force.

Of course, since the goblin section of the Advanced Race Guide has plenty of options for fiery destruction, an alchemist archetype focusing on fire seemed like a good fit, so this week we present you with the fire bomber. As you'll notice from this archetype, there are many more options for goblin mayhem in this book, from a host of feats to some new discoveries, but you will just have to wait until the book comes out to check those out.

Fire Bomber (Alchemist)

Fire bombers are exceptionally good at using bombs to burn creatures and blow things up, but are not quite as good at creating other types of bombs or extracts. A fire bomber has the following class features.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A fire bomber treats torches as a simple weapon.

Illustration by Andrew Hou

Fire Bombardier (Su or Ex): At 1st level, when a fire bomber throws a bomb that deals fire damage, all creatures in the splash radius take an additional point of damage per die of fire damage dealt. Fire bombers only add their Intelligence bonus to damage from bombs or alchemical substances that deal fire damage. This otherwise works like the alchemist's bomb and throw anything abilities. This ability alters bomb and throw anything.

Bonus Feats: A fire bomber can select the Burn! Burn! Burn!, Fire Tamer, or Flame Heart feat in place of a discovery.

Fiery Cocktail (Su): At 4th level, whenever a fire bomber uses a discovery that deals damage other than fire damage, he can split the damage dice evenly between the bomb's primary damage type and 1d6 points of fire damage; when there is an odd number of damage dice, the odd die of damage comes from the primary damage type. For example, an 8th-level fire bomber could throw a concussive bomb that deals 2d6 points of fire damage and 3d4 points of sonic damage. Additional effects from the bomb still apply, but the save DC for admixture bombs is reduced by 2. This replaces the alchemist's 4th-level discovery.

Fire Body (Ex): At 8th level, a fire bomber adds elemental body I to his extract list as a 3rd-level extract. Elemental body extracts prepared using fire body are limited to fire elementals only. This ability replaces poison resistance +6.

Improved Fire Body (Ex): At 10th level, fire bombers add elemental body II to their spell list as a 4th-level extract. Elemental body extracts prepared using improved fire body are limited to fire elementals only. This ability replaces poison immunity.

Greater Fire Body (Ex): At 14th level, fire bombers add elemental body IV to their spell list as a 5th-level extract. Elemental body extracts prepared using greater fire body are limited to fire elementals only. This ability replaces persistent mutagen.

Discoveries: The following discoveries complement the fire bomber archetype: fire brand, rocket bomb (see sidebar); explosive bombs, fast bombs, inferno bomb, precise bombs (Advanced Player's Guide); breath weapon bomb, explosive missile, immolation bomb (Ultimate Combat); bottled ooze, confusion bomb, strafe bomb (Ultimate Magic).

Next week, WARK!

Stephen Radney-MacFarland
Designer