Snagged from the Vault: Pathfinder RPG Bestiary

Monday, July 20, 2009

Work continues frantically as we put the final touches on the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary. In anticipation of the light at the end of this beastly tunnel, here's a host of new divine creatures preparing to come to your PCs' aid in just a few short weeks!

Art by Michael Jaecks	Art by Alex Schim
Art by Andrew Hou	Art by Kieran Yanner

F. Wesley Schneider
Managing Editor

Snagged from the Vault: Pathfinder RPG Bestiary

Monday, June 29, 2009

While the denizens of the Pit have been slavishly wrangling hundreds upon hundreds of beasts both fascinating and foul, we've managed to slip in and liberate a particularly interesting few. Now behold! We bring to you, our faithful readers, the terrible visages of four terrifying creatures, taken directly from the pages of the fabled Pathfinders' Bestiary that nears completion deep in the Vault of the Golem. Some of these creatures are obvious, yet what the others are, we cannot say. Perhaps you, dear readers, can tell us what they are?

Art by Eric Lofgren	Art by Andrew Hou
Art by Kieran Yanner	Art by Michael Jaecks

Watch close for further glimpses into the gruesome Bestiary; next time, expect fearsome creatures from the Great Beyond!

Vadid and Nahk
Preview Purloiners

Infernal Sorceress Nominated for Origins Award

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Here at Paizo we're pretty darn proud of our Planet Stories line of fiction. Reviving classic fantasy and science fiction by the likes of authors such as Leigh Brackett, Henry Kuttner, and Gary Gygax has been a labor of love for Publisher Erik Mona, Senior Editor Pierce Watters, and Editors James L. Sutter and Christopher Paul Carey. It's with great pride, then, that we announce that Gary Gygax's Infernal Sorceress has been nominated for an Origins Award! Take a look at the back cover copy:

"The underworld of the Iberian Peninsula is a dangerous place, filled with cutthroats and swindlers, and no pair is more infamous than the gaunt man known as Ferret and the broad-shouldered mercenary Raker. Yet when the swashbuckling comrades are framed for the one crime they didn't commit, the scoundrels are faced with a choice: bring the true culprits to justice, or dance a gallows jig. In order to do so, they'll need to pull out all their tricks, stretching magic and muscle to their limit as they invade castles, battle subterranean monsters, and bluff their way through courts of nobles and shape-shifters in their search for revenge. Yet can even this canny, ruthless duo prevail against the beautiful witch that plots their downfall?"

Gary's writing style was certainly unique, and for those interested in his influence on the modern English lexicon, this article by Stephen Chrisomalis is worth checking out. Among other things, the article discusses how he popularized the little-used words eldritch and psionic, and effectively created the word dweomer whole cloth. Well worth the read!

David Eitelbach
Editorial Intern

All Aboard for Absalom!

Monday, December 15, 2008

Earlier this week, we got in our first bound copy of Guide to Absalom. In the hectic "GO GO GO!" mentality that is the Editorial Pit, we're often surprised when books we send out do what comes natural and show up in completed print form back at the office. It sounds funny, perhaps, but that's the way it is in crazy Paizo-land!

Anyway, the book reminded me that we actually haven't shown off that much art from Guide to Absalom. This blog rectifies that! Behold, one of the First Guards of Absalom by artist Andrew Hou, and a nice view of the Starstone Cathedral by Ben Wootten.

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

The Two Faces of Kyonin

Friday, October 10, 2008

In Pathfinder #17, the PCs visit the elven homeland of Kyonin. We'll be providing a gazetteer of this nation for GMs to use to expand adventures set in this verdant kingdom. As you can see by the two pictures here by Andrew Hou, though, Kyonin isn't just an idyllic sylvan setting with beautiful elven villages—there's a dark side to Kyonin as well. The fiend-haunted forest of Tanglebriar, empire of the demon Treerazer (that's his palace Witchbole shown in the not-so-friendly illustration), lies deep within the kingdom's borders, providing a constant source of high-level adventure opportunity for the brave and foolhardy.

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

How good? Hou good!

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

While we haven't completely finished the cover for Michael Moorcock's Lord of the Spiders, the sequel to City of the Beast, we wanted to jump the gun a bit and show off this great new painting from Planet Stories' go-to artistic visionary Andrew Hou. His cover for our first Moorcock book is one of my favorites, and I'm excited to see such a fitting successor!

Michael Moorcock is a living legend, one of the writers who helped define sword sorcery fantasy (heck, he created the term "multiverse"), and I'm glad that in republishing his work, we're able to do it the sort of justice it deserves.

James Sutter
Editor, Planet Stories

City of the Beast

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

As the second book to be released by Planet Stories, City of the Beast couldn't be more perfect for the line. First off, you've got Michael Moorcock, arguably one of the most important sword and sorcery authors of all time, the man who created the original fantasy anti-hero, Elric of Melniboné, and popularized such concepts as the "multiverse." Now add in the fact that City of the Beast, the first in Moorcock's Kane of Old Mars trilogy, sends this aspect of his Eternal Champion to the red planet in an epic homage to Edgar Rice Burroughs, and you've got the makings of an epic sword and planet romp.

In City of the Beast, an accident in a high-security government lab sends top physicist and expert fencer Michael Kane hurtling through space and time to a Mars of millions of years ago, in an age when the planet was still rife with life. There he meets the beautiful princess Shizala, as well as the merciless blue giants who besiege her home. Using the sword training of his youth and a tactical mind earned in the jungles of Vietnam, Michael Kane bolsters the city's defense against the barbarians, earning the respect of the locals with his quick wit and wrist. But when Shizala is betrayed by one of her own and kidnapped by the giants, Earthman Michael Kane must set out across a hostile planet in order to bring her home.

With fantastic cover art by Andrew Hou and an introduction by Kim Mohan, former editor of Amazing Stories, City of the Beast is a work of love by a master of the field. Watch for it here and in stores everywhere this September.

James Sutter
Editor, Planet Stories

Points Unknown

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Since we just got in some great rough sketches of notable Varisian landmarks courtesy of Andrew Hou, we thought we'd introduce you to some of Varisia's more infamous adventure sites. Presented below are but a few—look forward to more in the upcoming Rise of the Runelords Player's Guide.

Bloodsworn Vale: A fey-haunted pass to southern lands which played an integral role in Varisia's break with the crumbling empire of Cheliax.

Celwynvian: The doom-haunted capital of the Mierani elves, abandoned by its people.

The Face Pyramid: A great, timeless stone edifice rising forth from the Mushfen's murk.

Hook Mountain: A peak of dark repute, bent to resemble a colossal hook and the ancestral home of several tribes of inbred, brutish ogres.

The Mobhad Leigh: A vast and deep pit, which the Shoanti say has no bottom.

Riddleport: A depraved and lawless city whose ancient harbor bears a massive, rune-carved arch.

The Storval Stairs: Titanic steps cut into the face of the Storval Rise, the cliff face separating the lower half of Varisia from the eastern plateau.

Viperwall: The Citadel of Snakes, its walls of carved serpents endlessly leaking a venomous gas.

Kaer Maga: A city built inside the ruins of a single great structure of unknown function, perched atop the Storval Rise and renowned for its anarchic population of squatters and outlaws.

Wesley Schneider
Associate Editor, Pathfinder

And Hou!

Friday, May 25, 2007

While Wayne Reynolds has been getting a lot of press for his Pathfinder covers (and rightly so!), I'd like to stop for a minute and call out one of the other exemplary artists that Paizo will be featuring heavily in the year to come.

Though so far we've only given you a tiny taste with the Sandpoint mayor headshot from Monday's blog post, artist Andrew Hou will be playing a key role in the visual development of Pathfinder. While you probably know him best from his work in Dragon and Dungeon, Andrew will also be signing on as one of the lead interior artists in charge of making Pathfinder one of the most visually stunning products Paizo's ever produced. In addition, he's also just finished work on several covers for the Planet Stories novel line, coming through with a perfect blend of nostalgia and modernity that captures the essence of the books' original covers while still making them pop from the shelves—to see what I mean, just look at the blue giant piece, which is currently slated to grace the cover of Michael Moorcock's City of the Beast.

We hope you're as excited to have Andrew on board as we are, and expect to see plenty of his new Pathfinder art previewed here in the weeks to come.

James Sutter
Assistant Editor, Pathfinder

Founded on Murder!

Monday, May 21, 2007

The foundation of a new town is not a matter to be taken lightly, nor one to be funded by one soul. Four powerful families from the city of Magnimar had designs on settling a region 50 miles to the northeast, and rather than work against each other, they consolidated their efforts and formed the Sandpoint Mercantile League. These four families, the Ameikos (glassmakers and jewelers), the Valdemars (shipbuilders and carpenters), the Scarnettis (loggers and millers), and the Deverins (farmers and brewers), sailed north to claim their land after securing the rights from the Magnimar Charterhouse. Yet when they arrived, they found the place already settled by a particularly large tribe of Varisians, who held the region as a traditional place to spend the winter.

Unwilling to change course, the Sandpoint Mercantile League began a series of talks with the Varisians, promising them an important place in the new township. Unfortunately, after a week of talks seemed to go nowhere, an impatient man named Alamon Scarnetti took matters into his own hands. Rounding up a group of his brothers and cousins, the Scarnettis mounted a murderous raid on the Varisian camp, intending to kill them all and leave evidence implicating local goblins for the deed. Yet the Scarnettis, too drunk and overconfident, only managed to kill five Varisians before they were themselves forced to flee, leaving behind three of their own. The incident caused a several-month delay, but eventually amends were made and the town of Sandpoint was born.

Despite these violent first months, in the forty-odd years since Sandpoint was founded, things have been rather calm and quiet. The late unpleasantness, involving Chopper's murderous spree and followed closely by the Sandpoint Fire, constitute the worst thing that's happened to the town. Yet Sandpoint's current mayor, Kendra Deverin (female human aristocrat 3/expert 4), can't shake the feeling that the unpleasantness was but a preamble, and that dark times indeed are coming to her home town.

The excellent headshot accompanying this post is one of several Andrew Hou's worked up for Pathfinder—Kendra Deverin herself. Kendra has served as Sandpoint's mayor for the past five years. Lawmaker, judge, and general peacemaker, she has proven to be both an adept diplomat and stern hand when need be, both skills honed during her youth in Magnimar. With a personal—some say sisterly—style of governing, most of Sandpoint's citizens hold deep respect for their fiery-haired mayor.

James Jacobs
Editor-in-Chief, Pathfinder