All Hail Mobogo!

Monday, June 9, 2008

Pathfinder #12 is off to the printer, and with it a block of four more new monsters! Of those four, three have roles to play in this volume's adventure, "Crown of Fangs." So to avoid spoilers, let's check out the fourth one—the dread mobogo! We first mentioned these immense frog-like monsters way back in Pathfinder #2 in the boggard entry, and I knew then that sooner or later we'd be seeing these monstrous lords of the swamp. Check him out! Doesn't he look happy to be here?

Mobogos reside in the most primal swamps of Golarion, grotesque eldritch wildernesses unchanged for centuries. The crude religion of boggard-kind says that when the massive goddess Gogunta deposited her frogspawn in the muddy morass of Golarion's still-forming continents, the mobogo were among the first creatures to emerge. Ever since, these Swamp Kings have slept and fed, preying upon the beasts of their fetid meres, growing huge and lethargic, dreaming inscrutable amphibious dreams of their godly mother's return.

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Visiting Belkzen

Monday, June 2, 2008

In Pathfinder #11, we journey into the hostile, orc-infested Hold of Belkzen. While the adventure “Skeletons of Scarwall” itself is primarily limited to one single ruin in this savage land, we also have a gazetteer of the Hold in case you want to do some sightseeing along the way. All manner of surprises and dangers await discovery therein—check out the following two sample locations excerpted from the article as examples!

The Brimstone Haruspex: Though highly independent, even proud orc chieftains sometimes seek advice. When this happens, most warlords send their seconds-in-command to the Brimstone Haruspex, the temple complex high in the caldera of a smoking volcano. Here a group of ancient and inbred orc monks offer guidance in exchange for massive tribute. In addition to maintaining the only supposedly complete record of orc history—a lengthy series of cave paintings stretching all the way back to the orcs’ initial emergence—the monks are also oracles, breathing in the vapors from the active fumaroles in order to spin weird and bloody prophecies. Unfortunately, the fumes that give them their insights are highly caustic, permanently scarring their faces and lungs. It is for this reason that most leaders choose to send their seconds-incommand with questions, as the cruel and prudent priests frequently opt to dangle petitioners in the sulfurous pits to gain the revelations firsthand.

The Skittermounds: These tall, sandy mounds stretch for miles across the foothills of the Mindspin Mountains, and are avoided by all but the truly desperate, as they represent the openings to a vast and complex series of ankheg nests. For the most part, the warring ankheg armies are content to battle each other in their leagues of underground tunnels, noticeable to those above only as a low buzzing, though foolhardy travelers might occasionally witness a colony raising a new mound entrance with frightening speed and efficiency. Every few years, however, runoff from intense storms in the mountains floods the plain, causing the colonies to erupt from their holes by the thousands and press eastward, consuming all in their path.

Sech Nevali: Also called the Hanging Monastery, Sech Nevali is a relic from Thassilonian times, a vast stone temple complex suspended over a mile-deep chasm by immense chains running between three high mountain peaks. Originally dedicated to the Peacock Spirit, the monastery is now inhabited by an order of secretive, isolationist monks who believe (correctly) that not even orcs would brave the most treacherous mountains in Belkzen in order to disturb their solitude. Yet what their ultimate purpose could be in such a remote and inhospitable place remains a mystery beyond Sech Nevali’s swaying walls.

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Pathfinder 11 Art Preview

Friday, May 23, 2008

Pathfinder #11, "Skeletons of Scarwall" presents the 5th exciting chapter in the Curse of the Crimson Throne adventure path. Here's a sneak peek at some of the incredible art you'll see when it releases next month!

Mike McArtor
Editor

The Korvosan Cards

Thursday, May 22, 2008

One of the highlights of working in a gaming company with product lines as closely related as Paizo's is to see an idea you presented in one product show up in another. In fact, even though James Jacobs is systematically destroying the city I lovingly and painstakingly crafted in Guide to Korvosa, it is immensely satisfying to see features of Korvosa I created presented in our flagship product. Along those same lines, two of the excellent cards in the Curse of the Crimson Throne Item Card set come directly from Guide to Korvosa.

First up is the coin card. This card presents a gold sail as minted in the Golden Vaults of Abadar. Of course, the coin is generic enough that you can use it for coinage from any governmental entity that produces its own numismatics.

The other card shown here is a badge of the Korvosan Guard, the main branch of Korvosa's armed forces. Like the coin card, though, the symbol is sufficiently generic enough to allow you to use it for whatever you want.

Check out these and 52 other awesome pieces of art in the upcoming Curse of the Crimson Throne Item Card set, set to release on June 11th!

Mike McArtor
Editor

Meet The Artists: Concept Art House

Monday, May 19, 2008

So, it struck me that we haven't spent much time on this blog talking about art. We've shown off plenty of it, but remember, it all has to come from somewhere! Sometimes we go to specific artists to get illustrations for Pathfinder products, but we also work with several studios of artists as well. One of our favorites to work with is Concept Art House.

Concept Art House is an international art studio/outsourcing company whose clients include the film industry, video games, print media, and entertainment related intellectual properties—like Pathfinder. The core founders have over 20 years of industry experience, and while they're headquartered in San Francisco, California, they also have a full production studio in Shanghai, China. You'll be seeing plenty of their work in the pages of Pathfinder products (such as the two illustrations featured with this post), but if you'd like to see more, head on over to their art galleries at www.conceptarthouse.com. Trust me, it's worth the visit!

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

His and Hers Full Plate

Thursday, May 15th, 2008

Well, not exactly, but the lovely armor worn by Queen Ileosa's Gray Maidens—from the Curse of the Crimson Throne adventure path, and thus the Curse of the Crimson Throne Item Card deck—is for women only. Make no mistake, though: you do NOT want to mess with them, no matter how good their armor looks.

On the even less subtle side, the Hellknight Order of the Nail stomps around Korvosa in their less stylish but far more intimidating apparel. As befits an organization with "Hell" in its name, the Hellknights dress to inspire fear and wonder in those who meet or oppose them. Unlike the Gray Maidens, though, the Hellknights are open to people of both genders.

Check out these and 52 other awesome pieces of art in the upcoming Pathfinder Item Cards: Curse of the Crimson Throne Deck.

Mike McArtor
Editor

The Cinderlander

Monday, May 12, 2008

In "A History of Ashes," you'll be introduced to a wide cast of misfits, troublemakers, heroes, anti-heroes, and outright villains. The complicated part? For many of these NPCs, which of those roles they'll end up playing will depend on how the PCs interact with them. One such character is the mysterious Cinderlander, a man whose family was slaughtered by the Shoanti, leaving him with nothing but a burning need for vengeance. He abandoned his former life and walked into the Cinderlands, where he became a figure of legend—many Shoanti believing that the Cinderlander can't be a living man, but rather a spirit of wrath fueled by men slain during these raids into the southern lowlands.

After years of hunting and killing Shoanti, the Cinderlander gradually achieved two cynical epiphanies—first, no matter how many Shoanti he killed in his lifetime, there would always be more; and second, that the Shoanti were already a doomed culture, gradually being crushed between civilization to the south and more brutal orcs to the north. His righteous fury largely exhausted, the Cinderlander now rents himself out as a guide for those who seek to cross the Cinderlands in safety, facilitating the inland travel of southerners. He secretly resents the paradox that over the years he has gradually become far more like the Shoanti he hunts than the Chelaxian heritage he thought he was defending, yet he knows little else.

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Peer into Pathfinder #10

Friday, May 9, 2008

Take a look with me into the future as art from Pathfinder #10—Curse of the Crimson Throne: "A History of Ashes".

Jacob Burgess
Online Retail Coordinator

People of the Cinderlands

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

As inhospitable as the burning plains of the Storval Plateau are, several species actively seek to claw a life from the hard clay and lifeless ash.

Gargoyles: Bands of savage gargoyles have long made their home on the Storval Plateau. In the Cinderlands particularly, the ashen and brick-colored gargoyles of the Ashwing tribe soar from aerie to aerie, snatching up whatever meals they can and taking wing when the fires of the land grow too near.

Orcs: Raiders from the Hold of Belkzen and brutes from Urglin frequently prey upon the same animals as the native Shoanti, and upon the Shoanti themselves. Fearful of the deadly land, they rarely linger for long, yet it's not uncommon to fine the charred remains of orcs who were unable to outrun an emberstorm.

Shoanti: The Shoanti tribes of the Sklar-Quah wander the Cinderlands, preying upon the lands' deadly predators and following migrating aurochs. The flames of the land have long held a place in the faith and traditions of these warlike barbarians, most noticably in the fearless charges of the burn riders and in the rite of passage all quah members must face: the Burn Run (see "People of the Storval Plateau" and the Pathfinder's Journal in Pathfinder #7).

Varisians: The wandering cousins of the Shoanti occasionally make their way through the Cinderlands, always either on their way somewhere else, or just to say they've been.

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Quarantine!

Friday, April 11, 2008

Queen Ileosa quarantines Old Korvosa! Bridges destroyed! People separated from their families! The shipments of supplies grind to a halt! Chaos ensues! Check out the great art that tracks the quarantine of Old Korvosa, from Pathfinder #9.

Mike McArtor
Editor

Who's up for a game of BLOOD PIG?

Monday, April 7, 2008

We've introduced several Varisian pastimes in the pages of Pathfinder, ranging from the goblin favorite of Killgull to the dockside fun of Knivesies. Well, in Pathfinder #9 we've got a new game for your characters to play: Blood Pig!

The basic idea of Blood Pig is pretty simple. Two teams face off against each other. Each team controls a goal and a pig. The object of the game is to get the other team's pig, then run it back across the field to place the pig in your goal. Of course, things are a bit more complicated than that, especially when the other team consists of a gang of crazed maniacs, the pig's a panicked squirming menace, and there are starving wolverines lurking in the pits that serve each team as a goal. And since the game itself was designed by one of Korvosa's more unstable and insane new crimelords, well, let's just say that a game that passes without a fair amount of bloodshed is something of a fluke. The rules, such as they are, certainly encourage violent tactics...

But don't let that scare you! After all, by this time your PCs will have faced riots and undead and all manner of peril, right? How much trouble could a pig really cause?

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Curse of the Crimson Item Cards

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

With the Curse of the Crimson Throne Adventure Path underway in the pages of Pathfinder, we have recently sent off the Curse of the Crimson Throne Item Cards to the printer. This set includes a wide variety of the items you might encounter while taking the fight to the foes of Korvosa. Inside you will find such gems as totem spear, the doctor's mask, and the mysterious harrow deck. Need more proof that this is shaping up to be a great set, take a look at these cards. The Curse of the Crimson Throne Item Card deck consists of 54 cards and is compatible with any fantasy roleplaying game (such as the Pathfinder RPG). This deck is due to hit stores in May.

Jason Bulmahn
Pathfinder Lead Designer

Imps and Pseudodragons

Monday, March 24, 2008

While Mike was working on the Guide to Korvosa, he and I brainstormed ideas for what kind of perils might be dwelling in the Shingles. We'd both seen plenty of monster-infested city undergrounds, but we wanted something more with Korvosa; we wanted a monster-infested rooftop. Sort of. We didn't want things like dire bats or manticores stomping around up there—whatever ended up in the Shingles had to be relatively small and agile. Nick Logue's adventure already had a pseudodragon in it, and I liked the idea that these little dragons were perhaps native to the region and adapted to the rooftops as the city took over the landscape. And Mike had all these rogue, castaway imps flapping around. From there, the image of periodic imp-on-pseudodragon sky clashes popped into my head—it was too awesome an image to resist, and so the imp and pseudodragon battles became a part of the city's flavor.

This wasn't really meant to be much more than flavor; just something that makes Korvosa unique. But we got a little carried away, and suddenly two huge pictures in the book were of this supposedly rare event. With the extra weight lent by the illustrations, the imp and dragon clashes became THE iconic Korvosan event. Problem is, of course, that the game rules get in the way of this flavor. Pseudodragons can't actually hurt imps, so logically speaking, such huge battles should only ever happen once and after that, it's all imps all the time, right?

Not really. If you want more rules to back up how these battles work out, it's a relatively simple thing to come up with variants and additions for both sides to even things up a bit. Of course, you can just fake it, saying that with enough pseudodragons piled onto you, no amount of damage reduction will really help. Alternately, you can rule that Korvosa's imps have lived on the Material Plane so long that they're now considered native outsiders and have lost their fast healing and damage reduction as a result.

My preference? The Impslayer feat! Give it to all your Korvosan pseudodragons as a bonus feat, and watch the imp ichor fly!

New Feat: Impslayer

Many of Korvosa's nobles decorate their roofs with tiny amounts of precious metals, among them silver-lined weather vanes, shingles, and gutters designed to catch the sunlight to give their homes a distinctive sparkle in the sunlight. By spending years sharpening stings and teeth against these silver-enhanced decorations, or sneaking drinks of holy water from outdoor fonts at various temples, some pseudodragons have effectively transformed themselves into deadly weapons against the city's imps.

Prerequisites: Pseudodragon

Benefit:Your natural weapons bypass an imp's damage reduction. In addition, your great skill at fighting imps allows you to apply your Dexterity modifier to damage done with natural weapons rather than your Strength modifier, as your blows are delivered with great precision rather than force.

Special: Pseudodragons born and raised in Korvosa's Shingles gain this feat as a bonus feat.

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

A Harrowing Experience

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

From the journal of Mike Selinker, the first harrower:

The story of Harrow starts as all good stories do, with Erik Mona and a portent of doom. "You, Master Selinker," he foreshadowed, "are being hunted by a undaunted band of brothers. A band that cannot be daunted by the mightiest of daunters. I speak, perforce, of the strapping young men of Pathfinder. They are coming for you."

I sought an exit, but these are Pathfinders, you see. They can find anyone, and since I am anyone, they found me. From me they demanded a boon: a tarot deck they could call their very own. Messrs. James and James and Jason and F. Wesley believed that the world thirsted for such a deck. I was the humble peddler of games that could slake this thirst.

"Sa-ha!" I vocalized to all who would hear, "I shall call this deck 'Harrow,' as it speaks of travels through the inferno, and it rhymes with 'Tarot.' And I shall not be alone in this undertaking! If I am to walk this road, I will have a mighty illustrator to illuminate my path." This depicter of souls would be Kyle Stanley Hunter, he who could pluck from the darker planes the disturbing images that would force legions of gamers into hiding betwixt carpet and bed.

"I need one card," I posited to Mr. Stanley Hunter, and his expression of relief was palpable, and just as fleeting when I continued: "One card for each of fifty-four intersections of alignments and abilities laid upon an imperceptible grid. This is what I command. But what shall they be?"

"There may be a prince of rabbits," Kyle pronounced, "and a cricket with a melon, and a queen with six legs, and...." I left him to his prattle, and hearkened for a woman who could detail our method of beckoning that would strip the truth from the past, the present, and the future. This woman was the oddly-named Teeuwynn Woodruff, an oracle of (Phila-)Delphi(-a). "Tell me of my future," I beseeched Mistress Teeuwynn, "the future which involves you writing most of this rulebook."

She set her laptop to such a divinatory task, and I returned to Squire Bulmahn, he of the boisterous laugh and unbending stomach. "From you I do exact a concept for a cutthroat gambling game," I invoked. He had been warned of his destiny. "There shall be towers," he declaimed. "Oh, yes, there shall be towers."

Could there be a pair of stalwarts to weave all this together, I conjectured? There could. We would enlist yet another Mike (McArtor) and still a third James (Davis) in the editing and graphic design of this most epic of decks. From hither and from yon, they weaved.

Now it was done. The past, present, and future were divined. All that remained was the ritual sharing of the stomach-turning soda pops, and the recounting of the glories, and the filling of the requisite 500-word count. Which is now complete.

I mean, now.

Mike Selinker
Titanic Games Designer

Three Times the Evil

Monday, March 10, 2008

We've always kind of known what role devils and demons play in the game. In Pathfinder we'll be using the classic categories for the evil outsiders. Lawful evil outsiders are devils—these are the monsters interested in corrupting and destroying the mind. They infect faith, politics, and scholastic pursuits, and strive to turn mortals into traitors and heretics against their own nature. Chaotic evil outsiders are demons—creatures of primal destruction and ruin who have existed as long as life itself. They seek to destroy and savage the world, forces of entropy that exist to bring about the end of the world itself.

But that's just 2/3 of the equation. But what about the neutral evil fiends? They always seem to get left behind. Once you have groups out to corrupt the mind and corrupt the body... what else is left? In "Seven Days to the Grave", we've got the first new daemon to grace the Pathfinder Bestiary, the diseased leukodaemon (pictured here). We also reveal a bit more about the role of fiends in the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting.

For our neutral evil fiends, the daemons, they are embodiments of death. They care little about the physical world or pleasures and torments of the flesh, nor are they particularly interested in corrupting mortal life to serve their needs or to betray its kin. Daemons have perhaps the simplest desire—to feed on the soul. In many ways, the daemons are perhaps the most dangerous of the three, since you can continue to live even if your body and mind are broken after the demons and devils are done with you. When a daemon is done with you... you're just dead.

Actually, maybe that makes the daemons the most humane of the three fiends. At least they don't torment you as much.

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Sneak Peek: Escape from Old Korvosa

Friday, March 7, 2008

Enjoy this art sneak peek of a NPC in Pathfinder #9 — "Escape from Old Korvosa". That's one lucky kitty.

Carolyn Mull
Paizo Sales & Marketing Assistant

Bring Out Your Dead!

Monday, February 25, 2008

In Pathfinder #8, we explore what happens to a typical fantasy city when the plague comes to town. The plague in "Seven Days to the Grave" is called blood veil, but it's primary inspiration is, of course, the bubonic plague—the Black Death. To supplement this volume's adventure, we present an article that discusses all sorts of diseases, plagues, how epidemics work, and what can be done to combat them. Rules for several diseases beyond those listed in the core rules are presented as well, most of them based on real-world diseases. Check out the entry for the aforementioned bubonic plague as an example.

Bubonic Plague: Infected vermin and parasites spread this disease, also known as Daemon's Touch or the Black Death, through their bites. Once contracted, the disease spreads quickly, polluting the victim's body with toxins. When it reaches the lymph nodes, the victim suffers extreme inflammation of glands, and his skin might take on a black pallor. Symptoms include fever, headaches, nausea, fatigue, and swelling of the lymph nodes (called buboes) on the neck, underarms, and inner thigh areas, and eventually bleeding beneath the skin. A victim who takes any Constitution damage from the disease must immediately make a successful Fortitude save or become fatigued until all his Constitution damage is healed. Each time a victim takes 2 points of Constitution damage from Black Death, he also takes 1 point of Charisma damage.

With symptoms like that, is it any wonder that artists did their best to anthropomorphize the disease back in the days of the Black Death? Sort of like what's going on here, with a maiden, a chipmunk, and a skeleton prancing around a stump? (That chipmunk takes the picture to an entire new level, if you ask me... especially since he's probably FULL of bubonic plague!)

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

The Doctor is In

Monday, February 18, 2008

How sick would you have to be before you'd drink the tonic this man is offering you?

In Pathfinder #8's "Seven Days to the Grave," your characters get to find out. The cheery chap pictured here is one of the Queen's Physicians, part of Queen Ileosa's official response to the plague that strikes Korvosa in the second installment of the Curse of the Crimson Throne Adventure Path. Of course, we can't take full credit for the costume design for this guy—it's more or less whole-cloth from the actual plague doctor suits worn in medieval times during the black death. Think of it as an early haz-mat suit. Unfortunately for the real-world doctors who wore these suits, they did relatively little to protect them from infection. Sure makes them look creepy, though!

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Free Player's Guide!

Friday, February 15, 2008

In a few short weeks, we'll begin shipping the first part of Pathfinder's second Adventure Path—Curse of the Crimson Throne. As with Rise of the Runelords, we've created a 16-page Player's Guide to help you not only build your characters for the new campaign, but also to help introduce you to the city of Korvosa, where the majority of Curse of the Crimson Throne takes place.

And as in the case of the Rise of the Runelords Player's Guide, the Curse of the Crimson Throne Player's Guide is free as a PDF. Even better? You can download it right now! (7.6MB zip PDF)

This 16-page product is packed with all sorts of flavor and crunch. An overview of the city of Korvosa, the largest city in Varisia, starts things off, including notes on the various districts and the important NPCs your characters might rub shoulders with. Notes on how all the core races and classes are represented in Korvosa come next, followed by some new equipment, weapons, and armor (some of which first appeared in the Runelords Player's guide, but others, like the sawtooth sabre, the doctor's mask, or the xxx, are brand new!). Several new feats are sprinkled throguhout the PDF as well (including one that gives fans of the crossbow some badly needed attention). The last few pages present several different background traits you can select for your new character to give him a instant "in" into Curse of the Crimson Throne's first adventure, "Edge of Anarchy." Oh, and the Golarion calendar is finally in print here as well—no more sifting back through blog posts to find out what day of the week and what month it is!

So go download your free Player's Guide, break out the six-sided dice, and start rolling up some stats! Korvosa's going to need all the heroes she can get before this Adventure Path comes to its concludsion!

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Sneak Peek: Seven Days to the Grave

Friday, February 15th, 2008

Enjoy this interior art from Curse of the Crimson Throne Chapter 2: "Seven Days to the Grave." Just don't breathe too deep...

Carolyn Mull
Paizo Sales & Marketing Assistant

Forging a Connection

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

The 54 cards of the Harrow do not only portend sunderings and strife. Indeed, the cards can also express creation and unity.

The Forge, for example, represents strength through great diversity. It is a test, and those who pass the test are the stronger for it. The Marriage is a union—of people, of countries, or even of ideas and thoughts. Mergers portended by The Marriage cannot be parted.

Note how both the Forge's hammer and the Marriage's crown are positioned in the middle of the left-hand-side of their respective cards. As hinted at in the past, the alignment of each icon and the icons themselves all mean something specific for the cards. Where the position of its icon determines the card's overall demeanor, the icon itself keeps score of an ability the card represents.

Harrow releases in only a few weeks. When it does, I foresee in your future years of enjoyment.

Mike McArtor
GameMastery Editor

The Chase is On!

Monday, February 11, 2008

One of the problems I've seen with most game systems is the necessity of nailing down and quantifying a creature's speed. While this is certainly an important value, especially when combat begins, it carries with it an unfortunate implication—you're either always faster or slower or equally quick when compared to anything else. In other words... chase scenes are big problems in RPGs, since those static Speed statistics imply that you're either guaranteed to catch a slower foe or that you'll NEVER catch a faster foe or a foe that's as fast as you. Which is a shame, since chases have such promise to be exciting encounters (as anyone who's seen The French Connection, Raiders of the Lost Ark, or any of the Bourne movies can attest.)

Countless game designers have come up with different ways to simulate chase scenes in RPGs over the years—some of their solutions are quick and elegant, while others are needlessly complex and dull. In my opinion, chase rules should be fast and simple and exciting, and when I realized there's a scene in Nicolas Logue's "Edge of Anarchy" that had an exciting chase across the rooftop slums of Korvosa (a region called "The Shingles" by the locals), I knew that here was a chance for me to take a stab at coming up with some chase rules of my own.

Alas, I don't have room to go into the details here, but the basic concept is this: the region in which the chase takes place is represented by several pieces of paper on which are listed skill checks to navigate obstacles. A character can opt to just move one piece of paper a turn, or can utilize several different skill checks to move two or three pieces in a turn, thus risking a fall or other delay in order to close the gap between himself and his quarry. It makes for an even more abstract simulation than combat, sure, but in the end, the haste in which it all plays out goes a long way toward establishing the high-speed thrill of a chase through dangerous terrain. The last thing you want during a chase, after all, are bored players!

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Sneak Peek: Edge of Anarchy

Friday, February 8, 2008

Sneak a quick look at the mayhem that has transformed the usually peaceful streets and seas of Korvosa!

Carolyn Mull
Paizo Sales & Marketing Assistant

Beware the Ravages of the Cyclone!

Wednesday, February 6th, 2008

The 54 cards of the Harrow do not tell you what you want to hear. No no. They tell you what was, what is, and what will be. Sometimes, a card comes up in your reading you do not want to see.

One of the cards nobody wants is the dreaded Cyclone. This dire card expresses destruction and cataclysm. Worse yet, it symbolizes disaster wrought by thinking minds, and not the oft-random tragedies wrought by Nature.

All is not lost, however, when the Cyclone appears in your reading. At times, when it appears in specific places of the spread, this card of chaos and evil actually signifies renewal and rebirth after a blustery, trying ordeal. You must still endure suffering and tragedy, for the Cyclone never portends good tidings, but you shall survive the challenge put before you.

What other dark omens await you in the Harrow deck? Only time will tell...

Mike McArtor
GameMastery Editor

Introducing Gaedren Lamm

Monday, February 4, 2008

See that wretched fellow over there? The creepy old man with the ratty clothes and the pet alligator? That would be Gaedren Lamm, one of the first villains your PCs will be facing in the new Pathfinder Adventure Path, Curse of the Crimson Throne. One part criminal mastermind (like Fagin from Oliver Twist), one part feeble but bitter and evil old man (like Mr. Burns from the Simpsons), and one part classic RPG guild master of thieves, Gaedren Lamm is more than just a simple end-boss of a dungeon. He's the reason your new PCs became adventurers in the first place.

In the Curse of the Crimson Throne Player's Guide, we introduce several background traits that each player can look through, selecting one to apply to his character's history. Although each background trait gives you a small bonus to your character (something on par with about half the power of a feat... a +1 bonus to a particular saving throw, for example), they also give you something more: a built-in reason to hate Gaedren Lamm. Perhaps he murdered your father. Maybe he kidnapped your cousin. Or perhaps you grew up as one of his orphan pickpockets, and experienced a childhood of physical abuse and pain. Whatever your choice, you'll have a reason at the start of the campaign to side up with the other PCs—all of you will share a hatred for this despicable old villain. And when a mysterious figure gathers you together with news of where Gaedren Lamm's hideout actually is, how the criminal pays for his crimes will be up to your group.

Just make sure to watch out for his alligator.

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

All Hail the Rabbit Prince!

Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008

Within the 54 cards of the Harrow deck live your past, your present, and your future. Like you, each card is unique and has its own story to tell.

Take, for example, the Rabbit Prince. He tells stories of battle. Glorious, bloody, horrific battle, with opponents facing off in chaotic melees doing all they can to kill one another with sword and spear and axe. The Rabbit Prince relishes hand-to-hand combat and, like it, he is both quick and capricious.

Let's take a quick look at the card itself. The broken sword indicates the singular purpose of battle: to destroy. Anyone who engages in combat—regardless of courage, experience, or skill—can be maimed or killed. As a member of royalty, the prince himself can represent young aristocrats, whether royal or noble. And what meaning has the key? Does its placement on the card affect its importance?

Well, there are some things one must wait to discover. For while the Harrow knows all, it is not necessarily quick to share its knowledge...

Mike McArtor
Editor

Sneak Peek: Curse of the Crimson Throne

Friday, January 4, 2008

Pathfinder #7 kicks off the Curse of the Crimson Throne Adventure Path. Here is a sneak peek of the interior art.

Carolyn Mull
Paizo Sales & Marketing Assistant

Harrowing Divinations

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

It's not every day you get a chance to create a means of time travel. Some might argue that divination isn't really time travel, but the way I envision it, a harrower—one gifted in the use of the Harrow deck—uses her deck of 54 cards to travel the paths of time, catching glimpses of the past, present, and future along the way.

With this in mind, I had to imagine myself as a harrower. Each card must be defined broadly enough to cover a number of situations, yet narrowly enough for those conducting harrowings—and those running adventures—to get some real information. Once some of Kyle's evocative art began to come in, I tweaked the cards' meanings to enhance their connection to that art.

The divinatory system itself needed to be easy to run, create the proper mystical mood, and fit into the roleplaying milieu. We gave every card a symbol of one of the six abilities in a position of one of the nine alignments; for example, The Unicorn is a chaotic good Charisma card, as shown by the crown in the upper right corner. The harrower lays the cards in a three-by-three divinatory grid matching time (past, present, and future) to the Law/Chaos alignment axis. After all, the past (represented by Law) is most fixed and difficult (although not impossible) to change, while the future (represented by Chaos) is infinitely changeable. Similarly, the Good/Evil axis came to represent positive, neutral, and negative situations for the person whose questions the harrower is answering. The good section of the grid represents the positive, while the evil section reflects negative outcomes. This basic grid presents the harrower with a solid framework to begin doing readings, but the nuances of the cards are evocative and expansive enough to let a capable harrower use them in many situations—both in game and out. Take a look for yourself and see if you agree.

Teeuwynn Woodruff
Harrow Designer

Pathfinder in 2008!

Monday, December 31, 2007

Wow. Here we are at the end of 2007—I don't know about you, but it kind of snuck up on me. Things have been crazy busy here at Paizo over this last year, between the end of one era of monthly product and the beginning of another. Launching Pathfinder was great fun, but it was also a lot of work. Fortunately, Team Pathfinder has just about recovered from the triple duty of working on magazines, launching Pathfinder, and going to Gen Con—all just in time for our second Adventure Path to begin!

There are a lot of "Best of 2007" lists out there on the internet, and I suppose I could do something along the lines of "James's Favorite Moments of 2007" here, but to tell the truth I'm more excited about what we've got planned for 2008 in Pathfinder. We've got the contents planned out to volume #18, and even though a lot of those adventures and articles haven't yet been written (or even commissioned!), I do have a pretty good idea of what's coming next year for Pathfinder. And after reading the following list, you will too!

Listed here are 12 exciting things you can expect to show up in the pages of Pathfinder over the course of 2008. I'm only going to list one thing for each month, and as we get further out, details are more and more likely to change, but at this point they're pretty set in stone. Some of these details I might have mentioned on the Tuesday night chats, while I'm pretty sure I mentioned a few others last week at the book signing, and at least one of the following is something I haven't talked about outside of Paizo yet at all.

January: The Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path ends with a trip into the Kodar Mountains, and inevitable confrontations with abominable snowmen, giant-sized giants, dragons, and worse, in the ancient ruined city of Xin-Shalast, pictured here.

February: Pathfinder's second Adventure Path begins! Curse of the Crimson Throne is a much more urban campaign, filled with politics, plagues, and peril above and below the streets of Korvosa, the largest city in all Varisia.

March: Our exploration of Golarion's deities continues with Abadar, Master of the First Vault, written by Sean K Reynolds.

April: Want to know more about the rakshasas of Golarion and find out what role they play in Curse of the Crimson Throne? Then be sure not to miss the April Pathfinder!

May: There've been quite a lot of requests for more information about the Shoanti—Varisia's tribes of barbaric nomads. Those questions will be answered this month, in "The Shoanti Way of Life."

June: Check out your map of Varisia. Particularly, that little note in the east that says "To the Hold of Belkzen" and has an arrow pointing off the map. In June, we reveal where that little arrow is pointing. HINT: Belkzen involves orcs. LOTS of orcs.

July: The final adventure in Curse of the Crimson Throne, "Crown of Fangs," appears in July, marking Adventure Path master Tito Leati's first appearance in Pathfinder. I've looked at his maps of Castle Korvosa, and all I can say is wow. Actually, I can say more, but I'd better move on to August before I do.

August: Pathfinder's third Adventure Path begins! The Second Darkness Adventure Path answers the question of what Golarion's drow have been up to, and starts out in the lawless city of Riddleport. Assuming I ever finish writing this volume's adventure, that is…

September: Not everyone in Riddleport's out to rob you. A lot of the folk there just want to have fun. Worshipers of Cayden Cailean would fit right in, which is why in September we'll be exploring his faith in detail. Bring your tankards!

October: There's something sinister afoot in the Mierani Forest in western Varisia, particularly in the abandoned elven city of Celwynvian. Alas, you'll have to wait until October to find out exactly what waits for your PCs here!

November: By now, you know that Second Darkness features the drow as primary antagonists. And as logic dictates… that means the campaign should eventually head down below. We still haven't quite settled on a name for the vast reaches of caverns that riddle Golarion's underworld, but by November we will. I hope. Because that's when we're running a Gazetteer of the regions below that pertain to this month's adventure!

December: This MIGHT slip into January, depending on if we come up with a few different ideas, but before Second Darkness comes to an end in early 2009, you can expect to see a big, juicy article that talks about the demon lords of Golarion. They're who the drow worship, after all! And one or two of them might just be trapped here on the Material Plane with your characters…

So there you go! Something (hopefully) to look forward to each month for the entirety of 2008. Of course, the list above just scratches the surface of the adventures and supplementary articles and monsters you'll discover in Pathfinder in 2008—the bestiary will keep going strong, as will Eando Kline's adventures in the Pathfinder Journal. Cayden Cailean and Abadar are only half of the deities we'll be examining in 2008, and the drow are certainly not the only (or even the most dangerous) foes your PCs will face in the deep below.

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Long Live the Queen!

Friday, December 28, 2007

Queen Ileosa Arabasti, the beautiful young wife of Korvosa's current monarch, isn't very popular among the nobles and citizens of her city. Not that she cares all that much about what those lesser fools think of her. Keeping the rabble happy is her husband's job, after all—Ileosa's got more important things on her mind. But what could those things be?

Stay tuned in to Pathfinder, for as we begin our second Adventure Path, Curse of the Crimson Throne, Queen Ileosa's plans for the city should quickly become obvious.

HINT: Now's not a good time to move to Korvosa.

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

The Harrow Deck Cometh!

Friday, December 7, 2007

One of the most innovative things I've seen in D&D occurred back in the original Ravenloft, where the villain's motivation, treasure placement, and adventure goals depended upon the results of an in-game fortune-telling session. Even years later, I still recall that feeling of surprise and excitement when I first looked through that adventure. With Curse of the Crimson Throne, Pathfinder's second Adventure Path, we'll be trying something similar.

The Harrow deck is our fortune-telling tool for this Adventure Path. The deck itself is a 54-card deck broken down into six suits of nine cards each. While, in-game, these six suits and the card images themselves are "in character," it draws a lot of its inspiration from the mechanics of the game as well. The deck's six suits each symbolize one of the six basic attributes all characters are built around: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. And in each of those six suits, we have nine different cards for each of the nine alignments. Therefore, we have a chaotic evil Wisdom card, a neutral good Strength card, a lawful neutral Dexterity card, and so on.

Of course, the actual art on each of these cards hides its genesis in the rules behind symbolism and metaphor, so you don't have to worry about any weird self-aware metagame strangeness popping up (I doubt very much you'd ever hear a Varisian say something like, "that chaotic evil king has a really low charisma!"). The Harrow deck itself is an ancient divination tool used by the Varisians to tell the future and divine fortunes. Think of it as an RPG-version of the tarot deck.

Each of Curse of the Crimson Throne's six adventures are also tied in theme to the six suits of the Harrow deck, and as you play through this new Adventure Path, Harrow deck readings can provide valuable insights, helpful bonuses, or even unexpected perils and dangers. You can expect to see some recurring themes throughout the Adventure Path tied to the Harrow deck, but we'll be going beyond that. Players will be able to select a feat, "Harrowed," that'll let them use draws from the deck to hopefully tip fortune in their favor. Visit a rough-and-tumble bar down on the waterfront in Korvosa and you'll be able to gamble away your treasure in a game of Towers, a gambling game created by lowbrows and scoundrels using the Harrow deck (and designed by industry veterans Jason Bulmahn, Mike Selinker, and Teeuwynn Woodruff). And just as the infamous Deck of Many Things was inspired by the tarot deck, there might be a powerful magic Harrow deck waiting to bring all matter of mayhem to your group at some point in Curse of the Crimson Throne.

And the best part? We're making a Harrow deck you can use yourself, whether as part of your campaign, in readings of your own, or just as a fun fantasy-themed card game. Over the next several weeks, we'll be showing off Kyle Hunter's artwork for the Harrow deck here on our blog. Keep an eye out, and see if you can figure out which image goes with the chaotic evil strength card versus the one that goes with the lawful good one!

James Jacobs
Editor-in-Chief, Pathfinder

4th Edition

Friday, August 24, 2007

We're all back from Gen Con, and aside from the launch of Pathfinder and our new Planet Stories novel line, the hot news at the show was the announcement of Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, from Wizards of the Coast. Messageboards across the internet, from paizo.com to EN World and Wizards of the Coast's own site, are abuzz with discussion of what was revealed at the show, what changes are in store for our favorite game, and what the future may hold.

Naturally, lots of folks want to know what the announcement means for Pathfinder and for our line of monthly GameMastery Modules.

Right now, the answer is this: It's too soon to tell.

No one at Paizo has seen a copy of the new rules yet, nor have we seen a draft of the Open Game License for it (yes, there will be one). We have plenty of reasons to believe that the new game will include lots of improvements over the current system, and that the new OGL will, if anything, be even more permissive than the one for 3.0 and 3.5.

Ever since the announcement of the end of Dragon and Dungeon magazines, we've been careful to say that Wizards of the Coast and Paizo are still on good terms, that we're still communicating with one another, and that we hope to work together in the future. This is not just so much blown smoke. The guys at Wizards have been very forthcoming with information on the new edition, and we look forward to learning even more in the weeks and months to come. I am personally optimistic that this will, for the most part, be a welcome change at my gaming table.

But it's way too early to say what Paizo will be doing about 4th edition. Please give us some time to take a look at the new rules, to take a look at the new OGL, and make an informed decision. We promise we'll let you know what we're planning just as soon as we figure it out ourselves.

For the time being, both the Rise of the Runelords and Curse of the Crimson Throne Adventure Paths will be released as announced for the 3.5 rules set, as will all GameMastery Modules at least up until May of 2008, which is when Wizards will release the 4th edition Player's Handbook.

All of our announced products for the first quarter of 2008 are "rules-light" and should not be adversely affected by the change in edition whether we convert or not. We will be making no significant changes to the announced product schedule.

I'm aware that many Paizo customers will not be converting to 4e. Honestly, before I heard some of the things I heard at Gen Con, I wasn't sure I wanted to convert either. So I sympathize.

Pathfinder currently plans to support officially sanctioned conversions for Castles & Crusades and True20, so assuming we do convert, I suspect it is very likely that we (or some affiliated partner) will provide 3.5 conversion guidelines.

Or we might stick with 3.5. We haven't seen the rules yet, and can't make the decision until we do.

One thing I can say for sure: As a gamer I would be a lot happier with a game that doesn't require two hours of prep-time for four hours of play. I have heard that the new system addresses this problem, and that strikes me as excellent.

If Wizards of the Coast can streamline the rules without robbing the game of its variety and complexity, I will be very impressed.

So far, I am optimistic.

Erik Mona
Publisher
Paizo Publishing, LLC