Meet the Iconics—Zova

Thursday, October 26, 2017

Today we introduce the latest Pathfinder iconic character, courtesy of the upcoming Ultimate Wilderness—Zova the Shifter!

By the time she'd come of age, Zova had long known she didn't fit in with the Clan of the Moon.

Although Zova's parents loved her and supported her in all ways, she was still the only daughter among four siblings, and while she got on well with her brothers, she often felt left out. As Zova grew older, her parents' Desnan teachings intrigued her, yet she felt a stronger kinship to the animals of the world than to the night sky above. In training for the hunt, Zova reveled in the act of stalking and pouncing like the animals she so empathized with, but she found herself impatient with her mother's preferred method of hunting with the bow and struggled to train her own archery skills. In time, when her friends began to flirt and pursue romantic trysts, Zova realized that while she valued and greatly enjoyed the company of those friends, she felt no drive to find such a romantic partner for herself. Increasingly she found herself restless, curious about the world beyond the Cinderlands. She'd seen illustrations and heard stories of the vast oceans, glacial wonderlands, and above all else the wonders of the deep forest, but paintings and tales could not sate her curiosity. Where the Clan of the Moon's territories in the arid west of the Cinderlands seemed to contain all the necessities of life for everyone she knew, Zova longed for the color green.

Zova's parents saw it coming, of course, well before she made clear her intention to travel the world and seek its wonders. They worried for her safety, but they also knew that of all their children, Zova's passion for life, her respect for the natural world, her keen perception, and her almost uncanny knack for getting the upper hand in a fight made her the best suited to leave the proverbial nest. Despite her awkward place in the clan, she still loved her family and adored her home, and promised to return as often as she could—and to bring stories of marvels from her adventures when she did.

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

She had no real plan or timetable to follow as she left the Cinderlands, knowing only that she wished to travel west, toward the oft-glimpsed lands of vibrant green she'd long been lured by. Whenever she felt homesick, Zova found she need only look to the sky to feel at home, knowing she gazed upon the same sights her family did. The moon was always there, a welcome and soothing constant in her life. As days turned to weeks, Zova found that nature itself was a more than adequate surrogate family, and more besides. Though she had always felt alone in crowds as a child, watching everyone else interact with each other, here in the natural world she felt like she belonged. The animals of the world were as companionable as anyone as long as they were treated with respect—and certainly more diverse and interesting as a whole than the people she'd known up to that point!

The Storval Rise presented Zova her first significant challenge. She knew of its existence, but had never seen the massive cliffs with her own eyes. Standing atop them, the sweeping expanse of greenery below seemed to taunt her—so near, yet so far. The carefree antics of falcons as they swooped out over the cliff filled Zova not with jealousy, but with inspiration. If only she could fly, she could join them in their graceful exits from the Cinderlands! But as she watched the falcons hunt and play, she felt her own perception grow keen, like a kinship with the raptors was waking in her vision. As if using a falcon's eyes while gazing down the cliffside, Zova found that she could pick a treacherous but navigable path down the cliffs. She did not marvel at this—she accepted it with simple pride.

Despite her keen eyesight, Zova's descent was fraught with peril. She nearly died thrice on the climb (twice to near falls, once to a redback rattlesnake she accidently stepped upon and was only just able to calm before it bit her), but late that night, as the waxing moon rose, she finally set foot into the Ashwood. Lit by the moon, the forest's greens appeared almost black, yet Zova reveled nonetheless. Here was the world she'd dreamed of, a realm that she had to imagine back home in the scrubby Cinderland hills. For the remainder of the night and well into the next day, Zova sprinted and explored, climbed trees and delved into tangles of roots, hunted and played and delighted until she finally came to a toppled statue along the banks of a rushing river. She made camp in the shelter formed by the oversized statue's moss-draped chin, and soon collapsed into exhausted sleep.

When she woke, it was deep night once again. The now-full moon's light filtered through the canopy in pale beams, and while the ground was hard and the air was cool, it was the peal of an unearthly howl that had roused Zova from sleep. The howl was unlike anything she had ever heard—plainly the cry of an alpha wolf, yet carrying within it tones of malevolence and cruelty that felt far too human. Truly frightened for the first time in her life, Zova staggered to her feet and took her bow in hand, only to find campsite surrounded by a pack of the largest wolves she had ever seen.

For the first few moments, Zova's arrows held the strangely aggressive pack at bay, but as the fight wore on, it became apparent to the wolves that Zova was no predator of note. Her arrows missed more often than not, and those lucky few that scored hits were only glancing blows. As she fought, Zova did her best to empathize with the wolves, only to realize in horror that a stronger will than her own imposed upon them. When the wolves finally overcame all fear of her archery, Zova threw aside her useless bow and reached for her knife—only to find she had lost it at some point during the previous night's enraptured frolic through the woods. The wolves closed in, and Zova feared her journey was about to come to a sudden end.

Again that malignant howl scarred the night, and Zova could feel a presence approaching through the tangles. As the wolves closed their circle around her, she found herself hoping that the wolves would kill her before whatever hateful thing they obeyed arrived to finish the job. When the first wolf struck, she frantically swiped at it with her hand, a desperate attempt of self-preservation. For a few moments, she couldn't understand what had caused the wolf's yelp of pain and its sudden retreat. The other wolves had frozen as well, as if confused—a confusion that Zova felt as she looked down at her bloodstained hands... only to see that they were now bloodstained talons.

The will to survive rose in Zova, and with a snarl, she went on the offensive. She lunged at the next wolf, slashing across its snout with the birdlike talon that, a moment before, had been her hand. Again and again she cut and clawed, and the wolves, unsettled by her transformation, fell back. Zova became the predator, and as the last wolf fled, she held high her talons and cried out in triumph.

That cry was answered by the selfsame hateful howl. The master of the wolves had come. Zova whirled, raised her claws in a challenge, and froze in fear. What had emerged from the darkest part of Ashwood was neither person nor beast—nor was it strictly alive. A ghostly form, seemingly shed from moonlight itself, crouched in the air above, a towering man-wolf with orange eyes, fur that shimmered and wavered in unfelt wind, and teeth and claws of all-too-solid razor-sharp bone. Yet what the thing said was the crowning horror.

"Welcome, sister..."

Zova didn't attempt to fight. She whirled and fled, never looking back as the mad howl of the ghost wolf pursued her. She clambered onto the toppled statue, sprinted across its brow, and plunged from its crown into the churning river below. Perhaps it was the current's speed that saved her, or perhaps it was the ghost's inability to pursue, or maybe it was just luck. Whatever the cause, Zova washed ashore a mile downstream, barely alive—but alive she was.

Zova never returned to the Ashwood. Those to whom she's told her tale smirk in disbelief—not from claims of an encounter with a ghost wolf (for many parts of Varisia host stranger terrors than ghosts or werewolves), but that she had escaped to tell the tale at all. The legend of Loper, the ghostwolf of Ashwood, has frightened many listeners, for in most of these tales the victims are lucky just to survive. Zova never revealed to anyone the two words Loper spoke to her that night, yet she feels that in those two words lies the explanation of her escape. She vowed to some day return to Ashwood and solve this mystery—preferably in the company of a group of adventurers, for a faithful pack brings so much more to a fight than can a lone predator!

Until that day, Zova travels from town to town, exploring her growing power as a shifter and the confusing nature of adventuring party dynamics. Her protective nature is augmented by the compassion she feels for these all-too-often orphans, for she knows she is not the norm among her traveling companions in having a family who loves her and a home she can some day return to.

Yet on nights when the moon rises high and unwelcome dreams torment her sleep, Zova can't help but wonder—are those she calls her brothers really her brothers at all?

James Jacobs
Creative Director, Pathfinder

Meet the Iconics: Raia

Monday, July 24, 2017

The countdown to Starfinder is on! We're highlighting the iconic characters and core classes that appear throughout the pages and covers of the Starfinder line. Today we meet Raia, the iconic technomancer!

Illustration by Remko Troost

Raia Danviri was born and raised in the lashunta city-state of Komena, near the southern tip of the continent of Asana on Castrovel. Komena's proximity to the formian-inhabited continent of the Colonies has made it a center of military activity for millennia, but to the Danviris, it was a home filled with hope and promise. Raia's parents were diplomats, and devoted their lives to brokering a peace between the lashuntas and the formians, a goal that spanned decades. They taught their daughter the value of all sentient life, for even among creatures like the insectile formians, who were so unlike lashuntas and had been enemies for so long, one can find similarities like culture, society, and civilization. But even more important are the differences. The details that separate one species from another are not only what make them interesting, but also teach one new things, and inspire one to question and re-examine one's own assumptions and beliefs.

The fact that Raia's parents actually succeeded in helping to negotiate peace with the Colonies only reinforced their teachings in the young lashunta's mind. Raia became almost obsessed with alien life forms. She devoured any texts she could find that described the myriad species that inhabited the worlds beyond Castrovel, and dreamed of someday traveling among the stars and meeting new species. When she reached puberty, Raia chose to develop into the tall, intellectual damaya subspecies, following the example of her parents, both of whom are damaya.

When she was old enough, Raia applied to and was accepted into one of Qabarat's famed universities. Her aptitude exams showed a talent for both technology and spellcasting, so she studied the discipline of technomancy, using experimentation to blend science and magic together. At the same time, however, she also excelled in xenobiology and xenoanthropology, applying academic rigor to her childhood passion. During this time, Raia discovered Yaraesa, the lashunta goddess of knowledge and wisdom, whose faith was more akin to the scientific method. Raia wholeheartedly embraced Yaraesa's teachings, seeking self-perfection through the acquisition of knowledge and the development of one's mind and intellect.

It was also at university that Raia met Danese, an exchange student from Triaxus. Raia was immediately enthralled with the exotic ryphorian and his silky white fur, but it was Danese's quick wit and keen intellect that turned the initial attraction into something more. Danese was the first real "alien” that Raia befriended, and their friendship eventually blossomed into love. Raia and Danese were inseparable during their time at university, but knew they would need to reassess their relationship when their studies were complete. Danese had already accepted a commission in the Skyfire Legion and had to return to Triaxus after graduation, while Raia had been accepted into a graduate program on Absalom Station. Danese offered to resign his commission, but Raia refused. In her opinion, neither of them should have to sacrifice their own advancement and improvement for the sake of the other; instead, each of them should follow Yaraesa's example and figure things out for themselves—intellectually and spiritually, as well as romantically. They bid each other a tearful farewell, and promised to reunite whenever circumstances allowed.

After completing her studies, Raia realized that her passion for studying alien life-forms was actually a calling, and her technomantic abilities were the currency she could use to fund her life's work, exchanging her skills as a scientist and technomancer for berths on ships heading out to undiscovered regions of the Vast. Raia believes there is a certain nobility in contacting an alien species for the first time and working to ensure that both they and the peoples of the Pact Worlds advance and improve from the relationship. She seeks out new technology and alternative magical techniques from the aliens she encounters, trading her own knowledge in exchange. Raia doesn't hold to any unrealistic expectation of non-interference in alien cultures, but believes strongly in doing the right thing, and in always striving for honor, compassion, and justice.

Despite her love of exploration, Raia remains firmly tied to the Pact Worlds. Besides her parents and friends on Castrovel, Raia still loves Danese, and the two remain committed to one another, even across the vast distances involved in interstellar travel. They stay in regular communication, and treasure the infrequent times when their paths bring them physically close to one another. Some day, they might choose to settle down and build a life together, but for now Raia is content. She knows love, her life has purpose and meaning, and the galaxy is filled with an endless number of aliens to discover, befriend, and study—one species at a time.

Robert G. McCreary
Starfinder Creative Lead

Meet the Iconics: Altronus

Monday, June 26, 2017

The countdown to Starfinder is on, and to celebrate, we're continuing to delve into the backstories of the iconic characters that appear in illustrations throughout the Starfinder line. Today we meet Altronus, the iconic solarian!

Illustration by Remko Troost

Altronus Barasul Dovenayan was born into House Holdare, a traditional and respected family on the kasatha generation-ship-turned-homeland Idari. The Holdare trace their lineage to Great Families already well respected when the Idari left Kasath for their centuries-long trip to the Pact Worlds, and have maintained strong connections with both the houses that rose to prominence on the ship while crew functions were paramount, and younger houses risen to prominence since the Idari became an enormous space station. Much of the influence of House Holdare comes from their renown for producing skilled adata—scholar-priests who oversee the removal and preservation of thin slices of the brains of deceased kasatha in technomagical temples called adats. Even in times when ships officers, pilots, and navigators find their social relevance waning, the adata remain highly respected in kasatha society.

The eldest living member of House Holdare, Barasul Naedarin Allar of Clan Allar, Keeper of Ten Million Thoughts and doyen of the ship's adata, took a special interest in Altronus shortly after his birth, though he was but a distant nephew to her. Of course the attention of so great a clan elder comes with more responsibility and expectation than comfort, and though Altronus was raised with significant prestige and resources as a youth, he was also pushed to begin adata training very early, his family even going so far as to name him after famous adata doyens.

While Altronus did not excel at his studies the way his family had hoped, neither did he do poorly, and most people chalked his merely adequate results up to his relative youth. In truth, Altronus was indeed an excellent scholar, simply one who had trouble focusing on a single topic for long. Inevitably, some interesting fact in his studies would pique his interest and draw his research off into unrelated sidetracks. This broad, self-directed education made him adept at making connections between disparate fields, yet earned him little love from traditionalist teachers who saw his scattered studies as a failure to focus and a deliberate rejection of tried-and-true scholarly practices.

Though his close family were dedicated worshipers of Talavet, the Storyteller deity, one of Altronus's more sympathetic teachers felt his wandering focus could be better brought into line with training in the philosophy of the Cycle, which teaches that existence is an endless, connected series of events as stars are born, die, and born again. Though the Cycle is the guiding philosophy of the solarians, contemplative warriors with a tradition stretching far back into the history of Kasath, it's also seen as a useful tool for training body and mind in preparation for the rigors of other vocations.

Altronus was accepted as a student into a prestigious cosmonastery on the Idari, and taught to focus his thoughts on the forces of the universe around him, to draw strength and guidance from the endless repetition of celestial creation and destruction. He took to the training immediately, and soon was among the most advanced students, most of whom sought not just to understand the lessons of the Cycle, but to embody them in the path of the solarian. Altronus, however, was still slated for a career as an adata. This preordained path didn't bother him—as he approached adulthood and the yearlong ritual walkabout of the Tempering, he was allowed to take on guard shifts at the ship's famed Sholar Adat. There he watched over rooms of stasis pods where adata connected to the Sensorium, the technomagical temple archive where flashes of memories from archived kasatha brains could be experienced, sorted, and analyzed. On rare occasions, he was even allowed to experience ancient Sensorium memories himself, and it was these glimpses of lives and secrets long lost that most drove Altronus to complete his studies and become a full adata.

During one of his last scheduled shifts as an adata student, Altronus was assigned to an inactive Sensorium access node—one rarely used, but like all Sensorium access points still important enough to be protected by force fields and a round-the-clock guard. Though most such shifts were uneventful, on that night Altronus was surprised by the appearance of a fully cloaked and apparently rushed senior adata, Remura Esolla Kaiban of Clan Senthen, flashing a warrant to allow unscheduled access to the memory of a recently deceased citizen. Thanks to his tendency to collect trivia, Altronus knew Remura was scheduled to be giving a lecture at the far end of the Idari. What, he wondered, could be of such great importance that the revered adat would end the lecture early, not to mention need an emergency Sensorium warrant?

Altronus knew he should mind his own business, but again curiosity overrode his training. Altronus contacted a friend at the far end of the ship, who informed him that not only had Adata Kaiban not left the lecture early—she was still on the stage.

Immediately Altronus sounded an intruder alert, and rushed into the Sensorium access node to confront the false adata. To his surprise, Altronus discovered not a kasatha, but a small, sickly gray humanoid standing in a pile of robes and strange machinery, with long wires and humming crystals latched onto the Sensorium feed and hundreds of images flashing from the access node to the gray creature's alien devices. Altronus leapt to activate the Sensorium emergency disconnect, but the bulbous creature struck him with a taclash, ripping the pulsecaster from his grip, then shot him with a pistol that fired a searing green ray. Through the resulting haze of pain, Altronus managed to seal the access node's security force fields, trapping himself and the gray intruder inside.

With a shock, Altronus realized the severity of the situation. Any response to his alarm would take precious moments to arrive, and still more to disable the force field. Unarmed, Altronus had little chance of holding the intruder at bay. He had no way of healing the wound from the creature's pistol. For the first time in his life, Altronus truly confronted the fact that he was going to die. Like the stars themselves, he too would be extinguished, his body breaking down and eventually being reincorporated over millennia into new entities, new worlds, new stars. At last, he truly understood the Cycle. With his final moments, he reached out to the universe, embracing it.

And the universe answered.

Altronus was as surprised as the strange gray alien to find a long, shining golden blade suddenly sprouting from his lower right forearm. Yet he had seen enough of solarian training to recognize the blade of stellar energy for what it was, and leapt to put it to use, placing himself between the creature and the node's access panels. The two fought in grim silence, and though it was clear the gray invader was the more skilled, Altronus stood his ground, putting to use every scrap of training he'd gained. He didn't need to win—only buy time, keeping the creature from finishing its infiltration of the Sensorium until help arrived.

Blow after blow fell upon Altronus, and the pistol's strange green rays continued to singe and scale his flesh, but Altronus would not fall. His blade scored many fewer hits, and at times seemed to pass cleanly through his foe to no effect, but he pressed the attack as best he could. As he did, a fierce joy welled up in him, a sense of the rightness of the path that had led him to this moment. This cosmic contentment continued to expand until he had no choice but to release it, unleashing a burst of searing stellar flame in all direction.

At last, ship security arrived, using their command bypasses to deactivate the access node's force fields and dragging the half-dead Altronus from the fight. Yet upon seeing that it was outnumbered, the bulbous-headed alien didn't continue to fight, or attempt to escape. Rather, it paused to take stock of the situation, toggled a device on its arm—and detonated its own head like a bomb.

The security team secured the body and questioned Altronus. When several true adata arrived, they immediately attempted to preserve part of the horrid gray thing's exploded brain. While their efforts to pull meaning from the splatter were greatly hindered, two ideas were recovered. The first was that gray spies had deeply infiltrated the Pact Worlds. The second was that the time of something important called "Phase Three" was coming soon.

The Doyenate of the Idari was informed, and additional security added to Sensorium access nodes. While the matter of gray infiltrators was officially left open to investigation, with no more solid leads and no further incidents, official attention quickly turned elsewhere.

But Altronus couldn't let the issue lie.

Questions filled his mind. How thoroughly had grays infiltrated the Pact Worlds? Had they successfully infiltrated the Idari? What did this gray seek to learn from the Sensorium? Why had it sought to destroy its own brain when capture became inevitable? And, most importantly, what was Phase Three, and how soon would it arrive? Altronus tried to quiet his mind with further solarian training, but while his powers grew, his sense of calm did not.

As it came time for Altronus to begin his Tempering, he realized he could never accept a role as an adata while the mystery of the gray invader hung over him. He sought, and received, approval from his house doyen to abandon the path he had long trod, and informed his family that he was leaving the Idari. He had no firm idea of where he would go, nor how his investigation would advance, only a vow to chase down every strange occurrence that might mark a potential gray incursion within the Pact Worlds. While many of these events had other—sometimes equally strange—explanations, he found enough potential connections to the grays to support his growing suspicion that secret conspiracies indeed existed just out of sight. Still a rigorous scholar, he began to accept that he'd need to give more credence to outrageous claims and unlikely stories if he ever wanted to uncover the truth.

Now inarguably an adult, Altronus has nevertheless remained on his Tempering for much longer than the traditional year, and still sees himself as working to form the traditions that will guide him through his later life. He often signs on with freelancers and adventuring companies as a guard, scout, or researcher in order to support himself—especially if their activities align with his obsession—yet his primary goal always remains researching the shadowy web of plots he first glimpsed that night in the access node. Ironically, while he comes across to many kasatha as overly impetuous and offbeat, his natural kasatha love of traditions, his devotion to the Cycle, and his scholar's desire to monologue about admittedly unconventional research often causes members of other races to see him as an eccentric professor or addled conspiracy theorist. Any skepticism as to his usefulness, however, disappears in the first firefight, as Altronus launches himself into the fray and "lets the cosmos take control," slicing through hordes of enemies with terrifying calm.

Owen KC Stephens
Developer

Meet the Iconics: Quig

Monday, June 26, 2017

The countdown to Starfinder is on, and to celebrate, we're continuing to delve into the backstories of the iconic characters that appear in illustrations throughout the Starfinder line. Today we meet Quig Dexel, the iconic mechanic!

Illustration by Remko Troost

Born to a poor family barely eking out a living in the small settlement of Estuar on Akiton, Quig Dexel developed a fascination at an early age with the various water-purification plants that skirted the nearby polar ice caps. Spurred by this curiosity, he taught himself the basics of engineering by stealthily tinkering with valve-control mechanisms and reverse-osmosis regulators until he was old enough to work for one of the shady syndicates that controlled the flow of water out of town. Initially hired as a de-icer, he made sure that the storage tanks' outflow lines didn't freeze over during the cold nights. Though he worked odd hours, he was able to make friends by helping his coworkers when their shoddy flamers malfunctioned.

In his spare time, Quig began constructing the first iterations of what would become his drone companion, Scout, using spare parts he scrounged from Estuar's junk heaps and alleys. One early morning after his shift, as Quig hunted for scraps that he could fashion into an actuator, he was winged by a stray laser blast from a passing firefight waged between a shobhad bounty hunter and her human quarry. Ignoring the pain, Quig dropped the hunk of metal he was holding and chased after the fracas. He arrived on the scene in time to see the bounty hunter tackle the fugitive and slap him in restraints. Flushed with adrenaline, Quig realized then and there that this was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.

That afternoon, after gathering up all of his belongings and mounting a pistol to Scout's undercarriage, Quig said farewell to his family and set off into the wider world. He eventually made his way to the bustling streets of the Hivemarket, where he signed on as a caravan guard with a group of ikeshti traders. Quig spent the first few hours of the journey questioning the lizardfolk about their society, until several pointed stares gave him the hint that he should keep to himself. He proceeded to valiantly suppress his curiosity and tinker quietly on Scout for much of the trip, pausing only when a flock of hungry norkasa swooped too close to the caravan and gave him the chance to impress the ikeshti with the improvements he'd made to his trust de-icing flamer.

The journey ended in the ancient city of Arl, a haven for blood sports in the coliseum known as the Crimson Forum. After getting paid, Quig explored the city's labyrinthine streets and was promptly ambushed by a gang of street thugs who not only took his money, but disabled and absconded with Scout. Enraged yet already streetwise enough to be suspicious of the city authorities, young Quig began asking around about other gangs or freelancers that could help him get his revenge.

It was there, in one of Arl's seediest dive bars, that Quig ran into Dhareen the Vise, the same shobhad bounty hunter who inadvertently set him on his life's path. As an awestruck Quig launched into his entire life story, Dhareen sighed wearily and told him to forget about his lost drone and head back to his backwater town. But at last Quig said the four words the shobhad lived to hear:

"I can pay you."

Dhareen scoffed, but as the ysoki pointed out a dozen ways she could improve her gear, the bounty hunter reluctantly agreed, and the two planned a raid of the gang's headquarters.

One week later, Quig and Scout had been reunited, and the ysoki was apprenticed to Dhareen, having impressed her with his quick thinking during the rescue of his drone. Quig learned much from the gruff shobhad over the next year as they traveled the system, and though they often butted heads over methods of tracking and capturing their quarries, the two enjoyed a relationship of mutual respect. Upon the completion of a sizable job where they collected five bounties simultaneously—right under the noses of several competing bounty hunters—Dhareen announced that she was ready to retire and travel with her clan once more. Quig was saddened about the dissolution of their partnership, but also felt ready to operate on his own. The shobhad returned to Akiton to live what she hoped would be a quieter life, while Quig continues to make a name for himself across the Pact Worlds.

Quig is personable and outgoing—often significantly chattier than his comrades would like—and his constant traveling for work has left him with friends and contacts across the Pact Worlds. He prides himself on being a good judge of character, and while he's savvy enough to withhold actual trust until it's been earned, he's not above throwing himself into a fight on behalf of a near-stranger if he's got a good feeling about them. Though fully capable of working alone, he tends to get bored easily without people to talk to, and thus prefers to sign on with teams of adventurers, where he can act as the group's resident tracker and starship engineer. While he still keeps in touch with his family, he doesn't speak about his hometown much, as he's a bit embarrassed by his unglamorous upbringing—when he does mention it, it is with a liberal helping of humor. He's a fan of both taking minor trophies from previous jobs and scavenging spare parts that he's positive may come in handy someday, inevitably turning his cabin or bunk into a riotous nest of cherished junk.

Quig's closest companion is his drone, Scout, and he spends the majority of his downtime puttering about in the robot's systems. He often talks to Scout as way of thinking out loud or voicing his innermost thoughts, attributing them to the drone in a way that can make him seem a bit unbalanced to those who don't know him well. (And in truth, sometimes to those who do.) When he's captured a bounty and is feeling particularly mischievous, he often pretends to consult with the robot about the person's fate, ultimately claiming that he sympathizes and would like to let the target go, but "the robot says otherwise."

Jason Keeley
Developer

Meet the Iconics: Obozaya

Monday, May 15, 2017

The countdown to Starfinder is on! We're highlighting the iconic characters and core classes that appear throughout the pages and covers the Starfinder line. Today we meet Obozaya, the iconic soldier!

Illustration by Remko Troost

In classic vesk fashion, Obozaya Ymeros lets her friends shorten her name to "Obo," but not even Damoritosh himself can protect those who attempt to use her nickname without earning it first.

Obozaya was born on Vesk Prime, the planetary capital of the Veskarium, to a family of low-level military bureaucrats. Distinguishing herself with her determination and ferocity on the sports field and in the dueling ring—if not in her academic studies—Obozaya quickly established herself as a top-notch military cadet, enlisting as soon as her basic studies were complete.

Obozaya took to military life like a swamp lion to water, and soon outpaced many in her cohort. In Veskarium society, social status is most easily earned through excellence in combat, and Obo had no desire to spend her entire life at the same forgettable rank as her parents. Though her dreams of glory were hardly unique, she nevertheless proved herself in several early battles, putting down a vicious rebellion among the feline barbarians of Vesk-6.

Yet in her youthful arrogance, Obozaya overlooked the power of political connection. After dueling and deeply shaming another member of her unit—one with family ties to high-ranking military officials—she found herself promoted and assigned to patrol a section of frozen tundra on Vesk-8, where the staunchly pacifist residents refused to give her any opportunity for righteous combat. It soon became clear that neither appeals to her superiors nor prayers to Damoritosh the Conqueror were going to get her a better assignment. Thus, as her first term of enlistment drew to a close, a frustrated Obozaya took the Soldier's Due, the time-honored vesk tradition of being honorably discharged and taking your government-issue armor and weapons with you.

Still in love with the idea of one day becoming a major player in vesk society, and disgusted by the idea that politics could exist within the Veskarium's vaunted military meritocracy, Obozaya followed in the footsteps of many other legendary vesk warriors and left home to work as a mercenary in the Pact Worlds. Here, at last, she found what she'd been searching for: an endless series of battles and adventures, with no restrictions but her own sense of honor. Rather than signing on with an established mercenary company, Obozaya found herself better suited to working with small groups of explorers and adventurers. Small teams mean more glory per person when you succeed, and she often finds herself the sole front-line fighter on a crew, which appeals to both her vanity and her showboating style. As she's fond of saying, battle is too important to leave to amateurs, and Obozaya believes that the best way to win a fight is to move fast and hit hard. Though she's drifted away from Damoritosh's faith in recent years, coming to appreciate some other races' criticisms of the Conqueror, she still adores using his sacred doshko for her close-up fighting.

Personality-wise, Obozaya is a study in contrasts. While she appreciates material wealth and creature comforts, her true desire is for recognition. This is perhaps best exemplified by the holoprojector on her back, which usually projects a modified version of Damoritosh's symbol to advertise her as a warrior for hire, but which is capable of projecting a personalized holographic war-banner in combat to make sure the enemy knows exactly who's coming for them. Brilliant on the battlefield, Obozaya nevertheless finds herself a little slow on the draw in most intellectual pursuits, having little patience for any education not directly related to her vocation. She believes that honor demands honesty, and while she's not against lying by omission, she would rather die than break her word or renege on a contract. In conversations with new people, she's either unnervingly stoic or direct to the point of rudeness, and thinks that most species talk more than they need to as an attempt to cover up their cowardice.

All of which makes it that much more surprising to discover how much her companions adore her. Sure, Obo may explain her loyalty as a mercenary's pragmatism, yet everyone in her crew knows they can count on "the big lizard" to pull them out of a scrape, no matter the cost. As with many vesk, her gruff manner is punctuated with sudden outpourings of emotion, and with her characteristic directness, Obo finds no fear or shame in telling her friends how much she loves them. Much of her life is spent on or training for missions, yet when Obozaya sets out to celebrate a success, it's with her trademark bombastic zeal. Eschewing the berserker drugs favored by some of her kindred, she's nevertheless fond of the Veskarium nose-hookahs sometimes called "dragon's breath," as well as the mildly hallucinogenic brain snails of Vesk-2 and other traditional vesk snacks. More than one bar has been sacrificed to (and well compensated for) her parties, and the heavy bass of her beloved revelaz dance-pop beats is notorious for bursting rivets on ship bulkheads.

James L. Sutter
Creative Director

Meet the Iconics: Keskodai

Monday, May 15, 2017

The countdown to Starfinder is on! We're highlighting the iconic characters and core classes that appear throughout the pages and covers the Starfinder line. Today we meet Keskodai, the iconic mystic!

Illustration by Remko Troost

For those inducted into the faith of Pharasma, the Lady of Graves, death is not an ending, but a doorway: an entry into a new existence and way of being. The shirren Keskodai understands this transition well, and greets it with the joyful reverence it deserves—an outlook that's not always comforting to the patients in his medical bay.

Keskodai grew up in the burning deserts of Fullbright, the side of tidally locked Verces that's always turned toward the sun. Though cosmopolitan, his hometown of Takoris was primarily shirren, having been an early satellite settlement of the original shirren colony on that world. The child of a priest of Hylax, the Forever Queen, Keskodai grew up steeped in the values of friendship and diplomacy, and felt a deep connection to the divine, yet chafed at the idea of serving the same god as his parent. Exactly which god he'd serve instead remained unclear, until the coming of the Gray Shakes.

Believed to be the result of a biotech experiment gone wrong at the local university, the plague called the Gray Shakes burned through the city like a wildfire, turning shirrens' chitin gray, rotting off their antennae, and eating away at their telepathy and motor function, leaving them awake but unable to communicate until they finally expired. In the weeks it took the local government to find a cure, thirty percent of the city's shirren population died.

In the midst of this horror, a young Keskodai first encountered priests of Pharasma, black-robed beings of all different races who'd come at news of the plague. Somberly, the Pharasmins walked among the afflicted, offering magical healing where they could and comfort to those too far gone, whispering to them of the Cycle of Souls and the new worlds that awaited them. The beauty of their ministry moved Keskodai, and he quickly joined their hospice work, leaving home to study at a temple in the Ring of Nations once the plague was safely contained.

After years as an initiate, Keskodai returned home a full priest of Lady of Graves, ready to tend to his people. He quickly fell in love with two members of his congregation, a female-host couple, and the three soon joined arms in marriage. Yet as much as he loved his community and his partners, a part of him remained unsatisfied. That part of every shirren that thrills at choice and decision-making began to wonder: Had he made the right choice in coming home? In choosing a life so similar to his parent? How could he know if he wanted this when there was still so much out there that he'd never experienced? The desire to explore continued to grow, until at last, after the birth of their first son, he and his partners sat down and made a plan. He would leave and see the galaxy, taking their child with him to expose him to the same new experiences. Once the child was old enough to leave his cradle-jar, Keskodai would decide whether he'd seen enough to return in good conscience, in which case both of them be welcomed with open arms. If not, the child would return alone.

In his effort to see as many worlds as possible, Keskodai took to signing on with freelance adventurers and starship crews, particularly those headed out beyond the edges of the solar system. While quite capable in combat, he prefers to act as the ship's medic, trusting that his mercenary companions will give him plenty of opportunities to employ his goddess-granted magic in patching up the broken or blessing them on their journey into the Great Beyond. The cheerful manner in which he talks about death often initially disturbs those under his care, yet anyone who spends much time with the shirren quickly learns that his even-keeled, fatalistic approach to life and death doesn't make him cavalier about it: for him, to give less than his best effort in healing his friends would be to risk them dying before their appointed time—a loss for him, and a grave failure in his duty to his goddess.

As with many shirren, Keskodai is a team player, always ready to throw in to help others, and a social butterfly who loves meeting new people. A crewmate once called him "the galaxy's friendliest death priest," and he wears the badge with pride. Though quite fond of option bars and other artificial means of stimulating his choice centers, he's careful not to let himself overindulge... usually. More often he satisfies his need for independence by customizing his gear—though he doesn't consider himself vain, Keskodai is intensely proud of the aesthetics of his gear, his collection of trophies, and his mustache (which he thinks lends him an air of gravitas). His greatest pride, however, is his son Chkoresk, still in his larval stage. Like many shirren parents, Keskodai constantly carries Chkoresk—affectionately nicknamed "Chk Chk"—around in a heavily fortified cradle-jar designed to let Chk Chk learn about the world from relative safety. While Chk Chk isn't old enough to speak yet, his telepathy only good enough to grant brief blasts of childlike emotion, Keskodai holds conversations with him regularly, with Chk Chk tapping on the glass to communicate his answers.

Though Keskodai is generally as easygoing as he appears, he still has his demons. The Gray Shakes tragedy left him deeply distrustful of certain types of research and technology, and he's constantly torn between his faith in individual freedom and his desire to protect the community through heavy government regulation. Worse, he's come to love the life of a wanderer and the friends he's made along the way, and deeply fears the day when Chk Chk grows old enough to return home, and Keskodai has to choose whether to head back to Verces with him, or continue on alone.

James L. Sutter
Creative Director

Meet the Iconics: Iseph

Friday, May 12, 2017

The countdown to Starfinder is on! We're highlighting the iconic characters and core classes that appear throughout the pages and covers the Starfinder line. Today we meet Iseph, the iconic operative!

Illustration by Remko Troost

As biomechanical entities, androids can theoretically live forever with the proper repairs. While some embrace this form of immortality, most androids live what they feel is a full life—usually around a hundred years—and then voluntarily instigate a process called renewal, in which the android's soul leaves its body, allowing a fresh android soul to inhabit it. Most people consider this a joyous occasion, metaphorically equivalent to the old android giving birth to a child, and understand that a post-renewal android is an entirely new person who just happens to inhabit the same body. Yet not all people are willing to honor this change or forgive past debts and slights, and such is the case with Iseph.

Iseph awoke in an abandoned storage facility on the machine world of Aballon, standing upright in a black-market renewal crèche. Around them, the place was completely empty, save for a note and a pen left in the center of the concrete floor. Clearly hastily scrawled, the note read only: Run. Hide. Retaliate. Beware the mark. Next to the words was a drawing of a symbol—the same inexplicable design branded on Iseph's chest. Yet the biggest shock was when Iseph picked up the pen, as the note's writer had clearly intended—for the handwriting on the note matched Iseph's own.

Confused and disoriented, with only some basic downloaded knowledge of the world they'd just been born into, Iseph did as the note instructed, doing their best to disappear into Aballon's bustling android population. It was here that, among other things, they first met other androids and discovered that some identified with particular genders, though Iseph never felt any such personal connection. But the questions raised by the note continued to plague them. Who had worn their body before them? Who were they running from, and why? What was the mysterious symbol? Eventually, Iseph worked up the courage to begin making surreptitious inquiries into the planet's infosphere. All of these searches failed, yet in curious ways, as if the information was being actively scrubbed and redacted. Worse, Iseph began to get the sense of being watched, faces in the crowds that seemed strangely familiar. After a month of tentative forays into they city's silicon underworld, Iseph at last tracked down someone who claimed to recognize the mark, but who insisted on meeting in person at a nearby virus bar.

Iseph was almost to the tavern when it exploded in a massive fireball, the blast consuming an entire city block.

Thoroughly spooked, Iseph fled Aballon, taking passage on a ship to the Diaspora. Yet as they worked there, quickly finding themself a deft hand at piloting rock-hopper shuttles and mining tugs, Iseph's fear turned to anger. Wider Pact Worlds society proved far messier than Aballon's orderly machine culture, and Iseph was first confused and then disgusted by the prejudice and jealousy androids still encountered from some humans. They met android escapees from illegal colonies in the Vast, bearing blatant symbols of corporate ownership and scars from cruel disciplinary implants, and began to suspect what their own mark might say about their origins. Incensed, Iseph made contact with the Android Abolitionist Front, learning to fly more combat-oriented craft, to sneak through the shadows, and to put down the enemies of their people with ruthless efficiency. Under the AAF's guidance, Iseph became a black ops expert, until a disagreement with their handler over a messy job led them to go independent. Today, Iseph officially hires on with freelancer crews as an elite pilot specializing in dangerous transport or exploratory missions—and if those jobs sometimes require a little infiltration or a bullet from the shadows, well, that costs extra.

Though paranoia over being hunted by their mysterious enemy (as well as friends of former assassination targets) makes Iseph something of a loner, the android desperately craves companionship, and is fiercely loyal to those few who prove themselves trustworthy. As a result of their early days on Aballon and personal experience as an android in a largely biological society, Iseph questions or rejects many aspects of mainstream Pact Worlds culture, and enjoys exploring the countercultures on different worlds. Iseph believes the ends often justify the means, yet strives to only take on jobs that fit with their sense of morality. An initial focus on android rights has broadened into a tendency to identify with oppressed people and underdogs everywhere, no matter how alien, and to hate any form of slavery with a passion. While Iseph finds the most joy in flying any manner of ship or vehicle—usually too fast and recklessly for the comfort of their passengers—their infiltration abilities remain as sharp as they ever were, and the former assassin has no objections to pulling out their trusty sniper rifle again when the cause is just.

Unrelated Starfinder Note: We've been doing a lot of previews recently, both here on the Paizo blog and on other websites. There's more than we can contain on the blog, so if you want to see more of the neat stuff that's been revealed (including new art for planets, races, ships, and more—and that's just in the last week!), be sure to bookmark the new Starfinder News Hub thread!

James L. Sutter
Creative Director

Meet the Iconics: Navasi

Monday, May 1, 2017

The countdown to Starfinder has officially begun, and to kick us off, we're highlighting the iconic characters and core classes that appear throughout the pages and covers the Starfinder line. Today we meet Navasi, the iconic envoy!

Illustration by Remko Troost

Born into a prominent family on Absalom Station, the envoy who calls herself Navasi spent much of her childhood avoiding her parents in their "sky-villa," as they called their sprawling, six-story home in the Nyori Palisades. Navasi's mother had designs on her canny-but-headstrong daughter inheriting the family's business. Her father had visions of a queenly young woman sitting in silk among the station's most prominent socialites.

Navasi wanted neither. A quip on her lips, she eschewed glitzy playdates and family soirees in favor of zipping through Absalom Station's streets with her best friends, the children of the household employees. She'd take the rush of riding a screaming hovercycle over the pompous sniggering of the wealthy any day of the week.

As she befriended more and more stationers from less-privileged walks of life, Navasi's irritation with her parents and their deliberate aloofness from the rest of society turned into outright disgust. The inequities of Absalom Station, where the rich lived in fortified enclaves and the poor lived in little more than metal boxes, pained her. Simply giving away her pocket money didn't seem like enough. She began to dream of a fairy-tale life in which she could steal the affluent's unearned wealth and give it to those truly in need, and idolized the Free Captains of the Diaspora—pirates living by their own rules. Navasi could only imagine the fun she'd have with such freedom—and the good she'd do, of course.

On the eve of her eighteenth birthday, Navasi sat in her plush quarters, staring at the gold-fibered holo-gown that was to be her debut dress. Two choices stood before her. She could don that false uniform, attend the gala, and accept her mother's gift of an executive position in the family company. Or she could leave.

It took less than an hour for Navasi to slip out of the manor and stow away onto a ship bound for the Diaspora.

Navasi arrived on Broken Rock with a pocketful of stolen credsticks and a gleam in her eye. She quickly signed up as a "procurement specialist" with a contracting firm called the Sixth Finger—little more than a starfaring thieves' guild—ready to use her new position to steal from exploitative corporations and make herself a hero to those in need.

The reality of life in a pirate enclave hit her like a meteorite. Having quickly blown through her money, and too stubborn to return home in shame, Navasi found she no longer had a choice in which jobs she took. Under the guildrunners' threats, she roughed up innocents, stole from the less fortunate, and worse. Though she never completely lost her egalitarian beliefs, she hardly recognized the naïve idealist she'd once been. A few years in the streets showed her how much of her former life she'd taken for granted, and taught her that if she wanted to take care of others, she first needed to take care of herself. That, at least, she was good at, and she quickly gained a reputation in the gang as the best fast-talker and facewoman around, spinning bold plans and quick wits into fat paydays.

Now a jaded young woman, Navasi found that the wealth from her scores brought little joy without friends to share it with, and she took comfort in the hardscrabble survivalists and secretly softhearted rogues she recruited to her crews. Yet it was in one particular woman that Navasi truly found herself again. Purple-haired and tattooed, with eyes like blue supergiants, the newcomer was outspoken against those in power. She bucked the pirates' authority and operated alone, pulling the sorts of righteous jobs Navasi had once dreamed of. She was the bravest, most exciting woman Navasi had ever met, and despite Navasi's continuing allegiance to the Sixth Finger, the two quickly became inseparable.

That all came crashing down the day the Sixth Finger arranged to knock over a medship full of supplies bound for Absalom Station. To the gang's leaders, the ship's mission—aiding refugees of a wartorn star system—was inconsequential compared to the valuable drugs in its cargo bays. Navasi's objections were overruled.

It was the final straw. Together, Navasi and her partner formulated a plan, alerting the medship to the imminent heist and carefully sabotaging the fighters the gang had designated for the assault. It all might have gone unnoticed, had the gang's resident technomancer not decided to check the security cams one final time. In the ensuing ambush, Navasi and her partner were pinned down, their backs to the sole spaceworthy ship—a single-seat fighter with only enough life support for one of them. Unwilling to leave her companion, Navasi prepared for them to go out in a blaze of glory—only to have her partner shove her into the cockpit and slam the canopy. As Navasi scrabbled with the latch, the other woman winked, pulled the pins on her grenades, and sprinted straight at their ambushers.

The wealthy scion of Absalom Station died that day, as did the pirate she'd become. As she made her way back to Absalom Station with the medship, knowing that neither the Sixth Finger nor her spurned family would ever stop looking for her, she forsook both of her previous incarnations. Abandoning her old identity, she took the name of her fallen love—Navasi—and swore that henceforth she'd carry on the fight they'd started together, only stealing from those who deserved it, putting her finger in the eye of anyone who thrived on exploitation, regardless of which side of the law they were on. Knowing she'd need a new appearance as well, she continued borrowing from her partner, dyeing her jet-black hair purple and adding a single blue contact. Yet when she considered mimicking the original Navasi's tattoos, she was shocked to learn that they were symbols of Weydan, the god of discovery and equality, famous for taking mortal form. Though her partner had never spoken of religion, Navasi took it as a sign, and even holds out some hope that perhaps her companion might have been more than she seemed, though she recognizes that such thoughts are probably just a manifestation of her grief.

Today, Navasi has built a reputation—perhaps more than is truly wise for a woman with a price on her head—as a talented freelance captain, putting together crews for adventures ranging from planetary scouting and private security to her old talent for "procurement," though she's careful about what sorts of jobs she and her friends take on. Navasi still believes in freedom for all, spreading the wealth, and taking plutocrats down a peg—but she also knows the value of earning credits, and takes pride in the ability to take care of herself and her crew (though she still has a sometimes inconvenient tendency to empty her pockets for those in need). As a scoundrel, a fast-talker, and a brilliant negotiator, Navasi is happiest when the chips are down and lives hang in the balance, as that's when you truly know who your friends are. Above all, she knows to always look beneath the surface, for like Navasi herself, nothing is ever quite what it seems.

Amanda Hamon Kunz
Developer

Meet the Villains—Nyctessa

Friday, May 6, 2016

The Hell's Vengeance Adventure Path is here, and it's time to reveal the final iconic villain for Paizo's first Adventure Path for evil characters! Today we present the iconic necromancer, Nyctessa. Pathfinder Adventure Path #108: Hell Comes to Westcrown will contain Nyctessa's full stat block. You can also download the Hell's Vengeance Player's Guide, which contains all of the new iconic villains for use as pregenerated characters!

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

In the nation of Geb, the dead far outnumber the living—and they hold the reins of political power. Most of Geb's living citizens are slaves, chattel, or most gruesomely, food for their undead overlords. Nyctessa was born into this world, yet she straddled both sides of class and society, being a dhampir—the child of a vampire and a living human mother. The heart of a living being beats in her chest, but her flesh is infused with the negative energy that animates the living dead, and she inherited her vampiric father's taste for blood. In the laws of Geb at least, Nyctessa was neither wholly alive nor truly dead.

Nyctessa's father was one of the Blood Lords, the undead necromancers who form the elite of Geb's aristocracy; her mother, a slave concubine in her father's harem. Throughout Nyctessa's childhood, both her father and mother were distant figures. She was nursed by loyal human slaves, raised by ghoul governesses, and educated by vampire tutors. She was allowed to see her mother only a few times a week, and her father even less. Nevertheless, Nyctessa always remained aware of being groomed to be her father's heir. Everyone expected her to follow in his footsteps, study necromancy, become a vampire, and eventually perhaps, centuries later, inherit his position in Gebbite society and government as one of the undying Blood Lords. She dutifully enrolled in Mechitar's prestigious Ebon Mausoleum, the same academy of necromancy her father had attended centuries earlier, and she excelled in all her studies.

When Nyctessa came of age, the time arrived when she would be presented to Mechitar society and join the social and political scene of Geb's capital city. Most of the young nobles making their debut that night were the newly made spawn of penanggalens, wraiths, vampires, and other undead, but some were the skittish, living offspring of the few mortal Blood Lords who still clung to life. Nyctessa was the only dhampir, and she could feel the mocking stares of her peers, judging her, pitying her even. Neither dead nor alive.

In the early morning, before the sun rose, Nyctessa's father presented her with a gift as the ball wound down: her mother. Nyctessa knew what he expected of her. They embraced and Nyctessa sank her teeth into her mother's neck. She greedily drank the blood, gorged herself on it, and felt a heady rush of power as her mother's drained, lifeless body sank to the floor. Her father watched in silence. Nyctessa had taken the first real step toward becoming his heir.

Nyctessa returned to the Ebon Mausoleum to finish her studies, but during that time, she could not help thinking of her mother's death at her own hands. It was expected. Morality didn't even enter into it. Nyctessa had been told over and over by her governesses and tutors that no life—or death—equaled her own. Her mother had been chattel, and Nyctessa the scion of a noble house. And her mother's blood had tasted good. Almost from the moment of her birth, Nyctessa had been trained for one role, one destiny. Her future was planned out to the tiniest detail. Only now, she questioned whether that would be enough.

At her graduation, Nyctessa's father presented another gift: a staff made from her mother's spine and skull with which to form her arcane bond. This was the last straw, the last nail in her proverbial coffin. The staff was a symbol of her father's power over her, over her future, and the rest of her existence. She could not just allow him to steal all of that possibility from her. She would not just be a pawn in his centuries-long strategies and political maneuverings.

Nyctessa left Mechitar that night, paying for passage on a ship to Jalmeray. She took her staff with her, but did not say goodbye to anyone. Before she would promise herself to death, she would see what life had to offer. Nyctessa journeyed to Jalmeray, Katapesh, Qadira, and beyond to Taldor, Andoran, and Cheliax. She left behind her family name, her father's name, and during these travels, she witnessed life itself. A grubby, hardscrabble existence, always grasping for more—more food, more money, more land, more meaning, only to see it all stolen away when death inevitably arrived. A meaningless exercise, and always far too brief.

Nyctessa chose to live, but only until she had triumphed over life completely. She would be one of the immortal, the eternal, the deathless, what mortals call the living dead—eventually. She would return home and claim her birthright, but on her own terms, through her own skills and abilities. She would not become a mindless automaton, a starving ghoul, a thirsting vampire, or even a rotting lich, but something different, something new, something uniquely Nyctessa. She would do whatever it took. She would let nothing stand in her way. Nyctessa would find the answer within herself and her magic, and she would forever bridge the divide between life and death.

Rob McCreary
Senior Developer

Meet the Villains—Urgraz

Thursday, April 7, 2016

The Hell's Vengeance Adventure Path is here, and it's time to reveal the next iconic villain for Paizo's first Adventure Path for evil characters! Today we present the iconic antipaladin, Urgraz. Check out Pathfinder Adventure Path #107: Scourge of the Godclaw for Urgraz's full stat block, and download the Hell's Vengeance Player's Guide, which contains all of the new iconic villains for use as pregenerated characters!

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Urgraz was born into a life that had everything a duergar could hope for—which isn't much. He was trained and tested throughout his harsh childhood, as are all duergar, and showed aptitude for both military duties and the mental rigors of the priesthood. But Urgraz hated the inflexible order of training and railed against the rule of ministers of Droskar, the god of his people.

Before long, Urgraz began instigating minor rebellions and sought to cause accidents for his fellow trainees. More than once, the young duergar was caught bending the rules for no other reason than to cause havoc and injure other trainees (which delighted him in ways that no other activity could). Some level of deception and treachery is expected among the faithful of Droskar, but such duplicity is expected to be in service of a plan to bring greater wealth or power. Urgraz quickly discovered that claiming to have a plan, no matter how complex or unlikely, to gain from the confusion he caused appeased his masters. As a result, they marked him not as rebellious, but simply shortsighted and slow-minded.

The elders of Urgraz's clan relegated the apparently unpromising duergar to guard duty on slave caravans to distant drow cities. Urgraz caused minor difficulties however he could, and amused himself by killing the occasional straggling slave in painful ways. When that grew dull, he began to trick and kill fellow duergar in accidents he staged. Thanks to his gifted talent for lying and his reputation of being dull-witted, Urgraz found such crimes easy to commit, and he soon grew bored once again.

Years passed, and the restless duergar struggled to find new ways to satisfy his urge to create chaos and pain. Urgraz acquired an oversized crossbow from an especially well-equipped cave giant that he could only fire by putting it down and then using his innate enlarge person ability, just because he liked the sight of impaled foes. He sold diseased slaves to spread plague, sabotaged the gear of fellow duergar, and even killed members of his own family by contaminating their food with virulent disease-laden ingredients. Such indirect efforts gave him a slight thrill, but could not sustain Urgraz's need for anarchy.

Through his family's slave trade with the drow, Urgraz struck up an acquaintance with a dark elf named Zaykira. Though the two were not friends, and certainly did not trust each other, Zaykira and Urgraz discovered they shared a mutual desire for destruction. Zaykira worshiped the demon lord Mazmezz, and showed Urgraz the power a demon lord could grant those willing to offer acceptable forms of obedience and sacrifice. Zaykira suggested the two form a team and pose as outcasts working as guides for surface dwellers exploring the Darklands. At an opportune moment, when they had lulled their employers into a false sense of safety, the two would turn on their charges and sacrifice them to the greater glory of Mazmezz, who would reward them both.

Urgraz agreed, and the two moved to the uppermost regions of Nar-Voth, where they began a modest business as guides and, as Zaykira had suggested, killed those who hired them. Urgraz discovered that anticipation of vile acts felt almost as satisfying as the acts themselves, and that if he feigned loyalty and friendship he could arrange far more complex and satisfying situations for his victims than any single act of torture or abuse. He learned discipline and patience, all in the name of achieving greater horror.

Zaykira continued to pressure Urgraz to swear himself to Mazmezz, and eventually Urgraz relented. They captured a dwarf to sacrifice to the demon lord, and shared a meal before the sacrifice… and that's when Zaykira suddenly became paralyzed. Urgraz explained to his partner that he had poisoned the food, and was himself immune to its effects. Before killing the closest thing to an ally he had ever had, Urgraz made sure Zaykira knew this day had long been coming. He had planned for it since they had first joined forces. He had just waited until Zaykira was far from home, support, and rescue, and lulled into a false sense of safety. It was Urgraz's greatest betrayal, and he expected to revel in it for years.

Urgraz took his time sacrificing Zaykira to Mazmezz, using everything he had learned from their study together. As he finished, a sense of dark power began burning inside him. He realized that not only did he wish to cause catastrophes and death and spread anarchy and evil, but he specifically wanted to hurt those who stood for better things. While he might desire nothing more than to rampage through the Darklands and destroy the entire duergar race, Urgraz knew he needed time to grow stronger. Until that time, he would remain on the surface, training himself for his eventual task.

When Urgraz found the world above, thankfully bathed only in moonlight, he followed a road that led toward Canorate, capital city of the nation of Molthune. The guards at the city gates demanded to know his business there.

"I am Urgraz, an outcast from Nar-Voth. I had to flee the realms below, for I did not fit the strictures of my people's society, and would have been killed if I had stayed. I am an able warrior, and seek employment."

Every word was technically true. For now, Urgraz would serve an employer. He would be patient.

He had learned the satisfaction of a betrayal years in the making, and eagerly awaited the misery and chaos he could cause in the surface lands.

Stay tuned for the reveal of our sixth and final iconic villain appearing in the pages of our first evil Adventure Path, Hell's Vengeance!

Owen K.C. Stephens
Developer

Meet the Iconics—Aric

Thursday, March 3, 2016

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Introducing Ultimate Intrigue's newest iconic character, Aric the vigilante. Be sure you also meet the Red Raven, his masked guise and alter ego.

Tumultuous Galt has captured the popular imagination—and noble nightmares—as blood-drenched anarchy dominated by unscrupulous demagogues, anonymous executioners known as the Gray Gardeners, frothing mobs that seek the destruction of a shattered aristocracy, and imposing guillotines known as final blades that drink the souls of the deceased. The madness has persisted for decades and consumed more than a dozen failed governments, claiming countless lives and shattering as many families—all in the name of liberty and the common good.

Aric was too young to understand why the Gray Gardeners came, dragging his parents into the night on charges of treason. He was too scared to watch as the final blade known as Madame Margaery descended twice, and he was too lonely to stop crying on the ride from the capital to his new home in the countryside. At Sister Sarinda's Home for Revolutionary Orphans, he learned that he could not show too much anger, even when forced to work too many hours sewing garments sold by his pitiless caretaker, his wages garnished to supplement funds the revolutionary governments promised but rarely delivered. While food was scarce, he was fed a torrent of “true” Galtan values that changed with every coup.

Like his fellow orphans, Aric eagerly absorbed these hateful lessons. However, where they believed themselves young revolutionaries who might sniff out traitors, he could not forget the cruel regime that had killed his parents and changed his life. He instead likened himself to the folk heroes of legend who served the common people at the expense of foul nobles. And so he ran away to live out his reckless fantasy.

He didn't find freedom so much as bandits found him. Fortunately they also found young Aric's dream amusing, and the aging leader Thanarus accepted the boy as his protégé. As Aric quickly learned, the bandits were not unprincipled thieves; the Revolution had wronged every one of them, much as it had wronged him. As a former knight who had seen the anarchy consume everything he held dear decades before, Thanarus had suffered longest of all. Nonetheless, he had upheld the old oaths of conduct sworn so long ago, and instructed Aric in the ways of mercy and morality, hoping to banish the hatred that burned within his pupil's heart. Thanarus also taught him the arts of the battlefield, acknowledging that no amount of integrity could keep a man safe in their tumultuous land.

These relatively happy times could not last. The merciless eyes of the Gray Gardeners inevitably turned upon Thanarus and his daring exploits, capturing him and his followers just before Aric returned from an errand in Woodsedge. By the time Aric pushed his way into Isarn, Thanarus was already dead—one more spirit consumed by Madame Margaery, body unceremoniously thrown from the city's crumbling walls, and victim of the current Revolutionary Council, known as the Council of Skulls. Aric waited until nightfall, chased away the scavengers, and buried his mentor by moonlight, keeping only the shredded cloak and ivory cameo of a bygone age that Thanarus had worn so proudly.

What followed was a blur of nights, weeks, and months spent seeking revenge against the council and Galt's corruption. Aric—now garbed in scarlet and Thanarus's cloak to hide his identity—tracked down and destroyed the Council of Skulls' inner circle. Hardly a morning passed without some citizen discovering a dead senator being scavenged by gruesome ravens that cawed with pride. In time, the people of Galt gave this crimson killer a name: the Red Raven.

The Council of Skulls buckled under the Red Raven's attacks and the demagoguery of their political rivals. The bloodthirsty mobs overthrew the regime and elected a new council headed by Citizen Korran Goss, who invited the red-garbed vigilante to help rebuild Galt and stop those who would perpetuate anarchy. At first the tasks were simple: deliver a message here and spy on a conspirator there. Then the requests grew in their violence: the breaking of an arm to send a warning or the apprehension of a traitor. Donning his mask gave Aric the courage to act and suppressed the mercy Thanarus had taught behind a faceless mien of unforgiving justice. As Citizen Goss's requests grew increasingly bloody, Aric began questioning his own role and whether the Red Raven was truly serving Galt or merely perpetuating a new generation of hatred. By night, the Red Raven could bury these doubts. By day, Aric couldn't help but voice his concerns, hoping to unearth some method behind the madness—or at least find true allies among the angry mobs. Driven by his passion and Thanarus's training, Aric's words began to find purchase in sympathetic ears. Unfortunately, they also reached the Revolutionary Council, and Citizen Goss quietly signed Aric's death warrant, contacting the only man he trusted to apprehend the miscreant: the Red Raven.

With the signed orders in hand, the Red Raven set off across the city while grappling with the irony of his task: the capture of his secret identity by his masked guise. Questions coursed through his mind. How could he, the Red Raven, survive the night without sacrificing the seductive fame in which he reveled? How could he convince Citizen Goss to reconsider? At last, he paused atop a roof and tore the mask from his face. “How?” he asked. “How can I delude myself? The Red Raven was supposed to end tyranny, yet here I am the worst tyrant of them all.”

Citizen Goss awoke to delightful news. The knave Aric of Halvon had been captured and left on the front steps of the council building, and the Red Raven had left a personal note praying that Aric's death would bring Galt one step closer to freedom. Goss cackled his approval when Aric's sham trial delivered a guilty verdict, and congratulated himself when the Gray Gardeners threw Aric into prison to await execution. His mirth only faded when the Red Raven stopped answering his summons. There was no sign of the masked hero. Even the ashes of the vigilante's incinerated costume had been swept from the street the day before. And in the prison Aric found peace.

However, not all were content to let another innocent fall to Madame Magaery, especially one so outspoken as Aric. In the dead of night, his cell door swung open, and an aging legal clerk by the name of Quinn extended a hand to help Aric to his feet. Together they fled south to Taldor, evading bounty hunters and exchanging tales of noble souls who had fallen prey to Galt's bloodlust. Where guilt wracked Aric with memories of the lives he had taken, Quinn was resolute, dedicated to aiding the falsely accused no matter the price. Aric could not help but find strength in his savior's words and actions. They parted ways soon thereafter, Quinn vowing to one day lay low the red-cloaked vigilante who had captured Aric. Aric in turn silently promised to uphold the ideals that Thanarus had taught him so long ago, and that Quinn had reinforced.

Aric has wandered ever since, wielding his courtly charms as an outspoken defender of liberty and peace. Thanarus's cameo once more serves as a reminder of the virtues Aric hopes to uphold—and the cost of losing himself in a cycle of violence. Yet charisma cannot vanquish all evils. When nothing can stop an injustice but cold steel, Aric dons his recreated disguise, and the Red Raven flies once more.

John Compton
Pathfinder Society Lead Developer

Meet the Villains—Zelhara

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

The Hell's Vengeance Adventure Path is here, and it's time to reveal the next iconic villain for Paizo's first Adventure Path for evil characters! Today we present the iconic torturer, Zelhara. Check out Pathfinder Adventure Path #106: For Queen & Empire for Zelhara's full stat block, and download the new Hell's Vengeance Player's Guide, which contains all of the new iconic villains for use as pregenerated characters!

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Some beings—like those from the Outer Planes—are intrinsically virtuous or malevolent; however, mortals enjoy the unique characteristic of free will. No humans are born evil. They become evil.

Like many children in the Nidalese city of Ridwan, the girl who would one day be called Zelhara grew up in a massive nursery run by the church of Zon-Kuthon. This institution allowed parents to continue their work without having to attend to their children's daily needs, and after a number of years, once the children could physically contribute to the household, they were returned to their families. Agents of Nidal's Umbral Court performed numerous tests on the children during their time under the care of the Kuthite clergy, selecting certain candidates for the state's and church's future needs. Mere weeks before she was to rejoin her family, Zelhara herself was brought before an Umbral Court agent who claimed he could see something in her that pleased the Midnight Lord. One day she would share his message of pain and duty with thousands of fearful inheritors. Her family, loyal Nidalese who worked meager trades in the city, found delight in knowing that their child would one day hold high status in the state.

Zelhara and 12 other children from the nursery began their training at a young age. Unlike shadowcallers, Zelhara and her young companions didn't undergo the scrutiny of a nightglass, but were instead selected by virtue of their mere presence and their reactions to fear and pain. Zelhara proved a severe and obedient child, perfect for the role of a state inquisitor.

After their selection, the children in Zelhara's group were moved into a wing of dormitories within the temple of Zon-Kuthon. The priests began the children's training with religious study and the dark history of their nation. The Kuthites taught the children how to identify enemies of the church and state. The members of Zelhara's group received the best foods at mealtimes, and as long as they performed their required duties and showed the proper respect to their tutors, they were allowed relative freedom to do as they pleased. They were even allowed outside the temple, and granted the privilege to occasionally spend time with their parents, provided they lived within Ridwan. This favorable treatment attracted jealousy and animosity from the young shadowcaller initiates and prospective clerics also training at the temple. Zelhara's tutors told her that the other children were envious because they were too independent and didn't properly understand submission. Zelhara believed it was because they knew they might one day have to withstand her ministrations.

Zelhara's training grew more rigorous as the instruction continued. She and her colleagues were encouraged to invent their own unique methods of inflicting pain and drawing the truth from their victims. Zelhara preferred emotional manipulation and stress positions rather than direct pain, for she believed pain to be a form of religious ecstasy that only the truly devoted could enjoy. As she subjected dissidents of Nidal to her ministrations, she felt strong and grew proud of the service she performed for her nation and her god.

As Zelhara and her companions matured into their teenage years, they moved to their own building in the city near the volcanic rift that splits Ridwan's central square, and their training changed significantly. Their tutors became more strict and abusive. Zelhara, who had been the standout student within her group, started to be treated with suspicion and disdain. She couldn't even perform simple tasks in the dormitory kitchens without being scolded and punished. She and the others suffered beatings, periods of isolation, and the burden of meaningless tasks at all hours of the day. Their old names were stripped away and their tutors provided new ones. The Kuthites forced Zelhara and her colleagues to torture and humiliate each other as part of their training, yet they still gave the students the chance to voluntarily remove themselves from the process and return to their families. Surprisingly, none of the children accepted. Despite their abuse, they wanted to be useful tools of the state, and while their instructors dehumanized them, the children formed bonds with one another, as they had no one else to rely upon. During this period, Zelhara grew close to Tornine, a boy she had known since her time at the nursery.

Finally, Zelhara and the others were judged ready to undergo a ritual called the Descent. More to test loyalty than to extract admissions of guilt, prospective inquisitors are placed in pairs within iron cages, their faces mere inches from each other, and then lowered into the rift in the center of Ridwan where the Midnight Lord is said to have first manifested upon Golarion. The oppressive heat causes intense pain and the cloying smoke makes breathing an ordeal. As the inquisitors are lowered into the rift, they must overcome their own suffering and disorientation to force their counterparts into absolute submission to their authority. Zelhara found herself paired with Tornine, and as the iron cage creaked down into the crevasse, they engaged in a battle of wills. Tornine tried to remain strong under Zelhara's scrutiny as tears evaporated from his cheeks, but Zelhara was unrelenting. She knew her strength was superior. When Tornine began to crumble within minutes of hanging over the sulfurous fissure, Zelhara felt utter disgust for her former friend and continued to disparage him. She didn't give the signal to raise the cage until she knew Tornine had died—just another useless tool to be discarded. Having passed the test, Zelhara achieved the rank of full inquisitor, earning her family's pride and admiration.

As one of Nidal's best and most thorough inquisitors and torturers, Zelhara now travels throughout Avistan in service to her nation and the Midnight Lord. Zelhara claims that, with enough time, she can make anyone divulge what they know—yet she doesn't care for forced statements, when people blurt out anything just to make her stop. Zelhara hears the real voices of her subjects when they scream in agony, and she can smell the truth in the blood that she spills in pursuit of her goals.

Stay tuned over the coming months as we reveal more of the villains you'll see in the pages of our first evil Adventure Path, Hell's Vengeance!

Adam Daigle
Developer

Meet the Iconics—The Red Raven

Friday, February 26, 2016

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Ho there, stranger! If you're lookin' for shelter on a cold night like tonight, you could do a lot better than that cursed Ledinthorp estate you were prowling 'round. Come 'long. My daughters married and moved out ages ago—means we got a spare bed for a traveler who doesn't know how to stay out of trouble when there're Gray Gardeners keeping the peace.

You even know whose ruined home you were in? That once belonged to the old Ledinthorp clan. They played at being dukes and earls until the Revolution swept through in '67 and lopped off their heads! I hear the nursemaid smuggled out the duke's heirs before the mobs set fire to the place and made dresses out of the swanky curtains. Nobody's had a mind to fix it up, and the only reason anyone goes there now is to look for the inheritance the duke supposedly hid in the walls. Course, if there's any justice in the world, the Red Raven's found it long since and given it out to help feed starving mouths in these tryin' times.

What's that, stranger? Never heard of the Red Raven? That's a right shame, and something of a surprise for folk 'round here. He's famous—a hometown hero! Now I admit a lot of cities get to make that claim, but 'round here it's true. He was born a common man to a couple down on Razor Street. Some even say that he's the lost son of Darl Jubbanich, which would make the Red Raven the child of Liberty itself, raised by the common folk! But those were hard times; we were struggling with starvation inflicted by Galt's hungry neighbors, and the dark legacy of those traitorous aristocrats still strangled our lands. Even so, he fed on the freedom of a liberated nation—that part's exaggeration, mind, but it's how the story goes—and grew up strong, proud, and gallant. And handsome! You'd believe me if you saw him. My, if I was forty years younger…

Oh, don't give that look! At my age you're allowed to speak your mind. Now, where was I?

Just about everyone 'round here's seen the Red Raven from down the street or across the square as he pursues brigands and traitors. I'm lucky to have seen him eight times, myself. Why, he flies 'cross the shingles as if his cape were feathers, soaring on wings of grandeur stained by the blood of them rotten nobles. The glow of old Galt's torches'n'pitchforks can't compare to that righteous hellfire smoldering in his eyes, hotter'n Asmodeus's summer sweat! Course, what would you expect from someone whose passion for justice ignited from the sparks that flew from the first final blade? You know how our final blades all have ladies' names? That's 'cause they're the only wives the Red Raven takes, and hardly a night goes by that he doesn't bring home some bloody present for the missus. Har har!

Aww, loosen up, stranger. Jokin' aside, my youngest, Anjerille, she was at a festival when the Red Raven dropped into the crowd and picked out a villain—said he could sniff out nobles by night just by following the stench of their perfumes. Oh, you laugh. I did too, but only a month later we learned that he has eyes so sharp that he can tell the difference between a cobbler and a count from three streets away with only a crescent moon for light. Now, my eldest, Redarra, is known to tell some tall tales, but given what else I've seen, I half take it as truth when she says he can taste a man's bloodline back ten generations from just a single drop.

Who is he really? Anyone you ask will give a different answer. Some think he's a common bandit turned good. Others say he's a reformed noble seeking redemption. Me? I say he's everyone in Edme, for we're all willing to watch for aristocrats who think that after half a century it's finally safe to return to Galt. Aristocrats who would sneak around a burned-down estate and walk away with a bag of jewels, like the one I fancy you're carryin' now. Blue-bloods with a face like yours—the same as old Duke Ledinthorp's, whose head I watched tumble from Razor Jenni's blade so long ago. The son of a dead dynasty like yours, scavengin' what rightly belongs to the people of Galt. Who's the Red Raven? He's everyone we've passed tonight. He's every set of eyes that's seen us walking together. He's the footsteps you hear patterin' across the rooftops, fast as the heart of man who's got only an hour left to live.

Best get runnin' Your Excellency. The Red Raven knows you're here.

Check back next week when we take a closer look at one of Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Intrigue's deepest secrets!

John Compton
Pathfinder Society Lead Developer

Publisher Preview Update! Pathfinder Battles fans, the long break of miniatures updates is nearly over! Erik will return with news about the upcoming set next week!

Meet the Villains—Emil Kovkorin

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

The countdown to the Hell's Vengeance Adventure Path continues, as we reveal the next iconic villain that will appear in Paizo's first Adventure Path for evil characters! Today we present the iconic assassin, Emil Kovkorin. Check out Pathfinder Adventure Path #105: The Inferno Gate for Emil's full stat block, and keep an eye out for the upcoming Hell's Vengeance Player's Guide, which contains all of the new iconic villains for use as pregenerated characters!

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Emil became the source of great scandal when he was born to a pair of affluent merchants in the Andoren capital of Almas. Normally a tiefling in Andoran wouldn't raise many eyebrows; however, Emil's parents were former nobles who had refused to face exile and instead grudgingly capitulated to the growing zeitgeist that gripped Andoran during the People's Revolt. Though they had never roused enough ire to warrant a visit from the Eagle Knights, the Kovkorins were quite vocal about their dissenting opinions on the eradication of the aristocracy, often clashing with their nation's lofty, democratic ideals.

Emil's parents tried to hide the boy's fiendish nature from the public, but the young tiefling's distinctive tail—and the smoke that poured out of his differently colored eyes whenever his emotions got the better of him—made their attempts futile. Convinced that the old money in Andoran took part in seditious practices against the government, rabble-rousers pointed at Emil as proof that the former nobility were truly loyal to themselves, House Thrune, and even Hell itself. Enemies of Emil's family used the boy as a rallying point for those who shared their views about Andoran's overthrown class system, and fingered the family for being part of the Seven Houses, a conspiracy of one-time nobles who still used their wealth to influence the nation.

In truth, Emil's parents did indeed belong to the Seven Houses, and had recently accepted a large sum of money and promises for security from House Thrune in exchange for swaying votes in the People's Council in favor of laws that might benefit Cheliax and delivering information on Eagle Knight activities. At first, these accusations hardly mattered to the furious noble couple, who had faced the same opposition before. However, they saw their Hell-spawned son as a political liability and locked him away in a cellar beneath their impressive manor house. But when the Eagle Knights finally came calling to their estate, Emil's parents chose exile over death, and abandoned their 8-year-old son along with their other gifts from House Thrune.

The estate fell to the government, and a few weeks later, the bureaucrat who came to catalog the new assets—an elderly minister of trade and commerce from the Demarchy Assembly—discovered Emil in the basement, sitting in a cloud of smoke and tears. Whether in an act of egalitarian charity or wily foresight, the minister adopted Emil as his ward, taking the boy back to his home.

For the first time in his life, Emil freely walked the streets of his home city, though he soon learned that his noble heritage attracted as much negative attention as his fiendish one. He quickly became deft with disguises—much more so than his parents had been. He found that he enjoyed the feeling of power that came with anonymity and a changeable identity in these undercover excursions, though he struggled to find an identity that fit him. Under various guises he fought in brawls down in Portside, spied on the logging operations in Timberfell, and snuck in to performances in the Theater District.

He also had a taste of his parents' former high-class lifestyle, thanks to his mentor. The old man groomed the lad for a landscape of political intrigue, paying for a swordfighting trainer and bringing Emil along to dinners, balls, and other high-society functions in Almas. Emil never wore a disguise at these events, at his mentor's request; the crafty politician liked how the tiefling's eerie eyes unsettled his political opponents.

Emil delighted in this as well, and soon began finding other ways to subtly advance his mentor's agendas—in secret, of course. A rival politician might lose an important document, for example, or an uncooperative union organizer might get in a fight with a stranger on the street and end up with a broken jaw. Emil never cared much about the actual politics involved, but thrilled to see his power displayed in his targets' suffering. With each misdeed, Emil's schemes grew increasingly cruel, vindictive, and enjoyable.

All this came to a head one day when Emil returned home to find his mentor fretting about international trade negotiations. A Drumish diplomat apparently had some incriminating evidence against Emil's patron, and threatened to expose everything unless Druma received extraordinarily generous terms. With sudden inspiration, Emil excused himself calmly and walked down the hall to his chamber, his eyes wafting trails of smoke in barely contained excitement.

Later that night, a half-elven Eagle Knight approached the Drumish embassy—which had once been the mansion of Emil's parents—with an urgent message for the diplomat to be delivered to his hands only. The earnest young Eagle Knight was granted an audience, and as soon as he and the diplomat were alone in the mirror-trimmed parlor, the disguised Emil pounced, driving a dagger up through the man's jaw. As the would-be blackmailer bled out in the tiefling's arms, Emil caught his reflection in one of the large silver mirrors on the wall. Smoke coursed from his eyes—one black, one red—and the warm blood flecking his skin made his sharp-toothed grin all the wider.

As he dropped the lifeless body to the ground, he realized he'd been searching for this identity all along, the mask he would wear forevermore: he would be the face of death in Almas.

Since that night, Emil has claimed dozens of unsuspecting lives—sometimes for gold, sometimes for fun. He has never lost the thrill of walking in public disguised, knowing he possesses the power to end the life of any person he meets on the street unnoticed. Nor has he forgotten the exhilaration of watching a victim die, not even when he took a bag of gold from a Lumber Consortium officer to end the life of his adopted father.

Emil doesn't frequent state events anymore unless he is working, but he is intimately familiar with the already-rotting underbelly of the ruling class in the young nation of Andoran, and takes contracts from government officials as often as from those with more private interests. Each time he kills, he lingers to watch death take hold of his new victim before vanishing back into the night, leaving nothing more than a few wisps of smoke.

Stay tuned over the coming months as we reveal more of the villains you'll see in the pages of our first evil Adventure Path, Hell's Vengeance!

Joe Homes
Contributor

Meet the Villains—Linxia Benzekri

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

The countdown to the Hell's Vengeance Adventure Path continues, as we reveal the next iconic villain that will appear in Paizo's first Adventure Path for evil characters! Today we get our first glimpse of the iconic Hellknight, Linxia Benzekri. Check out Pathfinder Adventure Path #104: Wrath of Thrune for Linxia's full stat block, and keep an eye out for the upcoming Hell's Vengeance Player's Guide, which contains all of the new iconic villains for use as pregenerated characters!

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Linxia Benzekri was born and raised in Khari, the Chelish enclave on the northwest corner of Garund. Although ethnically Garundi, Linxia always thought of herself as Chelaxian. After all, Khari had been part of Cheliax since long before she was ever born, and though Linxia's parents kept their Garundi surname, they gave her a traditional Chelish first name. Her family long ago abandoned the clan ties that define many Garundi, and while Linxia's grandparents still occasionally spoke Osiriani in private, it was never spoken in her own home, and Linxia never bothered to learn her native tongue. To Linxia, the mighty ruins of the Arch of Aroden that tower above Khari were more a symbol of her heritage than the city's Rahadoumi sandstone architecture.

When Linxia was still a child, her parents sent her to an Asmodean convent. Both of Linxia's parents were successful merchants and traders, and though they were not religious, they felt it was important for their eldest child to receive a good education if she were to join the family business. At the convent, Linxia learned the grand history of Cheliax, how House Thrune unified a warring nation with the blessings of Asmodeus, and the necessity of laws based on those of Hell itself to preserve an ordered society.

Linxia returned home a teenager, now a loyal Chelish citizen ready to do her part to support the empire. But she was taken aback when she overheard her parents talking with an old family friend about a secret cabal of Garundi gentry who wanted to return Khari to "its rightful home" of Rahadoum. Horrified that her parents were involved in such a treasonous plot, Linxia reasoned that her parents' friend must have lured them into the conspiracy, so she immediately reported them to the city guard, the dottari.

That night, two Hellknights of the Order of the Rack—dressed in their characteristic night-black armor and flayed-skin cloaks—came to Linxia's house to arrest her parents for sedition. As her parents were hauled away in chains, loudly proclaiming their innocence and begging the impassive Hellknights to show mercy, Linxia only watched in silence. If her parents were truly innocent, then she trusted the law to exonerate them.

Linxia's parents were judged guilty that same night, and the next morning, Linxia went to the city square to witness their sentences: scourged with whips until their backs looked like the exposed musculature of the Hellknights' armor, crucified, and then disemboweled. Through it all, Linxia watched without emotion. She was not happy to see her parents' excruciation, but neither did she feel sadness. Even though she still believed her parents were duped, they had been found guilty of treason and had to be punished. The law had spoken.

Three days later, when her parents finally succumbed to their tortures and died, Linxia made a decision: she would become a Hellknight herself. Her parents' crime was not their own—they had been misled by a friend, and paid the price. As a member of the Order of the Rack, however, she could help protect other innocents from such dangerous whispers and prevent them from suffering the same fate. The Hellknights personified the law and order that guarded civilization and prevented it from sliding back into barbarity; people like the "friend" who had deceived her parents were criminals whose actions threatened the very fabric of society.

As a symbol of her dedication, Linxia shaved her head and got a tattoo of the Order of the Rack's symbol—a spiked torture wheel—on her forehead, so every time she looked in the mirror she would be reminded of her goal, her purpose, and the terrible consequences of failure. Linxia traveled to Avistan and presented herself at the gates of Citadel Rivad, headquarters of the Order of the Rack, and was accepted into the order as an armiger, a Hellknight squire in training.

Linxia devoted herself to her new calling, honing her mind and body for the trials that lay ahead. She had received basic combat training at the Asmodean monastery, but under the tutelage of the Hellknights, she learned to fight in heavy armor, mastered the sword and whip, and learned strategy, tactics, and engineering. When not practicing the arts of war, Linxia obsessively studied in Citadel Rivad's library, memorizing the tenets of the Hellknights' philosophy, the Measure and the Chain. To strengthen her resolve and desensitize herself to pain, Linxia regularly and willingly underwent the Order of the Rack's reckoning, purging herself of weakness and undisciplined thoughts by drinking boiling water until her throat scarred and left her voice a ragged rasp.

Before Linxia could become a full Hellknight, however, the Order of the Rack had a test for her loyalty. One of Linxia's brothers had been arrested for attempting to rekindle the spark of rebellion that had been stamped out in Khari with her parents' execution. He had been tried, found guilty, and brought to Citadel Rivad for sentencing. Without hesitation, Linxia drew her sword, and looking straight into her brother's eyes, beheaded him without remorse. Like her parents, Linxia's brother had broken the law. Justice was served.

With her training complete, her loyalty and dedication to the law tested and found sufficient, Linxia faced her final task: single combat with a summoned barbazu. All around her, many of her fellow armigers failed in this final trial, slain by the devils' barbed glaives or succumbing to infernal wounds and infections they suffered at the hands of the fiends. But Linxia succeeded, emerging bloodied but triumphant, her studies, training, and most of all, her determination, leading her to victory.

When she had recovered from her ordeal, Linxia was accorded the full rank of Hellknight and granted the symbol of her station: a suit of Hellknight plate armor, bearing the same flayed musculature motif as the Hellknights who had arrested and executed her parents. Now Linxia serves as a righteous bastion of law against the chaos of insidious knowledge, corrupt philosophies, and rebellious thought. With her sword, she enforces conformity and justice to preserve a peaceful and ordered society—no matter the cost.

Stay tuned over the coming months as we reveal more of the villains you'll see in the pages of our first evil Adventure Path, Hell's Vengeance!

Rob McCreary
Senior Developer

Meet the Villains—Lazzero Dalvera

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

The countdown to the Hell's Vengeance Adventure Path begins today, as we reveal the first of six iconic villains that will appear in Paizo's first Adventure Path for evil characters! We start with the iconic evil cleric, Lazzero Dalvera. Check out Pathfinder Adventure Path #103: The Hellfire Compact for Lazzero's full stat block, and keep an eye out for the upcoming Hell's Vengeance Player's Guide, which will contain all of the new iconic villains for use as pregenerated characters!

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Lazzero Dalvera, the eldest child of an officer in the Molthuni army and a priest of Abadar, was born under an auspicious moon with a full head of bright red hair. Everyone assumed he would earn respect and fame as an army officer like his mother. His training began as soon as he could walk, and he attended the best military academies to which his parents' money and connections could win him entrance.

But the boy was not a strong child, and he lacked the temperament to hone his martial skills. Instead, bullies perfected their own abilities at his expense, both in formal sparring matches and between classes. Rather than retaliate with violence, Lazzero kept tabs on the children who picked on him, recording their secret transgressions—cheating, lying, petty theft, and other such behaviors common among privileged youth. When he had amassed a sufficient amount of dirt on his rivals, he ensured his teachers found it—anonymously of course—and laughed to himself as the bullies got their just rewards for their wrongdoings.

Despite his skill at countering his rivals, Lazzero still didn't excel in his martial studies, and by the age of 12 had washed out of every military academy in which his parents had placed him. With their hopes in their son dashed, they sent Lazzero to be trained by the Abadaran clergy, who counted his father among their number; if he couldn't fulfill his destiny as a military commander, he would do so in service to the Master of the First Vault.

In this endeavor Lazzero finally succeeded, for he found prayer and contemplation came naturally to him. Now among the top initiates in the Abadaran monastery, Lazzero took on the role of bully and tormentor. He didn't need to study as much as his less studious peers did, and could use the time not spent poring over religious texts making life harder for those weaker than himself. In addition to overt hazing, Lazzero maintained even more thorough records of his enemies' activities, which he took pride in turning over to his superiors—publicly this time—so that they would receive punishment for their transgressions.

While he couldn't ensure that justice was served, Lazzero believed he was doing Abadar's work. How, he asked, could his peers expect to teach Abadar's ways if they couldn't themselves follow his laws? Was he not complicit in their wrongdoing if he allowed their crimes to go unpunished? With such justifications, Lazzero convinced himself that what he did was right, that it would set him apart from his so-called equals in the eyes of his teachers and Abadar. He didn't recognize, however, that he had started down a slippery slope that would ultimately lead to his fall from grace—for Lazzero had begun to twist the law to meet his needs. The law was now a weapon he used to keep those he didn't like beneath him.

By graduation, Lazzero had distinguished himself as one of the most gifted acolytes, though he had made no friends and garnered his share of enemies, many of his teachers among them. For his apprenticeship, Lazzero traveled from Canorate to Cettigne—an inglorious posting not befitting his high marks and honors. Lazzero was to serve as the acolyte at the local temple along with a fellow graduate, a woman named Laureth. The pair were highly competitive, each aspiring to rise in the ranks of the church quickly and find a permanent placement in a more prestigious temple than Cettigne's.

Although Lazzero was the more talented cleric, Laureth was more favored, receiving a prominent position within the temple and taking on greater responsibilities. Unwilling to accept a position beneath his rival, Lazzero began plotting and spying on Laureth in the hope of catching her falling short of the high standards expected of Abadar's clergy. Laureth provided him no opportunities, however, behaving as a paragon whom all faithful of Abadar should aspire to emulate.

Frustrated and bitter, Lazzero prayed for a means of turning the law against Laureth, but Abadar provided no guidance. Rather, a different voice echoed in the recesses of Lazzero's mind, offering honeyed promises of providing all Lazzero could imagine and more. It spoke of deceptions and lies as a means to an end, of the weak serving the strong, and of always having the upper hand. Lazzero liked these words, and though he knew he would no longer be true to Abadar if he were to follow them, he did so anyway. He would see Laureth humiliated, no matter the cost.

Prompted by his mysterious new divine patron, Lazzero began committing minor crimes himself and staging evidence to point toward Laureth. Fabricated trade records for transactions under her jurisdiction, false testimony written in her hand, and unbalanced ledgers month after month with no explanation into the shortfall all built a case against his rival. Through subterfuge and sabotage, Lazzero ensured that Laureth could never be solvent in the eyes of Abadar's code. Best of all, he brought about her ruin through the very laws and regulations that had for so long kept him from achieving his own lofty goals.

When Laureth was convicted and sentenced to a life of servitude rather than clerical service, Lazzero said a prayer of thanks to the Keeper of the First Vault, asking for a blessing from his patron. Asmodeus answered in his stead, revealing himself to have been the orchestrator of Lazzero's revenge upon Laureth. In that moment, Lazzero knew that the path to his prophesied glory lay not in continuing in his father's footsteps in the temple of Abadar. The Prince of Lies had shown him the power of deceit and the means through which he could always ensure the law worked in his favor.

That night, Lazzero left Cettigne, his vestments and holy symbol left folded neatly on his modest cot, and headed south to Cheliax. He forsook all his Abadaran vows and proclaimed his faith in Asmodeus, and sought a church of his new patron. No longer did Lazzero worry that he would not achieve greatness. He was content to enter an Asmodean temple as a lowly adept with faith that his dedication would quickly raise him to the upper echelons of the church. Thus did Lazzero begin his true journey—a quest for power and glory achieved by following the Prince of Darkness.

Stay tuned over the coming months as we reveal more of the villains you'll see in the pages of our first evil Adventure Path, Hell's Vengeance!

Mark Moreland
Developer

Meet the Iconics: Yoon

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Today, as part of our ongoing Meet the Iconics series, we introduce the next of the six new iconic characters featured in Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Occult Adventures. This week we meet Yoon, the iconic kineticist!

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Yoon always loved fire—the warmth, the color, the brilliant blaze. Fire always changed, and changed everything around it. Yoon could empathize. Fire was also always hungry—Yoon could empathize with that, too, as her family were immigrants in Minkai, and struggled to support themselves.

Not long after Yoon learned to walk, she learned to climb, and immediately took a shining to the rooftops of Oda. Her father only brought her to the city for the big festivals, and she wanted the best view to watch the fireworks celebrating the Lady of the North Star. Once, when she was climbing, Yoon fell, dropping into the river, and her father had to fish her out. Yoon coughed up a seemingly endless stream of water, and her grandmother scolded her, saying it would have been far worse if Yoon had hit the ground.

Yoon wasn't so sure. Just as fire had always been her friend, water had always been her enemy. All her life, it had taken her mother away on ships, for weeks or months at a time. And in the end, it refused to give her back.

Yoon's mother had been a brave warrior and explorer, and had told Yoon many fantastic tales of adventure and faraway places, primarily in the savage lands to the north. She also brought Yoon things, like the stuffed bear-owl creature named Gom-Gom, or the crooked stick used to play a strange northern game. Yet one day, her mother failed to return. Yoon and her father waited, growing more anxious as each week. When at last a messenger arrived and confirmed her mother's death battling siyokoys, a grief-stricken Yoon decided that no one else would ever call her by the same name her mother had. Forsaking her old name, she insisted on being referred to only by her mother's family name, the one her mother's adventuring companions had called her—Yoon.

Gom-Gom was the first to accept Yoon's new name. Eventually, even her grandmother gave in, though she continued to sniff at the impropriety. Yoon's grandmother had been a palace servant to the Shojinawa family once, and despite the fact that Yoon was determined to become a warrior like her mother, the old woman insisted on teaching her about things like poise, discipline, and self-control, arguing that they were just as important to a warrior as to a court scholar. Yoon didn't quite believe that, but did her best anyway, proving a quick and capable student.

Yoon's father fared worse. Still a loving, caring parent, he grew distant and sad after his wife's death, and spent more time muttering about things like imperial taxes and yakuza corruption. The new friends he made were constantly grouchy, and Yoon came to think of them privately as his Bitter Friends. They spent long evenings drinking and arguing in low voices, always careful to keep the windows closed and doors locked, even in the worst summer heat.

One night, as Yoon was once more watching fireworks in honor of the Lady of the North Star, her father went off to meet those friends. Yet even as the colored stars burst overhead, a new light blazed up to the east—a burning warehouse! Yoon went to watch the citizens fight the fire, but when she arrived, she found the place surrounded by imperial soldiers. Not only were they not helping put out the blaze, they were actively preventing those inside from fleeing. An uncomprehending Yoon wept to hear their cries, plugging her ears against the crunch of tetsubos on bone as the soldiers beat back burning men and women and their captain issued a proclamation about the punishment of Hwan rebels.

That's when Yoon saw her father.

He was in a knot of his Bitter Friends, blackened with ash, struggling to break through the ranks of soldiers. Even as Yoon called his name, she saw him fall beneath the soldiers' blows.

Screaming, Yoon raced for the line of soldiers. She might have gone unnoticed in the din, if not for the flaming board she scooped up and hurled at one of the soldiers, striking him in the helmet. As the man crumpled to the ground, several of his companions turned toward her. Yet as they advanced, truncheons raised, Yoon found her view suddenly blocked by her grandmother, wreathed in a snaking cloud of eerie black flames.

"Run, child!" the woman commanded. "If you listen to me only once in your life, run now, and don't come back!"

Yoon ran—through the city, out the gates, and into the surrounding fields. Only when she could run no farther did she finally collapse, exhausted, into the grass, listening to the night breeze and the song of insects. Behind her, the fireworks still continued, but the brilliant lines and stars no longer held Yoon's attention. As she held up a hand, little flickers of black flame flared into life around it. Her own tiny fireworks.

Her grandmother had commanded her to leave. Yoon understood that. She had struck a soldier, and no one harmed an imperial soldier and lived. But where should she go? She had always wanted to see Hwanggot, her family's homeland, but it lay across the water to the southwest, and there was no way Yoon was crossing that much water. In a sudden flash of inspiration, she decided to head north, up through the Forest of Spirits, then down along the mainland. She would be an explorer, like her mother. And she wouldn't have to be scared. After all, she still had her two oldest friends—Gom-Gom and fire. Between the two of them, they'd protect her.

Yet while a stuffed animal and a magical flame can handle a lot of problems, they weren't truly equipped to handle all Yoon's needs, and she might well have starved to death in the ensuing days and weeks if she hadn't fallen in with a mysterious traveler. Seemingly waiting for Yoon at a crossroads, the man spoke to Yoon of her powers, helping her come to understand them even as he taught her to scavenge and forage for food. Yet his greatest gift came on the slopes of the great volcano Kumijinja, where he called forth the spirits of the mountain's fire, presenting Yoon to them like a visiting dignitary. As the kami touched her, Yoon felt something inside her shift, and the flames that roiled inside her emerged, turning from black to a brilliant red. In that instant, she understood the fire she carried, and it understood her. When she woke from her trance-like reverie, the traveler was gone, leaving Yoon to continue her journeys alone—a child in age, yet armed with the courage of her mother, and the fiery wisdom of the mountain.

Mark Seifter
Designer

Meet the Iconics: Meligaster

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Today, as part of our ongoing Meet the Iconics series, we introduce the next of the six new iconic characters featured in Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Occult Adventures. This week we meet Meligaster, the iconic mesmerist!

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

From the fine tailoring of his immaculate suit to the gold handle of his elegant sword cane, little about Meligaster's current appearance reveals his upbringing as a common slave. Born in captivity in the field house of a minor noble Lord Maskelyne in the devil-obsessed nation of Cheliax, Meligaster's childhood saw him cast in the role of enforced plaything to a brood of aristocratic children. Even as his own brothers and sisters were torn away and forced into servitude at noble estates all over Cheliax, Meligaster found a new home as an adopted sibling of his master's children, who treated him like a beloved living doll. While his aging mother toiled in the manor's laundry, Meligaster sat at tea in gardens blooming with a profusion of exotic and colorful plants. The children dressed their "poppet," as they called him, in stylish suits of silk and velvet, granting Meligaster an early appreciation for the finery of nobility so foreign to his true brothers and sisters, whom he began to forget as the years went on.

The young halfling soon found that he possessed a natural charm and wit that engendered an especial affection in his "hosts," and even the elder generation of Maskelynes doted on him and offered him special privileges. At night, when the children went to bed and Meligaster returned to the "Sliphouse," a ramshackle garrison for the family's halfling servants, he regaled his fellow laborers with news of the goings on in the manor home. He wove vivid tales of rooms festooned with fine framed paintings, of beautiful baroque bronzes depicting the gods of Old Azlant, and chambers lined with bookshelves holding the accumulated knowledge of centuries. At first, Meligaster's fellow slaves resented him for the better treatment afforded by the nobles of the house, but here again the halfling discovered that his charm, humor, and personal charisma were enough to get even the most hostile audiences on his side.

Despite the nice clothes and decadent meals, Meligaster remained a slave. He was forbidden from leaving the estate grounds alone, and on the rare occasion when he accompanied the children into town he did so with a fine silver chain around his neck. As the children grew older, tea parties evolved into wrestling and rough play, and the small stature that had so endeared him in years past became a liability. Now teenagers, the children began to view Meligaster as an old, unwanted toy. No longer did he receive a handsome new suit every fortnight. No longer was he welcome to sip sumptuous wine at the feasting table. To his considerable consternation, Meligaster began to take on a shabby appearance, and his change in status—subtle at first—undermined his cheer and good humor, which in turn served to further alienate him from his hosts.

At the same time, Lord Maskelyne's political affairs in the nearby capital city of Egorian grew dire, and the family found its fortune much diminished. Things at the manor became much harder not just for Meligaster, but for all of the slaves and servants of the Sliphouse. As the fortunes of his fellow slaves grew worse, their attitudes toward him grew likewise darker and less charitable. Meligaster, formerly a friend to slave and master alike, soon found himself with no allies in an environment that grew more and more dangerous as the Maskelyne's fortunes continued to decline.

On one particularly dreary day, while sitting at the bedside of his ailing mother, Meligaster found himself surrounded by a half-dozen halflings with scowls cut deep into their faces. Each held a field implement in tense hands, and Meligaster knew from a single glance that they had not come to wish the woman well. The Maskelyne children, Meligaster's estranged playmates, had just that morning burned three particularly troublesome slips upon a pyre as a sacrifice to Mammon in hopes that the arch-devil would reverse their family's fortunes, and the bedside visitors clearly meant to even the score by harming Meligaster. When his amicable pleas did nothing to curb the slaves' threats, Meligaster looked deep into their eyes and funneled all of his charm and personal magnetism into that glance. His striking eyes had always managed to get him out of trouble in the past, and with great effort encouraged by desperation and fear for his mother's life, Meligaster ordered the interlopers to return to the fields and leave him alone. To his surprise, the slaves quickly agreed, changing demeanor almost immediately. Minutes later he stood alone in his mother's squalid chamber wondering just what had happened.

In the weeks that followed, Meligaster continued to explore this new power of persuasion. When he could not find a fellow slave on which to experiment, he looked into the rheumy eyes of his mother, whom he found to be most pliable to his commands. At the same time, Meligaster stole books on healing techniques from the Maskelyne libraries, and experimented with touch treatments designed to nurse his mother back to health. While he managed a few minor successes along these lines, he could see the kind, broken woman fading with each day. Eventually her eyes filled with cataracts and her mind grew weaker and weaker. At first, Meligaster took advantage of her failing defenses to strengthen his influence over her, commanding her to get healthier, but the woman eventually grew insensible. Soon he turned his experimental attention fully to the other halfling slaves of the Maskelyne estate, who were little match for his bolstered mental powers.

First, he used his fantastic stare to bind the bully-boys who had threatened him earlier into service as personal protectors. On his increasingly rare visits to the manor he surrounded himself with a coterie of tough protectors. When this drew the ire of taskmasters who naturally expected Meligaster's defenders to attend to their assigned duties, Meligaster likewise brought them under his influence. Soon he had coerced the psychic allegiance of all of the Maskelyne's slaves and overseers, who doted upon Meligaster and began treating him better than they treated their lawful masters.

Meligaster tired of the Sliphouse. It was time to make his move on the manor. By this point he had developed his mental powers to include the ability to cast psychic spells, which he used to great effect. First he bent his former playmates to his will, then the lord and lady of the house as well. Meligaster took up residence in a resplendent chamber within the home, sharing his room with his ailing mother and forcing the nobles to serve him as he and his mother had served them. Manipulating Lord Maskelyne into granting him generous gifts from the family's dwindling fortune, Meligaster once more dressed in the finery to which he had become accustomed. He ordered the most celebrated craftsmen of Egorian to cut him a beautiful white suit and matching fez, accentuating his style with a locket medallion containing an ivory cameo of the only individual other than his mother than he had ever truly loved—himself.

For months Meligaster lived as the master of the house. When his charges—particularly among the Maskelynes—failed him, he responded with the pent-up cruelties of 20 years, subjecting them to the same whippings and tortures they had inflicted upon him. In time he grew used to being obeyed, and his perverse punishments extended to his fellow halflings, whom he began to think of as his own personal chattel. What once had been a playful sense of humor transmogrified into a cynical cruelty. When he grew tired of disciplining his inferiors, he manipulated their minds to make them the agents of their own humiliation and injury, and as he grew more comfortable in the seat of power, Meligaster began to enjoy these punishments. He soon became a harsher taskmaster than the Maskelynes had ever been, and while all residents of the manor claimed to love and adore him, not a one did so of his own free will.

Meligaster went to great lengths to conceal his reversal of fortune from the other nobles of the Egorian outlands. He received no visitors and closed the estate to the outside world. It came as a surprise, then, when he found himself in the company of a freed halfling slave named Lem, a charming bard who claimed to be an escaped slave born to the same mother. After decades apart, Meligaster looked into the eyes of his long-lost sibling, and what he saw broke his heart. Lem represented another way out of the grim subsistence of slavery. His brother was just as charming and charismatic as he, but even though Meligaster lived as a lord in his secluded manor, it was Lem who seemed at peace with himself. Worse, Lem was horrified by the scene of vacant-eyed halflings and humans that greeted him at the Maskelyne estate. He pleaded with Meligaster to abandon his ruse and run away with him to Absalom, but Meligaster would have none of it. In the presence of their failing, bed-ridden mother, the two brothers argued about the bonds of family. Meligaster summoned all of his psychic power and, gazing into the eyes of his brother, he commanded his visitor to abandon the Maskelyne estate and never return.

The following morning, Meligaster learned a powerful lesson about the limits of his power. He awoke to find Lem gone as he expected, but he also found that his brother had absconded with his frail mother, and that he had unshackled all of the halfling slaves as well, somehow using his magic-infused music to break Meligaster's hold upon them. Angered at months of mistreatment at Meligaster's hands, the slaves set the manor house ablaze, bringing a squad of Hellknights and neighboring lords to investigate the reclusive Maskelynes. Meligaster was forced to flee with little but the clothes on his back and a sack full of some of the Maskelyne's greatest treasures.

In the year since, Meligaster has bounced from city to city, taking on short-lived jobs as a spiritual advisor to various nobles, whom he bilks of their wealth before moving on to another "sponsor" in a distant realm. Agents of Lord Maskelyne hound him at every stop, keeping the halfling constantly on the move and leery of laying down strong ties to any one location. Years of relying upon mental manipulation to get his way have considerably damaged his psyche, and while a part of him regrets the cruelties necessary to maintain the lifestyle he feels he deserves, he is loath to take a backward step, and seeks always the easier route to wealth and the finer comforts of success. After leaving behind him a trail of powerful enemies, Meligaster has, of late, turned to a life of adventure, finding it safer to pilfer from the tombs of dead lords and ladies than the drawing rooms and bedchambers of the living. He has never again seen Lem, and plots one day, when he is ready, to venture to Absalom and show his brother the folly of underestimating one who has total control over the minds of others.

Erik Mona
Publisher

Meet the Iconics: Erasmus

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Today, as part of our ongoing Meet the Iconics series, we introduce the next of the six new iconic characters featured in Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Occult Adventures. This week we meet Erasmus, the iconic medium!

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Erasmus was born the youngest scion of a minor noble house in Caliphas, Ustalav's capital. Along with his five older siblings, he enjoyed the benefits of a fine education and practice in horsemanship, swordplay, and tutelage in the arcane arts. Yet he understood he had little hope of ever claiming ancestral holdings or heirship. He spent his early life in the cosmopolitan pursuits of the idle rich, and he seemed destined for some opportune marriage to secure his family's comfort, with the resulting life likely to be one of bored leisure.

As Erasmus left his teenage years behind, though, the heirs of his family began to mysteriously die. Authorities discovered Nissa, his eldest sister—a cunning duelist—slain in some underground fighting pit by an opponent she severely outmatched. His uncle, a skilled magic-user, was torn apart by a summoned creature in his own occult library, while the corpse of his son was found broken below his high tower. His second sister, Veldira, choked to death on porridge in the Pharasmin cathedral where she served. Erasmus's closest confidant, his sly older brother Baylock, was found hanged in a dark alley in what authorities ruled a suicide. Amid the turmoil of the deaths, Erasmus's father began to waste away in his council chamber, while the family's eldest surviving heir, Erasmus's brother Vinn, took control of the family affairs.

It wasn't long before the voices started.

At first they were the faintest whispers, which Erasmus dismissed as sleep-deprived hallucinations or echoes bouncing through the corridors of his family's estate. But with each new death, the whispers grew stronger and their message clearer: "Murder." Erasmus ignored the ghostly mutterings as best he could, quietly writing them off as the lunacy of grief. But, with his suspicions aroused, he began to investigate the whispers' claims. Erasmus told no one of the subtly altered summoning circle he found in his uncle's chambers, or of the oily residue that failed to wash from his father's used silverware. The more he discovered, the more intense the chorus of voices grew in his crowded mind. Servants concealed Erasmus's late-night wanderings as best they could, or dismissed his mutterings and wild ravings as overwhelming grief.

It all came to a head when one of Erasmus's episodes interrupted his own father's funeral. Snapping his head back and forth, Erasmus railed against a chorus of unseen phantoms. Amid the outburst, he howled that his family was victim of his eldest brother's deceit.

None who heard truly listened, though, all convinced that grief had pushed Erasmus past the brink of insanity. Vinn, Erasmus's only remaining family member, committed him to Havenguard Lunatic Asylum.

For nearly a year, Erasmus languished at the asylum, baffling his well-intentioned wardens as they sought to heal the man's troubled mind. But on the anniversary of his father's death, another voice called through the darkness. From a neighboring cell, a new prisoner calling himself "the King" counseled the troubled man. With gruff kindness, the stranger with the accent of a northern barbarian taught Erasmus not to fight the chorus, but rather to accept and welcome it, opening his mind and body to its words. Erasmus gradually identified each mysterious voice in turn, and finally understood they were the shades of his family—the spirits of his deceased brothers, father, and uncle—who endlessly dwelled upon the circumstances of their deaths. Over time, he learned to sit in quiet communion with the voices, and to allow them to exercise their influence upon his mortal shell.

With the aid of his uncle's mastery of magic, Erasmus easily retrieved the keys to his cell to secure his escape. Under the control of his battle-eager eldest sister, the asylum's guards had no hope of restraining him. But when he gratefully burst open the King's cell, he found it empty. Too harried to ponder the implications of his friend's disappearance, Erasmus fled, relying on the influence of his roguish brother Baylock to slip through the shadows to freedom.

Yet, the world had not changed for the better during Erasmus's absence. Vinn had used his brother's madness to legally disown him from any claim to his family's titles or lands. His murderous brother had also married into a prestigious noble family, solidifying his holdings and winning him considerable influence in Caliphas's royal court. Seeing little chance at justice, and now questioning the source of the mysterious voice that had counseled him back to sanity, Erasmus knew he'd need living allies to retake his birthright. He boarded a ship crossing Lake Encarthan, the restless spirits of his ancestors following close behind.

Brandon Hodge
Contributing Author

Meet the Iconics: Rivani

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Today, as part of our ongoing Meet the Iconics series, we introduce the next of the six new iconic characters featured in Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Occult Adventures. This week we meet Rivani, the iconic psychic!

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

The path of the initiate is long and fraught with danger. For Rivani, the journey began as a young girl of 12 in the teeming city of Chendras, in the distant land of Vudra. Born the seventh daughter of a minor functionary in the court of a great rajah, Rivani seemed set to follow her sisters into a life of government service. Always a precocious child, Rivani took well to her studies, spending hours in her master's library studying tomes she could barely comprehend. She especially favored lavishly illustrated accounts of harrowing victories over fantastic creatures, or voluminous surveys of distant lands and their many peoples, monsters, and mysteries. Rivani thrilled at imagining herself traveling to those distant lands as a questing hero, and soon these whimsical idylls consumed her every thought. As her revels grew more vivid, Rivani grew more distant from her sisters, putting her presumed future as a courtier at risk.

The rishis at court saw promise in the young girl's whimsy, and implored the rajah to put Rivani to the Trial of the White Lotus, a simple test to determine a child's mental aptitudes. After a series of intelligence and motor skill challenges, the rajah's poets probed Rivani's knowledge of the world's esoteric nature. They were surprised to discover that Rivani's reading had already set her on the path to spiritual development. She knew of the growth of the soul through reincarnation, of the astral body and the etheric double, and of the distant planes that house them. She knew also the rudiments of ki, the energy force that binds all living things into a spiritual family. In terms of esoteric theory, Rivani knew more than most third-year chelas. A promising child, indeed.

But it all came down to the Trial of the White Lotus. Following the minor challenges, the rishis brought Rivani to a secret room within the onion dome of the rajah's highest tower, and there revealed a lush garden of fabulous flowers and colorful plants. Here was a verris bulb from distant Kaladay, there a purple jonquil from mythical Hermea. A massive quanlum bush—identical to the specimen allegedly recovered by Khiben-Sald himself on the far planet of Castrovel—dominated a far wall, next to a collection of ghorus seeds floating in a nutrient tank. And at the center of the room lay a pedestal, and on that pedestal a simple white lotus—Rivani's final challenge.

"Cast forth your mind," the rishis bade her. "Merge your life essence with that of the flower and realize that you and she are but tongues of the same flickering cosmic flame." Rivani closed her eyes and concentrated on regulating her breath, relying on techniques she'd read inscribed upon an archaic manuscript of palm leaves by a lost yogi brotherhood. With each exhalation, she pushed her consciousness deeper beyond her physical body into the scintillating emanations of ki that comprised her health aura. At first, Rivani wasn't sure if she simply imagined that it was so, but when her mind conjured the thought of her aura touching upon that of the white lotus, she felt her spirit lighten, and a beatific calm overcame her.

Sensing a breakthrough, the rishis instructed Rivani to infuse her ki with that of the plant, to meld her mind with its animating force and open its closed petals. As she considered their instruction, Rivani pictured the bulb of the lotus opening one petal at a time. From within the flower glowed a coruscation of colorful energy Rivani inherently knew represented the force of life itself. It flourished within the tiny cup of the white lotus, but it burned with an intensity that echoed that of the sun. At that moment Rivani realized—not just read, but truly realized—that all life, hers, the flower's, even the sun's, were but aspects of the same glorious creation. As her conviction grew deeper, as the petals of the white lotus opened faster and faster, Rivani became aware that her mind also opened itself one petal at a time. Sweat dripped from her brow, threatening to distract from her spiritual unfoldment by reminding her of the limits of her physical body, but still Rivani delved deeper.

In her mind's eye, Rivani stepped further and further into the light until she could no longer distinguish herself from the flower. But she felt other presences, too. The poets of the court were also part of the fabric of life, and Rivani brushed against their innermost thoughts without even meaning to. She saw their anticipation, their pride, their amazement at her unexpected power. She saw too their betrayals, their scandalous secrets, and their venal, immoral ambitions. Rivani had passed the Trial of the White Lotus, but none of the rajah's rishis celebrated her victory.

Instead, certain that her unexpected foray into their consciousness had revealed secrets that could threaten their status at court, the rishis proclaimed Rivani a mahatma reborn, the vessel of a world teacher consciousness returned to Golarion to guide the people into a new age. Just not in Vudra.

With the blessings of a rajah nervous about his advisors' tales of Rivani's mind-reading prowess, the rishis dispatched their blessed student across the sea to the Isle of Jalmeray, there to further study among the adepts of the Houses of Perfection. Each of the that institution's three monasteries welcomed their honored visitor from the East, but the Monastery of Unblinking Flame in particular seemed most eager to accept her into their ranks. Even as far away as Chendas, Rivani had heard tales of the Houses of Perfection and their "impossible" entrance trials. Steeling herself for the test of a lifetime, Rivani prepared, as her books instructed, to outwit an efreeti.

Instead, white-robed warrior monks escorted her to the monastery's courtyard garden for an audience with Anandala, the order's ageless sovereign. She denied Rivani's entrance to study at the monastery, for she was to be a teacher, not a student. "Everything you could teach us you read in a book," she said. "We have read books. Go out into the world and learn to live. Once you know something for yourself, come back to Jalmeray and teach us what you have learned."

Thereafter, Rivani spent several months as a librarian's assistant in Quantium before fleeing the city after becoming a pawn in the psychic espionage and infighting of the Council of Three and Nine. From there she ventured to Absalom, spending most of a year as a translator for the esoteric manuscripts department of the Forae Logos before conflict with a fellow librarian drummed her out on the streets. Although she still reads voraciously and is seldom found without a well-thumbed book or two, Rivani henceforth swore off finding the world's secrets in musty libraries, and finally set out to make some discoveries of her own.

A life filled with so much travel has filled Rivani with a wanderlust that borders on fatalistic. Her relationships burn intensely but briefly, as she constantly guards against delving too deeply—accidentally or otherwise—into the minds of her friends and lovers. She seems always fixated on the next stop on her journey, and while of a generally kind nature and friendly demeanor, she takes it as a matter of faith that she will soon be moving on, and avoids long-lasting, deep connections with others. Rivani loves nothing more than to share stories of her travels and cultural explorations, and to receive the tales of others in return. Through all of this she's begun to develop her own philosophy, but it will be many years, and many many more adventures to come, before she will be ready to share her wisdom with the world.

Erik Mona
Publisher

Meet the Iconics: Estra

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Today, as part of our ongoing Meet the Iconics series, we introduce the next of the six new iconic characters featured in Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Occult Adventures. This week we meet Estra, the iconic spirtualist!

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Estra never wanted to commune with spirits: she only wished for others to believe she did, and profit from that belief.

Born the daughter of a poor miner in the nation of Isger, Estra dreamed of the theaters of far-off cities, and more than once nearly ran away with a traveling acting troupe that stopped in her small town. Fortunately, her family moved to the capital city of Isger, Elidir, during her teenage years, and she swiftly became enthralled with her new, cosmopolitan home. Her dreams of joining the theater were even somewhat fulfilled when she fell in with a small gang of faux-spiritualists who needed a convincing actress to play the role of their spirit-channeling medium. The group engaged in fraudulent séances targeting grieving mourners, who paid dearly for confirmation of the smooth passing of their loved ones into the hereafter.

Within darkened chambers and ramshackle theaters, Estra and her confederates spent nearly ten years bilking grief-stricken with the promise of communion with their dead relatives. Estra proved a talented actress, falling into convincing trances to channel the dead and dispense the carefully gathered information her associates had gleaned on their targets. Sessions typically culminated with the full-form “manifestation” of a bereaved subject's lost relative: actually a confederate dressed in luminous robes and clumsy disguises approximating the dead person's appearance.

The arrival of a handsome knight named Honaire changed all that. Stationed in Elidir, Honaire had left behind an ailing mother, and in his absence she had passed. Honaire sought some comfort in his loss, and turned toward the séances of Estra's troupe for assurance that his mother rested in peace. Relieved of his grief by the assurances of the spirit-seer, the young knight became smitten with Estra's quick wit and streetwise charm. Estra, for her part, found the knight's combination of physical strength and gentle courtesy enchanting, even as his strict code of honor made her regret her own life of lies. When at last she confessed the truth—that she'd never contacted Honaire's mother at all—she expected him to fly into a rage. Instead, he thanked her for her courage, and promptly proposed marriage. Accepting his proposal, Estra left behind the life of a charlatan, and the two spent several happy decades together, with Estra enjoying the social status that came from being the wife of an up-and-coming military commander.

Yet this life, too, came to an abrupt end when rumors of a rising alliance of goblin tribes reached the capital. Seeing her husband's frustration at the government's slow response, Estra urged him to volunteer to investigate, with no way of knowing that the goblin assemblies were in fact the precursor to the deadly Goblinblood Wars. There in the dark expanse of the Chitterwood, Honaire and his unit were unexpectedly ambushed by a horde of maniacal goblins and their green dragon ally. Though he fought bravely and saved the lives of many comrades in their retreat, Honaire was bathed in the dragon's toxic breath, his armor and body rent by the beast's deadly claws.

Wracked by guilt and loss, set adrift in a devastated nation that suddenly had more to worry about than the plight of military widows, Estra turned back to her old means of supporting herself, training several new associates in the tricks of the faux-spiritualist trade. Yet during the group's first performance, while her confederates secretly lifted spirit trumpets with thin threads and caused tambourines to shake as if by unseen forces, Estra's fake trance became something more. A wispy, greenish vapor coalesced from her mouth, eyes, and nostrils. To the wonderment of those assembled, a spectral figure emerged through the curtain of ectoplasmic mists. The ghostly apparition was not the luminous confederate Estra expected to emerge from the spirit cabinet, but rather the very real specter of her fallen husband. Both comforted and shamed, the burgeoning spiritualist pledged once again to never allow deceit to rule her life.

Though her body is increasingly stooped by age, Estra has learned to strengthen her spiritual bond with Honaire so that his ectoplasmic form might walk the world again. She tries to emulate her lost lover's selfless drive to aid the helpless wherever they might be afflicted—though her impatience and sharp tongue sometimes get the better of her. Wandering far from Isger, she uses her strange powers to provide comfort and consolation—for real this time—to those who've lost loved ones to the ceaseless violence of the world. Yet all the while, she remains plagued by doubt, wondering if her phantom husband's presence is the result of the depth of their love, some god's attempt to shepherd her toward righteousness, or a manifestation of her own guilty conscience.

Brandon Hodge (Contributing Author) & the Paizo Staff

P.S.: The psychic preview and Meet the Iconics installment we promised last Thursday has been pushed out just a bit, but never fear, you will learn more about Rivani soon!

Meet the Iconics: Mavaro

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Starting today, we'll be introducing you to the six new iconic characters featured in Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Occult Adventures as part of our Meet the Iconics series. This week we'll start off by meeting Mavaro, the iconic occultist!

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Mavaro's earliest childhood memories are of the silent seclusion of a Pharasmin convent deep in the Mindspin Mountains. The boy never learned what brought his mother to the strange cloister built among ancient standing stones, but there she had sought refuge. The sisters' strict tutelage was the only life he knew; his only friends the esoteric books and scrolls of the convent's great library. He spent years in the library, devouring countless tomes to learn more of the world denied him.

Tales of horrors stalking the cloister's corridors held Mavaro's wanderlust in check. As he grew older, Mavaro dismissed the stories and learned to secretly navigate the forbidden halls of the convent, where he regularly bore witness to the nuns' strange ceremonies. One was a ritual of severe fasting and meditation that gradually wasted the sisters' bodies. After a period of fasting, novices would unveil a yellowed, sigil-scripted skull of the order's founding abbess, Mother Wren. The acolytes then listened in turn for a ghostly whisper from the skull to indicate a worthy candidate. Soon afterward, the selected nun's sisters would rise to adorn the candidate's body, withered in self-starvation, with strange sigils and specially cast silver talismans. They'd wrap her in fresh linens and carry her down into a hidden, spiraling catacomb to carefully place her among generations of similarly mummified worshipers spanning thousands of years.

In Mavaro's twenty-second year, Varisian traders arrived at the abbey. While the nuns took the opportunity to restock their food stores and other essentials, Mavaro felt entranced by a wagonload of riches reclaimed from the ruins of a stone giant temple. Tribal totems, esoteric steles, and ruined relics of forgotten cultures all called to him—representations of a world and cultures he'd only ever read about. When one of the traders pulled forth a strange sword of ancient design, bearing a carved, glowering face with gleaming red gems inset as eyes, Mavaro knew he had to obtain the treasures at whatever cost.

But as only a lonely scribe, Mavaro had no way to pay for the items. So he quietly stole into the forbidden catacombs where he knew the silver talismans of the abbey's mummies lay for the taking. Little did he know, though, that the sisters' starved bodies actually served as unwavering guardians, and with the desecration of their remains, an evil long held in check by their sacrifice slipped free. As the caravan trundled away from the holy ground, taking the convent's traded relics with it, the binding magic that held the entity in check cracked imperceptibly, and its spiritual corruption leaked forth.

The deaths began slowly. At first they just seemed like bad luck: a broken neck from a short fall; a drowning in the convent's well; three nuns killed in the collapse of an old stone wall in the kitchens. But soon the malevolent presence grew more bold, and the sisters realized something was hunting them in the quiet corridors. By the time the prioress realized that Mavaro's pilfering had jeopardized divine defenses centuries in the making, it was too late. One by one, the nuns were slaughtered by the dark thing of rust and chains slipping through their midst. The quiet butcher saved the prioress for last, possessing her body in anticipation of a long, self-inflicted torment. But wrenching back control of her body for the briefest moment, the prioress knocked a lantern aside and set fire to the convent in an attempt to destroy the entity—and herself—in cleansing flame.

Though injured, the vicious entity was not destroyed in the blaze, and only it and Mavaro survived. Desperate to protect himself, Mavaro shifted through the smoldering ruins of the haunted abbey, desperately collecting any holy relics he could find in hope of warding off the lingering evil. Vestments of razor wire still glowing red, the spirit soon found Mavaro. The young scholar would surely have faced his death, had not the skull of Mother Wren whispered to him from the ashes. The ancient holy woman commanded Mavaro to close his eyes and open his soul to the power of the items he had collected. Its long fingers flicking like the lashes of a scourge, the wicked shadow closed on the desperate youth, cooing promises of endless, barb-licked torment. Mavaro felt the power of the relics well up inside him, and shakily reached for the ruby-eyed blade he had purchased. Trembling, but full with strange power, Mavaro blindly struck.

A red gem shattered in the sword's hilt and the dark thing shrieked, flailing jangling fetters as it retreated through the ruins. Mavaro fled the holy site as quick as he could, never looking back at the only place he'd ever called home.

In the twenty years since, Mavaro's life has been a strange paradox. He's now a man of many indulgences, making up for his modest childhood with good food and raucous company. He deflects inquiries about his youth with inconsistent but highly entertaining tales tied in with his mysterious collection of relics and strange objects. Quietly, though, he regularly casts one eye over his shoulder, ever watchful for the shadow he's come to call the Thorn Priest, which stalks him still. Mavaro regularly consults the yellowed skull of Mother Wren, heeding her ghostly whispers as he pursues the relics he traded away long ago. His travels have taken him to markets across Varisia, the strangest of private collections, and many dangerous, distant locales. Still he seeks to reclaim their power, determined to undo the folly of his youth and face the Thorn Priest once more.

Brandon Hodge
Occultist Contributing Author

Meet the Iconics: Adowyn

Thursday, August 7, 2014

Today we introduce the next of the new iconic characters from the Advanced Class Guide: Adowyn the hunter. Adowyn will also be a playable character in the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Wrath of the Righteous set due for release in February 2015.

There’s always a need for a skilled hunter, someone who can track down a threat and put an end to it. And when a quarry is particularly dangerous or elusive, there’s only one hunter the people seek: Adowyn.

Born to a pair of skilled woodworkers in the quiet town of Crowstump on the northern border of Nirmathas, Adowyn was always a wild child, more comfortable sneaking around in the mud chasing the town rooster than practicing her letters or learning to carve. She grew up surrounded by peoples from far-away lands, merchants and traders who had come to make deals with her parents. Fascinated by their stories, Adowyn was eager to see the world beyond, and when a journey with her father finally gave her that chance at the age of 14, she was overjoyed.

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

That joy was short-lived, however. Not a day after Adowyn and her father left home for the dark forest trails of the Fangwood, a diseased bear charged into their camp, savaging Adowyn’s father before she could even cry out. Using the bow her father had carved for her, she sank arrow after arrow into the beast, tears streaming down her cheeks. At last the bear fell. The creature was dead—but so was her father.

Lost in the woods, Adowyn found herself in the Blight, an area of the Fangwood where the trees grew thick with disease and rot. Worse still, she found that no matter which direction she walked, all paths led back to her meager camp. She spent six months alone there, hunting and scavenging what food she could find and honing her skills at the hunt. The beasts of the Blight were cunning and deadly, and making her the prey nearly as often as she was the predator. Yet all of that changed when she found Leryn.

Wounded by a fight with a rotting treant, the lean gray wolf was limping through a clearing when Adowyn chanced upon him. She knew right away that the wolf was not from this place, but rather was trapped in the Blight like she was. She approached him with a scrap of meat from her most recent kill, earning his trust. Over the following month, she nursed the wolf back to health and named him Leryn, after her father. She soon found that she could sense his mood, knowing instinctively when he was hungry, angry, or excited. They shared much with each other in those first months. She exulted in his feral appetites, his thrill of the hunt, and he learned to calm his urges, gaining her patience and determination.

Years passed, and the two became an inseparable team, learning to anticipate each other’s moves and hunting together as one. Now the whole of the forest was their prey, but still they could not escape the Blight. Indeed, the rot in the wood seemed to be growing worse by the day, and neither hunter could shake the sense of something just beyond their reach, stalking them but never revealing itself.

For months the tension grew. Adowyn and Leryn slept in shifts, keeping watch over their small hovel. Finally, in the dead of night, their mysterious watcher revealed itself, smashing the side of their home while unleashing a terrifying howl. Rolling out of the debris, Adowyn and Leryn rose to face the threat.

A gigantic bear rose up before them. Like the beast that killed her father, this one too was poxed, but it was far larger, with a sickly green foam spilling from its lips. Leryn leapt upon it, clawing and biting at its flank while Adowyn drew forth her bow. Taking aim, she sunk a shaft deep into its left eye. With an agonizing growl, the bear shook loose the wolf and tore off into the woods, with Adowyn and her friend in hot pursuit.

The chase lasted until dawn, when the Leryn's fangs finally managed to sink into the bear’s throat, bringing it down. The pair stopped over their kill to admire their work, and it was only then that they realized they were no longer in the Blight.

It was by sheer chance that they found their way to Crystalhurst, a community of druids in the southern Fangwood. They stayed there for a while, regaining their strength and sharing what they had learned with the druids, who swore to put an end to the Blight. The druids thought that Adowyn might make a fine disciple for their order, but her bond to Leryn perplexed them, as it was stronger than any they had ever known. In the end, they excitedly concluded that the pair must be something new entirely, and were eager to study them. Yet while Adowyn learned a great deal in her short time there, Crystalhurst was not a place she meant to stay. Soon, she and Leryn set out once more, intent upon returning home to see Adowyn’s mother and sister.

The young woman who returned to Crowstump was nothing like the girl that had left. The townsfolk kept their distance from her and the fierce wolf that padded along behind her. Returning to her home, she found only strangers. It seems that her mother and sister, heartbroken after the loss of Adowyn and her father, had left years ago to start a new life somewhere less troubled by painful memories.

In the years since that day, Adowyn has wandered the Inner Sea with Leryn at her side, working as bounty hunter. She’s stalked a naga through the bleak wastes of Osirion, brought back a master thief from the sewers of Oppara, and even managed to recover the tail feathers of the elusive Jade Hawk without harming the reclusive bird. The only quarry she hasn’t managed to track down is her own family, but that search never ends—one day, she’ll be reunited with her loved ones.

Adowyn is never found without Leryn by her side. To others, she is quiet and brooding, but she can frequently be found having animated conversations with her wolf, as if he were responding in kind. She wears the armor and garb of the rangers of Nirmathas, a gift she was given after hunting down a patrol of Molthuni regulars that were stalking behind the lines terrorizing small villages. The bow she carries is her father’s, a weapon she treats with reverence. In battle, Adowyn and Leryn single out their foes with grim determination.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

Meet the Iconics: Shardra Geltl

Thursday, July 31, 2014

Today we introduce the next of the new iconic characters from the Advanced Class Guide: Shardra the shaman. Shardra will also be a playable character in the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Wrath of the Righteous set due for release in February 2015.

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

It's a sorry lot for a proud dwarven daughter to be raised a miserable dwarven son, but everyone receives one lot in life, and Shardra Geltl never knew to expect better. Childhood was kind, her sisters loved her, her brother protected her, and always she had the whispers of tools and books to keep her company. Adolescence, though, came bearing heavy burdens. Her siblings moved on with their own lives, replaced by harsh teachers and taskmasters. She weathered a staggeringly awkward first kiss as her childhood best friend grew into a handsome lad, followed by a painful arranged engagement to a lovely girl from the neighboring Dechl clan. But the mines and refinery of Xolgrit fed the war machine of Rolgrimmdur far above, and militant efficiency demanded all citizen-soldiers accept and excel in their roles, no matter how miserable.

But Shardra still had the whispers to keep her company on lonely nights.

Books quipped bits and pieces of their tales, bowls jabbered gossip shared over breakfast, and picks stammered the poems of the rocks they clove. And while the odds and ends of Xolgrit kept her company, the stones of the Old Road, carved long ago by dwarves still hunting for the sky, sang legends. More and more often, the shy dwarf slipped away to wander the crumbling paths, learning the deeds of her ancestors away from the clamor of duty and expectation. She assumed the whispers were her friends, there to keep her safe and offer respite from the dull ache of life. Then one "trustworthy" stone crumbled beneath her feet, dropping her into darkness.

The fall was short. Her arm met stone with a wet crunch, but the ache from the shattered bone faded away as the whispers rose in deafening song. All around stretched an ancient cavern. Hot springs bubbled across its floor, while mosaics and beaten gold masks decorated the walls. Mundane beasts and fantastic creatures wandered past, unperturbed by her presence.

A single tuatara waddled forward as she cradled her limb. It borrowed a tongue from the whispers and spoke. "What are you?"

"I—" She opened her mouth to speak, borrowing too from those old, quiet chants. And although the whispers had a word for all things in creation, they had no words for the expectations of others. "I don't know."

From that day on, the whispers poured themselves through Shardra's reptilian friend, speaking louder and more clearly with a mouth to form the words. She soon named the creature Kolo—an old dwarven word for the beauty in everyday things—and told Kolo of Xolgrit and Rolgrimmdur, and of the beauty of the stars in the night sky, and how to tell past and present and future apart. And Kolo taught her how to speak to spirits and borrow their favor to mend her broken bones, and of dwarven faith from long before they mingled their worship with the deities of the surface world. It taught her how to glean deeper secrets from the artifacts of the dead, and how to greet the Ladies of Crag and Ember—powerful elementals who laid claim to the hot springs and the surrounding tunnels. Most precious of all, Kolo taught her of the rivethun—dwarves who drew great power by embracing the disjunction between their bodies and souls—and she learned to brew the alchemical tinctures her past sisters used to quiet the rages of adolescence and bring their minds and bodies into harmony.

As Shardra's mystical skills and budding femininity began to show, her parents lamented their loss of a son and the addition of yet another dowry. Their irritation changed to joy as their daughter's dealings with the spirit world guided Xolgrit's miners to rich new veins of ore and long-lost treasure troves. The Geltl clan's fortunes reversed as Shardra's confidence, skills, and womanhood blossomed, and eventually clans from Xolgrit and beyond offered handsome brideprices.

Shardra's gifts attracted more than suitors, however. Lonely spirits and treasure hunters alike came to Xolgrit hoping to profit by the young shaman's insight. Neither settled peacefully into the community's rigid order. The string of lootings, possessions, drunken brawls, hauntings, and soured beer drew the attention of Rolgrimmdur, and the city-state dispatched a squad of soldiers—under the command of Captain Itcel Dechl—to put down the ragtag mercenary gangs squatting in town. Shardra herself turned her magic on its source, driving the spirit invaders back to the hot spring and demanding the Ladies of Crag and Ember keep their subjects under control.

Unsatisfied by her easy victory over a band of drunken thugs and grave robbers, Captain Dechl and her soldiers traced Shardra's path through the Old Roads, and eventually claimed the sacred shrine (and the wealth covering its walls) as a cultural treasure for Rolgrimmdur. The elemental Ladies raged at the presumption, swearing in turn to reduce Xolgrit to rubble. Both sides declared the dwarf maiden a traitor and cast her aside as they charged into battle. Shardra lashed out, seizing control of an earth elemental and using its might to collapse the ancient shrine.

With nothing left to fight over, the opposing armies fled.

Lacking any evidence of Shardra's actions but burning with frustration, Dechl used what remained of her authority to accuse the spirit-talker of heresy. Although friends and family staunchly defended her innocence, Shardra took the allegations as a chance to act on plans that had grown increasingly tempting. She left Xolgrit and her tutors, childhood friends, and family by paths only the stones remembered. Shardra reached the surface a guarded but curious woman, more interested in stories of the long dead than the bickering of the living. With Kolo the crag tuatara at her shoulder, Shardra now wanders the world, uncovering lost treasure and listening to the tales it has to tell. Permanent ties still chafe, even ones as shallow as a favor owed or an unpaid tavern bill, but her heart softens toward any who wander. Despite her love of the world's vast mysteries, a small part of the shaman yearns for the joy and companionship she once felt with her sisters, and Shardra corresponds with her family often, ever watchful for any discovery that might provide an excuse to write or visit her distant, glittering home.

Crystal Frasier
Contributor

Meet the Iconics: Zadim

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Today we introduce the next of the new iconic characters from the Advanced Class Guide: Zadim the slayer. Zadim will also be a playable character in the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Wrath of the Righteous set due for release in February 2015.

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Open hostilities between the kingdoms of Taldor and Qadira ceased more than 200 years ago, but subtle squabbles and sub-rosa schemes continue to the present. Often these intrigues take the form of economic influence or political stratagems, but occasionally, when the stakes are high enough, they extend to outright atrocities. Triggering these strikes (or answering them in kind) without sparking an open war requires an agent with particular expertise. An agent like Zadim.

Zadim, the so-called "Shadow of Sarenrae," travels the lands of the Inner Sea as an associate of Sarenrae's church, providing deadly solutions to problems the religion cannot resolve through diplomacy and forgiveness. The world of Golarion teems with misguided folk who can be turned from darkness, but it also contains multitudes who are beyond redemption, who revel in evil, wickedness, and selfishness. Zadim is one answer to their depravities, and his response comes with an unmistakable air of finality. Zadim was born into Qadira's influential Cult of the Dawnflower, a militant sect devoted to rooting out evil and spreading Sarenrae's light throughout foreign lands cloaked in the darkness of ignorance. His early studies at the great temple in Katheer distinguished Zadim as a dedicated servant of the cult. True, Zadim lacked the divine connection to the goddess that granted many of his fellow cultists command over fabulous magic powers, but his acumen in other affairs soon gained the attention of the cult's inner circle. Zadim excelled in battle training, easily besting his young peers in combat. He also proved himself an expert in observation and understanding, often taking advantage of personality quirks and tells among his fellows that they weren't even aware they had. The cult's leaders knew exactly what they had in Zadim—a weapon to strike killing blows against their enemies.

Zadim's masters began tempering their stories of Sarenrae's mercy and redemption with encouragement to bring justice to the irredeemable. They revealed the scope of their designs not just on familiar foes like the creaking "empire" of Taldor to the north, but also on places like Osirion, Katapesh, and Absalom. Zadim was trained to stand in the shadowy vanguard of their efforts throughout the Inner Sea region, clearing away enemies with blade and garrote long before the more visible elements of the Dawnflower Cult made their presence known.

As the depth of the cult's plan became clear to him, Zadim began to realize that his masters were just as interested in spreading the political influence of Qadira—and its distant puppetmasters in the Padishah Empire of Kelesh far to the east—as they were in spreading the doctrine of the Everlight, but the revelation came too late to inspire a change in Zadim's direction. He had trained for years to become a killer, and kill he must, in the name of Qadira, Kelesh, or the cult. Sarenrae had blessed him with unique talents, and he intended to put them to use in the field.

Zadim's first assignment outside Qadira was meant to be easy, a clear-cut case of a true villain deserving of the cult's final justice. The noble Sir Gordreth Chrysolian—Gordreth the Butcher—had been an administrator in the Taldan caravan city of Yanmass when he publicly executed twenty clerics of Sarenrae about 30 years ago, during a particularly vicious Taldan pogrom against the Cult of the Dawnflower. Shortly thereafter, the Butcher vanished, escaping divine retribution for his unholy crimes. Recently, though, agents of the cult spotted the aging aristocrat in Yanmass, and Zadim was dispatched to put him to the blade.

Upon arriving at the caravan city, Zadim learned from his informants that the Butcher had sought asylum at the manor house of a respected paladin of Abadar named Jevantus, who had gained widespread acclaim in the city after using his god-given abilities to cure hundreds of children infected with the deadly dvezda plague. Further investigation revealed that the paladin Jevantus and Gordreth the Butcher were one and the same man. The decades in hiding must have taught the vile Taldan noble something of chivalry and honor, for Abadar himself blessed the one-time villain with miraculous powers of healing.

A chance encounter with a fellow servant of Sarenrae, an earnest young cleric named Kyra, triggered a crisis of faith in Zadim, and the killer revealed his role in the plot to the young woman. Kyra, who subscribed to a far less militant doctrine than that preached by the Dawnflower Cult, rejected Zadim's bloody tactics, reminding him that Sarenrae herself valued goodness, redemption, and healing over murderous tactics, no matter the quarry. If Gordreth the Butcher had truly been redeemed, killing him for past deeds meant directly violating the most holy values of Sarenrae, erasing the man's redemption in an act of bloody murder.

Such an affront, she assured, would be enough for Sarenrae to withdraw her favor from a dedicated follower, stripping away the divine bond so important to the servant's faith and work. But Zadim was not a cleric, and had no spells to lose. His duty was not just to Sarenrae, but to his masters in the Cult of the Dawnflower, and to Qadira, and to the Padishah Empire of Kelesh. If they decreed that Gordreth the Butcher must die, who was Zadim to deny their wisdom? He assured Kyra that he would not strike against the paladin, but to himself he resolved that he could not make the decision of whether his target would live or die until he could look him in the eye and judge the quality of his character for himself.

That evening, Zadim crept into the private gardens of Jevantus, kukris in hand, his pounding heart nearly giving him away with its thundering. At the center of the garden he discovered the old paladin praying to Abadar before a beautiful fountain. Statues of children rescued from the ravages of disease peered over the paladin's shoulder as Zadim stepped silently toward his prey. As he approached, the paladin turned toward Zadim, a strange expression of calm and acceptance marked upon his visage. It was as if he had expected such a visitor for many years, and knew that final judgment had finally arrived.

As he looked into the eyes of his quarry at last, fists clenched around the hilts of his hungry blades, Zadim made his choice.

Erik Mona
Publisher

Meet the Iconics: Kess

Thursday, July 17, 2014

She was raised to be Lady Kessilandrie Anicia Vlastos, but the thousands of cheering fans that fill the arena's seats when she fights shout her preferred name—Kess the Bull.

Kess never squared herself with the life of pomp and nobility. As a kid growing up in an estate in the Westpark District of Oppara, she spent her time in opulent gardens, tipping over rocks to look for bugs, climbing the massive oaks, coordinating mock battles against imaginary monsters with her sisters and brothers in the plum orchard, and generally getting into trouble.

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

It was during these pretend adventures that she started learning how to fight. Her brothers and sisters were snobbish, bullying brats that never left the awkward young girl alone. Never one to just take abuse, Kess ended many of those make-believe bouts in flat-out fistfights. It wasn't the wooden swords and staves the kids played with that she mastered in these brawls, but rather a solid left jab, a well-placed kick, or a leg sweep. Her height gave her good reach, letting her even get in a good strike at her oldest brother to silence his bullying.

After too many busted lips and bloody noses, Kess's parents tried to send her to dueling masters in order to teach her the art of swordplay, hoping to channel her energy into a safe and respectable form of combat—something of which nobles could be proud.

As far as Kess was concerned, fencing was for dandies and duels were just tiresome ego dramas. This affluent instruction just didn't stick. After losing too many matches by dropping her training rapier and socking her opponent in the jaw, she was nearly expelled. An older student, sympathetic to her fighting style, tipped her off to an underground fighting ring in a seedy part of the city.

Her first night in the pit was exhilarating. The organizers paired her up with a brawny farm boy whose jaw jutted out as far as his forehead sloped back. He hit hard, but he didn't know a thing about technique. Using her skill and rangy frame to her advantage, Kess had him mewling on the ground in less than a minute.

Using the ruse of attending fencing class, Kess made her way to the underground rings every chance she could get. It was there that she discovered real honor—not that bogus social contract she grew up under. In those pit fights, she learned focus and found her calling. The roar of the crowd charged her, and she pushed her body, testing herself.

Kess learned a multitude of styles and forms from the various fighters and promoters that flowed through the ring, as well as the worship of Kurgess, god of bravery, competition, and sports. She also began to dream of bouts in the far-off nations from which many of her colleagues hailed. In particular, she focused on the gladiator nation of Tymon in the River Kingdoms, from which her coach had won a medal.

Yet everything came apart the night her older brother—eager to gamble on the fights—stumbled into the secret venue and noticed her in the ring. Her father was furious, and her mother worried. This was no way for a proper, highborn lady to act. What if she were hurt or killed? What would happen if other families were to find out? Which of them already knew?

For her own safety—and to quash a scandal—her parents threatened to send her off to their country estate, or even to a boarding school. In no way eager to have her destiny decided for her by others, Kess beat her parents to the punch and snuck down to the docks, boarding a Taldan merchant vessel headed up the Sellen River. With her wits, her skill, and a purse bulging with her winnings in the ring, she set off for Tymon. Once there, she fought enough bouts in the arena to get noticed by the masters of the Valknar Gladiatorial College, using the prize money from her Opparan fights to pay for tuition.

Yet Tymon is small, and Kess easily bored. While still one win shy of being considered “bloodied,” she was lured away from the city by the call of new arenas in distant locations, taking up the life of an adventurer not for treasure, but for the fun of it. Every so often, Kess attempts to alleviate some of her mother's worry by sending letters home telling of her adventures, yet has learned to obscure where they're sent from, lest her father send agents to track her down and try to bring her home.

Kess wears her bruises and scars as proudly as she wears the medals adorning her outfit—prizes from various fights, as well as a short stint with a mercenary company. Even though she tries to be positive and upbeat, she knows that she's often aggressive and sarcastic. Kess isn't afraid to say what's on her mind, especially when facing authorities who try to tell others what to do. She doesn't pay much mind to complicated bureaucracies and outdated social mores, and tends to live her life the way she wants. The only time Kess shows a strong respect for rules is during a competition—she doesn't tolerate cheaters. Kess is competitive, though she encourages others in their own tasks. She keeps her body fit, and trains every chance she gets—a crucial counterbalance to her love of good food, strong drink, and long nights of celebration after a fight.

Adam Daigle
Developer

Meet the Iconics: Hakon

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Past the Ironbound Archipelago, across the Steaming Sea, lies the Broken Bay, haven of scoundrels, raiders, cutthroats, and killers in the bloodiest viking traditions of the Lands of the Linnorm Kings. As a youth, Hakon waited impatiently to come of age and join the seasonal southern raids of his countrymen, eagerly absorbing the tales of distant lands they brought back with the plunder. The proud raiders boasted of desperate battles at sea, of ceaseless storms and sea monsters and foreign towns cloaked in sheets of cascading flames. Hakon committed these stories to memory, adding his own embellishments to create an oral history for his people—vowing to one day make a place for himself within it.

Key to Hakon's youthful mythology was Hrolf Harfargr, one of the few honorable huscarls of Broken Bay's despicable King Ingimundr the Unruly. Hakon's account of Harfargr's victory over the ice troll Rimeclaw became something of a phenomenon in the Bay's capital settlement of Bildt. Other skalds tried to outdo Hakon's telling, adding ever more fantastic feats to the story, increasing Harfargr's reputation and influence. Nevertheless, even the embellishments acknowledged the original tale as Hakon's as much as that of Hrolf Harfargr, and the young storyteller became a minor celebrity in Broken Bay. When he turned 15 later that year, Harfargr claimed him for his crew and appointed Hakon as his personal lorekeeper and legend-spinner.

Hakon composed epic poems of Hrolf Harfargr's encounter with the brine dragon Kelizar, his crushing victory at sea over Styrbjorn Threefingers, and his romance with his greatest rival, the viking hero White Estrid. Hakon stood beside the two lovers as Harfargr and his men joined forces with Estrid on her legendary run through a Chelish blockade at the Arch of Aroden to find harbor in the distant city of Absalom, at the heart of the Inner Sea. On that months-long journey, Hakon recorded the tales of heroes like White Estrid, Runewulf the Unbeliever, Molgard Swordhand, and the twins Bolgi and Bjarni, slayers of the frost wolf Kuldnir.

To keep the memories fresh in his mind, Hakon embroidered representations of the stories into cloth badges sewn along the hem of his long coat. As he moved from badge to badge, Hakon added to the legend of his shipmates, who looked on in excitement with each of his tellings. The smiles and encouragement of heroes stung Hakon in his heart, however, and what should have been pride was instead replaced with regret and shame. For Hrolf Harfargr intended that his personal skald would survive to tell his legend, and thus kept Hakon as far from danger as possible. Over the years of his time in service to White Estrid, Hakon observed the great deeds of heroes triumphing over enemies again and again, but always as a witness, and never as the participant he so wanted to be.

Upon their return to the Lands of the Linnorm Kings from the extended Absalom expedition, White Estrid and Hrolf Harfargr had a falling out that separated Hakon from the band of heroes that had so inspired his imagination. As Estrid and her crew went on to defeat a linnorm dragon and claim the kingdom of Halgrim, Hakon followed Hrolf Harfargr back to the Broken Bay. Over the next several years, Hakon watched as Harfargr's legend faded. King Ingimundr openly undermined him and tempted the fading lord to strike against him. The final humiliation sentenced Harfargr to serve upon the crew of a longship captained by a spiteful viking named Girt Bearwearer, a hated enemy. Worse, the king ordered Harfargr to sea without his official lorekeeper and the recorder of his legendry deeds. Instead, Ingimundr assigned Hakon's younger brother, Ostog, to his place at the oars.

Hrolf Harfargr, Ostog, and Hakon's old companions Bolgi and Bjarni set out on Girt Bearwearer's ship among a great armada of raiders with hungry eyes on the rich lands of the distant south. They never returned to the Broken Bay, but soon stories made their way to Hakon of a mutiny at sea in which Hrolf Harfargr and his allies attempted to take the longship from its wicked captain. Their heroism was rewarded with sword thrusts and blood eagles. A victorious Bearwearer had his slain enemies thrown overboard, food for sea birds and the ravenous beasts of the deep.

But other stories made their way back to Bildt, too. Tales of a brash young warrior named Ostog the Unslain, a survivor of treachery at sea who somehow washed ashore in the Varisian town of Sandpoint and who immediately set about creating a legend of his own. Hakon had to know if the tales of Ostog's distant deeds were true, so he set off on a ship of his own to Sandpoint in an attempt to reunite with his brother. He arrived only to find Ostog had already departed, leaving behind him the mangled corpses of twisted monsters and wicked men. Hakon began work on a new series of badges for his coat in Sandpoint—the Saga of Ostog the Unslain.

Hakon and a band of companions followed Ostog all the way down Avistan's western coast, tracing his brother's footsteps in the drying blood of the young barbarian's dismembered enemies. His travels took him into the deepest deserts of Osirion, back to Absalom, and to a dozen ports in between. Though Hakon has not yet caught up with Ostog, the skald's journeys have brought him his own measure of renown. In Nisroch he slew the dark druid Roverud. His twin axes—Hagrum's Keel and Limbrender—struck down the marsh giant Fogulnur, gaining Hakon the legendary Horn of Valenhall, a mystical artifact he only partially understands. Tales of these victories fill his companions with unparalleled battle spirit and combat prowess, further cementing Hakon's growing legend. Now the badges of Hakon's own exploits stand beside those of the true heroes of the Broken Bay, but the skald knows that his journeys must continue until his deeds shine like those of Hrolf Harfargr, White Estrid, and Ostog the Unslain. Only then will the Saga of Hakon be complete, daring those who come after him to even greater feats of bravery and legend.

Erik Mona
Publisher

Meet the Iconics: Enora

Thursday, July 3, 2014

Today we introduce the next of the new iconic characters from the Advanced Class Guide: Enora the arcanist. Enora will also be a playable character in the not-yet-announced Pathfinder Adventure Card Game set due for release in February 2015.

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Like many halflings, Enora has always been driven by an unlikely pairing of curiosity and luck. Her parents, both professors at Manaket’s premier arcane institution, the Occularium, fostered in their only daughter a hunger for knowledge that was rivaled only by her optimism and determination. Perhaps the result of her parents’ own mastery of magic, Enora had always possessed a natural understanding of the mystical inner workings of magic, and combining this with her fastidious research skills and intuition, she quickly rose to the top of her class.

When she came of age, Enora came out atop a pool of nearly a hundred applicants for a coveted governmental position researching some of the Occularium’s most valued magical treasures from the ancient Jistka Imperium. In this role, Enora found the perfect fit for her curiosity, drive, and magical acumen. But years of study of even the most esoteric and enigmatic of Jistkan relics wasn’t enough for Enora, and countless hours in the Occularium’s library aroused in her an uncontrollable sense of wanderlust.

To combat her growing frustration with the limits she felt her job placed upon her ability to uncover lore, and longing to study artifacts beyond just those of the Jistkans, Enora took a leave of absence, intending to perform research abroad on other ancient magical empires. Her request was granted, and she was given a year to learn what she could before returning to continue her work in the Occularium.

Enora’s destination was the ruins of Lirgen—one of the two nations completely subsumed by the Eye of Abendego just over a century earlier—where she hoped to find recently lost information about their mastery of astrology. The journey south along the coast of Rahadoum was uneventful, but the harsh and unforgiving swamps of the Sodden Lands and the less than welcoming inhabitants of the marshes therein provided Enora ample opportunities to use her magical skills merely to survive. The excitement of adventure grabbed the halfling during this journey, and she thought even in the earliest weeks of her sabbatical of how very different the arcane libraries of the Occularium would feel upon her return.

Yet it was a discovery she made in a half-drowned temple dedicated to the magic god Nethys—the worship of whom was forbidden in her homeland—that truly set Enora’s life on a new path. Within the dank and moldering sanctuary, Enora uncovered a stone tablet that radiated a magical aura unlike anything she had ever encountered before, even amid the most powerful of Jistkan artifacts under her charge in the Occularium. Setting her hand upon the arcane writing and reaching forth with her innate arcane abilities, Enora touched the very fabric of the magical energy that pulsed through the artifact, unraveling it ever so slightly to better understand it.

Immediately, her mind was flooded with magical revelations, knowledge beyond her wildest dreams, and a sense of a much vaster world of magical discovery to be explored than she had ever imagined. When she pulled her hand away, as much in shock as in fear of overwhelming her mind, Enora had a new understanding of the potential for learning that existed beyond the strictly secular libraries and laboratories of Rahadoum. A combination of rage and sadness overwhelmed her as she realized that her own rejection of Nethys and other gods of magic had been holding her back from attaining the knowledge she’d always yearned for. How could she return to Manaket and her governmental position knowing that so much more information remained beyond her grasp, simply because it was held in libraries dedicated to deities her nation had shunned?

Enora traveled east into the Mwangi Expanse and found passage down one of the region’s many rivers to the Arcadian Ocean, the entire time assessing her options. Her year of research was quickly drawing to a close, and she had to decide where she would go next. In the end, she wrote to the magistrate who oversaw her work at the Occularium and extended her period of study abroad, then boarded a ship set for Sothis, where she knew one of the largest temples of Nethys to be located.

Enora chose the pursuit of knowledge over the security of the life she’d known, and now lives a life on the edge of two worlds. She works continually through carefully worded letters to maintain her good standing with the Occularium in order to preserve her access to its myriad magical and academic resources, but is afraid to return home, lest her newfound respect for the power of the gods brings punishment upon her head. Now, Enora travels the Inner Sea in search of a better understanding of the inner workings of magic and the secrets of lost empires whose magic surpassed that of even the most powerful modern archmages, utilizing whatever resources she can gain access to, be they religious or secular in nature.

Enora is singularly driven in her search for knowledge, but isn’t above working with others in order to achieve common goals. She remains cheerful and optimistic about most things, yet holds deep-seated anxiety about the conflict she will inevitably face should she return to Manaket and be outed as a follower of Nethys. She doesn’t talk much about where she came from, but knows that one day her travels will take her back to Rahadoum, and she’ll be hard pressed to keep her secret.

Mark Moreland
Developer

Meet the Iconics: Crowe

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Today we introduce the next of the new iconic characters from the Advanced Class Guide: Crowe the bloodrager. While the complete rules for making your own bloodrager characters will debut this August in the Advanced Class Guide, Crowe features in this year’s Free RPG Day adventure, Pathfinder Module: Risen from the Sands. Crowe will also be a playable character in the not-yet-announced Pathfinder Adventure Card Game set due for release in February 2015.

When Crowe was a young man waiting to depart on his first horse gathering, he had the same dream every night for five weeks. It always started and ended the same way. Each time the storm came. Each time the stampede thundered out of the canyon to the south. Each time his body was trampled to pulp before he woke up soaking with sweat.

Every night.

Crowe was born under an auspicious sign during a thunderstorm that scoured the Storval Plateau one burning autumn evening. After generations of uncertain prophecy by the tribe’s shamans, the holy ones were reluctant to predict much about the newborn aside from foretelling that he would one day become a significant force.

From a young age, Crowe was trained to be a perfect groom, and it was clear that in time he would become a good trainer. He learned from his mother and father, as well as from his aunts and uncles, for even among the animal-loving Shriikirri-Quah, his family had a way with horses. They even supplied many a burn-rider of the Sklar-Quah with their signature steeds, and foreigners came from miles around seeking to trade for the family’s fearless stallions.

Crowe’s father was known throughout the Storval Plateau for his skill at capturing and breaking wild horses, and his mother could read the face of nature as if it were her own child’s. Together, Crowe’s parents trained their horses, content with their lives. But their son was becoming unruly.

As a youth, Crowe often got into fights then claimed that he didn’t remember how the scraps had started. He would feel his heart beating against his ribs. He would hear the blood thrumming in his ears, and that would be the last thing he recalled. People in the tribe grew cautious around the boy. After far too many of these sorts of scuffles, his mother began asking him why he was so angry. Crowe claimed again that he didn’t remember, that the last thing he had heard before each fight broke out was the storm.

As Crowe grew stronger of frame, he learned the traditional ways of Shoanti warfare. He trained with the weapons of his ancestors and learned how to protect his people and their way of life. Crowe learned the klar, mastered the earthbreaker, and also studied the natural world and the ways of magic that his mother followed. Throughout his tutelage, he challenged his elders and was challenged by his not-so-infrequent gaps in memory. Some in the tribe thought this was simply an excuse for his misbehavior, and many blamed his parents for his violent outbursts.

Though Crowe was still considered to be too young for a long outing, his father decided that taking his son on his first horse gathering would teach the boy discipline. The herds would be funneling through the canyon in a matter of weeks, and Crowe’s father hoped to gather a few more horses, the most prized of which were the foals of Bright Star—a stallion that had eluded him for the past five years. Rounding up even one or two of the foals would be a major boon to his family’s stock.

Crowe, his father, and seven other men and women from the tribe traveled for three days. Horses are predictable beasts, and the Shoanti knew where the herd moved in the uplands. The herd would race through the canyon until it leveled out to a dry riverbed that cut through the blistered land. When the herd came through, the hunters would be ready with ropes and snares.

In order to test Crowe’s patience, his father sent the youth ahead to the canyon’s mouth. He wanted his boy to wait, to listen to hooves and snorts echoing down the canyon. He wanted him to throw the loop around a horse that he could call his own. He wanted Crowe to concentrate on his task and listen past the distraction of the storm.

Crowe crouched upon a flat umber rock, trembling with terror. All he could hear was the storm in the distance, a low, rolling rumble that thundered in his eardrums. He was sure what he heard was his fear, his rage. This was the canyon. This was the night he would die. Why couldn’t he just leave? Just walk away from it all?

Tradition.

The thunder beating in his ears changed. It wasn’t just internal; it was echoing through the canyon. The herd was coming. Crowe looked to the sky as dark clouds rolling in from the south obscured the setting sun. The others shouted orders and set up positions with their snares. Crowe scrambled back to his designated post as hundreds of horses filled the canyon, their hoofbeats driving a pounding echo off the canyon walls.

Then the storm broke. Thunder rumbled and crashed through the canyon and lightning bathed its rusty walls in flashes of white.

After the storm had passed, Crowe awoke to find his cousin sitting on his chest and slapping his face, claiming that he was to blame for the carnage spread all around him. More than a dozen horses lay dead, and half of the hunting party lay trampled in the riverbed. They said Crowe was to blame. They said there was no storm. They said he had done it.

Slick with blood, confused, and full of no uncertain amount of shame, he stumbled through the night. The dawn broke on Crowe’s new life—a life not burdened by tradition, a life that was numb to fear.

Adam Daigle
Developer

Meet the Iconics: Oloch

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Introducing the next of the Advanced Class Guide's new iconic characters, Oloch the warpriest. While the complete rules for making your own warpriest characters debut in the Advanced Class Guide this August, Oloch himself stomps onto the scene in our upcoming Free RPG Day adventure, Pathfinder Module: Risen from the Sands, available at participating game stores Saturday, June 21st. Oloch is also a playable character in the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Skull & Shackles Character Add-On Deck due in August.

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Oloch has no memory of a time before pain—pain suffered, and pain inflicted. A half-orc of the Haskodar tribe in Blisterwell, Oloch was raised—if it can truly be called that—with the knowledge that his parents had been quarry slaves who died in the ancient mine's cramped tunnels shortly after his birth. Constantly forced to fight for survival against his larger, stronger tribe-mates, Oloch quickly learned that the best defense is a total lack of fear or restraint. Those who thought to casually bully the child soon learned the error of their ways, for in Oloch's mind, every fight is a fight to the death, and anyone who pretends otherwise leaves themselves vulnerable.

This fearless ferocity did not go unnoticed. As Oloch reached his teenage years, the tribe's leaders began harnessing the boy's abilities. Whether in the gladiatorial pits or in battle against the sometimes-allied One Eye tribe, Oloch shed blood on command—both his own and that of others As his victories mounted, the tribe's priests of Gorum took control of Oloch's education, wrapping him in armor and teaching him the glories of the Lord in Iron. In Gorum, Oloch finally found someone he could look up to: a being of perfect strength, without the pathetic fallibilities of even the other battle-priests. More, Gorum looked into Oloch's heart and put to rest any nagging doubts the half-orc had about his love of violence. He saw the dark thrill Oloch felt as his oversized sword split the spine of an enemy—and rewarded it with magic.

As time went on, Oloch began to chafe at even the meager restrictions placed on him by his orc superiors. Who were they to tell him when and where to fight? And so perhaps it was inevitable that, upon learning the truth of his heritage—that he was no slave child, but rather the stolen son of a human adventurer—he took the chance to sever ties (and limbs) and strike out on his own, taking with him only his favored gear and a description of the fearsome warrior woman who bore him.

Fortunately for Oloch, the legend of a woman brave enough to adventure alone in the Hold of Belkzen—and rumored to tryst unashamedly with orcs—is a hard one to stifle. So it was that he soon found himself standing before the gates of the human settlement of Trunau, calling for its leader, Halgra of the Blackened Blades, to stand forth and meet her son.

To his surprise, she did, and Oloch found himself both shocked and vaguely discomfited by the warmth with which Halgra greeted her lost son, welcoming him into her house. There she told him the story of his birth—how he was the product of a short-lived dalliance with a powerful orc leader she refused to name, and how he had been stolen from her as an infant during a raid on her campsite. She introduced him to his half-siblings, and offered him a place as a defender of Trunau.

Yet a wolf can never be a simple dog, no matter how much it might long to wear the chain. To Halgra's horror, Oloch's lust for battle refused to be sated by simple raids and training bouts. Citizens who roused his ire were terribly injured, and in the end Halgra herself had to take up her sword and drive him from the town, announcing that she would always love him as a son—but that he would never again be allowed in Trunau until he learned to control his battle lust and turn his divine abilities toward a positive end.

Frustrated, feeling shamed for the first time in his life, Oloch left Trunau. For a time he wandered the wilds, yet no ordinary beasts could provide a proper challenge—nor remove the lingering suspicion that there might, as Halgra claimed, be more to life than simple bloodshed. Eventually he wound up in Urgir, where he quickly found work as a government enforcer and champion. Though on the surface, he claims that his position ensures him a steady supply of worthy opponents, in secret Oloch hopes that Grask Uldeth's half-civilized ways will help him puzzle out how to balance the orc and human inside himself and discover the man he was born to be.

Oloch is a quiet, brooding warrior with a disturbing love of violence. Though not actively evil, and scornful of those who pick on obviously weaker opponents, he nevertheless takes it as a given that might makes right, and the whining of those unable to defend their property means little to him. He lives in the moment, relishing the red rush of battle and the communion it brings him with his god. He's not opposed to working with—or even for—those he considers his equals, but those individuals are few and far between, and must take pains to show him proper respect. Perhaps the only activity other than combat that truly brings him pleasure is making music on his drum—and then only if it's sufficiently riotous as to echo the clamor of battle.

James L. Sutter
Managing Editor

Meet the Iconics: Quinn

Thursday, June 5, 2014

Introducing the next of the Advanced Class Guide's new iconic characters, Quinn the investigator. While the complete rules for making your own investigator characters debut in the Advanced Class Guide this August, Quinn features in our upcoming Free RPG Day adventure, Pathfinder Module: Risen from the Sands, available at participating game stores Saturday, June 21st.

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

The rule of law is only as strong as the people who uphold it, and few know this fact better than Quinn.

The child of a former noble family of Galt, Quinn was raised to despise the chaos that had robbed his parents of their proper name and station, forcing them to hide as middle-class apothecaries. Yet for Quinn himself, trained as a legal clerk and never having personally known the aristocratic comforts his parents mourned, this was no true inconvenience. What frustrated him about his nation was not that power resided with the people, but rather that it was wielded in such a capricious fashion. His fellow citizens' constant false accusations and refusal to abide by court rulings—not to mention the Gray Gardeners' tendency to pronounce sentences completely outside the system—drove young Quinn to distraction.

When Quinn was 37, having recently lost both parents to an outbreak of plague, his simmering rage finally came to a head. After the ruling faction sentenced a man to death with flagrant disregard for due process, Quinn overstepped his usual role by investigating the matter himself, turning up irrefutable proof of the man's innocence. When his attempts to reopen the case were stymied, he returned the night before the scheduled execution and set the man free—only to run straight into a Gray Gardener patrol. The prisoner escaped in the ensuing fracas, and even as Quinn ran, he heard the Gardeners shouting his name.

Quinn fled for the Taldan border, knowing that there was now a price on his head. Yet despite all he'd lost, he found himself laughing—for here, in this tragic debacle, he had finally discovered a sense of satisfaction he'd been missing his whole life. He had upheld the law and defended the innocent in spite of government negligence and corruption. By working outside the legal system, he'd helped guide it back toward a righteous path. And he wanted more.

Thus began a new chapter in Quinn's life. Roaming the nations of the Inner Sea, he constantly keeps an ear out for allegations of unjust accusations or abuses of power. When he finds one, he investigates the case himself, using a lifetime of association with law enforcement agents and detective agencies like The Sleepless to help him ferret out the truth. If the legal system seems fair, he often shows up unexpectedly at the court proceedings, presenting sworn evidence and acting as defending counsel for the accused. If he finds a court to be corrupt, he takes a more direct hand in protecting the innocent. While he respects the law, he also knows that people are imperfect, and that breaking local laws is sometimes necessary in order to uphold more universal ones. Of course, his meddling is rarely popular with the opposition, and so Quinn generally moves along as soon as he's seen justice done and taken steps to ensure that the victim won't suffer further abuses.

Quinn is a genial, gentlemanly sort, quick with a joke and able to fit easily into both high society and low. His well-honed analytical mind is capable of astounding feats of logic and deduction, and he's fond of sharpening it still further with alchemical extracts learned from his parents and his own personal studies. While formidable in combat, he uses a sword cane so as not to unduly tip off his enemies to his abilities, believing that the best weapon is the one your foe never sees coming. He's loyal to his friends, and sometimes seems to have a connection in every town, yet is also wary of associating too long or too openly with his allies, knowing that his fight for justice has made him unpopular with various powerful factions.

Though now well into middle age, Quinn has no intentions of slowing down. As he's fond of telling companions, "a man needs only three things to change the world: a quick wit, a righteous heart, and a stylish coat."

James L. Sutter
Managing Editor

Meet the Iconics: Jirelle

Thursday, May 29, 2014

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Introducing the first of the Advanced Class Guide's new iconic characters, Jirelle the swashbuckler. While the complete rules for making your own swashbuckler characters debut in the Advanced Class Guide this August, Jirelle herself features in the our upcoming Free RPG Day adventure, Pathfinder Module: Risen from the Sands, available at participating game stores Saturday June 21st. Jirelle is also a playable character in the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Skull & Shackles Base Set due in August.

Jirelle may have been born and raised on a ship, and she might call the Shackles her homeland, but she never considered herself a pirate, even if only to distance herself from the darkest part of her childhood: her mother.

Today, Jirelle is a friendly sort with a biting wit and a charming personality. She makes new friends as swiftly as she strikes with her rapier, and while she has a flair for the dramatic (why merely attack a foe when you can make a show of it with a twirl of the cape or a somersault or two?), she never favors ostentation or glory over the opportunity to help a friend in need. Jirelle understands that the strength of one's relationships with friends, allies, lovers, and family make one strong. It was her mother's failure to forge such bonds that allowed a young Jirelle to escape from a life that would have likely seen offered as sacrifice to the shark demon Ovonovo before the close of her thirteenth birthday.

On the subject of her mother or her ship, the Bloodcrow, the typically light-hearted half-elf grows serious. Jirelle does not share the secrets of her childhood with just anyone. As such, few know how she engineered the sinking of the Bloodcrow and the death of her wretched elven mother off the coast of Tempest Cay. Jirelle often jokes that she befriends for life, with the playful, only slightly malicious glint in her eyes implying what might happen to those who would betray such friendship.

After escaping the Bloodcrow, Jirelle spent some time surviving as a street rat in the alleys of Drenchport. Armed with a fine rapier and clad in her her mother's magical cloak (the only two things she managed to escape the Bloodcrow's wreckage with), Jirelle kept every coin and bauble she earned in a thrice-locked chest she keeps well hidden and protected. At first, she'd hoped to save enough money to afford a move from the Shackles to distant Taldor, drawn by tales of a land where duels and extravagance and civility promised a better life. But when rumors of a strange, ghostly ship plying the sea-ways of the Shackles reached her—fearful stories of a vessel commanded by an imperious banshee and bound by undeath—Jirelle realized that in sinking the Bloodcrow she'd done the exact opposite of what she'd intended. Rather than spare the Shackles of a brutal pirate queen, she'd unleashed an even deadlier scourge upon the Fever Sea.

Today, Jirelle seeks the funds to someday finance a ship and crew of her own. She plans not to become a pirate—for a life of plunder and cruelty holds no appeal for the daring swashbuckler—but to finish the job she started on the eve of her thirteenth birthday. Jirelle knows she can't do this on her own, though. So she seeks true and able allies, knowing that only with bravery and trust will the Bloodcrow's days be numbered.

James Jacobs
Creative Director

Meet the Iconics: Balazar

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

To join in all the gift giving going on today, here's a belated present for the season. Happy holidays from all of us here at Paizo Publishing!

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

The final decade of the Age of Enthronement brought hope and innovation to the people of the Inner Sea region. In the north, Chelish explorers from Korvosa founded the city of Magnimar. In the east, Taldor and Qadira reached an uneasy peace after centuries of antagonism and open warfare. In the treacherous Mana Wastes of the south, refugees fleeing persecution in Nex settled the Duchy of Alkenstar as a beacon of light and progress in a sea of magic-warped madness. And not far away, in Nex's capital city of Quantium, the Arclords adopted an orphaned gnome child named Balazar into their most prestigious school of magical instruction.

Diligent students of the scribbles and writings of the long-lost archmage who founded that nation, the Arclords deciphered codes and texts from the margins of newly discovered spellbooks and concluded that "children of the First World" would play an important role in the magical administration of the departed wizard's kingdom. In the years before the death of Aroden, prophecy was a much more valuable currency in the lands of the Inner Sea, and in 4601 the tradition-obsessed Arclords scoured the gnome communities infesting their beloved cities for young gnomes to press into service. To prevent their great works from falling victim to what they considered a chaotic and untrustworthy race of childlike anarchists, the wizards culled only the youngest (and thus in their minds least corrupt) gnome children from their parents, imprisoning or destroying families with the temerity to go against the marginalia of the wizard who had founded the nation and declared the city open to creatures of all races so long ago. To the Arclords, any gnome resistance was a revolt against the ideals of the nation itself, akin to treason.

By 4606, the human god Aroden was dead, the power of prophecy was broken, and the Arclords' eugenics experiment was veering toward abject failure. As the gnome orphan brood developed into maturity in the decades that followed, they brought chaos and catastrophe to Quantium's magical academies. And at the center of that chaos stood Balazar: an impulsive youth with a temper to equal the bright red ferocity of his prodigious mustache, a burning match on a bed of tinder.

In the early years of his instruction, Balazar revealed almost no magical acumen whatsoever, preferring to spend his days conducting merry pranks on his fellow students and instructors instead of absorbing himself in the meticulous study of the Arclords' curriculum. When one such prank resulted in the transmutation of an instructor's tower into a living being of elemental stone (thanks in part to a mysterious glowing rock pilfered from the school's vaults), Balazar and three gnome associates found themselves expelled from the academy, exiled from Quantium, and sent on the first wagon train to Ecanus, the sprawling southern city whose world-famous fleshforges churned out a legion of horrors to bolster Nex's armies and terrorize its squalid countryside.

The Ecanus assignment was intended exclusively as punishment, but the city's masters welcomed the gnomes with open arms, eager that their unconventional attitudes, boundless creativity, and unpredictable obsessions might aid them in conquering one of the most enduring mysteries of the monumental fleshforges. For deep within the dungeons below the military complex, in a room designed by the Archmage Nex himself, lay an extraplanar rift known as the Void Chasm, a shaft of sheer sides and cloying, multicolored mists that had driven insane all who had previously gazed within it.

One by one, Balazar's gnome associates gazed within the abyss, and one by one they lost their tenuous grip on reality. Balazar watched in horror as the color drained from their hair and skin, as if the whole of their life from birth to bleaching transpired within the span of a few moments. When the emotional strain grew too great and the gnomes cried out in anguish, the pitiless fleshforge instructors pushed them into the trench, where their howls soon faded beneath the swirling mists. If the gnomes could not discover the purpose of the Void Chasm, the administrators reasoned, perhaps a sacrifice to the unknown powers below would do the trick.

As he stood on the precipice of the Void, Balazar wondered if perhaps he should have studied more diligently in the relative comfort of Quantium's academies. Reluctantly, he cast his gaze into the miasma and felt the weird energies of the Chasm worming their way into his mind. Worse, he heard whispering voices in the mists, calling out to him and begging him to step over the edge. At first he thought the voices to be those of his lost fellow gnomes, and called back to them one by one even as the color drained from his hair and he felt his mind slipping away. But the voices were not those of his friends. They belonged to… something else.

It took all of Balazar's limited concentration to sift the many voices from each other. Some were angry, demanding to be left alone. Others beckoned with honeyed words of sweet oblivion. But one voice among the tumult spoke softly and plainly. "I will help you," it said in reassuring tones. "Give me form and allow me to leave this prison, and you and I will become as one."

With the hands of the fleshforge administrators on his shoulders, about to give the final push that would send him into nothingness, Balazar tried to imagine what the voice would look like. He dreamed of a creature with a vast serpentine body, with grasping talons and horrifying scales. And, perhaps because he had not eaten that day and was growing hungry, he imagined the voice speaking through the beak of a monstrous chicken. And then, just as he felt the muscles of his captors tense for the final push, the creature he had imagined emerged from the Void Chasm fully formed and fully real, screaming a hideous avian cry and weaving through the air with serpentine grace. Its claws tore at the necks of the administrators, its hideous beak making a mess of their unbelieving eyes. And all along, in reassuring tones only he could hear, it spoke to him. "Do not be afraid, little one," it said. "We were meant to be together."

Somehow, Balazar and the avian entity that called itself Padrig managed to win their way free of the fleshforges, of Ecanus, and even of Nex. As he fled up the eastern coast of Garund on a succession of merchant and smuggler vessels, Balazar and Padrig grew closer and closer to one another. Padrig explained that he was a bodiless being known as an eidolon, and that only Balazar could give him structure and form due to the affinity of their minds and souls. As the gnome made his way from Nex to Katapesh to Absalom, Balazar grew more and more adept at shifting Padrig's form to add more legs, terrible wings, or other features fitting the dangers and situations at hand. When things got too dangerous to be seen with a magical creature or when discretion was more important than protection, Balazar dismissed Padrig to some extraplanar hidey-hole, only to call him once again to his side when needed.

Although a great deal of the young Balazar's mischievous spirit remains, the horror of the Void Chasm remains with him to this day. Other gnomes often confuse his stark white hair for a symptom of the insidious bleaching that threatens all gnomekind, but through his constant and relentless travels Balazar remains as engaged and full of life as any of his healthy gnome brethren. When other gnomes inquire about his "condition" with the best of intentions, Balazar sometimes flies into an impatient fit of grumpiness, chastising his would-be helpers and instructing them to mind their own business.

Privacy is very, very important to Balazar, for the Nexian wizards he betrayed have not forgotten his singular mastery of the Void Chasm. Agents of the Arclords of Nex dog his travels at every stop, pushing him further and further away with each season. Balazar knows that each new stop—however temporary—will provide him with ample opportunity to learn new things and meet new people, to master the magical craft that always eluded him in Nex, and to do honor to the friends and colleagues he left behind. Despite occasional moments of maudlin reflection on all he has lost, Balazar takes comfort in his enduring friendship with the eidolon he recued from oblivion so long ago. As long as he travels with Padrig, he knows he will never be alone.

Erik Mona
Publisher

Meet the Iconics: Imrijka

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Wails regularly echo through the eastern wing of Gravecharge, Pharasma's cathedral in the university city of Lepidstadt. Yet such aren't the breathless screams of the dead that so often ring through the corners of Ustalav, but rather the cries of life. Since its construction, Gravecharge has maintained a clean and well-supervised hospice for sick and orphaned youths. Just as the goddess Pharasma concerns herself with the transition of life to death, so does she cherish even the most tragic lives.

Imrijka came to Gravecharge in the arms of a city watchman, wrapped in a tattered uniform and held at arm's length. The guard claimed his patrol had found "the thing" during their dawn patrol to the Spiral Cromlech, a Kellid ruin overlooking the city that was notorious for ill fortune and mysterious disappearances—but never for mysterious appearances. Hearing a babe bawling amid the moon-bleached standing stones, the guards bold enough to investigate momentarily took her for some stray fiend-child and almost slew her amid the eerie ruins. Identifying her as a half-orc infant did little to stay the hands of those ready to mete out death, but the argument that matters of life and death should be left to Pharasma sheathed the blades of those not truly eager to spill a child's blood—regardless of the color of her skin.

Dubbed Imrijka after Gravecharge's first high priestess, Imrijka Castavelik, the pistachio-skinned girl was cleaned, clothed, and given a place among the cathedral's other orphans. At first she terrified those youths, being larger, stronger, and more vicious in her biting than some children double her age. But only for a time. The priestesses of Pharasma explained the mysteries of their goddess's will and the vastness and variety of her creations, teaching the children that they were blessed to have such a unique new sister. For a time, behind the cathedral's walls, that was even the truth.

Illstruation by Wayne Reynolds

When she was old enough to understand and be understood, Imrijka reported to the offices of Jarlos Teym, Gravecharge's high exorcist, for the first time. He asked her a great deal about her life, how she felt about her studies, the clergy, the other children, and if there was anything he could do to make things more comfortable for her. A shy girl, Imrijka declined. Subsequent discussions bent toward the future, Imrijka's dreams, her prayers, and her vision for a long life. Finally, though, after months of building a rapport with the girl, Teym asked about her past. But for Imrijka, life began with the cathedral, priestesses, and other orphans. Teym pressed, insisting on answers, even verifying them with magic. After one particularly intense interview, a confused Imrijka finally started asking her own questions: Why did it matter? Why did Teym care? Couldn't what she might be outweigh what she might have been?

Deeming her mature enough to know, Teym explained his tenacity: someone had come to adopt Imrijka. Thrice. Every Kuthona for the past 3 years. First came a man dressed like a count's footman, articulate and with more questions than answers. He left after raising the clergy's suspicions with his too-pointed inquiries about Imrijka. A year later he returned, this time with a human woman of vulpine beauty who claimed to be Imrijka's mother—though her apparent age made that only the barest possibility. It was Teym's own suspicions and skill at discerning lies that kept the strangers from Imrijka, and the unusual pair left with wordless detachment. Finally, only a few months past—days before Teym's first meeting with Imrijka—the two strangers returned, led by a man dressed in white and silver. The bold newcomer spoke as one used to being obeyed and demanded Imrijka be handed over to him. Teym personally denied him, insisting to know what right he had to the girl. A father's right, the man persisted. The high exorcist ordered them out of the cathedral in that instant, but before they obeyed the man in white smiled. "She's not like us," he said, eyes glimmering. "Excellent."

Despite Teym's explanation, Imrijka understood only that her parents had come for her and that the high exorcist had sent them away. She held back both questions and tears, nodding blankly until Teym excused her. But she didn't return to her room. Rather, she exited through the front doors of Gravecharge and out onto the snowy streets—where someone waited.

A man in white sat upon the icy benches of the nearby circle, slowly feeding bits of shredded meat to the crows. Seeing Imrijka enter the plaza through the flurry of sound-deadening snow, he rose and walked toward her. Wary, she approached. In his gloved hand appeared a strange token, a disk etched with barbaric symbols and a figure impaled upon a spear. She reached for it.

A merciless iron arrow shattered the man's hand, sending the strange icon spiraling into the snow. Teym stood across the circle, another arrow nocked in his bent hawthorn bow. Around him whipped the black-edged crimson of Pharasma's inquisitors, woven flames that engulfed any flakes the whirling wind blew against them. "Back, girl," he commanded in a voice Imrijka had never heard him use.

The man in white might have been carved of ice. He had never flinched. Though the icon was knocked away, a tangle of disjoined fingers and bloodless flesh-ribbons remained outstretched toward Imrijka. Her small tusks clattered against her teeth, but she didn't scream.

"Another time, dear," the man whispered, just for her. Then the snow whirled around him. For a moment he seemed to be one with the cold, a blizzard-born prince. Then he was gone, leaving Imrijka cold and frightened—but not alone. High Exorcist Teym's cloak around her was heavy, and warm, and smelled strongly of tobacco and dust—what Imrijka imagined a grandfather should smell like. It didn't smell anything like the man in white.

Until Imrijka reached maturity and was fully able to defend herself, she rarely left Gravecharge Cathedral. When finally she did, it was in the crimson and black of an initiate inquisitor of Pharasma's faith. Even after the retirement of High Exorcist Teym, she continued to serve the church and the man she'd adopted as her grandfather, assisting him in his more scholarly pursuits as a consultant on religious antiquities at the University of Lepidstadt. She's traveled much of Ustalav and beyond—guarded an expedition to the boney towers of Kalexcourt, spent a night in the haunted hotel known as House Beumhal, been shouted off the porch of retired monster hunter Ailson Kinder (but not before getting her copy of Hunter's Moon signed), and had numerous other adventures. She regularly returns to Gravecharge, where several of her childhood companions have grown into positions within the church's sphere of influence—including Brel Vhalsik, an argumentative Kellid theologian with whom she shares a complicated relationship. But increasingly her interests and Teym's research send her beyond Ustalav's borders, where she treads with her goddess's blessing, bringing judgment to all who would violate the laws of life and death. In her travels she's faced significant prejudice, but tales of Pharasma's "monster monster-hunter" and Imrijka's ever-present arsenal convince most bigots to keep their fool mouths firmly shut. Through it all, she's never seen the man in white again—at least, not with total confidence, as there have been far too many shadows and half-recognized faces to be sure. She recovered his strange gift on that snowy day and wears the disk openly, hoping that someone someday might recognize it and lead her to some hint of where she came from and who she was. But for now, the future holds far greater promises for Imrijka, and she strides into it boldly, confident in her faith, where she's going, and who she is.

F. Wesley Schneider
Editor-In-Chief

Meet the Iconics: Feiya

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Born in a small village north of Trollheim in the Linnorm Kingdoms, the child who would come to be known as Feiya was the daughter of two Tian merchants from Minkai who had come over the crown of the world to Avistan to start a new life. Travelers by nature, they spent the short northern summers making slow loops through Hagreach and the Thanelands, facilitating trade. What few memories Feiya has of that life are happy ones: the jostling of wagons, the smell of campfires, and wandering alone through fields and forests, marveling as the wildness closed around her.

That happiness came to a sudden halt on the fateful day that brought her to the attention of a recently sundered coven of witches who dwelled on the border with Irrisen. Led by a particularly cruel green hag named Nysima, the coven had lost its youngest member to a squad of Blackravens from Trollheim and was still reeling from its sudden loss of power. They witnessed the child as she skipped away from the caravan stop, following a family of deer deep into the woods, and immediately set upon her.

There’s no telling what cruelties the witches would have visited upon the girl had they not suffered their recent loss. As it was, another, no less horrific, fate awaited young Feiya. The two crones seized the child and whisked her away to the east, their mad cackling drowning out the young girl’s terrified screams. By the time they reached their snow- and thatch-covered huts, they had given the child a new name and were already envisioning the return of their lost powers.

The next twelve years were a blur of pain, terror, and misery as Feiya endured the crones’ sadistic attempts to teach her their dark craft. Alternating between tutelage and torture, the witches frequently let their cruel natures impede their instruction. For while the young girl showed unmistakable promise and aptitude, she also possessed a defiance that only the harshest of punishments could suppress. On numerous occasions, Feiya tried to escape her imprisonment, only to be tracked down and captured after no more than a few hours. The retributions for these failed attempts have scarred her body and mind in ways that no magic can ever heal.

One brisk autumn day, after being beaten for failing to properly brew a batch of poisonous blue whinnis, Feiya was sent off to gather herbs. While harvesting more whinnis root, she spied a fox watching her from atop a large rime-covered rock. Unlike the region’s typical arctic specimens, this creature had a striking red and orange coloration that stood in stark contrast to the endless snow. There was something about the way the creature watched her that beckoned to Feiya. She approached carefully, and was astonished by his calm and focus. As she neared, the fox trotted a small distance away, turned, and gave her a look that was clearly an invitation to follow. This process was repeated again and again, and before she knew it, Feiya was following the fox on another escape attempt.

By sundown, the two witches had realized Feiya’s intentions. Furious, they set off in pursuit, confident that, as with all previous instances, their hunt would be brief. This time, however, Feiya had guidance. The fox led her along trails never before seen by human nor hag, staying always just ahead and out of reach. When she needed nourishment, the fox led her to game and fresh water. When she needed rest, it stood vigil while she slept. In this manner, Feiya was able to elude capture for more than two weeks.

One particularly cold evening, however, Feiya’s luck ran out. With her pursuers hot on her trail and the fox nowhere to be seen, she found herself trapped in a river valley surrounded on three sides by impassable mountains. Feiya could sense the witches closing in, could hear their promises of pain on the chilling wind. She took shelter in a shallow cave behind the waterfall that fed the river, a curious little grotto whose far wall was emblazoned with a crude carving of a butterfly. Like an animal run to ground, Feiya steeled herself for the coming confrontation. She had come too far this time to surrender without a fight. She determined then and there that her days of living under someone else’s yoke were over. She would have her freedom, either in this life or the next.

It was at that moment that the fox reappeared. Only now, there was something different in the way he approached her. He had always shown a preternatural intelligence, but as Feiya stared into his eyes, she saw a consciousness and a determination that would have frightened her had she not come to trust the animal so implicitly. As she watched him, Feiya was startled by a sudden and overwhelming flurry of sensations invading her mind. She sank, dazed, to the cave floor as the feelings slowly crystallized into coherence. Less a voice than a series of emotions, the promise it offered was unmistakable. Feiya said nothing, but her acceptance was as clear as it was quick.

What followed will forever haunt Feiya’s dreams. Raspy promises of pain and suffering rose above the din of the waterfall as the witches drew near to cave mouth. Feiya could see the outlines of their hunched bodies just beyond the blanket of cascading water, but before she could act, another sound arose. It started as a low rumble, then quickly gained volume, drowning out both hags and water and sending tremors through the cave floor. Then the valley erupted with the screeching and roaring of what could only have been a forest’s worth of wild animals, punctured occasionally by the shrill curse of a hag.

Long minutes passed as Feiya stood, too frightened to move. Then, as gradually as it began, the noise subsided until all that remained was the crash of the waterfall. Feiya crouched down behind a rocky outcropping, afraid to leave the shelter of the cave. As the minutes turned into hours, exhaustion claimed her, and, despite her anxiety, she succumbed to a fitful sleep.

When dawn finally arrived, Feiya stepped out from the cave, not quite sure what she was expecting to see. A fresh blanket of snow had covered the land, hiding any clues she might have found concerning the events of the previous night. Yet the feeling of relief was palpable. The fox crept up and paused at her side. She was finally free.

Feiya never discusses the events of that night, nor the particulars of the strange pact she entered into. She may one day try to track down the parents she barely remembers, but for now she is content to roam the world, relishing her freedom, seeking new experiences, and developing her newfound power. Though she desperately desires the company of others, formative years spent away from civilized society have left Feiya lacking in social graces, and her awkwardness often leads to unfortunate misunderstandings. Nevertheless, her inherent good nature tends to win out, and her occasional flares of temper are countered by her steadfast loyalty to her friends. Feiya relishes travel, and having identified the butterfly carving in the waterfall cave as the found-mark of a Desnan priest, she gladly embraces that faith, hoping that her wanderings may cast more light on who she really is—and what entity fosters her magical abilities.

Andrew Vallas
Graphic Designer

Meet the Iconics: Reiko

August 4, 2011

Reiko is the iconic character for the ninja class from Ultimate Combat. To read the story for Hayato, the iconic samurai, or Lirianne, the iconic gunslinger—both classes also featured in Ultimate Combat—click here and here.

Situated on the western coast of Minkai, Reiko’s home town of White Wave was a quiet fishing village, little more than a collection of shacks and cabins clinging to a steep cliff face overlooking the harbor. Crushed under oppressive humidity in the summer, the air thick with clouds of stinging flies and gnats, and subject to dangerous storms in the winter, White Wave had little to offer any lord, and thus little was demanded of it.

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

All that changed when Reiko was twelve. Due to bureaucratic disputes and shifting borders between noble fiefdoms, White Wave fell under the control of a new lord—Entobe Hisashi—and this one had grand plans for the holding. The sea cliffs would be the perfect place for a new shrine, a series of shining towers that would please the gods and bring favor upon the Entobe family for generations. An ambitious project, it would take many hands to complete. And Lord Entobe knew precisely where to find them.

When Reiko thinks of her childhood, she no longer remembers searching through tide pools, or climbing high up the dangerous cliff walls to the sounds of her mother’s laughter and her father’s anxious scolding. Instead, she remembers the smell and taste of rock dust in her mouth, her fingernails smashed and bleeding from hauling rocks. She remembers the long hours of toil in the cruelly hot sun, carrying water for the townsfolk forced to cut stone in the quarry, their fishing dories left to rot in the harbor. Yet most of all, she remembers the faces of her parents growing steadily leaner as they made her take their rations of rice and soup.

For many months, the people toiled. Lord Entobe’s enforcers brooked no laziness—as they deemed it when the old or young keeled over from exhaustion—and punishments were severe. The village’s tiny graveyard filled quickly, and soon bodies began to wash up on the shore as townsfolk too exhausted to dig graves cast their deceased loved ones into the sea.

And then, seemingly overnight, the gods turned against the project. Shortly after dusk one night, three of the five tower foundations collapsed, killing one of the crueler taskmasters. Though it meant months more work, the people secretly took joy in the irony, and that joy sustained them as they began to clear away rubble and rebuild. Yet strange things kept happening to the necessary supplies. Tools were broken. Timbers rotted. Stone turned brittle, and rope frayed and snapped. Guards died in mysterious ways, always seemingly accidental. The fury and fear of the overseers and the architects was a wonder to behold, and the common folk secretly toasted whatever kami were responsible.

Only one house did not share in the amusement. Though they said nothing to her, Reiko could tell that her parents were tense, and the arguments that came through her walls after they thought she was asleep ran late into the night. And then one painfully hot summer evening, unable to sleep despite her exhaustion, Reiko left her room and found a black-clad figure crawling through a second-story window.

Before Reiko could scream, the figure was at her side, hand covering her mouth. And then the tight-fitting black cowl was removed, and Reiko was looking into the solemn eyes of her mother.

After that night, many things changed. Reiko learned that her mother was no shepherd girl from the inland fields, as she had always been told, but had instead grown up in the mountains as part of a clan of ninja, a deadly but honorable band of assassins and spies with a history going back hundreds of years. On the run after an ill-fated ambush, she hid out in the tiny village and fell in love with a simple fisherman—Reiko’s father. Despite her husband’s concern and disapproval, Reiko’s mother began to teach their daughter some of the secrets of the clan. Though she flatly refused to take Reiko on any of the solitary raids with which she plagued Entobe’s people, the two spent many hours together in the darkness, climbing the cliffs of White Wave, practicing with the swords her mother kept hidden in their rafters, and moving silently across rooftops and ship rigging. Reiko proved a capable student, and at last there was something to look forward to after days of backbreaking labor.

And then Reiko’s mother went too far. Caught in the act of sabotaging a stone-hauling cart, she killed several of the overseers before escaping back to their home. Immediately she hid her gear in the midden and put an end to her and Reiko’s midnight activities. But it was too late.

Furious, Lord Entobe himself came to the site, arriving in a grand procession of warriors, spellcasters—and investigators. The afternoon after his arrival, he halted construction and ordered the townsfolk to assemble. Reiko and her mother—both assigned to the task of serving tea to the guards for the day—stood at the back of the crowd, watching Entobe take the makeshift stage that had been erected in his honor.

Addressing the crowd, Entobe announced that the person behind the attacks had been discovered, and that the treachery in their midst would be ending. Then he held up a familiar object—the black mask belonging to Reiko’s mother, still damp and stained from the trash heap.

That was when the guards parted ranks to reveal Reiko’s father, bound at wrists and ankles. There was no mistaking the gash across his throat, nor the red stain trailing down his shirt.

Reiko shrieked and rushed forward, but her mother caught her shoulder and spun her around. Their eyes met.

“Run, little spider,” her mother said. Then a hidden blade dropped from her sleeve into her hand, and she leapt for the mob of guards on the stage.

Reiko ran. Using all the skills her mother had taught her, she slipped out of the village and away down the cliffs, evading Entobe’s guards and dogs. For days she ran along the sea’s edge, keeping to the stones at low tide to leave no prints or scent trails, until she was sure that she was far from Entobe’s holdings. Then she turned east, into the mountains, in search of her mother’s clan.

In the end, she found them—yet not in the way she expected. For Entobe had also uncovered her mother’s clan allegiance, and in a fit of pique had hired them to hunt down any remaining members of her family. One again, Reiko found herself on the run. And this time she didn’t stop until she was far, far to the west, on the shores of a strange land called Avistan.

Today, Reiko is a grown woman. Cool and aloof, quick with a cutting remark or withering glare, she’s nevertheless managed to get along for nearly ten years in a land where Minkai itself is a legend, and ninja are little more than exotic fairy tales. Though she’s studied with the most capable thieves and assassins in the region, Reiko has yet to find the carefully codified engagements of honor and subtlety that her mother spoke of, and grows tired of Avistan’s seemingly endless collection of brute highwaymen and lowbrow killers. Still, the lack of corrupt lords like Entobe in places like Andoran—her new nation of choice—is a small comfort, and she’s heard whispers that a secret branch of the Eagle Knights may be exactly what she’s looking for. Regardless of whether such rumors pan out, and despite a decade on foreign soil, Reiko still views her time around the Inner Sea as a training exercise. Someday soon, she’ll retrace her steps back to Minkai. And when she does, both the Entobe family and her mother’s traitorous clan will finally learn the magnitude of their mistake.

Liz Courts
Webstore Specialist

Meet the Iconics: Lirianne

Thursday, July 28th, 2011

Lirianne is the iconic character for the gunslinger class from Ultimate Combat. To read the story for Hayato, the iconic samurai—another class featured in Ultimate Combat—click here.

Shieldmarshal Dahmok's greatest failing was teaching his middle daughter to read. After the loss of their mother, a lively but capricious elven explorer who viewed ten years and three children as a "fling," he had hoped to rear homebody children. Even with their halfblood status stretching the years he spent with his treasured children, the old marshal shuddered at the knowledge that one was already slipping away.

	Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

While older Suzeressa took to the practical household arts and younger Milliceene pursued a love of natural sciences, middle-born Lirianne lost herself for hours at a time in tales of shining knights, devious fairies, and mighty dragons—all subjects absent from her homeland of Alkenstar. Raised among bricks, smoke, and bureaucracy, the young half-elf dreamed of the life of adventure and fantasy promised by the collection of fairy tales left by her absent mother and her own ever-growing library of penny dreadfuls. Naturally, she aspired to follow in her father's footsteps and become a shieldmarshal, protecting Alkenstar from the hostile giants and hideous mutations of the Mana Wastes. Preferring to keep his little girl safe at home, Dahmok calmly explained she could never become a shieldmarshal, running with the first excuse he could come up with—that her beloved long hair would become entangled in firearm mechanisms. To his surprise, he awoke the next morning to discover Lirianne grinning like a fool, with her long tresses roughly chopped, eagerly packed and ready to follow him to work.

For twenty years, the little half-elf pushed herself to meet ever more insane requirements laid down by her aging father. Schoolmates nicknamed her "the Phantom" as she vanished often to practice her quick draw or memorize technical volumes. Tutors and governesses thought her adle-brained as she sat staring, redrawing engineer's schematics in her mind rather than follow her lessons. Even before she was old enough to entertain her first romance, she had mastered the construction and firing of a rifle, and could reckon complex trajectories by eye alone.

An old man and long since retired by the time his daughter reached womanhood, Dahmok could no longer forbid her entry into the shieldmarshals. But the old patriot's influence lived on in his successors, and to honor his service they assigned Lirianne to a quiet domestic position, safeguarding farming settlements along the secure Alkenstar-Martel road. Ten years of her life passed rounding up drunks and mediating water rights, eating away at her passion for adventure in ways her father's disapproval never could. Her childhood dreams eventually forgotten, Lirianne's steely eyes dulled with the tarnish of a thousand mundane details.

It was kismet when a storm of wild magic blew off the Spellscar Desert, past Alkenstar, and into her jurisdiction. The rampant arcane energy, fallout from centuries of wizard warfare, warped space and time around it. The magical swells lashed out, reshaping hillsides, boiling sand into glass, and calling forth bizarre creatures from the dawn of history. The only marshal at hand, Lirianne leapt into service. As townsfolk huddled in their cellars and buildings crumbled into twisted forms of misbegotten wood and bone, a bolt of green lightning lashed out, striking the half-elf even as she confronted the storm's abominations.

Lirianne awoke soaking and half-drowned on distant shores. The bizarre country was flush with thick forests and green hills—plant life like she'd never seen. Wandering inland, she soon encountered a lumber caravan beset by malicious fey. In a heartbeat, a childhood's worth of stories welled up inside her, and she rushed into battle with a passion long since forgotten. The grateful caravan loaded her with all the supplies and information she could manage, confirming that her inexplicable odyssey had deposited her cleanly in the midst of those same shining knights, devious fairies, and mighty dragons who had occupied so much of her youth.

Now a wanderer in the strange land of Avistan, Lirianne struggles to balance her resurgence of childhood wonder and adult dedication to justice, all while confronting her long-ignored elven blood. While thoughts of family and the familiar industrial life of Alkenstar occasionally tug at her roaming heart, sights remain unseen and people remain unsaved, and Lirianne will be damned if she'll fail in either.

Crystal Frasier
Production Specialist