Receive the Gift of Kobolds at Free RPG Day!

Friday, June 20, 2008

For those of you who don't know, tomorrow is the second annual Free RPG Day. Created and run by the good folks at Impressions Marketing, Free RPG Day works with hobby game retailers and RPG publishers to create in-store events that give away new RPG quick start rules and adventure modules. This year, the event is worldwide, meaning gamers in Canada, England, Germany, Scotland, Spain, Costa Rica, Chile, and the United States will be able to get their hands on a copy of Paizo's Free RPG Day module, D1.5: Revenge of the Kobold King.

It should have been the end. When the bloodthirsty adventurers burst into his throne room and mercilessly cut him down, the tale of Merlokrep, last king of the ill-fated Truescale Tribe, should have ended. But the fates weren't yet finished with the Kobold King, and now a dark power has brought him back from the beyond to wreak his vengeance upon those foolish adventurers who destroyed his tribe.

Revenge of the Kobold King is compatible with the 3.5 edition of the world's most popular roleplaying game and takes your heroes back beneath the haunted trees of Darkmoon Wood and into an ancient Azlanti crypt in search of the all-too-familiar monsters that are brutally murdering the people of Falcon's Hollow. This adventure returns to Darkmoon Vale, an area of the Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting visited in D1: Crown of the Kobold King and E1: Carnival of Tears, and further detailed in the soon-to-be-released Pathfinder Chronicles: Guide to Darkmoon Vale. Revenge of the Kobold King is a 5th level dungeon adventure written by Paizo's Organized Play Coordinator, Nicolas Logue.

Though you'll be able to download the module for free and purchase a copy from paizo.com starting this Monday, we highly recommend you attend your local Free RPG Day event to get a physical copy at no cost. Go out and tell the world about Paizo and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Get involved and run Revenge for hungry gamers right there at your local store. If your local store isn't participating, tell them about it. Make sure they're involved next year!

Paizo supports Free RPG Day and we want our readers, customers, and fans to do the same. Thanks for your support and we hope you'll like what Nick has in store for you deep beneath the Darkmoon Wood.

Joshua J. Frost
Director of Sales & Marketing

You Can't Keep a Good Kobold Down

Monday, May 5, 2008

In Revenge of the Kobold King the PCs once again find themselves facing perilous death in Darkmoon Vale, but this time they are working for a man as dangerous as any monster prowling the shadowy forest.

Thuldrin Kreed, by far the most powerful of Darkmoon Vale's lumber barons has long ruled Falcon's Hollow with a clenched fist, feeding on the misery of its common folk. When some undetermined and insidious force menaces his interests in the vale and leaves a camp of lumberjacks slaughtered in the night, Kreed requires a band of brave fools to deal with the threat.

Interested in the job? Have a little chat with Thuldrin Kreed, Gavel of the Lumber Consortium:

"We all know I'm a mean ol' bastard. I bleed these men and women for all they've got, but I pay them square, and there ain't no chains on their wrists. You think I don't care about these men? Then you're a fool. I need them. Sure I may grind these men to paste with years of back-breaking toil, but whatever's out there now is killing em. Nobody's puts a knife to my men but me. You go out there and get what did this. I'll not have my men slaughtered like pigs.

"Boss Teedum's going with you to make sure you succeed. I do not trust a task like this to outsiders alone. Those men deserve justice that's for certain, but more importantly I'm not about to let anything threaten my interests in the Vale. If you fail, get your bowels opened on a blade, find yourself between a monster's jaws, or just plain loose the steel in your spine, Pay Day's there to pick up what you drop and see it through. I'm not laying down for monsters, stumpy dwarf ghosts or the prancing fey. This Vale is mine, and I'll keep it. I'll burn the whole gods-be-damned forest to ash before I let someone take it from me."

Revenge of the Kobold King is a 16-page full-color Pathfinder Module that will be Paizo's offering at Free RPG Day on June 21. Revenge is the sequel to Paizo's first-ever module, Crown of the Kobold King. To see if your local store is a participating retailer, visit freerpgday.com.

Shortly after Free RPG Day, Revenge of the Kobold King will be available for sale in print and as a free PDF, exclusively at paizo.com.

Nicolas Logue
Organized Play Coordinator & author of Revenge of the Kobold King

Joshua J. Frost
Director of Sales & Marketing

You got GameMastery in my Dragonlance!

Monday, October 1, 2007

While seeing folks play in our campaign world is of course the biggest compliment we can receive, here at Paizo, we understand that many people have been playing in alternative game worlds for a long time, and simply aren't interested in switching over. As a result, we're always excited when we hear about someone getting jazzed enough about our products to mine out ideas or convert them over to their favorite setting.

Thus it was with great enthusiasm that we stumbled across this article over at the fan site Dragonlance Nexus, all about converting the kobolds introduced in D1: Crown of the Kobold King for use in your Dragonlance game. If you're a Dragonlance fan—and there are certainly a few of them around here—hit it up and check out the author's thoughts on the kobolds' religion, subraces, and more.

And if there's something else from the Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting that you've been using in your Dragonlance game... why not submit it to the Nexus and spread the wealth?

James Sutter
Assistant Editor, Pathfinder

Free RPG Day is Tomorrow!

Friday, June 22, 2007

Tomorrow, June 23rd, is the first annual Free RPG Day, where you can stop by your local game store and pick up a free product. As mentioned in the post from April 24th, you can pick up the very first GameMastery Module, D0: Hollow's Last Hope tomorrow as part of this exciting event.

Hollow's Last Hope is a prequel to D1: Crown of the Kobold King and covers much of the lead-up to that adventure, taking brand-new 1st-level characters up to 2nd level and getting them ready for the challenges the kobold king has in store. The adventure also features a plot that allows it to be run as a stand-alone event. Here is some of the text from the back cover:

The Town of Falcon's Hollow Needs a Miracle
The plague has come to the town of Falcon's Hollow, and not even the town's priest can abate its wretched course. With the coughs of the sick and the wails of the dying echoing through town, the local herbalist uncovers a cure, but she needs some brave heroes to retrieve the ingredients. Finding the cure means risking the dangerous Darkmoon Vale, infiltrating a witch's haunted hut, and delving the ruins of an abandoned dwarven monastery.

Due to its smaller size, Hollow's Last Hope does not include pregenerated characters. We wanted to make sure you could run the adventure as part of Free RPG Day festivities, though, so to help on that end, we've put together four ready-to-play PCs. You can download a PDF of these PCs right here.

To find a game store near you that is sponsoring the event, go to freeRPGday.com. If you miss out on Free RPG Day, but still want to get your hands on the module, you can order a physical copy through our store (for a small fee) or you can download it as a free pdf starting Monday.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager

The New Stat Block

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Since we have sent a number of modules out to the printer, we recently came to the realization that it was high time to show off the new stat block. Mind you, there are a lot of things you are going to find familiar, but some things are brand new. When it came time to start working on Pathfinder and the GameMastery Modules, we took that opportunity to improve and tinker, while still trying to retain the easy-to-use format everyone has come to know and love.

Specifically, we tried to streamline the information a bit, so that you can more easily get at what you need. For example, AC, hit points, and saves now come first in the defensive section. All other abilities (such as immunities, resistances, and so on) get grouped together beneath these (as evasion is in the example). The offense section gets a similar treatment, with the information you need most grouped toward the top.

Next is the tactics box. Instead of having a tactics section in the encounter, it made more sense to include that with the stat block, so that each monster could have its own information. You get a section for what it does before and during combat, as well as a small bit on its morale telling you if it ever decides to run away from the fight. Some kobolds make great use of this particular section.

The last section in our examples covers the creature's statistics. This information is not generally vital to every combat situation and thus gets referenced far less often. This is not always the case, though, so you might see some of these statistics noted in earlier section so you don't miss them. For example, if a creature has improved grab, you can be sure that we will note its grapple bonus up in the offense section.

The two particular monsters in our sample page from D1: Crown of the Kobold King do not have any special abilities that require in-depth explanation. If they did, this information would go at the very end in its own section. The slurk, for instance, has a pair of abilities describing how its slimy belly grease and sticky back goo work (and no, those aren't the real ability titles).

As always, we want to hear from you. What do you think about the new stat block? Let us know in the forums, and remember that tonight is also the weekly GameMastery and Pathfinder chat. Check out the blog post from 5/02 to learn how to join in.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager

Leaping Slime

Thursday, May 3, 2007

Everyone knows about goblins and worgs. Going all the way back to Tolkien, the goblin/worg raiding party has been a staple of sword and sorcery fantasy. Giving the goblins an iconic mount to ride makes them that much scarier, and also that much more usable. No longer confined to their underground lairs, a mounted group of goblins can range far across the countryside, strike at numerous towns and villages, and generally wreak havoc.

But why should the goblins have all the fun? The poor, abused kobolds lack that traditional iconic mount creature, and while they do enjoy their traps, without mounts they are a much more stationary threat. With Crown of the Kobold King, we decided to change that.

Enter the slurk.

Long ago, dwarves dragged giant forest toads beneath the earth and altered their physiology with powerful magic in hopes of creating powerful underground beasts of burden that would be perfect mounts. The slurk is the disgusting result of their aborted efforts. The creature's unappealing slime and foul reek caused the dwarves to drive away their creation in disgust. Kobolds, on the other hand, are less picky.

Slurks are oozy abominations resembling pale, slime-slick toads. Their backs drip viscous mucus while their bellies are coated with a thick film of greasy slime. They use their slime as an offensive weapon, coating their opponents with the glue-like phlegm and making it easier to bring their gigantic, walrus-like tusks to bear on their hapless victims. Their sticky back-slime makes them ideal mounts for the kobolds, who can adhere to their backs without the need for a saddle. The slurks are powerful leapers, and are capable of moving along the walls and floor of rough underground tunnels at incredible speed. They are not the brightest of beasts, however, and more that one kobold has had his skull crushed when his mount smashed his head into the cavern ceiling with a mistimed jump.

Jeremy Walker
Assistant Editor, GameMastery

Hail To The King

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Kobolds have been around for a long time. From the ratlike little dog-men of the early editions, to the more recent incarnation as draconic lizards, these guys remain one of the game's favorite foils. Usually depicted as sneaky, conniving trap-makers, they also have a history of being cute, pathetic monsters struggling to find their place in the dungeon, usually at the bottom of the local food chain. When we went looking for an iconic monster to kick off our line of 32-page modules, the kobold was an easy choice.

We couldn't just settle for the traditional kobold, though. Not when we had the chance to do so much more. When we asked Senior Art Director Sean Glenn to redesign the stale old monster and give it a fresh look, what we got back exceeded all of our expectations. (Sean, for his part, readily admits to sending Sam, the World's Ugliest Dog, along as reference. Can you see the resemblance?) Meaner, nastier, and definitely more evil, these guys have that special something that sets them apart from the pack. They have style. To give you an idea, here are some of the kobolds from "Crown of the Kobold King."

The reign of Merlokrep, first of his name, all-mighty Dragon King of the Truescale Kobolds, has suffered misfortune from the day of his coronation. But the sturdy resolve that saw him through the murder of his eighteen siblings and cleared his path to the throne has held his tribe together through the accidents, attacks by their new monstrous neighbors, and the king's own homicidal outbursts of rage over both. Merlokrep is always happy to offer visitors an honored place as Great Sacrifices to the Crown, ready to wine and dine them before ripping them open and pulling out their hearts.

Vreggma, Chief Consort and Only One Allowed to Nag-Nag His Greatness, loves to gaze at her own reflection. Her continued pursuit of shiny good-good causes an endless amount of trouble for her King, resulting in a third of her tribe perishing in haphazard mining excavations over the years. She immediately attempts the coquettish seduction of anyone that enters her lair, but if her advances are rebuffed or her collection of shiny good-good is threatened, she flies into a spitting rage that belies her sweet veneer and attacks viciously.

Jekkajak, called by many "He Who Forgets More Than You or He Knows," is the Truescale's shaman. His mysterious prophecies are taken very seriously by the rest of the tribe, at least when he is awake. Jekkajak is a walking corpse of a kobold, whose withered old white scales are stretched tight over bone. His puny skeletal snout contains a lone tooth and constantly dribbles drool. His milky eyes focus intermittently on his surroundings.

Merlokrep's cruel mining foreman, Lekmek, works a gaggle of slaves to death in search of "shiny good-good" for Vreggma. Sadly, gold is not on the menu in his glum mines, whose walls are riddled instead with veins of iron ore. Vreggma's displeasure at the lack of gold is the source of many headaches for Merlokrep, who in turn takes out his frustrations on Lekmek. The foreman vents this mounting aggravation through harsh beatings administered to his digger-slaves on an hourly basis.

Finally, its never really made sense that all kobolds should be brownish gray. Since there are five colors of chromatic dragon, we created five differently colored kobolds. But when we got the art back from our artist, we discovered that we had not five, but six colors. Which begs the question: what do we do with this guy?

If you've got an idea, post it to our messageboards and let us know!

Jeremy Walker
Assistant Editor, GameMastery