From Baria to Golarion

Friday, October 16, 2009

So, I've made no secret of the fact that I've given large parts of my 25+ year-old homebrew campaign setting, Baria, over to Golarion. One of the more successful of these imports are the Red Mantis assassins—and by extension, their home city of Ilizmagorti. When it came time to assign authors for Cities of Golarion, I was sorely tempted to claim the chapter on Ilizmagorti as my own—I was nervous that even if another author did a GREAT job with the city that the end result wouldn't match my own personal vision of the city. The same goes for the city's map, to be honest. But my work schedule being what it was (I'd already taken up two chapters of Classic Horrors Revisited, alas, I couldn't responsibly claim the chapter of Ilizmagorti for Cities of Golarion as my own. And so, with some nervous fear and much wringing of hands, I gave it up for someone else to write about.

I'm happy to say that what Rob McCreary wrought with his words is exactly what I'd envisioned for the city of Ilizmagorti—he hit every nail square, and the resulting chapter is hands-down my favorite in the book as a result (which is saying something, since there was some tough competition!). Even more exciting, he came up with some concepts that I'd never thought of for Baria's Ilizmagorti—concepts that inspired me in some really fun ways. It's really weird being inspired to write things about something you made up due to someone else's work on that concept! Weird, but wonderful!

Yet as wonderful as Rob's words were, a city can live or die by its map. For Cities of Golarion, we tackled the creation somewhat differently. We hired writers to write the chapters, but we hired artists and cartographers to create the city maps. Long-time readers of this blog might remember earlier this year when I posted the Map Open Call—the results are some of the best city maps that Paizo's had the pleasure to print. Presented here are the two versions of the map of Ilizmagorti—the first one created by Daniel Thomson, based on my outline of what the city should incorporate. The other map is the final version you'll see in the book and in the Cities Map Folio as a four-panel poster. (We've left the tags off of Rob's map so you can ogle the beauty of his work easier.)

Illustration by Daniel Thomson Illustration by Rob Lazzaretti

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Snagged from the Vault: Great Beyond, A Guide to the Multiverse

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Occasionally the Vault contains wondrous oddities, such as this map of the Eternal City of Axis, rendered beautifully by Rob Lazzaretti. This map, and more information about Axis and the other planes of the Outer Sphere, can be found in Pathfinder Chronicles: The Great Beyond, A Guide to the Multiverse, due out in May. Of course, nothing but perfect symmetry should be expected from the axiomites and their Godmind.

Vadid and Nahk
Preview Purloiners

The Eternal City of Axis exists among the planes of the Outer Sphere as the personification of universal law, a shining example of perfect order and harmony rising out of the churning Maelstrom. Within the plane's golden barrier walls, the streets are perfectly ordered and clean, the buildings appear as paragons of their respective architectural styles from virtually every culture within the multiverse, and the natives strive to live in orchestrated harmony. Of course, some would label the plane's perfection hollow, or its beauty verging on sterility, but given the eternal city's violent history and perhaps precarious present standing, its gods and outsiders alike dismiss such criticism outright.

The City of Glimmerhold from Clash of the Kingslayers

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

The Pathfinder module Clash of the Kingslayers by RPG Superstar author Leandra Christine Schneider takes place in and around the dwarven city of Glimmerhold. During the development of the adventure, the text ended up running a little long. To make some room, we dropped the map of Glimmerhold, as little of the combat action takes place in the city, and including the map wasn’t critical for running the adventure. However, the map (drawn by Rob Lazzaretti) is really cool, showing a pillared dwarven city in the middle of an artificial lake. So here it is, ready for exploration by curious PCs.

Warning: This map image is a potential spoiler for part of the adventure. If you expect to be a player in this adventure, avert your eyes!

Sean K Reynolds
Developer

Open Call: Mappers Wanted!

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

I'm on a crusade.

Writing adventures and sourcebooks for RPGs is tough. It takes a lot of different skills; you have to be a good writer, you have to be imaginative and creative, you have to be diligent and good with deadlines and continuity, and you have to have a head for rules and math. Truth be told, it's not all the skills you need to be a successful adventure or setting designer. You also need to be able to draw maps.

Just as with the words of a product, which are developed and edited before they ever see print, the author's maps are rebuilt and redrawn by professional cartographers. Those cartographers don't actually create the maps you see in adventures out of the blue themselves—they need the author's rough draft as a starting point. And when an author's rough draft is illegible or boring, you have problems similar to what an editor might face when a manuscript arrives that's riddled with spelling errors, bad stat blocks, unfinished sentences, and other problems. In cases where we get in maps that are illegible, one of us at Paizo generally has to redraw the map before we send it on to the cartographer.

Pictured here are four map turnovers for different locations that Wes and I created for adventures we've written for Pathfinder (spoiler warning to players: If you're playing in Rise of the Runelords or Second Darkness, AVERT YOUR GAZE!). Going forward, I'm looking at alternate ways to get excellent map turnovers—we've got a few unannounced products that are pretty map heavy, and I'm considering farming out the maps as separate freelance projects. But in order to do that, I need to find some people who can draw cool maps.

So here's the open call part. If you're good at drawing maps, and are interested in helping Paizo have awesome maps in its products, I would love to see some of your maps. Look at the four sample maps here and try to outdo them. While the sample maps are of cities, dungeons, and wilderness locations (and while I'd love to see maps of all three locations from you), I'm in particular looking for awesome city maps. Send in your map as an email attachment to me at james.jacobs@paizo.com. The maps don't need to be particularly high resolution, but they should certainly be legible. The subjects of the maps can be anything you want—and keep in mind I'm not looking for actual finished, publishable-quality maps—if you're THAT skilled at maps, you should probably send your cartography resume to our art directors!

Try to keep your maps to one map per email, and try to limit your submissions to, at most, one map per category (dungeon, wilderness, or city). I'll do my best to give brief replies to folks' map turnovers as well, and in the end I hope to have found a bunch of new folk who can draw great maps. Where this will lead in the end... I'm not sure. It's kind of an experiment.

The deadline for this Open Call is February 9th, 2009. I look forward to seeing what you can do!

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

The Map of Absalom

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Absalom is a big, big city—several miles across and home to over 300,000 people. Pathfinder Chronicles: Guide to Absalom is our first detailed look at this city and our first chance to map it. This full-page map should give you a sense of the city’s size, population, and majesty.

And now, a little background on this map.

Absalom is the idea of Jason Bulmahn, lead designer at Paizo. He once studied to be an architect, but he felt there was more fame and poverty in the world of professional game design. His years of grueling apprenticeship to Henri Ringelheim, Master Architect of Stuttgart, gave Jason a hunched posture and the inability to see in illumination brighter than tallow candlelight, but from time to time he is able to tap into the small amount of talent his master begrudged him, and create fine maps that are like Archimedes’ lever for your imagination.

One such map is the rough version of Absalom, City at the Center of the World. Note the square grid, a tool used by all devotees of the draftsman’s pencil. The heavy black lines, representing the cartographer’s stern intent. The green district borders and blue lines demarking the edges of the ship graveyard, attempts to inject a moment of life and joy into his work. The labels in red, representing the very blood he spilled to bring this map to completion. You can almost imagine him pausing, pen in hand, to wipe the sweat from his brow with an old rag, then patiently lowering his pen to the paper, as the nearby candle sputters in the late hours of the night. This is the work of one who loves his craft.

Plus, it almost looks like some sort of weird crab monster.

Sean K Reynolds
Developer

Map the Stars

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

It's not often that I get to show off Planet Stories art besides the covers, but I wanted to take a minute and point out that in addition to a killer story, Leigh Brackett's Skaith books (which include The Ginger Star, The Hounds of Skaith, and the forthcoming The Reavers of Skaith) all feature hand-drawn maps by the incredibly talented Rob Lazzaretti. I've always loved being able to follow along with a character's adventures on a map, getting a better sense of what the author's world actually looks like, and Rob does a fantastic job of maintaining an old-timey cartographic flavor that really makes these maps pop. The two images here are from The Ginger Star and The Hounds of Skaith. Click for larger versions, and enjoy!

James Sutter
Planet Stories Editor

A Bird's Eye View of Riddleport

Monday, July 28, 2008

Here it is folks, this is where it's all about to go down: Riddleport, the City of Cyphers, the most perilous pirate port north of the Arch of Aroden. Next month, with Pathfinder #13 and the start of the Second Darkness Adventure Path, the floodgates open and thousands of PCs get set loose to wreak havoc on this scallywag's sanctuary. Until then, though, things look pretty peaceful. Just check out this bird's eye view of the city. Which of these is your character's new home? In what alley will he get jumped by pirates? Under which dock will she be ambushed by bunyips? And which den of thieves will burn when that first fireball flies awry? It's all here, the Gold Goblin, Zincher's Arena, St. Caspieran's, the Temple of Besmara... you'll just have to wait till next month to find out which is which!

Here's a free one, though. The Cyphergate? It's that big arch.

Enjoy!

F. Wesley Schneider
Managing Editor, Pathfinder

Road Map to the Runelords

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

In the office campaign, Erik Mona once tore a page out of the published adventure he was running because he grew too frustrated at having to flip back and forth from the page the map was on to the page where the various room encounters were described. Visions of frustrated Pathfinder readers doing the same prompted us to release the key maps from Rise of the Runelords in a stand-alone product—now you can run your party through the haunted houses and dungeons and cities without having to mutilate your books!

Also included—poster maps for Sandpoint and Varisia. Because who doesn't like poster maps?

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Sneak Peek: Map of Golarion

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Here is a sneak peek of Golarion, the exciting world of the Pathfinder Adventure Paths and GameMastery Modules. From the frontiers of Varisia to the devil-tainted cities of Cheliax to the frigid Hold of the Mammoth Lords, it will surely draw you in!

Note: This map is not final, and is a work in progress.

Carolyn Mull
Sales & Marketing Assistant

Looting the Treasure Chest

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

We've received quite a few questions about the GameMastery Treasure Chest over the past several weeks and I thought I would take a moment to give you the skinny on this box full of goodness.

This box gives you a wide assortment of our most popular GameMastery products, including an original adventure (TC1: Into the Haunted Forest) that ties together all the products into one "deluxe" game experience. Here's what the box contains.

TC1: Into the Haunted Forest
Critical Hit Deck
Item Cards: Elements of Power
Campaign Workbook
Map Pack: Inns
Flip-Mat: Woodlands

Now, if you happen to own a bunch of these products, but still want the module, no worries. TC1: Into the Haunted Forest will be available separately for just $5 (note that this module is not part of the subscription deal, so if you want it, you will need to order it as normal). As for the module itself, you do not need these products to run the adventure, but they do include all the maps and treasure cards used in the adventure. (Incidentally: TC stands for "Treasure Chest," in case you're wondering.)

Hope that clears things up, but if you have any further questions, feel free to post them to our messageboards.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager

Free Pathfinder 2 Download Supplement!

Friday, October 5, 2007

It's a fact: sometimes there's just too much good stuff to fit in a given volume of Pathfinder. While we here on the Paizo staff squeeze and condense as much as we can to make sure that each book is 100% concentrated awesome, print still has certain limitations... after all, sliced tree can only hold so much ink. That's why, from here on out, you can expect to see free supplement downloads to go along with specific volumes of Pathfinder popping up irregularly on paizo.com. Whether it's an alternate version of a map, an extra stat block, or a new item, whatever we put online will add to the adventure without being essential—just us doing what we can to offer a little bit extra to the gaming community.

Today, that's an alternate map of Magnimar, tagged with 30 new streets and places of interest, courtesy of mapping fiend Wes Schneider. We hope to shortly have a spot on the Pathfinder homepage where you can easily check to download the latest free content, but until then, click here (1.1 MB zip PDF) to download a high-res version of the map.

James Sutter
Assistant Editor, Pathfinder

The Ivy District

Thursday, October 4, 2007

GameMastery Module U1: Gallery of Evil takes place against the backdrop of the largest city in Golarion: Absalom. This burgeoning metropolis is filled to the brim with people from all walks of life across three continents. Easily the most cosmopolitan city in the world, Absalom must expect the unexpected. In the jaded manner common to many large cities, nothing really surprises them.

While we intend to unveil more about our iconic major city over the course of the next several months, for now we are going to limit ourselves to one district at a time. The idea is to enable the readers to drop these districts into whatever major city they use in their own campaigns, while slowly building up Absalom's identity, history, and culture. In time, this metropolis will become one of the major centerpieces of our entire campaign setting, and in Gallery of Evil, we give you the first of Absalom's districts to be revealed: the Ivy District.

As one of the oldest districts in the city, the Ivy District sits a good distance from Absalom's outer walls. Its tranquil parks, flowering, ivy-lined streets, industrious mercantile and artisan zones, and upper-class homes have been blessed with relatively little disruption from the countless sieges that have shattered against the city walls and seaside cliffs surrounding the Isle of Kortos. The Ivy District is the hub of culture and art within Absalom and, some might venture, the greatest influence on the styles and trends of its neighboring kingdoms.

Winding cobbled stone streets and hard-packed dirt roads, separated by narrow drainage canals that eventually empty into the sea, wend their way through the district. Decorative bridges connect numerous streets with one another, each one decorated somewhat differently from the next, with bas relief sculptures, murals, or even tiled mosaics appearing seemingly at random. Its streets are among the busiest in the city, save only the market and dock districts.

The Ivy District is the most popular location in Absalom among those who appreciate the arts and the finest products and entertainment gold can buy. Because of the Ivy District's reputation for beauty, fine art, and masterwork trade goods (fine blades, stylish and top-quality armor, renowned gem cutters and jewelers, exquisite clothing, carpentry products, and so on), it is also very tempting for thieves. The district has a surprisingly low theft rate, however, thanks to the efforts of a well-paid District Watch and the Brotherhood of Abadar, which patrols the streets looking for signs of unlawful activities and disturbances.

One of the most significant areas of the Ivy District is The Ivy District Park and Topiary Menagerie. This public park is filled with beautiful oak groves, pines, beech trees, weeping willows, cedars, and a wide variety of more exotic flora. Flower gardens and fruit-bearing trees line the neat dirt paths that wind through the park, and a large pond dominates its center. At places where the water is narrow enough, gorgeous bridges arch across its placid surface. Ducks, geese, colorful fish, and frogs live in the pond. Other wildlife lives here too, such as squirrels, owls, foxes, and hares. The druidic members of the Perfumers' Conglomerate tend all the life here. Through continual effort they manage to keep the trees, grass, and flowers pruned and blooming all year round. The sparkling clean water and happy and healthy wildlife are a testament to their hard work.

One of the park's main attractions is located at the center of a tall hedge maze: the topiary menagerie. Shrubs and bushes have been expertly pruned and trained into shapes of animals, people, and even rare and magical beasts. Although this wonderful horticultural menagerie seems innocent enough, the park's attendant druids recently discovered a group of teenage kids dead in the surrounding maze and a topiary unicorn missing from the menagerie. The stab wounds on the bodies were enough to confirm their suspicions of the missing unicorn's involvement, but they haven't determined how it happened or what happened to the missing topiary killer.

Jeremy Walker
Assistant Editor, GameMastery

Flippin' Awesome

Thursday, September 13, 2007

I don't know about you, but I have a love/hate relationship with maps in RPG gaming. Back in middle school when I first got into the hobby, we might have had a few miniatures to represent characters, plus "terrain" made from dice, pencils, and those little plastic tables that come in the center of your pizza box. It wasn't until much, much later, when someone introduced me to D&D 3.5, that I finally saw the light and realized that things like battlemats add immeasurably to the roleplaying experience.

With that realization, however, came a new problem: mapping is hard. Even after years of practice, it's still annoying to have to stop right in the middle of a crucial scene and scramble to count squares and draw out a new room in its entirety each time PCs go through the door. (I also have a tendency to spill drinks on the battlemat, but that's really my own fault.)

Which is where something like our new Flip-Mat: City Market comes in handy. Every village worth its salt has a market, so why waste valuable game time drawing it out over and over? With City Market, the work's already done for you, and your PCs are free to look through every door with impunity. Plus, if you decide you want to switch up the layout, just flip it over and use the blank paving beneath the grid to build your own town. As with all our Flip-Mats, you can draw on the durable, laminated cardstock with wet erase, dry erase, or even permanent marker and still wipe it right off when you're done.

All of which means that if I were about to run, say, the first section of "Burnt Offerings," I'd definitely consider checking out City Market and using the time saved to pack in even more goblin-related activities....

James Sutter
Assistant Editor, Pathfinder

Kaer Maga

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Now that D2: Seven Swords of Sin is starting to make it out into people's hands, I'd like to talk a little bit about my favorite part of writing it: designing the city of Kaer Maga.

Going into the project, there were two different ideas for where the adventure should be set. For me, it seemed to call for an urban setting, a crazy city where anything went and the law was sketchy at best. Publisher Erik Mona, however, was eager for Varisia to have an iconic castle, a massive dungeon complex that we could return to again and again as we saw fit. The solution? Push the two together and build a city inside a castle—an enormous Thassilonian ruin of unknown function, to be exact. At this point Erik and the rest of the GameMastery team gave me the go-ahead and, armed with the working title "Dark Market," I sat down to write.

As anyone who's played in one of my adventures can probably tell you, I like to play with morality. To me, the interesting thing about evil is that it's so rarely self-identified as such. One of my biggest peeves in adventures, fiction, or film is what we around the office refer to as "moustache-twirling"—villains that are evil simply because they enjoy being evil. (Shortly after that comes my disdain for boring ol' "insanity" as a villain's motive.) In real life, things are usually much more gray and fuzzy—no evil deed exists in a vacuum, and even the most "evil" people I can think of tend to have reasons why their actions make sense in their own minds.

This aesthetic was at the front of my mind when writing about Kaer Maga. To me, all big cities are by definition neutral—get enough people together, they'll balance each other out. In Kaer Maga's case, this neutrality is the result of a free market taken to the extreme, an anarchist, libertarian utopia where people are left to sink or swim entirely through their own machinations. While many would look at the gritty streets, where every shameful vice is yours for the purchasing, and call it evil, I'd point out that Kaer Maga is also the freest of the free cities of Varisia. In rooting the city's "evil" in an ideal many of us share, I hoped to make the scene feel a little more familiar and organic.

Along with the questionable morality, it was important to me that Kaer Maga be a monstrous city, a place where we could get a taste of the alien delights that Golarion has to offer and remind the folks who inhabit Varisia that there's far more beyond the mountains than they might imagine. For those purposes, a city of refugees and squatters seemed perfectly poised to capture the sort of cultural mish-mash that I love in places like Star Wars' Mos Eisley or China Miéville's New Crobuzon. Knowing that I wouldn't have space in a 32-page adventure to truly detail many of the residents, I took a page from some of my favorite sci-fi and fantasy authors and tossed in a bunch of allusions and off-hand references with only the barest explanations. Wormfolk? Bloated Ones? Sweettalkers? When I first wrote those names, at 3:00am in a darkened room, my bleary brain didn't know any more than their names. As soon as I went back and read them, however, my imagination went into overdrive trying to think up what they could be... which is exactly what I hope happens to everyone else. While I couldn't resist from detailing some of them in the Pathfinder Journal for The Hook Mountain Massacre, I promise I'll try to leave at least a few of them alone.

For now.

James Sutter
Assistant Editor, Pathfinder

Welcome to Fort Thorn

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

With GameMastery Module W1: Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale just about to ship out to subscribers, it's time to introduce your PCs to their new home: Fort Thorn. This small community is the only bastion of civilization in the Vale and, as such, makes for the most likely home base for explorers. The following are descriptions of a few key places:

A3. Keep

Aside from the shrine, Fort Thorn's keep is the only other stone building in town. This massive two-story structure is home to Sir Gyrad Tolgrith (NG male human fighter 4/ranger 2) and all of his men. The first floor of the structure contains the meeting hall, armory, mess hall, kitchen, and storage rooms. The second floor contains a smaller, private meeting hall, the barracks, the planning room, and Sir Tolgrith's private quarters.

Fort Thorn's current staff includes 40 soldiers (LG male human warrior 2), 4 scouts (NG male human ranger 2), 2 sergeants (LG male human fighter 4), and Sir Tolgrith.

A6. The Boar's Bones

Shortly after settling the fort, the soldiers faced their first crisis when the food caravan was late and their supplies ran low. Sir Tolgrith sent out his scouts to forage and hunt, but after three days they had not found much. On the fourth day they scored big, dragging the carcass of an enormous dire boar back into camp at the same time the supply caravan finally arrived. During the evening's festivities, the boar was picked clean and the fort's cook, Orrend, kept the bones.

A month later, Orrend (CG male halfling expert 3) opened up the Boar's Bones, a small inn and tavern, to serve the off-duty soldiers, workers, and visitors who happened to stop by. The bones were carefully reconstructed with wire and wood, and the now-intact dire boar skeleton sits in the middle of the tavern with a pouch hanging from its tusks. Orrend insists that any tips given to the boar are sent to its grieving kin.

The food at the Boar's Bones is of good quality (4 sp per meal), combining local ingredients with caravan supplies. Orrend has yet to perfect his rose petal ale, so whenever he has a new batch ready, all tankards of it are half price (2 cp). Rooms at the Boar's Bones are simple, with only a single cot, washbasin, and cupboard apiece, but clean and free of vermin (1 gp per night).
A8. Shrine to Erastil

Every morning, the lone bell of this stone shrine tolls twice to start the prayer service. The shrine is dedicated to Erastil (LG god of hunting, trade, farming, and family), also known as "Old Deadeye." The shrine's lone cleric, Father Apar (LG male human cleric 5), tends to the spiritual needs of the community, including healing and other minor spellcasting. Father Apar offers these services for free to the soldiers, but all others must pay the usual price. Father Apar also has a number of divine potions and scrolls for sale, but none worth more than 300 gp.

Father Apar's morning sermons are usually quite calm affairs, with the elderly cleric reading from holy scriptures and addressing current concerns. Sir Tolgrith makes sure to attend twice per week, but never on a regular schedule. After the morning prayers, Father Apar walks around town, talking to the locals about their problems or tending to the sick. Once per week, after the day's labor is over, Father Apar invites all to an archery challenge in front of the fort. To the winner he gifts a potion of his own creation (usually cure light wounds).

There are, of course, many more places to visit in Fort Thorn, but I'll leave those secrets for you to discover.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager

Magnimar

Friday, July 27, 2007

Making its grand debut in Pathfinder #2, I hereby give you Magnimar—City of Monuments.

1 The Irespan

2 Alabaster District

3 Marble District

4 Bridgeward

5 The Capital District

6 Naos

7 Vista

8 Grand Arch

9 The Arvensoar

10 The Bazaar of Sails

11 Dockway

12 The Rubble

13 Keystone

14 The Marches

15 Beacon's Point

16 Rag's End

17 Silver Shore

18 Kyver's Islet

19 Ordellia

For a more detailed view, click on the image.
James Sutter
Assistant Editor, Pathfinder

Gold, Land, and Title!

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Those are the rewards promised to those who conquer the Bloodsworn Vale. In just a few weeks, you might be able to claim those prizes.

Since we are getting pretty close to the release of this module, we realized we have yet to show off a map of this large, untamed wilderness. To avoid spoilers, the map is untagged (and might just make for a good player handout, if you're thinking of downloading it). That said, there are a couple of points of interest on the map that bear some explanation.

Fort Thorn: As the only settlement on the map, Fort Thorn (the small dot near the center) is of vital importance to the region. Although its commander, Sir Tolgrith, hopes one day to make it self-sufficient, it currently depends upon a steady stream of caravans for provisions and other basic supplies.

The fort is a walled community surrounded by a 20-foot-tall palisade of tree trunks, upended and carved to points. Beyond this security there is nothing but wilderness. Tall trees and endless thickets of wild rose bushes cover much of the surrounding terrain. There are no farms or outlying buildings affiliated with the fort—any who dwell outside its walls are hermits, monsters, or worse.

The Path: This trail is being cut through the vale to establish a vital trade route with Varisia's neighbors. It is currently under construction and time is running out to meet the king's deadline.

The Petal and Coldrun Rivers: These two slow-moving rivers provide fresh water to those in the region, although the Petal (which runs past Fort Thorn) has a nasty tendency to foul every few weeks, causing sickness in those who drink from it at those times.

Mist Lake: The calm waters of this lake are perpetually shrouded in mist that moves overland to cover the nearby swamps. The residents of Fort Thorn avoid this area, as they say it is haunted.

There is, of course, much more to explore in the vast reaches of the vale, but to learn about it you just might have to journey there yourself.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager

Falcon's Hollow

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

In celebration of the release of the free PDF of GameMastery Module D0: Hollow's Last Hope, the start of our Module Subscription Service, and the eminent release of D1: Crown of the Kobold King, we thought it was high time that we gave you some information about the small town featured in both modules: Falcon's Hollow. For more information, make sure to check out the appendix in Crown of the Kobold King.

Falcon's Hollow makes an excellent base of operations for a party of PCs seeking adventure in Darkmoon Vale and the dungeons beneath Droskar's Crag. In addition, the schemes of crooked politicians, lumber tycoons, and flesh-peddling crime bosses in Falcon's Hollow offer a breadth of opportunities for conflict and action. The party may become embroiled in local politics as this fledgling settlement grows and factions arise who seek a formal government in hopes of throwing off the crushing yoke of the Lumber Consortium. Additionally, the party may become involved in religious struggles between various sects devoted to all manner of strange deities, some merely against the grain of common theocracy, others downright evil and bent on corrupting the souls of the simple folk who call the Hollow home. Finally, crime is one of the largest sources of revenue in town, and gangs of organized thugs engage in every illicit activity imaginable. Good heroes residing in Falcon's Hollow won't go long without rubbing these syndicates the wrong way, and the PCs may be swept up in street wars with local criminals before they even have the chance to venture into the Vale and seek their fortunes.

Places of Note:

Church of Iomedae: With all the downtrodden to preach to in Falcon's Hollow, missionaries of Iomedae, Goddess of Valor and Justice, have established a foothold in town. Many other religious sects who fled to the Hollow to escape the Church of Light's persecution resent Iomedae's followers, and tensions run high between congregations, often resulting in less-than-holy brawls on the muddy thoroughfares of Worship Way.

Goose'n'Gander: The local general store in Falcon's Hollow is run by the only gnome resident, named Brickasnurd Hildrinsocks, who sells everything from standard amenities such as grain, lamp oil, ink, and mining supplies to such rare oddities as alchemist's fire, antitoxin, a fat petrified pseudo-dragon, and stuffed nixies (all the rage this season).

Hollow Tribunal: This is where the diminutive halfling Magistrate Vamros Harg dispenses merchant licenses, stamps mining and lumber claims, and passes judgment on criminal and civil cases. Most Falconers enjoy the irony of the Hollow Tribunal's name, since the justice meted out there is rarely equitable. The fact that Harg is firmly in Gavel Thuldrin's pocket is well known, but rarely uttered in public by those who value their lives.

The Sitting Duck: Located a little too close to the town palisade for many folks' comfort, the Duck is the local hotspot for adventurers, explorers, and other rapscallions looking for adventure. The tavern serves a potent local brew of fermented darkwood leaf that can floor an ogre in a few tankards. Raucous games of "knivesies" and "mig-a-mug-tug," two dangerous local recreational activities, both with a high rate of maiming injury, often rage late into the night. Many adventurers share tales of Darkmoon Vale and information on Droskar's Crag, and other surrounding locations can be gleaned here for the price of a mug of ale.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager