Identify, Approach, Kill, Repurpose

Friday, March 17, 2017

Any adventurer can swing a blade, but it takes planning and training to fell the greatest beasts. Today we're sitting in on a crash course on monster hunting to show off some of the new Pathfinder Player Companion: Monster Hunter's Handbook!

"You want to fight monsters, eh? You? The lot of you are scrawny, sickly, sorry excuses for adventurers whose heads are more likely to be appearing as goblin chamber pots a month from now than the polite side of a commemorative coin. If you were serious about this business, you'd have signed on with real talent, like the Duskwardens, the Mendevian Crusaders, or hell, even the Pathfinder Society. See that lady in the heavy armor over there? She's a Hellknight in the Order of the Pike—all dedicated to killing monsters and just shrugging off punishment. That spear isn't to keep fiends at a safe distance; she's more dangerous the closer you get, so her killing something with a reach weapon's a professional courtesy! Nah, I figure if you're training with me, you're either rejects... or you want the real secrets to slayin' beasts.

Illustration by Kent Hamilton

"Normally I teach a six-week course, but I can tell from the burning village over there that some of you are in a rush to get back and defend your farms from whatever crawled out of your great-grandma's crypt. Lemme boil the profession down into four easy steps: identify, approach, kill, and repurpose. Master those, and you have a long and fruitful career ahead of you of sleeping in the rain, crawling through mud, reading scat, skinning beasts, and getting paid handsome purses of gold for your trouble! Now... 'scuse me as I gather a few educational illustrations."

Illustration by Forrest Imel

Identify

"If you don't know what you're up against, you're going to die. There, I said it. Now see this? The first key to monster-hunting is knowing what in the Abyss you're even hunting and how to identify it. As you can see here, Lirianne and Ezren are in for a brutal surprise because they believe owlbears are a form of caterpillar that dwells in the leaf litter. Rookie mistake.

"Some hunters can't tell the difference between a centaur and a centipede, much less between boggard and a boggart. The easiest solution is to team up with someone who knows what's what and can spot it coming from a mile away. Rangers and inquisitors are great for that—first one can forage a mean stew, besides, and the second can practically smell monsters... uncanny. As an added bonus, think of these friends as an early warning system; if he gets snatched up by a dinosaur and screams, ‘Oh sweet Erastil, I'm being eaten by an allosaurus," chances are good there might be a dangerous predator nearby. Be sure to ask him about any special weaknesses the beast might have before he gets eaten."

Developers' Note: Been failing a lot of Perception checks? Maybe the abolisher inquisitor archetype's ability to pierce disguises is for you. Don't forget new feats like Monster Spotter and Needle in a Haystack to trace a monster to its lair and get the jump on it.

Approach

"Right, so you know what you're after? Great. Monsters are canny scoundrels that have more senses than you have years of remaining life expectancy. The moment they notice you coming is the moment they flap off screaming, gather their friends, and choose a home ground advantage that going to be a real pain to navigate. Ideally, you're going to sneak in and snap the beast's neck, but looking at you, I'm guessing it's better to have some contingencies for approaching the creature's lair like magical flight, invisibility, teleportation, or, y'know, rope. But let's be clear: that's the old way of doing things. ‘Round here we've mastered a new technique called Monstrous Masquerade. Allow me to show off our winter collection:"

Illustration by Kent Hamilton

"Amiri is wearing triple-ply yeti hide harvested just this morning, as designed by the eminent Cronarg the Obliterator. Accessories include cold resistance, climb speed, and a sinister sense of recycling for a good cause—all for the low cost of a couple feats and some spare gold. Never underestimate the power of dressing like your enemy in order to get the drop on your enemy. So Amiri, how do you like the outfit?"

"MNYARRR! I'M A YETI!"

"Umm, of course you are. As I'm sure Amiri meant to say, taking a few ranks in Disguise and learning to speak Aklo can play a big role in the success of your disguise."

Developers' Note: New feats like Monstrous Disguise and Monstrous Masquerade allow you not only to disguise yourself as monstrous humanoids but also to replicate some of their abilities—flight speed, energy resistances, and more!

Kill

"Ah, the sweet song of steel ringing against a creature's scales... it's that cheerful reminder that brute force isn't always enough to cut through a gorgon's hide. You can't just hit everything with an axe until it stops moving—okay you can't always hit things with axes. Sometimes you need to apply some finesse. That's especially true if you're trying to make a living off of monster hunting. See those bounty posters? See how the monsters have faces? If you can't kill a monster without saving some recognizable piece to collect the bounty, you're never gonna get paid.

Illustration by Kent Hamilton

"Case in point: See Crowe here? He was sent to kill a bugbear chief, but he's gotten a little carried away with the slaying part and now doesn't have any monster parts. If he knew a bit more about goblinoid's he'd have a much cleaner kill and much cleaner boots. Rookie mistake."

Developers' Note: There are some intense options for monster slaying in here. If you're a fan of the ranger's favored enemy ability, you're going to love the Creature Focus feat, which provides you some similar benefits; the Focused [your most hated creature type] Expertise feats then build off that or the favored enemy ability, allowing you to apply that favored enemy bonus on other checks and saving throws your targets love to use. Another favorite is the green scourge druid archetype, which allows you to prepare flame blade and shillelagh using higher spell slots in order to grant the manifested weapon magical properties.

Also yes, we know that's a lemure. We've just seen Crowe in action and know he tends to reduce most foes to piles of glop.

Repurpose

"So let's make an assumption: let's say you prevailed, and the creature's dead at your feet. An amateur is going to lop of the beast's head, heave it before the constable, and get paid. A real pro doesn't let a good carcass go to waste! Scales, teeth, horns, eyeballs... it's all an organic treasure trove just waiting for some enterprising spirit with a carving knife and a little know-how. Chances are that if it came from a powerful monster, a wizard somewhere has developed a spell that uses it. Even if you don't have any friends in the spellcasting business, you can turn spare pieces into downright ferocious trophies and armor.

Illustration by Kent Hamilton

"Any yokel with a sword and PC class levels can wear dragonhide; that doesn't take any creativity. Talk to me when you've chased off a chimera by turning its cousin's horns into a bullroarer or its teeth into a set of wind chimes. If you want to identify a true master of the craft—like that one over there—watch for the weird trophies. Nobody makes armor out wing membranes if he wants to deflect attacks; he does it because he can kill any threat before it scratches him."

Developers' Note: That's right, there are rules for harvesting critter parts and turning them into magic items and temporary trophies that can spook similar kinds of creatures! If you think Mavaro's looking pretty dapper in his variant red dragon hide armor and array of grisly trophies, take a look at the psychodermist, an occultist archetype that swaps out conventional implements for magically preserved pieces of creatures you've slain (and whose powers you can channel)!

Final Exam

"So what have we learned? Travel with friends, learn what you're up against, kill efficiently, and let nothing go to waste. Right, that's all the time we have. Grab your weapon of choice from the corner, there, and go make a name for yourselves!"

Developers' Note: And most importantly, grab a copy of Pathfinder Player Companion: Monster Hunter's Handbook, full of everyday "solutions" for exceptional beasts!

John Compton
Organized Play Lead Developer

We're So Fancy, You Already Know

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Developers Amanda Hamon Kunz and Jason Keeley teamed up as the lead developers of Heroes of the High Court, a Pathfinder Player Companion that takes adventurers to the royal courts and noble houses of Golarion. Let's see what they have to say about the lords and ladies of high society.

Jason

This was the first book that I did a major amount of development on, having spent a few years in the word mines of editing—a place that holds a very special place in my heart and to which calls to me still. And I have to give major thanks to Amanda, who made sure I didn't spend my whole time on this project alphabetizing everything. It was exciting to take the glittering ideas fresh from our freelancer's minds and altering them to fit the needs of the product, much like a bespoke tailor creating a velvet doublet for his noble patron.

Illustrations by Bryan Syme and Javier Charro

Speaking of clothes, we all know how much those courtly types enjoy their fashion, so of course Heroes of the High Court touches on this important facet. From mundane attire such as long, silk gloves that grant bonuses against contact poisons to magical accessories such as a fashionable shawl that provides the wearer with her own illusory entourage, you'll be able to dress to impress. Once so attired, you might look half as nice as the silksworn, an occultist archetype that trades dusty ancient implements for ostentatious garments and expensive magic items. A silksworn casts spells as a spontaneous arcane spellcaster, and actually gets a few more spells per day than the regular occultist. He even gains a bonus on Bluff and Diplomacy checks depending on how much fancy clothing he's wearing. I mean, just look at Mavaro here! Isn't he fabulous?!

Amanda

For me, one of the most fun parts of character creation is coming up with a deep and intricate origin story. It might never come up in play, but my characters always have weird reasons for adventuring, and for being in specific locations when their adventures start. More than one has had traceable ties to a legendary hero (or has just made up a story and passed it off as fact!).

Regardless, Heroes of the High Court is rich in mechanical tools for building nearly any specific noble character you can imagine. The book accomplishes this in a lot of ways, but one of the most interesting is an expansion of the Noble Scion feat from the Inner Sea World Guide. The original feat gives you a mechanical benefit at 1st level based on the broad flavor of your character's noble family, but in Heroes of the High Court, we go a step further. With this expansion of the feat, characters can gain a mechanical benefit based on the actual nation from which their noble family hails.

Is your character, for instance, a member of frosty noble family from Irrisen? If they take the Noble Scion feat, they can reduce the amount of nonlethal damage taken from exposure to cold by 4 points (minimum 0). If they're from shadowy Nidal, they can gain low-light vision, or a +2 bonus on Perception checks in areas of dim light, and if they're from Taldor, they can gain a +2 bonus on Charisma-based checks when interacting with nobles or members of a noble court.

The Noble Scion options are really just a drop in the bucket of mechanical options that Heroes of the High Court offers to noble characters. Check out the book to find out more!

That One Time I Lied About My Best Character Ever (Spoiler: It's Really Mavaro)

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Hello again, everyone! Last time I got the chance to write a blog for Paizo, I said that Alahazra was my favorite character. However, I have a confession to make: I lied. At the time I wrote that blog, Alahazra was no longer my favorite character. You see, I was one of the lucky few to get in on early playtesting of Mummy's Mask, and the first time I ran through the scenarios, I played as Mavaro, the Occultist from the Mummy's Mask Character Add-On Deck. And Mavaro, my friends, is truly the Best. Character. Ever.

Just look at that extremely regal man!

Mavaro is the most versatile character ever made for the game—even more so than Rise of the Runelords Lini, and she was majorly versatile. At any given moment, Mavaro can potentially have any skill in the game, and that skill will be equal to his highest base skill, his Intelligence. This is thanks to the amazing power that allows him to display a boon from his hand and gain all of the skills listed in that boon's check to acquire section equal to his Intelligence, and that effect lasts until the end of the turn. So, right from the start of the game, Mavaro can have a d10 for every base skill as long as he has a Blessing of the Elements to display. He can also use (almost) any weapon in the game with his Intelligence as his base die: reveal it to use your Strength (for Melee weapons) or your Dexterity (for Ranged weapons) skill and then display that same weapon to gain that skill equal to his Intelligence.

Take a look at those skills. They can ALL be yours!

This extreme versatility also bleeds over into his deck composition. Mavaro's deck list starts off with no weapons, spells, or armors in it. However, he can treat all three of these card types as if they were items, and he gets nine of those to start. This means that you can tailor his deck to your liking at the end of any scenario. Do you know that the next scenario has a lot of golems in it, which are notoriously immune to spells? Drop all your attack spells and pick up a few extra weapons. Are there a lot of locations coming up that require Wisdom checks to close? Pick up a few items that can give you a good Wisdom skill.

Did you notice that he can still gain 1 card feat each for weapon, spell, and armor? This may come in handy...

The only "static" cards in Mavaro's beginning deck are allies and blessings, so it's important to choose them wisely. Every card that you put in Mavaro's deck should have the ability to grant him a skill that he either doesn't have at all, or is not very good at. Diversity is key, since you want him to have a card somewhere in his deck for every situation imaginable. This also means that Mavaro is a huge fan of examining cards in his location deck. Even though the Trigger trait might make this a bit of a gamble sometimes, it's important to know what is coming next so that you can make sure you will have the card in hand to grant you a needed skill.

All of these cards are excellent choices because of their myriad of skills to acquire.

I could go on for pages and pages about the best cards to pick for Mavaro as you move up through the adventure decks, but we should probably talk about Mavaro's role card a bit. His roles are Acquisitor and Channeler. The Acquisitor, as you might expect, is really good at acquiring new cards. Without any power feats, Mavaro can discard a card to add a die to his checks to acquire. Using a power feat, he can give that benefit to other characters at his location. And in the Acquisitor role, he can take a power feat to reduce the cost of that power from discarding a card to merely recharging a card. One of the best feats in this role, however, is the ability to set aside items from your hand before you reset your hand, effectively increasing your hand size significantly if you've got several items in hand—and you could potentially have as many as 8.The Channeler role focuses strongly on casting spells, gaining the Arcane and Divine skills. Additionally, like his RPG equivalent, Mavaro can channel magic from objects into spells. In the PACG, this takes the form of recharging a weapon, and armor, or an item to summon and play a random spell that has the Attack trait, which is pretty amazing. Each of Mavaro's roles also offers a power feat that lets you affect your Intelligence checks after the roll. The Acquisitor's version lets you bury a card to add or subtract 3, while the Channeler lets you discard an item to reroll the dice! These are both really excellent powers for Mavaro, though it's important to remember that not all of your checks are going to be based on Intelligence... His first power lets him gain skills equal to his Intelligence, but doesn't actually use his Intelligence, which is an important distinction.

I honestly have trouble choosing between these two roles... They're both amazing!

Finally, I'd like to talk a little bit about the Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild organized play program and how Mavaro can be used there. Though Mavaro doesn't have his own Occultist Class Deck, Mavaro can be unlocked for PFSACG play by completing the final adventure of Season of the Runelords. You'll use the Inquisitor Class Deck with him, which is a great deck of cards overall but does have some pitfalls when it comes to Mavaro. First, like many Class Decks, the Basic blessings are Blessings of the Gods, and that card is one of relatively few in the game which has no check to acquire. This makes all four of his starting blessings useless for his best power. You will quickly want to replace them with blessings that have at least Divine as an acquire option, which you can then display to make use of several excellent Divine spells in the deck, including Weapon of Awe and Divine Favor. You can also grab a Grave Tender as an early B ally upgrade. This deck is also a bit sparse with items for an Occultist, though Archer's Bracers and Blood Periapt are solid choices from the start, and picking up the Manual of War is almost essential.

I've heard whispers of other decks unlocking for Mavaro in the future, so stay tuned...

That's it for today, my friends. I hope that you can forgive my falsehood in my first blog, as I wasn't allowed to talk about Mavaro at that point, and Alahazra is an amazing character in all of her versions. But when it comes to the best character ever, I am going to have to definitively say that it is Mavaro... at least until Lone Shark Games come up with an even more amazing character! Until next time!

Tyler Beck (Cartmanbeck)
Freelance Writer and Genetic Sorcerer

Treasures That Lie Behind Closed Doors

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Liz continues her romance-novel preview of Mummy's Mask, here showing off the Character Add-On Deck and Adventure Deck 1: The Half-Dead City, which comes in the Mummy's Mask Base Set.

The land shifted from soft sand dunes to rocky hills that battered the feet of the caravaneers. With rhythmic plodding punctuated by errant grunts, the camels trudged at a lumbering pace and did not seem affected by the terrain. Though the morning breeze still held a breath of cool night air that kissed their necks, the cicadas danced in anticipation of the climbing sun.

Waving grasses sprung like soft hair from the verdant earth as the road descended toward the river. It would be hours yet before the weary travelers could rest, sponge away days of dried sweat, and luxuriate into silk cushions at the Tooth & Hookah. But now they could see the Half-City before them, darkly nestled between the legs of the Crook and Asp rivers. Morning light glistened through the linen-draped towers of the Sunburst Market, a brilliant sunrise of color, promising secrets behind the rainbow shadows cast. And carried on the wind, the chimes of the Pharasmin temple, luring treasure hunters to consign their fates to the lottery.

Spoiler: You win the lottery.

As the markets closed upon the hour of twilight, smoke from tall lamps of perfumed oil lazily swayed through the courtyard filled with an impatient throng. Travelers from every corner of Golarion jostled and joked in a dozen languages, stealing glances toward the yet-closed temple doors. Some were sun-touched and rough, apparent rogues and mercenaries experienced in the art of Osirion tomb-raiding.

The Quicksand Bunyip doesn't figure in Liz's story, but we couldn't help ourselves.

Others, such as a gracefully dressed woman—presumably a local by the fact she carried nothing but her heavy staff—seemed to be searching the crowd, seeking the fate-spark of companionship.

Her gaze landed on an unlikely target, a heavy man laden with a curiosity shop's worth of goods, his beard black as onyx. Their eyes met across the courtyard and, with a pounding of her staff, the sea of miscreants briefly parted, naturally, as if the perfect moment had been plucked from time. The conversation that followed was hushed, for the weight of the stories they carried was heavy and not easily shared. Mavaro, his name rolling with mystery of far-off places, made bold claims, but made them quietly. He promised her that he could do anything, given the right tools. This was the treasure he sought: not gold nor fame, but a wealth of memory.

Mavaro has an... interesting deck list.

He seemed so unlike her. Perhaps that is why she felt so intrigued, and caught herself licking her lips at his words. As his accoutrements were a jumble of worn hand-me-downs and stolen grave goods, deciphering the man beneath would be a challenge. "I can be anything you need—whatever you want me to be," he divulged with a low voice.

To demonstrate, he delicately untied a rusted khopesh strapped to his side. With a featherweight grace, he swung the blade, the bright steel edge glimmering with blue frost. "May I?" he gestured toward her elaborately-carved staff. His fingers brushed hers as he grasped it and the chill of the khopesh jolted up her spine. The sensation rushed upon her as if she were the sword itself, wrapped in a frigid enchantment. He glanced down and mumbled an apology.

As he held the staff, Mavaro's demeanor shifted, became aggressive. Waves of arcane power hummed from the staff as the world around them became somehow pliant to his whim. "Is it only weapons?" she chided. "A person can wield only so many." In answer, he returned her staff and pulled a scroll from a bag she hadn't noticed before beneath his coat. As the icon of Thoth unfurled, the uncertainty and fidgeting fell from his posture. His eyes grew old and cold with lifetimes of knowledge. Ahmotep could see the judgement of the dead upon his face. It reminded her of the Pharasmins.

The desert demands many different weapons.

As if called, the crowd fell silent and pressed close as the temple doors swung open, heavy with sculpted reliefs of birth and death in honor of Pharasma. The black-robed Pharasmin clerics poured out in two lines, followed by a large, simply decorated urn. The head priestess's face was a mask as she called out in a bell-like voice, "Attention. The first lottery begins now. Once all names are drawn, the gates to the necropolis will be opened." She paused for effect. "Heed well the laws, and remember how this came to pass."

There are three Laws. Don't break them.

The adventurers had found each other, and Ahmotep sensed soon there might be others. As the priest's hand descended into the urn to draw the first name, a palpable excitement buzzed between the two. Where would the will of The Lady of Graves take them? Ahmotep gritted her teeth and clenched her staff, ready to pull fate in her direction.

Liz Spain
Adventure Card Game Designer

Occult of Indy

Friday, July 24, 2015

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Illustrations by Caio Maciel Monteiro and Wayne Reynolds.

Many of us are heading out to Indy next week for Gen Con 2015. In the Paizo booth there will be a huge display made from Pathfinder RPG books, and the latest of them's going to be Occult Adventures. Here's a last preview at the fantastic art before it officially releases on July 29! See you in Indy!

Illustrations by Igor Grechanyi, Caio Maciel Monteiro, and Mariusz Gandzel

Illustrations by Federico Musetti and Subroto Bhaumik

Sarah Robinson
Managing Art Director

Open Your Eyes—Occult Adventures Art Preview

Friday, July 17, 2015

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Illustration by Wayne Reynolds.

Subscribers are beginning to get a peek at the gateway to the unseen world in Occult Adventures, which officially hits game store shelves and the convention floor at Gen Con on July 29! Since our art department has been keeping a fairly low profile, I wanted to take over and give you another preview of the artwork gracing the pages of this book. Enjoy these selections from Occult Adventures!

Illustrations by Igor Grechanyi and Subroto Bhaumik

Illustrations by Ivan Troitsky, David Alvarez, and Alexandru Sabo

Sarah Robinson
Managing Art Director

Occult Adventures Class Preview: The Occultist

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Illustration by Alexandru Sabo

The world hides many secrets, some strange, some wondrous, and others far too terrible for the rational mind to contain. In just over a month, we'll be unveiling some of these secrets with the release of Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Occult Adventures. Within the pages of this mysterious 272-page book, we'll uncover the secrets of the occult and detail those who wield its might. In the meantime, we'll be previewing all six of the book's new classes, and investigate a new type of spellcasting power to add to your game—psychic magic!

First up is a class that harnesses the intrinsic power of ancient or psychically charged items, and then channels mental power through these items to cast powerful psychic spells: the occultist.

The occultist is a psychic spellcaster who uses rare and powerful objects called implements to manifest his magic. Each implement belongs to a specific school of magic and, as the occultist grows in power, he gains the use of more and more of these implements, increasing his power and the number of spells he can cast. In addition, he has a reservoir of mental focus to invest into these implements. Doing so not only grants him additional abilities, he can expend that focus to create even more powerful effects.

For those who took part in the Occult Adventures playtest, you'll find a number of things have changed during the development of this class. The biggest change involves the resonant powers of implements. Such powers are gained by putting mental focus into the item and, when more focus is stored within it, the item's power increases. In the final version, these resonant powers are not diminished as the mental focus is spent. As long as there is at least one point of mental focus remaining, the power remains at full strength! To add to the fun, each implement also had a few additional focus powers you can choose from.

The occultist is also very skilled at using magic circles to protect allies and hinder foes. At higher levels the occultist can use these circles to a trap enemies. After the playtest, we added a new ability utilizing magic circles. The occultist can now create a magic circle to call upon a specific outsider—a contact from beyond that the occultist can bribe or intimidate in exchange for aid. The occultist can use this outsider to gather information and, at higher levels, that outsider can deliver messages or small objects for the occultist. As the occultist advances in level, he learns to call additional outsiders, creating a network of otherworldly allies.

Lastly, the occultist can cast psychic spells from the schools associated with his implements. Since these are psychic spells, he does not have to worry about somatic or verbal components, but he does have to have a clear mind and steady emotional state to properly channel this type of magic. These components are unique to psychic spellcasters and we'll be talking more about them in the coming weeks.

Well, those are all the secrets we dare share with you this week. Next week we'll be delving into the history of Rivani, and looking at the powers of the psychic!

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

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