The official release of Heroes & Monsters, our first Pathfinder Battles prepainted miniatures set, is approaching! Over the last few months, I’ve used this weekly space to reveal sculpts and final images from the set, and with this post, I will have revealed all but one of the miniatures here on the blog! (You’ll have to wait for the Gargoyle, alas, as I forgot to ask the art department to photograph him this week. Sorry!)
After that, I’ll show off a few painted versions of figures we have only seen in sculpt form, and after THAT I’ll begin showing off sculpts from the NEXT set, Rise of the Runelords. I’m very pleased with what we’ve seen so far from Heroes & Monsters, but holy moley, Rise of the Runelords takes things to the next level. I can’t wait!
But that’s the future. Onward to today’s previews!
First up we have the Wolf, a common miniature sculpted in a nice leaping pose. Note the haunting red eyes and the nasty teeth! Aside from this being a solid miniature of a wolf, I’m pleased to report that the paint scheme used on its fur is identical to that used on the Werewolf I previewed a few weeks ago, making this a perfect choice for the “wolf” version of that creature. Throw a pack of these bad boys at your party and they’re sure to be barking at the moon!
Next up we’ve got the Mummy, an uncommon undead menace lurching its way toward your campaign. When we originally added the Mummy to this set, he was pegged to the “rare” rarity, but when the final sculpt came in he struck me more as a “rank and file” Mummy than a super awesome end-of-the-campaign undead overlord, so I busted him down to uncommon, making it easier to rack up a few of these guys for a nice higher-level encounter. Some day soon I hope to get that Mummy Overlord to make the perfect “captain” for a squad of these guys, but in the time being I think this one packs a suitable punch.
Next we have the Chimera, which I must confess has been one of the most difficult and frustrating models in the entire set. Some of you may recall a digital Chimera sculpt we released as part of our initial publicity push for the line. We were never really satisfied with that sculpt. It wasn’t based on Pathfinder art, and it just looked too cartoony and “not right,” no matter how many times we modified it. Worse, it lacked a critical part of a Pathfinder Chimera’s anatomy—wings. That was the death knell for that sculpt, but just when we thought all was lost, WizKids came to the rescue! It turns out they weren’t satisfied with the original look, either, so they green-lit a resculpt behind the scenes to see if a different artist might be able to come closer to what we needed. The final Chimera pictured here is the result of their effort, wings and all.
So there you have it for today’s previews. I’m off to approve more amazing sculpts from our next set, Rise of the Runelords!
Illustrations by Eric Belisle and Wayne Reynolds. Widescreen version here.
Monsters Are Coming!
Thursday, December 1, 2011
The time draws nigh for Bestiary 3, so while you sharpen your blade and prepare your spells in advance of the monstrous onslaught, here's a little something to keep your mind on your task.
In just a few days, the Pathfinder Society Organized Play campaign will take its first steps into the Dragon Empires of Tian Xia, as the Pathfinder Society pursues ways to ensure victory in the forthcoming Ruby Phoenix Tournament. The premiere Tian adventure for Pathfinder Society players is RPG Superstar 2011 finalist Jerall Toi's The Edge of Heaven, which kicks off the three-part series The Quest for Perfection. Adventuring high in reaches of the Wall of Heaven (Golarion's equivalent of the Himalayas), it's no surprise the PCs may run into a yeti or two. Just watch out for falling foo dog statues.
With the very first Pathfinder prepainted miniatures, Pathfinder Beginner Box Heroes, in stores now, interest in the Pathfinder Battles miniatures line has really heated up. Now that many of you have our first four miniatures in hand, it should be clear that WizKids is shooting for very high quality sculpts and paint jobs on all of the Pathfinder Battles miniatures. I think Heroes & Monsters keeps up (and in some cases exceeds) the high quality standards set by Beginner Box Heroes, and in a few short weeks, you’ll be able to see what I’m talking about with your own eyes.
Until then, we’ve got more previews to reveal! The early January release date for Pathfinder Battles Heroes & Monsters is fast approaching, and I find that we’ve pretty much announced all of the 40 miniatures in the set. I wanted to include at least one complete surprise this week, and this penultimate look brings us a single miniature away from a complete set reveal. We’ll get to that last one next week or beyond, but for now, let’s look at some creepy critters from Heroes & Monsters!
First up we have the Giant Spider, a nasty, poisonous fellow who clocks in at the common rarity. Bright red coloration is nature’s way of saying “I’m going to kill you,” and in this regard the Giant Spider is just as deadly as the bright red Venomous Snake we showed off a couple of weeks ago. Don’t forget your antivenom!
This Skeleton makes a good buddy for the Giant Spider, in that they’d both probably feel at home in the same sort of desolate dungeon environments. They also both make excellent adversaries for low-level adventurers. Both of them are commons. Many of the folks here in the office who see the Skeleton say, “wow, he looks just like he stepped out of a Ray Harryhausen movie!” Which is nice to hear, as it’s exactly what we were going for. If you look closely you can see a nice inking effect that WizKids added to the Skeleton’s shield to better sell the wood grain. It looks wonderful in person.
Sure, a Medium Giant Spider is cool, but take it from me. A Large Giant Caveweaver Spider is much, much cooler. This guy absolutely towers over lesser spiders, and he’s even been useful in scaring a few of our “adult” employees who have a very childish reaction to spiders (I’m looking at you, Bulmahn). Heh, heh, heh. Though you can’t quite see it in these photographs, the Giant Caveweaver Spider has a really cool red design on its back that is sure to have your player characters (and Jason Bulmahn) scampering for the exit. Everyone will be glad to hear that this is a rare miniature, so it’ll thankfully be a long time before these guys overrun the Earth.
Lastly, I wanted to provide a group photo of this week’s previews, so you can get a sense of just how huge that Giant Caveweaver Spider really is. Imagine that the Skeleton is the same height as a normal man, and you’ll get a strong idea that messing around with the Giant Caveweaver is a really, really bad idea!
Ok, ok, ok. I hear the skeptics already. There’s nothing terribly revolutionary about spiders and skeletons, no matter how cool they might look.
To which I say, fair enough. So next week, I’m going to show you a Heroes & Monsters figure with a feature unlike anything you’ve seen before in a prepainted miniature! I still can’t believe how awesome and innovative it is, and it’s been sitting on my desk for a month!
As usual, I’ll try to monitor the discussion thread here on the blog. Let me know if there’s anything in particular you’d like to see from the set, and I will make sure we cover it shortly!
We’re coming up on the release of Bestiary 3 in the near future, and as readers of the Jade Regent Adventure Path have noticed, we’re already using monsters from that book in the adventures! This is more or less a necessity, since when you travel to the far side of the world, you expect to see brand-new creatures and monsters, after all. We’ve been filling the Jade Regent bestiaries with all sorts of monsters inspired from Asian mythology and folklore, but we need more—and that’s where Bestiary 3 comes in.
One of the new types of monsters introduced in Bestiary 3 and the Jade Regent Adventure Path are the kami—usually (but not always) benevolent native outsiders who exist to protect that which cannot really protect itself from the advance of humanity and civilization. Pathfinder #52 and Bestiary 3 present several kami, ranging from CR 2 all the way up to CR 20.
Presented below are two of the kami who have roles to play in “Forest of Spirits.” We’re simply presenting their statistics here—what roles they play in the adventure must remain a secret until you play it or run it for your group!
Kami Subtype: Kami are a race of native outsiders who serve to protect what they refer to as “wards”—animals, plants, objects, and even locations—from being harmed or dishonored. All kami are outsiders with the native subtype. A kami possesses the following traits unless otherwise noted in a creature’s entry.
Immune to bleed, mind-affecting effects, petrification, and polymorph effects.
Resist acid 10, electricity 10, fire 10
Although they are native outsiders, kami do not eat, drink, or breathe.
Telepathy.
Fast Healing (Ex) As long as a kami is within 120 feet of its ward, it gains fast healing. The amount of fast healing it gains depends on the type of kami.
Merge with Ward (Su) As a standard action, a kami can merge its body and mind with its ward. When merged, the kami can observe the surrounding region with its senses as if it were using its own body, as well as via any senses its ward might have. It has no control over its ward, nor can it communicate or otherwise take any action other than to emerge from its ward as a standard action. A kami must be adjacent to its ward to merge with or emerge from it. If its ward is a creature, plant, or object, the kami can emerge mounted on the creature provided the kami’s body is at least one size category smaller than the creature. If its ward is a location, the kami may emerge at any point within that location.
Ward (Su) A kami has a specific ward—a creature with an Intelligence score of 2 or lower (usually an animal or vermin), a plant (not a plant creature), an object, or a location. The type of ward is listed in parentheses in the kami’s stat block. Several of a kami’s abilities function only when it is either merged with its ward or within 120 feet of it. If a kami’s ward is portable and travels with the kami to another plane, the kami does not gain the extraplanar subtype on that other plane as long as its ward remains within 120 feet. If a ward is destroyed while a kami is merged with it, the kami dies (no save). If a ward is destroyed while a kami is not merged with it, the kami loses its merge with ward ability and its fast healing, and becomes permanently sickened.
AC 15, touch 13, flat-footed 14 (+1 Dex, +2 natural, +2 size) hp 19 (3d10+3); fast healing 2 Fort +4, Ref +2, Will +8 DR 5/cold iron; Immune bleed, mind-affecting effects, petrification, polymorph; Resist acid 10, electricity 10, fire 10
Offense
Speed 30 ft. Melee improvised weapon +4 (1d4+2/x3) Ranged improvised weapon +6 (1d3+2/x3) Space 2-1/2 ft.; Reach 0 ft. Spell-Like Abilities (CL 6th; concentration +8)
At will—invisibility (self only), statue (self only)
3/day—hide from animals, purify food and drink
1/week—commune with nature (CL 12th)
Statistics
Str 8, Dex 13, Con 12, Int 11, Wis 17, Cha 14 Base Atk +3; CMB +2; CMD 11 Feats Alertness, Catch Off-GuardB, Iron Will, Throw AnythingB Skills Heal +9, Knowledge (nature) +6, Perception +11, Sense Motive +11, Stealth +15, Survival +9 Languages Common SQ improvised weapon mastery, merge with ward, ward (minor works of civilization)
Ecology
Environment any Organization solitary, pair, or gang (3–8) Treasure standard
Special Abilities
Improvised Weapon Mastery (Ex) A shikigami gains Catch Off-Guard and Throw Anything as bonus feats, and adds its Charisma modifier instead of its Strength modifier to damage done with any improvised weapon, as attacks it makes with such weapons seem supernaturally lucky in landing damaging blows. Although a shikigami is Tiny, it never provokes attacks of opportunity when it attacks an adjacent foe with a melee weapon. If a shikigami critically hits an opponent with an improvised weapon, it deals x3 damage.
Illustration by Mariusz Gandzel
Zuishin CR 10
XP 9,600
LG Medium outsider (kami, native) Init +9; Senses darkvision 60 ft., detect evil, see invisibility; Perception +20
Defense
AC 23, touch 13, flat-footed 20 (+6 armor, +3 Dex, +4 natural) hp 123 (13d10+52); fast healing 5 Fort +8, Ref +13, Will +14 DR 10/cold iron; Immune bleed, mind-affecting effects, petrification, polymorph; Resist acid 10, electricity 10, fire 10; SR 21
Offense
Speed fly 30 ft. (perfect, 40 ft. without armor) Melee +1 holy halberd +18/+13/+8 (1d10+7/x3) Ranged +1 holy composite longbow +20/+15/+10 (1d8+5/x3) Special Attacks healing arrow, holy weapons Spell-Like Abilities (CL 13th; concentration +18)
Constant—detect evil, see invisibility
At will—cure light wounds, dimension door
3/day—alarm, breath of life, dispel magic, neutralize poison, remove curse, remove disease, restoration
1/day—dispel evil (DC 20), heal, true seeing
Statistics
Str 18, Dex 21, Con 18, Int 11, Wis 18, Cha 21 Base Atk +13; CMB +17; CMD 34 (can’t be tripped) Feats Improved Initiative, Improved Precise Shot, Iron Will, Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, Weapon Focus (longbow) Skills Fly +10, Heal +20, Intimidate +18, Knowledge (nature) +16, Perception +20, Sense Motive +20, Stealth +18 Languages Common; telepathy 100 ft. SQ merge with ward, ward (gate, doorway, or shrine)
Ecology
Environment any Organization solitary, pair, or warband (3–8) Treasure double (+1 composite longbow [+4 Str], +1 halberd, masterwork breastplate, other treasure)
Special Abilities
Healing Arrow (Su) As a swift action, a zuishin can infuse an arrow it fires to carry any of the following effects: breath of life, cure light wounds, heal, neutralize poison, remove curse, remove disease, or restoration. Using one of these effects consumes a use of the same spell-like ability. The zuishin must make a touch attack to deliver the effect to the target—the target takes no damage from the arrow. Holy Weapons (Su) Any weapon wielded by a zuishin is treated as if it had the holy special ability. A zuishin creates arrows out of nothing as part of its attacks with any bow it wields.
So, I was out sick yesterday, and as a result missed out seeing Pathfinder #46 get sent off to the printer. Which is pretty exciting, since that volume's got more Lovecraftian awesomeness in it than anything we've done to date? The proof is in these out-of-context illustrations by Scott Purdy that are sure to get everyone thinking that the Carrion Crown Adventure Path will be taking some pretty drastic and unexpected turns! (Fans of Carrion Crown's Ustalav locations can breathe easy, though, since these pictures are from the foreword and the bestiary of the book, and thus don't actually depict events that occur in this volume's adventure.)
With the Carrion Crown Adventure Path finally unleashed, this seems like a perfect time to give folks bold enough to venture into Pathfinder's most frightening campaign just a hint of what's in store.
To start off, let's take a look at the volume that kick-starts the terror: Pathfinder Adventure Path #43: The Haunting of Harrowstone. Of course, you have Mike Kortes's foray into dread with the adventure itself, wherein the PCs are all that prevent a spectral prison riot from spilling out from the fire-scarred ruins of Harrowstone Prison and overwhelming the sleepy Ustalavic village of Ravengro.
Beyond the adventure, Kortes takes us onto the shadowed streets and into the clustered homes of Ravengro, as peaceful and quiet a community as you're likely to find in the Ustalavic county of Canterwall's rural countryside (which you learn all the secrets of in Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Rule of Fear). This gazetteer gives GMs everything they'll need to bring the adventure's setting to life, with all the details and insights necessary to bring dread into the homes and hearts of the PCs and their newest allies.
Next up is Brandon Hodge's treatise on the horrifying traps-meet-the-supernatural threats known as haunts. Originally introduced all the way back in Pathfinder Adventure Path #2: The Skinsaw Murders and refined in the GameMastery Guide, this has been our first opportunity to give sadistic GMs a whole library of some of fiction's and film's most horrifying unnatural effects. Fact is, Brandon gave us WAY more menace than a single article could contain... but I'll get back to that in a few.
In a new series in the Pathfinder's Journal I get to explore my favorite corner of Golarion from a different vantage. This time around, Laurel Cylphra, a wastrel on the streets of Ustalav's decomposing former capital, gets dragged into a tale of revenge, wronged spirits, and terrors that could drive even a Pathfinder into retirement.
Finally, Adam Daigle and intern-turned-author Patrick Renie unleash denizens of dread with the first in a horrific series of Pathfinder Bestiaries, with creatures of classic terror like Spring-Heeled Jack, old monsters given terrifying twists, new rules for haunted animated objects, an option for accursed characters with the changeling, and others like the beheaded and ectoplasmic templates that still leave me with a sinister smirk—I can't wait to use some of these guys!
So, that's what's in store if you haven't already checked out Pathfinder Adventure Path #43: The Haunting of Harrowstone. Now, for those of you who were patient enough to stick with me this far, check out what's below. Like I said, Brandon's article on haunts ran over the space we had allotted for it, but rather than trash that awesome content, I've kept it safe and plan to dole out new haunts as each volume of the Carrion Crown releases. So, for those of you looking for more menace to throw into Harrowstone, here are a couple of new low-level haunts.
Fool's Flare (CR 2)
Many spirits resent the intrusion of lights brought by the living into their dark domains, and exert a supernatural influence on torches and lanterns to show their objections to the trespass of torchbearers.
Fool's Flare CR 2
XP 600
CE haunt (10-ft. radius) Caster Level 2nd Notice Perception DC 15 (to feel a cold, unearthly draft) hp 4; Trigger proximity; Reset 1 day Effect This haunt triggers a pyrotechnics spell on torches or lanterns brought into its area. In some instances, torches flare brightly with a blinding light before plunging the area into darkness, as per the fireworks effect, but in others the light sputters and dies, the extinguished source giving off a smoke cloud effect (save DC 13 versus secondary effects). Destruction A daylight spell cast in the area permanently drives out the haunt.
Rolling Fire (CR 4)
Also known as a faeu boulanger, rolling fire is a trapped soul that was lost in a tragic fire fatality. The haunt manifests as a spectral sphere of ectoplasmic fire that seeks to scorch and burn the living in a grisly reenactment of the conflagration that created it.
Rolling Fire CR 4 XP 1,200
CE persistent haunt (30-ft.-radius open area or marshland) Caster Level 4th Notice Perception DC 15 (to smell burning flesh) hp 18; Trigger proximity; Reset 1 day Effect The haunt appears as a large ball of spiritual flame emitting agonizing screams. The haunt attacks the first creature that enters its area as a flaming sphere spell (save DC 13). Destruction Turning one's coat inside out confuses the faeu boulanger and prevents attack. A knife must then be stuck blade-up in the ground of the haunt's area; when the roaming spectre rolls over the blade, it impales itself and is destroyed.
Watch this spot in the coming weeks for more haunts and other Carrion Crown previews. But if you're still craving more info on the new campaign, be sure to check out the free Carrion Crown Player's Guide and the discussions constantly going on in the Carrion Crown Messageboards. There's already a ton of great stuff in those threads for folks who want to make this campaign as horrifying as possible, and for those less interested in turning up the terror in their adventures. But you won't know until you take the first step, so knot up your courage and click any of the links above to learn all about our newest terror... if you dare.
Triops stock image by Steve Jurvetson, Wikipedia Commons. Blinky himself not pictured, by virtue of not being found when we checked the bowl for his corpse...
Death of a Three-Eyed Wonder
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Do you have an office pet that you can use to terrorize your coworkers? Is your terrifying office pet a living fossil that evolved just as the first terrestrial creatures set foot on land? Does your terrifying, living fossil office pet bear a striking resemblance to an aboleth? No? Well, then perhaps you should upgrade your office pet. Might I suggest... a triops?
Meet Blinky (so dubbed by Sutter). Blinky was hatched from an innocuous-seeming package of bark and detritus a mere two months ago. Even when he was a little filter-feeding larva, I could see the evil glint in Blinky's three eyes. He was destined for great things. He exercised dutifully, swimming around his bowl. He learned to hunt in that bowl, chasing down and consuming his weaker triops brethren. He had to absorb their power, as he knew he had to be strong. He moved onto the faster crustaceans that had the gall to hatch along with him, punishing them for swimming in his bowl as if they were his equal. He ate his broccoli and avoided his peas (a creature after my own heart).
It was not long before he had grown over an inch long. That's when he knew he was ready. Ready to escape his bowl and cause terror.
Alas, the poor creature has shuffled off this mortal carapace. Was it the new plant I introduced to the bowl just before the long weekend? Was it the cold seeping through the window? Was it the excitement of fulfilling his life-long goal of terrorizing Wes as he sleeps? Or was it Wes himself, intent on a mission of assassination and horror-eradication? I'm betting on Wes.
Don't worry, Wes. The next generation is already gestating. Soon, they will be larval, and before you know it, they will be tiptoeing through the vents, watching you type. Watching you with their three eyes. Waiting for you to sleep. The triops are coming for you, Wes.
We've got a lot of incredible products coming out in the next few months, and it's no secret that this blog's readers love previews. While this blog does feature a new piece of art, I thought it'd be a waste not to mention another way we preview upcoming material: Pathfinder Society Scenarios.
Since print products generally need to go to the printer months before they come out for general consumption, there's a pocket of several weeks between when something's done when we know its finalized content. Pathfinder Society Scenarios are pdf-only products, and don't require the same lead-time in the production process, and that means that sometimes we can slip in some actual mechanics from complete but unreleased products.
I hope to continue the trend of including sneak previews of upcoming material into Pathfinder Society Scenarios, both to reward active players with new content before it's widely available and to make adventures as awesome as they can be by using all the tools at my disposal. Be sure to check out the two new scenarios releasing today as well as two additional scenarios the last Wednesday of every month.
Addendum: Unfortunately, due to Seattle's inability to clear roads of ice and snow, we are still without an editorial staff. Final edits are being made from home, but can't be entered into the document outside the office. Thus, today's scenarios will be a little late. We expect to have them up no later than Tuesday of next week. We apologize for the delay, and appreciate your patience.
There has been a lot of talk on the Pathfinder Society section of the messageboards about low-level scenarios and a potential lack thereof. Well, we're listening, and have taken steps to fix the problem. While it's too late in the game to change the release schedule for October or November, in December we will be releasing a new Tier 1–5 scenario set at Absalom's famed Blakros Museum. Existing Pathfinder Society Players will surely recognize the iconic location, previously seen in fan-favorite scenarios #5: Mists of Mwangi and #35: Voice in the Void. The Penumbra Accords, written by Guide to Absalom author and Super Genius Owen K.C. Stephens, will replace #2–11 in the release schedule, and Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained will wrap up the Tier 12 "Eyes of the Ten" adventure arc later in Season 2.
Illustration by Damian Mammoliti
Additionally, we will be releasing at least one low-level Pathfinder Society Scenario each month from now on, so you'll never run out of new material to run for seasoned and rookie Pathfinders at your local game day.
In other news, we've begun commissioning the conversion of Season 0 Pathfinder Society Scenarios from their original 3.5 rules set to the Pathfinder RPG, and will be re-releasing them in waves as they are completed. I've also assigned the first 4-star GM exclusive scenario, called The Midnight Mauler, and we expect to have it available to 4-star GMs and Venture-Captains to run exclusively for a year before it's made public.
There's a lot more in the works as well, and Hyrum and I are thrilled about the exciting new changes on the horizon. We welcome feedback from existing players and GMs, so stop by the Pathfinder Society messageboards and let us know what you think of the present state of the Society and where you'd like to see it go from here.
Two weeks and counting until the start of Gen Con 2010 and the release of the Advanced Player's Guide. If you have not already done so, you might want to reserve it with your FLGS or order online now. To help encourage you to pick up this hefty tome, I am giving you a guided tour of the goodies inside. In the past weeks we have looked at some new race and class material. This week we will be jumping around quite a bit, looking at feats, gear, spells, and magic items. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so let's get going.
Starting out with Chapter 3, let's take a look at feats. This 26-page chapter is loaded down with 163 new feats, from combat and metamagic feats, the new teamwork feats that grant large bonuses when you and an ally use them together. But that's not all, not by a long shot. There are a host of feats in this chapter designed to let you add to your existing class features, like Extra Rage Power and Extra Hex. There are also a host of feats based on your race, like this one.
Ironguts
You have an especially strong stomach. Prerequsitites: Con 13; dwarf, half-orc, orc. Benefit: You gain a +2 racial bonus on saving throws against any effect causing the nauseated or sickened conditions and against all ingested poisons (but not other poisons). In addition, you receive a +2 bonus on Survival skill checks to find food for yourself.
As was mentioned at the preview banquet, a number of the powers of the 3.5 archmage prestige class have found their way into the Pathfinder RPG as feats that most spellcasters can take. Take a look at Minor Spell Expertise.
Minor Spell Expertise
You are able to cast a 1st-level spell as a spell-like ability Prerequsite: Ability to cast 4th-level spells. Benefit: Chose one 1st-level spell that you know. You may cast that spell twice per day as a spell-like ability. The caster level for this spell-like ability is equal to your caster level in that class from whose spell list the spell is taken. The spell-like ability's save DC is Charisma-based. You cannot apply metatmagic feats to this spell.
Moving on from feats, the gear chapter is short, but jam-packed with new tools and tricks to help properly equip your character. From an Lucerne hammer to wooden armor, from an hourglass to rope made from spider silk, there's plenty here for everyone. There are also a lot of tools for each of the new classes, including the portable alchemist's lab and the witch's cauldron. What has me most excited is the wealth of alchemical items in the book. Take a look at this gem.
Weapon Blanch (adamantine, cold iron, or silver): These alchemical powders have a gritty consistency. When poured on a weapon and placed over a hot flame for a full round, they melt and form a temporary coating on the weapon. The blanching gives the weapon the ability to bypass one kind of material based damage reduction, depending on its type. The blanching remains effective until the weapon makes a successful attack. Each dose of blanching can coat one weapon or up to 10 pieces of ammunition. Only one type of blanch can be used on a weapon at one time, although if the weapon is made of a special material, that material still applies.
Next up is a rather large chapter on spells. Discounting the tables at the beginning, there are 57 pages of spells here, containing spells for characters of every class and every level. This chapter also includes the elemental spell lists for those wizards who wish to focus on elemental schools of magic. Let's take a look at a spell that I am particularly excited to use on my players. It might not be incredibly powerful, but it is a lot of fun.
Enemy Hammer School Transmutation; Level sorcerer/wizard 6 Casting Time 1 standard action Range long (400 ft. + 40 ft./level) Target one creature Duration 1 round/level (D) Saving Throw Fortitude partial; Spell Resistance yes
You grab a creature with telekinesis and use it to batter nearby opponents or objects. You must target a specific creature when casting this spell, and once you select that creature, you cannot switch to another. Each round, as a standard action, you can attempt to hurl the target at any creature or object within 30 feet of it. You must make an attack roll whenever you use the target as a weapon. The attack bonus for this attack is equal to your caster level plus either your Intelligence or Charisma modifier (whichever is higher). If you successfully hit the new target with the creature, both it and the creature take damage based on the creature's size (Fine 1d4, Diminutive 1d6, Tiny 1d8, Small 1d10, Medium 2d6, Large 2d8, Huge 2d10, Gargantuan 3d6, Colossal 3d8). The target creature can make a Fortitude saving throw each time you attempt to use it as a weapon. If it makes its saving throw, it can act normally, but if it fails its save, it loses all action for the round and ends its turn prone in a square adjacent to the target of your attack.
Finally, this book contains a large chapter containing all sorts of magic items, from inexpensive soul soap to the mighty cloud castle of the storm king. Of course, it's not all wonderful. There are a host of new cursed items to inflict upon your PCs, lurking in this book. Take a look at ring of truth.
Ring of Truth Aura moderate enchantment; CL 9th Slot ring; Weight —
Deceptively pleasant looking, a ring of truth bears images of childlike angels and broadly smiling divine creatures holding onto links of a heavy chain. The wearer of this cursed ring is rendered unable to tell a deliberate lie, in either speech or writing. The wearer may simply omit the truth or choose not to communicate, but even then must succeed on a DC 20 Will saving throw to avoid answering a direct question truthfully.
And there you go. The Advanced Player's Guide is just two weeks away now. Next week's preview will be the last before release, so we will wrap up our tour of the book by looking at the new prestige classes and new rules systems hiding in this book.
As you may have seen in recent blogs, I like miniatures and props when running a game. As my office is on the ground floor of the Paizo office and my Exiles of Zirnakaynin game is held in our large conference room upstairs, I have to carry this stuff upstairs for every game, and down again afterward. An interest in efficiency and expediency has resulted in me building a set of compartmentalized, easy to carry "units" of game materials. From back to front, the picture shows:
A cardboard box containing five large cavern terrain pieces created out of extruded polystyrene foam (painted brown, drybrushed light brown to show details, with patches painted green and glow-in-the-dark to represent phosphorescent fungi).
A craft kit containing cheap plastic minis, wooden tokens representing camping gear and building furnishings, various tokens from Litko Aerosystems, colored magnetic bases for miniatures, cheap plastic animals and bugs for summons, and miscellaneous map scenery like cages, barrels, and skull piles.
A large plastic storage bin holding my Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook, Bestiary, five foam miniatures trays (containing the PC minis, various NPC minis, monster minis, and common summonable creature minis such as elementals), two GameMastery Flip-Mats, a Pathfinder RPG GM Screen with binder clips to hold stat block pages, dry-erase markers, pens, and more Litko Aerosystems tokens, topped with four smaller foam terrain pieces (the ovoid brownie-looking things) and five larger dinosaur toys for summon monster spells.
Wednesday night we finished session #3 of Exiles of Zirnakaynin, my high-level, all-evil, all-drow-noble campaign. This session started with getting James Jacobs and Rob McCreary caught up to the rest of the group, as they missed session #2 due to bad cases of the sicky sickies. Once sisters Alivorah (James) and Ylvirixna (Rob) reached the pleasure-haven drow city of Far Parathra, they were attacked by mysterious creatures that crawled out of the angles formed by the walls and floors of their hotel rooms. Similar creatures attacked the rest of the PCs at the end of session #2, and most of Wednesday's game involved six individual, simultaneous battles against these creatures, as all the PCs had split up for the night.
Things I learned in last night's session include:
Even a creature of the Mythos can succumb to a baleful polymorph if you try enough times (ook ook!).
Remembering you have Combat Casting can be the difference between successfully casting a ground-zero flame strike and eye-rolling failure.
14th-level fighters and inquisitors can deal a horrendous amount of damage in one round.
Fast zombies make fine litter-bearers but poor obstacles against CR 9 opponents.
Letting a demon possess a PC sometimes means the PC goes crazy and destroys her sister's undead lackeys.
Having finished hacking away at the random encounter tables for the GameMastery Guide some time ago, I was recently set to work doing the same kind of thing for the Bestiary II. This time, however, instead of providing GMs with random encounters based on a plane's alignment, I got to make a separate table for each individual plane in the Great Beyond, Golarion's cosmos.
This is pretty exciting, because not only do these new tables utilize all the new monsters in the Bestiary II, but they also provide GMs with a plethora of inspiration, whether your PCs be traveling through the ever-shifting realm of the Maelstrom or ascending the soaring Great Spire in the Boneyard.
As if having stores of creatures to fill entire planes with isn't sweet enough, the GameMastery Guide includes an entire section dedicated to the planes, detailing the specific traits and characteristics of each plane, as well as the dangers that may await adventurers. As an example for what kind of cool details you can find in the GMG, below is art for Ymeri, the Queen of the Inferno.
Illustration by Christopher Burdett
At any rate, I've been staring at these books and their tables and creatures and stuff for weeks now, and I'm still excited about them; that means all y'all on the outside have no idea what kind of awesomeness you're in for.
This past weekend was Norwescon 33, a fantasy/SF convention near Seattle, Washington. In recent years it's started to pick up some RPG momentum (thanks to the tireless efforts of Tim Nightengale, founder of PaizoCon), and we had several Paizo staffers attend to talk about fiction and gaming (including a most awesome two-hour workshop about learning how to paint miniatures).
In addition to the many people dressed in steampunk, fantasy, BSG, and Star Wars costumes, there were seminars about writing, getting published, game design, world design, and being a better Game Master, plus Josh Frost and a gang of volunteers ran more than a dozen games for Pathfinder Society Organized Play!
Photo #1 is from a panel called "Ask the Gamemasters," featuring Sean K Reynolds (me!), Erik Mona, and Jason Bulmahn. Photo #2 is a pic by Tim of the "Underwater Ninja Tigers! (or A Friendly Discussion on Monster Design)" panel, with James Jacobs, Erik, Wolfgang Baur, and the illustrious panel-crasher Jonathan Tweet! Overall, it was a good show for us and gave us some ideas for neat stuff at PaizoCon this year!
Given that here at Planet Stories we recently wrapped up production on Hugh Cook's Brobdingnagian-sized 464-page sci-fantasy adventure The Walrus & the Warwolf, I figured it's about time to show off the book's awesomely monstrous cover art by Keiran Yanner, and also to share with you what the book's presenter, award-winning novelist and builder of fantastic worlds China Miéville, has to say about Hugh Cook in his introduction. So without further ado, take it away, Mr. Miéville...
Illustration by Kieran Yanner
Of Hugh Cook's extraordinary, underrated, bizarre and hysterical decology, Chronicles of an Age of Darkness, The Walrus and the Warwolf has long been a, if not the, reader favourite. Let's be clear: the whole series urgently needs rediscovery—each book (all standalone) for its own specifics, as well as for the astonishing audacity with which Cook tangles them. Not only do they cross over and back and through each other book to book, but like a kind of pulp Rashomon-monger, he might repeat the exact same scene several books apart, described from two contradictory points of view, so only the most faithful readers will get the joke. The hope is that having been hooked by the following story of Drake Douay, readers will go on to The Wizards & the Warriors, The Women & the Warlords, and the later, more arcanely double-W-ing titles (from which paradigm Cook, with the torturous rigour of any Oulipian prankster—like Georges Perec, who wrote an entire novel without the letter "e"—admirably refused to budge. The Werewolf & the Wormlord? Really?).
But while every one is a must-read, it's easy to see why The Walrus and the Warwolf is perhaps the favourite. This epic picaresque of Drake's adventures is astoundingly full of stuff, precisely the stuff that gets our sweet spots. Pirates! Monsters! Wizards! Battles! Pirates! Sex! Pirates! Misunderstood robots from an ancient high-tech past! Really excellent monsters! Etc! Also pirates!
...On the question of monsters, Cook brilliantly has it both ways. On the one hand, what we want from our fantasy beasts is familiarity. We want to see what an author can do with the traditional figures we know well—the gryphons, the unicorns, the... alright, let's use the D-word... the dragons. On the other hand, especially in these post-Lovecraft days, we want monsters that are completely new, totally alien, without any remembered fabular cognates. These are quite contradictory ways of relating to fantastic bodies, and authors generally simply have to choose one or the other to indulge. Cook, however, refuses to. Instead, he draws a border—a physical border, at the bottom of his map. To the north of it live dragons and their familiar folkloroid compadres; to the south, the Swarm, incomprehensible insecto-alien monstrosities, like the Neversh, of terrifying, carefully described but almost impossible to visualise alien forms. So by a kind of Promethean arithmetic, Cook just adds the new-monstrous to the old...
One of my first duties at Paizo was to create some random encounter tables for the GameMastery Guide. It took more than three workdays, and by the end of the process I was seeing tables in my sleep. It was a little bit like the first time you play Guitar Hero, and you look away from the screen and think the world is scrolling up for a couple seconds. Except with tables. But, I'm done with that, so that's kind of neat. Now I can dream about normal things, like giant robot rock operas and going to Chipotle with my ex-boss of three years. Rest assured, GMs, there will be no shortage of random encounter tables for when your PCs randomly wander off into the woods, or cave, or different plane of existence. I've even snuck out a piece of art from the book by artist Kieran Yanner.
On a completely different note, I GMed a Pathfinder game yesterday, and it totally rocked. I'm always the GM, so it's not like it was a new experience or anything, and I've been running Pathfinder since it came out, but I finally figured out a core component to any tabletop roleplaying game: roleplaying.
You see, for quite some time, I was having trouble encouraging my players to roleplay. I'm the type of person who writes out the five-page character background when I'm a player, and I will totally handicap myself and give myself silly stats and gear if it matches my character concept. I don't expect every player to do this, but it would be kind of cool if my group got into character every now and then. Being a fairly chill GM, I wasn't going to force them to roleplay against their will or anything, since that would kind of defeat the purpose of playing a game. No, what I wanted was for them to want to roleplay.
So, I've been thinking of ways to do this, and I stumbled upon a rather valuable, yet seemingly obvious, idea. The notion was simple, and I presented it to my group before the game. "Alright, guys, I'm thinking of trying this new thing; everything you say at the table is in-character, unless you preface with 'Out of character,' and it can only be game-related at that." They were all kind of like, "Hmm, I dunno about this, Patrick, but we'll give it a shot for an hour and see how it goes."
One hour later: awesomeness. Few distractions, if any; everybody's talking with epic accents and saying ridiculously metal (aka really, really cool) things; and we're all getting really immersed in the game. The dark and brooding wizard was dark and brooding; the charming bard was courting the maiden he had saved from a coven of hags; the druid was giving the totally rad armor of a fallen cleric to the church instead of selling it for mad gold; and the summoner was poring over books in the library and hypothesizing the origins of the mysterious crystals they had found in the abandoned temple. This group of hack-and-slashers actually began to care about the adventure and NPCs I had crafted for them. Success.
I guess my point is that even if you think you know your group (mine consists of close friends), they can still pleasantly surprise you, given the opportunity.
This week Paizo posted new product descriptions for dozens of products to be released in the third trimester of 2010, including new hardcover books, a revision of the Pathfinder Campaign Setting, and a brand new line of Pathfinder novels!
We've been hard at work on these items for months, and even though you'll have to wait until at least September before they hit your game table, we're thrilled to finally be able to discuss some of this stuff in public. The suspense has been killing us!
Folks are already discussing some of our new releases on the paizo.com messageboards, but as the commentary has been flying fast and furious over the last couple days, I figured it might be helpful to post a broad overview of our new offerings here on the blog, with direct links to the products in question.
So without further ado, let's plug ourselves into the future-caster time machine and take a journey forward to September through December 2010. Bring your dice and a few character sheets. You're going to need them!
PATHFINDER FICTION
The biggest announcement is a brand new line of Pathfinder novels written by some of the biggest names in fantasy fiction! The first book, Winter Witch, by New York Times best-selling author Elaine Cunningham, explores the tale of a barbarian shield maiden who ventures from Varisia to the winter-locked land of Irrisen to rescue a possessed sister—and the canny young cartographer who follows her into that haunted land. The book formally releases in September, but we'll have copies on hand at this year's Gen Con Game Fair as a special preview. October sees the release of Prince of Wolves, by former Amazing Stories and Dragon editor Dave Gross, which revisits the Pathfinder agent Varian Jeggare and his tiefling assistant Radovan, last seen in the Pathfinder Journal section of the Council of Thieves Adventure Path. Additional novels will follow in 2011 from well-known authors including Paul S. Kemp and other familiar faces. Stay tuned for more info!
NEW HARDCOVERS
Following up on the forthcoming GameMastery Guide
and Advanced Player's Guide, 2010 will see the release of one more hardcover rulebook in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game line: Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 2! Like the first Bestiary, Bestiary 2 will include more than 300 monsters for use with the Pathfinder RPG, including old favorites like the hippogriff and new planar creatures like the aeons and proteans. This book will cover most of the standard monsters from the history of the game that we couldn't fit in the first Bestiary, as well as tons of other great monsters you've never seen before. Each monster will receive a full page or a 2-page spread, using the same format as the original book.
Supplies of the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting hardcover are dwindling faster than we can count, so in September we'll release a revised edition in the form of the Pathfinder Campaign Setting World Guide: The Inner Sea. Fully updated to the Pathfinder RPG rules and with expanded coverage of nearly every nation, the latest version of this book contains a new cover from Wayne Reynolds, an updated map, fixed errata from the first edition, and more than 300 pages packed with tons of information about the lands, peoples, beliefs, and cultures of the world of Golarion. Paizo Creative Director James Jacobs is giving this project his personal finish, making sure our campaign setting book is a solid bedrock of our publishing operation for years to come. We're really pleased with the early development of this book, and think it will be an ideal resource for all Pathfinder players and game masters.
PATHFINDER CHRONICLES
In addition to the revised campaign setting, in late 2010 we'll release the Inner Sea Map Folio, a massive 32-panel map of the Inner Sea region containing all "canonical" locations from every Pathfinder product published to date! This monster is sure to brighten up the gaming room or man-cave of any Pathfinder enthusiast, and its "four poster" format will even allow for easy reference at the game table for those lacking the wall space to do it justice. The Campaign Setting product line will also see a new Classic Monsters-style book in the form of Misfit Monsters Redeemed (and you won't believe what that's about until you read the description, believe me) as well as Lost Cities of Golarion, which explores six adventure locales from throughout the world of Golarion.
PATHFINDER PLAYER COMPANION
We can't let the GMs have all the fun, after all, so we've also planned a couple of sure-fire player's guides for the last third of 2010 that will be must-buys for Pathfinder RPG players. October sees the release of the Inner Sea Primer, a slimmed-down overview of the Pathfinder world designed specifically for players. This book will include tons of new character traits tied to the regions and religions of Golarion, and will provide a perfect "gist" of the setting for those looking to dip a toe in the water without needing to buy a big hardcover book. December sees the release of Halflings of Golarion, which rounds out the player's guides to the standard "demihuman" player character races in the Pathfinder RPG with plenty of details on how to integrate them into Golarion campaigns. Lots of fun equipment and lore in this one for fans of halflings (and everyone else, too)!
PATHFINDER MODULES
Gamers have been asking for a high-level Pathfinder adventure since the very beginning, and now I'm pleased to report that the time has come at last! Shipping in September, The Witchwar Legacy takes 17th-level player characters to the snow-shrouded witch kingdom of Irrisen to thwart a plan by the Ice Queen involving the insidious Baba Yaga herself! If that's not enough, in November we'll release a brand-new 1st-level starter adventure called The Godsmouth Heresy, set in the shadowy city of Kaer Maga, site of June's City of Strangers sourcebook!
GAMEMASTERY ACCESSORIES
Paizo's popular map products keep on coming in the last part of 2010, including the first-ever crossover between the Map Pack and Flip-Mat lines! Everything starts innocently enough in September with the release of Flip-Mat: Forest, but things really get interesting in October, with Map Pack: Shops. This 18-tile map set includes the interiors for several different stores, apothecaries, taverns, and the like, but things become super-special when you combine this pack with November's Flip-Mat: City Streets, which details a mercantile district suitable for use with other city Flip-Mats. The roofed buildings on this Flip-Mat (suitable for rooftop chases) correspond exactly to the interiors presented in Map Pack: Shops, providing a uniquely immersive tabletop experience. And if that's not enough to impress your jaded players, spring December's Map Pack: Ambush Sites on them. They probably deserve it.
GameMastery Cards keep coming as well, this time in the form of new GameMastery Condition Cards, handy reference cards for all of the various conditions in the Pathfinder RPG rules.
PATHFINDER ADVENTURE PATH
And, of course, we haven't forgotten the date that brought us to the big dance in the first place. The last trimester of 2010 will see plenty of action in the Pathfinder Adventure Path line, as the Serpent's Skull Adventure Path takes a jungle trail toward its stunning conclusion! Ruined Azlanti cities, Red Mantis assassins, monkey-men, the Pathfinder Society, ancient serpentfolk, and one very, very angry Gorilla King are all in store in a quartet of adventures by Tim Hitchcock, Kevin Kulp, Greg A. Vaughan, and Graeme Davis! The Serpent's Skull is a return to classic-style adventuring in the Pathfinder tradition, and we can't wait to get you guys into the jungle!
I'm saving our Planet Stories releases for tomorrow's blog, so be sure to tune in then for some of the biggest Planet Stories news we've had yet!
So much is happening here at Paizo these days that it's difficult to remember the uncertainty and horror of the last few years, with major changes to our business, our game system, and our lives. All of us really appreciate the support you have shown us so far, and we look forward to more exciting products in the months and years to come!
The Pathfinder RPG Bestiary has reached our warehouse, and we've loaded it with hundreds of updated monsters for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. However, some of our favorites didn't quite make the cut and had to be left out of the book. Fortunately, we're clever and sneaky, and found a way to get one of the extra monsters into the Pathfinder Module Carrion Hill. After all, in an adventure with Lovecraftian horrors, this shapeshifting creature should feel right at home.
Left to right, we have Draggy, Fluff Gugg, Mr. Straw, the too-scary-to-have-a-name Mwangi Fetish, and Molly Missy. They will be visiting your characters with their own special brand of pain and murder soon. And perhaps your nightmares even sooner!
I've been warning folks that Richard Pett's "The Sixfold Trial,"
(part two of the Council of Thieves Adventure Path) is a weird one, but until you get your copy and check it out, it's hard to anticipate just how weird it is. And I mean that, of course, in a good way. Not only does this adventure give the PCs a chance to ham it up on stage (while trying to survive the production of a play whose actors generally end up dead during the course of the performance), but it also features a banquet with all manner of outlandish dishes and numerous opportunities to make powerful political enemies. And all of that happens before you hit the dungeon!
Of course, even in the dungeon the weirdness doesn't stop. One of my requests to Rich when he took on this project was, "Make the dungeon feel like it was designed by the artist Escher." Turns out, Rich also channeled M. R. James, Dante, Freud, and more, with strange psychological tests, deadly curses, devious traps, and more awaiting your PCs within. Yet it's the Outcast King who takes the crown. Check him out, in all of his handsome majesty! (And no, I'm not going to reveal what he is!)
The Free RPG Day is almost upon us, as is your chance to grab your copy of the limited Pathfinder RPG Bonus Bestiary for free! This Saturday, June 20th, participating retailers will be handing out this fabulous little full-color supplement featuring 13 classic monsters, each updated to the upcoming Pathfinder RPG rules! These critters won't be found in the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary, so if you want an early copy for your Pathfinder game, find a local participating retailer at www.freerpgday.com!
When you think of characters in game-world fiction, what first comes to mind are the fighters, wizards, and rogues. Priests are fine if they're sufficiently powerful and conflicted, otherwise, not so much. Bards generally play second fiddle, you should pardon the expression, and paladins are seldom cast in starring roles. The druids, apparently, are too busy communing with nature to bother with fiction.
Since the publication of my first shared-world book, Elfshadow, in 1991, I've hit most of the character classes with the exception of the druid. Channa Ti, the protagonist of the Pathfinder's Journal fiction in the Legacy of Fire Adventure Path, is my first.
I started with a typical D&D druid—a serene mystic who dwells in emerald groves, nurturing the woodland creatures and healing hapless passersby with potions brewed from rare herbs and crafted from recipes learned at the feet of wise, benevolent elven mentors. And then I put him in a cage match with Channa and observed while she stomped him into organic fertilizer.
Sometimes the creative process takes interesting turns.
Once I started thinking seriously about druids, one of Tennyson's more famous quatrains came to mind:
Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation's final law—
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shrieked against his creed—
Why should druids embody calm serenity and selfless love rather than "Nature, red in tooth and claw"? Surely some druids would be more closely attuned to nature's predators. This notion was central to Channa Ti's creation. To her way of thinking, "A paladin's noble steed must eat, but then, so must a crocodile."
Another inspiration came from Pathfinder's ingenious addition to the druid class: the Nature Bond, which allows druids to specialize in one of the domains—Air, Animal, Earth, Fire, Plant, Water, or Weather—rather than forming a partnership with a companion animal. Since Channa is a loner by nature and circumstances, this suited her perfectly. An affinity for water also gives her considerable value in a desert clime. An expert dowser, she occasionally pays her way as a "water witch." Her ability to sense a coming rain is highly valued in a culture that still mourns the passing of the Age of Prophecy and is always seeking some way to foresee the future. Finally, her affinity with water gives her skills that interest people obsessed with an ancient, sea-swallowed realm.
Nature Bond offers intriguing potential for character development and storytelling, not just for fiction, but also for campaign use. For those of you who've never played a druid—and I'm guessing that's most of you—the Pathfinder setting is a great place to start.
After yesterday's fateful misadventure, we have decided against heavily drinking Qadiran firewine before plumbing the depths of the Vault in the future. Today, dear readers, we promise to fetch only the finest art from the Golem's boundless treasury. Presented here are the axiomites and astradaemons from Pathfinder Chronicles: The Great Beyond, illustrated by Sarah Stone. Our deepest apologies for the errors of our last theft.
Vadid and Nahk Preview Purloiners
The lords, caretakers, and architects of the eternal city of Axis, the axiomites possess a wide variety of outward forms, oddly unlike the uniformity displayed by their fellow natives, the hive-dwelling formians. A random cross-section of axiomite society contains those who resemble flawless, perfect humanoids of all descriptions—typically humans, elves, tieflings, dwarves, halflings, giants, and even gnomes—but these outward shapes belie their true forms, which can be seen briefly whenever the axiomites move or perform any complex actions. During such moments, their bodies partly dissolve into glowing clouds of golden, crystalline dust. The clouds move and contort on their own accord, temporarily congealing into twisting lines of mathematic symbols and complex tangles of equations. Each axiomite is actually an immortal construct of living, intelligent mathematics approximating a humanoid shape.
Astradaemons appear as ghostly, faintly phosphorescent, rail-thin humanoids with exaggeratedly long limbs. The fiends also have a seemingly random number of translucent tentacles trailing from their backs, shoulders, and upper arms, which wave and weave through the air. Their bizarre forms possess heads that are skeletal, elongated, and vaguely piscine, reptilian, or canine, always bearing hungry rictus grins. Wicked, curved claws sprout from their hands and feet, and each creature’s tail moves in rhythm with its tentacles, typically hanging toward the ground and almost doubling its length.
As the perpetually ravenous servitors of Abbadon’s archdaemons, the astradaemons’ touch is corruptive and damaging to the spiritual material of souls. Their touch and especially their bite can cause horrific damage, akin to that of a wraith, to anything they attack. Most feared, however, is their ability to utterly consume the souls of those killed in their proximity, feeding off of their essence or dragging it back to their fiendish overlords.
Snagged from the Vault: Pathfinder #20—House of the Beast
Thursday, February 26, 2009
At much risk to ourselves, my colleague and I braved the defenses of Paizo's well-guarded vault to bring you, our loyal readers, this exclusive preview of Pathfinder Adventure Path volume #20, House of the Beast. Now we must flee, before our pursuers discover us...
Sunlord Thalachos is Sarenrae's favorite angel, liaison to the mortal world, the hosts of astral devas, and the ranks of superior angels (including the Empyreal Lords). At 8 feet tall and 300 pounds, he is an impressive figure with a rich baritone voice, always speaking with clarity and precision. His metallic skin is as hard as steel to any that wish to do him harm, but as soft as velvet to anyone kind, merciful, and good. He is the champion of the Dawnflower in Golarion and her favorite weapon against the spawn of Rovagug (though she only calls upon him for this when no mortal heroes are available). Before the death of Aroden he often delivered prophecies on behalf of the goddess, and several stories in The Birth of Light and Truth were penned by oracles whom he personally escorted through Sarenrae's realm. Now the only similar duty he bears is appearing at auspicious births.
Look for the full article on Sunlord Thalachos in Pathfinder #20's bestiary, along with the full description of Sarenrae's faith!
Part of the joy of being an editorial intern is getting to read all the goodness that is Pathfinder. For free. And before the rest of the world. Recently, I was asked to give an editing pass over a few chapters of the new Pathfinder's Journal, "Dark Tapestry," penned by the prolific and outrageously talented Elaine Cunningham (seriously, who wouldn't want this job?!).
Set in the desert realm of Osirion, this new Pathfinder story does everything a piece of fiction set in an RPG campaign world should do: it reveals believable and interesting characters, it brings the setting to life, and most of all, it makes me want to play a Pathfinder campaign set in Osirion right now.
Really though, the story highlights for me everything I really enjoy about Pathfinder. There is a touch of the familiar, but at the same time, never once can I say, "Hey, I've been here before." While reading the Pathfinder's Journal, I recognized many well-known aspects—a magical item here, a class-name drop there—and even though I have been playing RPGs since I was in junior high, never once did I feel like it was just another tired rehash. And while Osirion clearly draws inspiration from ancient Egypt, never once does it feel like a shallow interpretation of real-life history. While reading Elaine Cunningham's words, it truly felt that if I could somehow peel back the crawling desert sands, it would reveal the bones of countless centuries, a deep, rich, and lived history filled with epic stories and sweeping tales of heroism and tragedy, of which the PCs' adventures comprise only the latest chapter.
So I think I'm going to slip on some sandals, slap on some sunscreen, and head on back over to Osirion. See you there!
For Pathfinder Society Scenario #15: The Asmodeus Mirage (coming this month), Adam brings us the imp, a little red devil perched on the skull of an inanimate gargoyle statue. Be sure to visit Adam's deviantArt page and check out more of his work.
Pathfinder Society Scenario #13 & #14 Art Sneak Peak
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Check out the dretch and the giant centipede—featured monsters from next week's Pathfinder Society Scenario #13: The Prince of Augustana and Pathfinder Society Scenario #14: The Many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch. The dretch was designed by Kevin Yan and the giant centipede was designed by Ben Wootten. Enjoy!
No one will believe me when I say this, but I absolutely did not plan to have Pathfinder #19 contain not only the Golarion version of the notorious chupacabra, but also a relatively significant goat NPC. The goat in question is a hapless chap named Rombard, and he's menaced not by chupacabras but by something else entirely in this volume's adventure, "Howl of the Carrion King," but that doesn't mean he can't be worried about the goat-suckers that are lurking later on in the same volume's bestiary.
Self-plagiarizing is just one of many skills I've had to hone and develop after joining Paizo several years ago. Now and then, when I was under a deadline crunch for freelance, I'd dip into something I'd created for my homebrew campaign over the past 20+ years and steal a name or a monster or a spell from those documents, update it to 3rd edition, and continue on. When we decided to build an entire new game world to support Pathfinder, I did this a lot. Most of Varisia, about half of the world's deities, the Red Mantis assassins, Sekamina and Orv, and countless other tidbits first saw the light of day in Baria, my homebrew world, one that I've been using to run adventures and campaigns for friends and family since fifth grade.
As you see here, sometimes the things I produced for Baria got a wee-bit elaborate for a kid building his own adventures with a brand new electric typewriter and a stack of colored pencils, but what can I say? Growing up in the Northern California wilderness left me with a lot of free time on my hands. Little could I know at the time that I was planting the seeds that would eventually grow into the Second Darkness Adventure Path and the elven nation of Kyonin.
The Secret of Deathstalk Tower was a pretty straightforward adventure. An evil demon named Treerazer, who'd corrupted the elven homeland into a monster-infested forest named Tanglebriar, lived in a tower that could transform into an immense golem. This was, of course, Deathstalk Tower (although we renamed it the Witchbole in Golarion to match its evolution into an enormous evil tree). In the adventure, the PCs had to fight their way through Tanglebriar and then climb up the twelve levels of Deathstalk Tower to confront Treerazer before he could use his giant golem to crush civilization.
When I decided to transport Tanglebriar and Treerazer directly into Golarion, I knew that eventually I wanted to abuse my position of power here to get Treerazer professionally illustrated. The results of that you can see here. Ben Wootten's a much better artist than me, but I'm still amused and quite pleased with how close the official Treerazer matches up to my early version of him—I didn't send this picture to Ben, only described the demon to him in the art order. Seeing a childhood creation transform into something like this is a pretty strange experience, though.
Although Treerazer himself doesn't make an appearance in Pathfinder #17's adventure, he does appear in the volume's bestiary in all his CR 26 glory. Oh, and one more thing. That drow woman getting ready to cast a lightning bolt on the cover of The Secret of Deathstalk Tower? That just happens to be the first version of Allevrah, the cover girl for Pathfinder #18—in the adventure, she's the high-priestess of Treerazer's cult. The orange demon's a unique minion of Treerazer's named Lukarazyl (he's now a shemhazian demon but still works for Treerazer—see Pathfinder #5, page 87). Only the goofy-looking armored guy hasn't made the transition from this old cover to Golarion yet—he was Grotulth, the general of Treerazer's armies. Maybe he'll show up someday in a future Pathfinder?
Two old favorites finally arrive on Golarion in Pathfinder #17. I'm pretty excited to get these two monsters into the game in particular, since they've been two "missing monsters" that I've always had a soft spot for. The first is the banshee, based on Irish legends of a female messenger of death. (It always seemed weird to me that the spell wail of the banshee was in the game, but there was no banshee in the SRD.) The second is a creature whose genesis in myth likely came about after travelers in a strange land had their first encounters with hyenas. When you think about it, a creepy doglike creature that eats bones and sounds like a laughing human madman would indeed be pretty unnerving to run across. In any event, hence the legendary leucrotta—a monster that mimics the voice of a friend in peril to lure you into the dark so it can pounce and kill.
Through dark magic and foul rites drow corrupt the unworthy of their society into horrifying creatures—skittering, spider-legged abominations known as driders. But what about other races? If the drow work such perversion upon their own brethren, what terrors might they inflict upon their enemies? With demonic magic and deadly alchemy the fleshcrafters of Zirnakaynin rework their captives into terrible new forms, better suiting their cruel desires and sadistic pleasures. Take the muscle-burdened ghonhatine and pain-wracked irnakurse for example, just two of the new fleshwarps detailed in Pathfinder #16's "Abominations of the Drow." Can you guess what they use to be? And are you sure you really want to know?
As I've said before, I love my job! I get to take a look at things and see stuff before it comes out. As a gamer and as a fan, that right there is worth the price of admission. One of the things I like most about our products is our great artists and the fantastic illustrations they produce for us. Sometimes, however, a particular piece of art cannot come to the fore, as it's part of a greater whole, like a cover. So, because I can, I now present to you, unfettered from their PDF restraints, the art you see lurking behind the titles of the latest Pathfinder Scenarios Mists of Mwangi and Black Waters.
In Pathfinder #17's adventure, "A Memory of Darkness," the heroes get to travel to the idyllic realm of Kyonin, the homeland of the elves. But as you can see here in Steve Prescott's cover illustration, Kyonin's not wholly a nice and happy place. Particularly down south, in the demon infested reaches of Tanglebriar, where bebiliths and other menaces replace bears in the "Reasons to fortify your campsite" list.
With sixteen volumes of Pathfinder and more than a dozen Pathfinder Modules under our belts we had a realization a few days back. That's a ton of monsters! Between Pathfinder's Bestiary and at least one new beastie in the adventures every month, we're looking at more than 100 never-before-seen nightmares, classic creatures, and fiendish foes over the course of the past year. Need proof? Take a look at a listing of the vast majority of new critters we've released from Pathfinder #1 to #15 including all the modules in between.
In the Second Darkness Adventure Path, we knew we wanted to use the drow as the primary antagonists. And of course, where there's drow, there's driders. Yet with the changes to drow society in Golarion (and in particular who and what they worship) versus their classic representation in the game, the genesis story for driders had to change. This gave us a pretty interesting bit of new flavor for both driders and drow.
In (under?) Golarion, driders are not punishments meted out by the gods. They are punishments meted out by the drow themselves. One noble family of drow, House Parastric, has maintained their power due to their possession of a powerful secret—the art of fleshcrafting. On one level, this art lets a drow use various poisons to reshape parts of the body, granting a soldier large claws or a poisonous bite, for example, or a scout antennae so he can navigate even more easily in the dark. Yet this is just the beginning, for the drow of House Parastric also developed a method to reshape an entire creature—this is known as fleshwarping, and those that survive the painful and humiliating process are known as fleshwarps. Every race put through the process emerges as something different—all troglodytes come out as hulking behemoths; all surface elves emerge as twisted deformed monsters; all halfings come out as skittering quadrapedal beasts, and so on. But it was the drow themselves who proved the most impressive subjects for fleshwarping, for all drow that undergo the process emerge as driders.
In drow society, driders are seen as freaks and mutants. Becoming a drider is not prestigious—it's physical proof of punishment and a brand of shame. Yet driders are not frail or helpless fleshwarps; they're powerful creatures in their own regard. As a result, in drow society driders are often kept as guardians, soldiers, or bodyguards. Retaining little of their previous life's memories, most driders serve their drow lords and ladies without question. But not all of them.
Female driders in particular are more headstrong and aggressive, just as with the drow themselves. Most drider rebellions are instigated by a female, and today there are numerous small tribes of driders dwelling in the remote corners of the Darklands, free from drow rule. The majority of driders one sees in drow cities are male, as a result. And fortunately for those drow, it's real easy to tell them apart. Female driders retain their sleek, beautiful, and elven shapes above the waist; below, their spider bodies are similarly sleek and smooth. Males, though, are much more bestial. Their faces are a horrific blend of drow and spider, and their bodies are spiny and rough. Pictured here are examples of the sexual dimorphism driders present, a female illustrated by Ben Wootten and a male illustrated by Concept Art House.
In Pathfinder #16, we present "Abominations of the Drow," an article that discusses both fleshcrafting and fleshwarping so that if your PCs stumble into the hands of the drow of House Parastric, you'll know what kinds of things they'll have to look forward to.
Although the Darklands are a dangerous place, one rife with strange monsters and eerie hazards, they're not completely uncivilized. Of course—in a place where a nation of undead passes as one form of civilization and an empire of forgotten aquatic fish-man slaves passes as another, civilization might not be what visitors from the surface expect.
Into the Darklands covers many different underground-dwelling races, providing details on many different races. A fair amount of these should be familiar—races like the drow, derro, duergar, aboleths, and svirfneblin exist in the Darklands. Other races exist there too, like vegepygmies, intellect devourers, skum, and ghouls. But this being a brand new world in the grand scheme of the game, you can bet we'll be introducing some new races as well. Deformed humanoid throwbacks to a savage time, for one (morlocks!), and a slumbering empire of ancient arcanists and cultists for another (serpentfolk!). There's even a few races who are completely brand new, such as the mysterious sanity-blasting seugathi. That's one of them pictured here, wielding a dagger in one tentacle, a wand of fireballs in the other, and a mouthful of poisonous teeth!
We've had an awful lot of spider-themed monsters in the pages of Pathfinder over the past year or so. Enough that we've actually heard some complaints about how many of the new monsters are spider-themed. Furthermore, when we revealed that the third Adventure Path was going to revolve around the drow, we heard an even more vocal outcry against spiders. I'm not sure how much of the spider backlash is due to all the spider stuff we've been doing in Pathfinder and how much is fueled by arachnophobia, but in the end we are trying to do less spider stuff.
But it's hard to say no to something like the cutlass spider, one of four new monsters appearing in Pathfinder #15's Bestiary. And even though we have a lot of drow in this month's adventure, the cutlass spider's not actually a drow creation. It's actually a construct that often sees use on pirate ships and other nautical locations, where they serve as guardians, bodyguards, or even assassins. One of the most interesting things about them, though, is that they can add magic weapons to their bodies, and in so doing gain the properties of that magic weapon to their natural attacks. A cutlass spider that snatches a vorpal sword would be a menace indeed. And guess what happens if a cutlass spider absorbs an intelligent weapon in this manner?
In any event, for those of you who are growing tired of spider monsters, I apologize. As it turns out, spiders are just too awesome a source of monster inspiration to resist for long!
As you've probably noticed from all the recent talk about falling stars and strange new worlds, Pathfinder #14 looks to the stars. With spacemen and moon monsters featuring so heavily in "Children of the Void" and the volume's other articles, it seemed appropriate to take this rare chance and dedicate a portion of the month's bestiary to the truly alien. Full-fledged, undisguised, world-traveling extraterrestrials, that is. Taking cues from our favorite otherworldly menaces, Pathfinder #14 unleashes three new alien enemies. But don't expect flying saucers and chest bursting from all of these terrifying travelers. Some, like the star-spawned moonflower, take more subtle approaches drawn directly from similar inspirational invaders from fiction and film.
"All plants move. They don't usually pull themselves out of the ground and chase you! If we could find out how this thing functions we might figure out an easier way of killing it."
—John Wyndham, Day of the Triffids
Alien plants have long found their way into entertainment: from the triffids of John Wyndham's Day of the Triffids; to the alien pod people of Jack Finney's novel The Body Snatchers and its superlative big-screen spawn, 1956's and 1978's Invasion of the Body Snatchers and 1993's Body Snatchers; to the infamous "Feed Me!" of Seymore's Audrey II in Charles B. Griffith's Little Shop of Horrors. Roleplaying games are also no stranger to hungry plants from space, like those that appeared in 1980's Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. The moonflower owes its inspiration to these predecessors and dozens of other muses not of this world.
So the waters of Riddleport harbor are alive with things that find people delicious. A pirate or smuggler who falls overboard generally has only a few minutes to get to shore or clamber back on board a ship before a shark, bunyip, reefclaw, or other predator catches his scent. In some cases, though, those hungry predators don't wait until someone falls into the water—they can flop ashore to hunt for food if necessary. One notorious local predator with this unnerving habit is the swamp barracuda.
Of course, the swamp barracudas have long been a menace along the shores of the Varisian Gulf, and the local Sczarni families in particular have a unique working history with these beasts. Take the following as an example as to why it's generally a bad idea to annoy these criminals.
The Fish Tank: Owned by Jaster Frallino, the head of the Magnimarian Sczarni gang known as the Gallowed, images of glassy-eyed sea serpents and scandalously clad mermaids stare stupidly from the timbers of this peeling sea-blue caravan wagon. Within, the roomy wagon holds a single battered stool and a four-foot-tall glass aquarium filled with murky water. Inside the glass tank laze Frallino's three fat pet swamp barracudas: Verna, Argarno, and Big Mal. In Frallino's displeasure, several lazy thugs and untrustworthy business partners have lost a toe, a nose, or a whole hand to "The Boss's Fish," and more than one of the crime lord's enemies have gone into the tank headfirst. It's also rumored that the Sczarni boss keeps a collection of mysterious, rusted keys at the bottom of his chummy aquarium, guarded by his beloved pets.
Under the auspices of Dungeons & Dragons, Gary Gygax created a number of iconic races, whether out of whole cloth or by combining a various different mythological and literary sources. So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when, in his final novel, he did it one last time. At first, I balked—up to this point, Infernal Sorceress had been a fairly hard-edged and gritty fantasy romp. What were a bunch of talking weasel-people doing here? Yet once I got past my initial knee-jerk reaction (which said that such things were better off left in one of Brian Jacques's Redwall novels), I realized that, in fact, they fit the story perfectly. After all, what's the point of fantasy if not to mix things up and make the reader question their standard assumptions? In throwing in something totally out of left field, Gygax was rattling my cage and reminding me that there's more to the genre than just the same old white-bread elves and dwarves we all know and love. And besides, their accents are totally adorable.
So with that said, I thought I'd offer you all the first (and quite possibly last) appearance of the ferretfolk:
Below, Ferret stared a second in horror. What little light there was danced and swayed wildly, but it was sufficient to show him the ugly mandibles and head of the steelback as the monster came up into the cave. The hole's exit was a tight fit for it, but the myriapod was forcing its hard body through it all too quickly. Each segment through gave it two more legs with which to haul the rest of it out to get at its prey. "Oh, crap! Now what?" Ferret cursed as he turned to look for a really fast means of getting up to the passage he wasn't sure would save them from the hunting giant centipede. At that moment a braided leather rope dropped in front of him. Ferret needed no urging, and he swarmed up hand-over-hand. "Where'd you get the rope, Ra—"
His jaw fell slack as he saw the welcoming committee awaiting him. One of that number jerked him all the way inside, pulled him out of the way, as two others rolled a rounded boulder to the brink of the tunnel. "—ker?
His companion was as shocked as Ferret. Raker gave his head a slight shake as if to say, "I haven't the slightest notion," and then stared at the two lithe forms which were just in the process of shoving the big stone over the edge. They heard a thump and a sharp crack followed by scrabbling noises which slowly died away.
"Gottum!" One of the creatures who had sent the boulder down chittered in something which sounded vaguely like human speech as it turned and showed a mouthful of sharp fangs to the two men.
"That's trade talk," Raker murmured, referring to the pidgin Phonecian commonly used throughout much of Ærth to conduct business.
"Sure, talk pretty fine with hewmuns allatime now and then, but no Stoatie. Nonono. Thurr we are—Ferretfolk you name we, us say Thurr." The creature trilled the r's as it pronounced the name of its folk. "See dead manyfoot?"
The creature talked as fast as it moved. Ferret couldn't believe this. They did look like huge, slender ferrets, down to their buff fur and black "masks." He gaped, then asked rather stupidly, "Real ferretfolk?" He had heard of them but never believed they existed. "I am called Ferret."
The one who had hauled him to safety ignored the question. "Come. See it broken. Good."
Both men went to where the creature proudly pointed with its nose, stared down to see the steelback below, forepart a gory ruin under the boulder. "You sure squashed the shit out of that head!" Raker said with enthusiasm.
"Bad thing, manyfoot. Kill hewmuns, kill you, kill Thurr, too, so we allatime kill 'em first. Pretty good, sure?" And as it rattled that off the creature showed its teeth again in what was surely meant to be an imitation of a human smile.
Pathfinder #12 is off to the printer, and with it a block of four more new monsters! Of those four, three have roles to play in this volume's adventure, "Crown of Fangs." So to avoid spoilers, let's check out the fourth one—the dread mobogo! We first mentioned these immense frog-like monsters way back in Pathfinder #2 in the boggard entry, and I knew then that sooner or later we'd be seeing these monstrous lords of the swamp. Check him out! Doesn't he look happy to be here?
Mobogos reside in the most primal swamps of Golarion, grotesque eldritch wildernesses unchanged for centuries. The crude religion of boggard-kind says that when the massive goddess Gogunta deposited her frogspawn in the muddy morass of Golarion's still-forming continents, the mobogo were among the first creatures to emerge. Ever since, these Swamp Kings have slept and fed, preying upon the beasts of their fetid meres, growing huge and lethargic, dreaming inscrutable amphibious dreams of their godly mother's return.
Numerous interesting plants and animals live in Golarion. The Guide to Darkmoon Vale offers looks at some of the vale's most iconic or infamous fauna and flora. First up here is a peek at the Fauna sidebar.
Darkmoon Vale Fauna
Most creatures in Darkmoon Vale are simply animals or vermin, with no darker agendas than mere survival. The following are some of the most common creatures of the region.
Firefoot Fennec: These red-footed foxes are common throughout northern Andoran and southern Isger. Their pelts are popular in Absalom and Molthune.
Dusk Spider: These foot-diameter spiders inhabit the Arthfell Forest in large communities that weave immense webs covering several acres. Dusk spider venom, when properly milked from a living creature, makes for a potent alcoholic additive.
Giant Mosquito: These pests are as large as small birds, but they tend to (thankfully) travel alone. Female giant mosquitoes (like their normal-sized cousins) drink the blood of warm-blooded animals.
Giant Moorsnake: These ophidian predators are active mostly at night. As constrictors, they prefer to sneak up on their victims while their potential meals are sleeping.
Mereswan: Unique to the Droskmere, mereswans are normal swans who can eat the mildly acidic popcarp within the lake and who only use a certain kind of volcanic rock for their gizzard stones. The combination of these two elements mean regurgitated gizzard stones of mereswans are smoothly polished semiprecious gems popular with dwarves.
Mountain Horses: Indigenous to the Aspodells, these long-haired, massive equines are popular with miners for their easy temperaments and flexible diets.
Popcarp: Mildly acidic flesh makes the popcarp of Droskmere an unpopular meal, except for the beautiful mereswans who live nearby. When threatened, a popcarp can explosively empty its gas bladder out its mouth to move quickly away, making a distinctive popping noise when it does so (hence its name).
Slurks: The slurk is the disgusting result of ill-advised dwarven efforts at breeding underground frogs. Kobolds prize the foul-smelling and slime-covered creatures as pets and mounts. Slurks live underground in damp caverns where the fungi and lichens they prefer to eat grow in abundance.
Zhen Worm: A smaller species of great worms roughly half the size of Qadira's famous alamien worms, the zhen worms of Andoran can survive in environs that would kill their larger cousins. Zhen worms thrive in warm, moist soil, and many of them migrate frequently to the areas around Darkmoon Vale's geysers, mud pots, and other geothermal features.
And not to be outdone, here's the Flora sidebar.
Darkmoon Vale Flora
Many varieties of unique and rare plants live in Darkmoon Vale. The following are those of greatest interest to residents and visitors of the region.
Appleleaf: These low-growing plants have leaves that grow in groups of four and taste of slightly bitter apples when eaten. Appleleaf grows all over within the forests of Darkmoon Vale and southern Isger.
Blackscour: A black-headed fungus that tastes hard, bitter, and sharp. It grows in the water and causes blackscour taint if any part of it, including its spores, are consumed (usually by drinking contaminated water). Blackscour is not native to the region and was only recently introduced to Darkmoon Vale.
Dowmberries: Although the plants that bear them contain massive thorns, dowmberries remain a popular desert treat when in season in late summer and early autumn. Dowmberries grow best in arid climates and grow all over the eastern side of the Aspodell Mountains and Wolfrun Hills.
Elderwood Moss: This semi-magical moss only grows on the oldest tree in a forest. As such, two known patches exist near Darkmoon Vale: one upon the forest elder in Darkmoon Wood and another on the Green Patriarch within Arthfell Forest. Elderwood moss, when prepared correctly, acts as a strong decongestant. Some people claim that, when prepared incorrectly, elderwood moss causes premature aging.
Glowmold: As its name implies, glowmold glows. Rather brightly, in fact. Glowmold grows very slowly on the undersides of igneous rocks, and the largest concentrations of this useful mold live for centuries under stones too large to easily flip or roll over. Smaller finds provide as much light as a torch. Regardless of the size of the moss colony, picked glowmold glows for 3 days once picked.
Ironbloom Mushrooms: These stunty fungi only grow in dark places thick with metal. The diets of Five Kings Mountains dwarves consist heavily of ironbloom mushrooms, mainly because the plants grow naturally in and around dwarven forges. Protein-rich ironbloom mushrooms bear a slight salty taste but otherwise contain no flavor of their own, making them excellent additions to many dwarven meals.
Pesh: This strong stimulant also has mild hallucinogenic properties, which together make its users easily agitated and randomly aggressive (and easily identified, with bloodshot eyes and frequent nosebleeds). Originally imported from Vudra, pesh cacti grow in warm, moist areas, like those around the vale's mudpots and hot springs. Wild pesh cacti threaten to choke out native species near the geothermal vents. Outside of Katapesh, Darkmoon Vale is the largest supplier of pesh to nations of Avistan.
Paueliel Trees: These silver-barked softwoods grow to immense heights, but never spread to more than a few feet in diameter. Lumberjacks claim paueliel trees are somehow connected with elves and give copses of them wide berth when logging.
Rat's Tail: When pickled, this exceedingly salty root acts as a mild analgesic. Used raw, rat's tail gives a strong salty flavor to whatever dish it is added to. Many of the poor residents in Darkmoon Vale use rat's tail to flavor their food, as salt remains out of the price range of most.
While Mike was working on the Guide to Korvosa, he and I brainstormed ideas for what kind of perils might be dwelling in the Shingles. We'd both seen plenty of monster-infested city undergrounds, but we wanted something more with Korvosa; we wanted a monster-infested rooftop. Sort of. We didn't want things like dire bats or manticores stomping around up there—whatever ended up in the Shingles had to be relatively small and agile. Nick Logue's adventure already had a pseudodragon in it, and I liked the idea that these little dragons were perhaps native to the region and adapted to the rooftops as the city took over the landscape. And Mike had all these rogue, castaway imps flapping around. From there, the image of periodic imp-on-pseudodragon sky clashes popped into my head—it was too awesome an image to resist, and so the imp and pseudodragon battles became a part of the city's flavor.
This wasn't really meant to be much more than flavor; just something that makes Korvosa unique. But we got a little carried away, and suddenly two huge pictures in the book were of this supposedly rare event. With the extra weight lent by the illustrations, the imp and dragon clashes became THE iconic Korvosan event. Problem is, of course, that the game rules get in the way of this flavor. Pseudodragons can't actually hurt imps, so logically speaking, such huge battles should only ever happen once and after that, it's all imps all the time, right?
Not really. If you want more rules to back up how these battles work out, it's a relatively simple thing to come up with variants and additions for both sides to even things up a bit. Of course, you can just fake it, saying that with enough pseudodragons piled onto you, no amount of damage reduction will really help. Alternately, you can rule that Korvosa's imps have lived on the Material Plane so long that they're now considered native outsiders and have lost their fast healing and damage reduction as a result.
My preference? The Impslayer feat! Give it to all your Korvosan pseudodragons as a bonus feat, and watch the imp ichor fly!
New Feat: Impslayer
Many of Korvosa's nobles decorate their roofs with tiny amounts of precious metals, among them silver-lined weather vanes, shingles, and gutters designed to catch the sunlight to give their homes a distinctive sparkle in the sunlight. By spending years sharpening stings and teeth against these silver-enhanced decorations, or sneaking drinks of holy water from outdoor fonts at various temples, some pseudodragons have effectively transformed themselves into deadly weapons against the city's imps.
Prerequisites: Pseudodragon
Benefit:Your natural weapons bypass an imp's damage reduction. In addition, your great skill at fighting imps allows you to apply your Dexterity modifier to damage done with natural weapons rather than your Strength modifier, as your blows are delivered with great precision rather than force.
Special: Pseudodragons born and raised in Korvosa's Shingles gain this feat as a bonus feat.
In a few short weeks, we'll begin shipping the first part of Pathfinder's second Adventure Path—Curse of the Crimson Throne. As with Rise of the Runelords, we've created a 16-page Player's Guide to help you not only build your characters for the new campaign, but also to help introduce you to the city of Korvosa, where the majority of Curse of the Crimson Throne takes place.
And as in the case of the Rise of the Runelords Player's Guide, the Curse of the Crimson Throne Player's Guide is free as a PDF. Even better? You can download it right now! (7.6MB zip PDF)
This 16-page product is packed with all sorts of flavor and crunch. An overview of the city of Korvosa, the largest city in Varisia, starts things off, including notes on the various districts and the important NPCs your characters might rub shoulders with. Notes on how all the core races and classes are represented in Korvosa come next, followed by some new equipment, weapons, and armor (some of which first appeared in the Runelords Player's guide, but others, like the sawtooth sabre, the doctor's mask, or the xxx, are brand new!). Several new feats are sprinkled throguhout the PDF as well (including one that gives fans of the crossbow some badly needed attention). The last few pages present several different background traits you can select for your new character to give him a instant "in" into Curse of the Crimson Throne's first adventure, "Edge of Anarchy." Oh, and the Golarion calendar is finally in print here as well—no more sifting back through blog posts to find out what day of the week and what month it is!
So go download your free Player's Guide, break out the six-sided dice, and start rolling up some stats! Korvosa's going to need all the heroes she can get before this Adventure Path comes to its concludsion!
James Jacobs Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief
Sneak Peek: Seven Days to the Grave
Friday, February 15th, 2008
Enjoy this interior art from Curse of the Crimson Throne Chapter 2: "Seven Days to the Grave." Just don't breathe too deep...
During Ulduvai's final days, when its citizens were caught in the slow but inevitable decline of their once-great civilization, as one by one the other flying cities fell to decadence, disease, conquest, or other misfortune, a strange wanderer arrived in the city and brought with him a relic of uncertain origin but undeniable power. This mysterious outsider found within the city fertile soil: citizens both corrupt enough to submit to perversions that others would find unthinkable, and desperate enough to try anything to escape a fate that seemed as certain as the stars.
Before long, the cult had grown to control much of the city, and at its head were three powerful sorcerers. On a dark night when the time was right, these three leaders brought the cultists together and channeled arcane power through the artifact, seeking to unlock the mysteries of creation and become living gods. The results were not what they expected.
Now, centuries later, these three cultists still linger amongst the ashes of their former civilization. Each controls a separate area of the city, and each is convinced that, given the right tools and enough time, he can return Ulduvai to its former glory and banish the chaos that has warped the city almost beyond recognition. Yet no matter what they do and what secrets they unlock, they are no closer to the answers they seek now than they were on that fateful night centuries ago.
"We had expected, upon looking back, to see a terrible and incredible moving entity if the mists were thin enough; but of that entity we had formed a clear idea. What we did see—for the mists were indeed all too maliguly thinned—was something altogether different, and immeasurably more hideous and detestable. It was the utter, objective embodiment of the fantastic novelist's 'thing that should not be...'
...It was a terrible, indescribable thing vaster than any subway train—a shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming as pustules of greenish light all over the tunnel-filling front that bore down upon us, crushing the frantic penguins and slithering over the glistening floor that it and its kind had swept so evilly free of all litter. Still came that eldritch, mocking cry—'Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!'"
And now, here we are in 2008! We've got a lot of exciting stuff planned for 2008, but there's just as much that's still evolving. Now's a great time to head on over to our messageboards and let us know what kind of products and adventures and blog posts you'd like to see from Paizo in the coming year. Who'd like to hear a Paizo Podcast? Is anyone interested in seeing a sequel to a particular GameMastery Module? Is there a market for Pathfinder miniatures? Don't be shy! We can't make things you want if you don't tell us you want them, right?
Anyway, I don't have all that much to say or show off today. The Paizo offices are closed, and I got the honor of writing today's post. And I'm too distracted by New Year-related shenanigans to write much more, so check out my favorite picture from Pathfinder #5—some foolish runelord calling upon the dread Oliphaunt of Jandelay!
Long ago, before the Age of Darkness, in a time when powerful empires of magic ruled the land the arcanatons were first seen on Golarion. Drawn by the confluence of magical power, these creatures are the raw stuff of arcane energy given life and form. Powerful in their own right, when given a source of magic upon which to feed, they become nearly unstoppable.
But times change and empires fall. In the darkness that followed Starfall, much was lost, and as power left the world these creatures of arcane energy withered and died, deprived of the magical power that they needed for sustenance. Only a few linger still, tied to the rare relics of power that still remain from those ancient times.
Long the self-proclaimed masters of magical power, the many races of dragons thrived on Golarion while humanity was still little more than savage beasts. It was they who learned the secrets of summoning and binding these creatures of elemental magic, and they yet remain the dragons' servants, ever watchful for arcane adepts that would plunder the treasures of their masters. When it came time to construct an important symbol of their power, it was inevitable that they would choose to include arcanatons among the Guardians of Dragonfall.
I've mentioned before my fondness for H. P. Lovecraft and his mythos of insane and malignant Great Old Ones, and starting in Pathfinder #4, the world of Golarion gets its first real taste of the Cthulhu Mythos—pictured here is a hound of Tindalos, one of the new monsters in this volume's bestiary.
These strange time-traveling, soul-eating monstrosities were invented by Frank Belknap Long back in 1929 in his short story, "The Hounds of Tindalos," but they should be no strangers to those familiar with the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game published by Chaosium (itself one of the longest-lived continually-in-print RPGs ever—check them out at chaosium.com). Any self-respecting gamer looking for more inspiration on the hounds of Tindalos (or cosmic horror of any flavor) should certainly check out the huge line of books and adventures that have been produced for Call of Cthulhu for more. The actual game stats for the hounds as they appear here are pretty different than those from the Call of Cthulhu version, of course, but flavor transcends rules.
We'll be returning to Lovecraft country later on in Rise of the Runelords, getting a glimpse of the realm of Leng and unknown Kadath in Pathfinder #6, and now and then you'll be seeing other name drops occur. Yet don't expect don't expect Golarion to fall too completely into the clutches of the Great Old Ones. When the mythos rears its ugly head (or tentacles, or tongue, or color—whatever passes for a "head" in each monster's case) in Golarion, they have to be justified by the adventure's story and needs. In addition, that particular element needs to be something that doesn't feel out of place in the sword and sorcery genre. It also needs to not be tied to Earth. For example, Cthulhu himself is pretty much stuck in R'lyeh, which itself is located at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean (at South Latitude 47° 9', West Longitude 126° 43' for those of you with boats and death wishes)—it doesn't make sense to have him show up on Golarion, so don't expect his wiggly mug to pop in any time soon. Things that travel through the dimensions (like hounds of Tindalos) or come from remote corners of the universe (which are equally as far from Golarion as they are from Earth, really) or are from other realms entirely (or, in the case of Leng or Kadath, are other realms) are all fair game.
You've heard the legends, now witness the awesome glory of Black Magga! Read all about her interdimensional horror in this sample spread from Pathfinder #3's Bestiary section: 552 KB zip PDF.
In his years of studying magical art, the sinister Imron Gauthfallow has collected a number of unique pieces from across the continent. But when he looted a spectacular piece from the abandoned mansion of a dead elven scholar, he got more than he bargained for. When he unveiled the painting in his own gallery, he unwittingly released a shadowy lurker.
These undead spirits of darkness were once the celebrated elven artisans. Betrayed by their own pride, ages ago they were tricked by the fey of the First World and bound away into shadow. Twisted by their hatred and loneliness, they were transformed into stunted, shadowy versions of their former selves. In time they discovered portals back to the real world. Ironically, these "portals" were in fact the paintings they had crafted so many centuries before, collected in galleries all across Golarion. Obsessed with their lost lives, the shadowy lurkers found their own works, and jealously guarded them from being seen by lesser beings. Over time, the shadowy lurkers have learned to manipulate the minds of people in the same way they used to play with paint and brush. Masters of light and illusion, they can be a deadly trap for the unsuspecting art enthusiast.
The idea of paintings coming to life is certainly not new. It's been excellent fodder for horror movies for years. It's surprising, therefore, that not much has been done with the concept in classic fantasy. The upcoming edition in our GameMastery Modules line tries to fill in that gap somewhat by bringing you Imron Gauthfallow and his Gallery of Evil.
Some of Imron's most useful discoveries in his quest for revenge are the painted creations. These creatures are crafted from nothing more than paint and imagination. Crafted as facsimiles of real creatures, they posses the mindless obedience and indomitable nature of automations. Perhaps their most frightening quality, however, is that a painted creation can replicate almost any creature and, to the unobservant, can easily be mistaken for the real thing.
The folks over at The Saving Throw are launching a new monster design contest, and they've picked Paizo Publisher Erik Mona and Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief James Jacobs to be their celebrity judges. Read on to find out how you can win some swag and gain serious bragging rights!
From The Saving Throw:
Ever fancied yourself a master monster creator? Ever built a monster solely for the thrill of the TPK? Now is your chance to use that skill to score yourself some loot. Simply submit your monster, template, or new race to savingthrow@rpgamer.com. Be sure to include stats, a sample monster, a detailed description, and any other information such as tactics, ecology, and lore regarding the monster. Sketches are not necessary, but feel free to include them. The Saving Throw staff will narrow the submissions down to seven and then our guest celebrity judges, Erik Mona and James Jacobs, will choose a grand prize winner and runner up. We have a copy of Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk, autographed by the authors Erik Mona, James Jacobs, and Jason Bulmahn, and the other prize we have is a copy of Shadowdale: The Scouring of the Land. The grand prize winner has his or her choice of which title they want.
Rules:
1. All submitted materials must be submitted by October 7th at 11:59:59 PM PDT.
2. All submitted materials must conform to OGL/3.5 rules.
3. By submitting an entry in this contest, you give RPGamer the right to post said materials on www.rpgamer.com.
4. Winners will be notified via email on or before October 15th, 2007.
5. Winners must respond by within three business days, or another winner will be selected.
6. Judges' decisions are final.
7. This contest is open to anyone with a valid email address and valid mailing address, except for the employees of RPGamer and their immediate families, and the celebrity judges and their immediate families.
Pathfinder #2 is off at the printer, which means it's time to give you all a sneak peak at some of the fabulous art we've got going into this volume. From the lamia matriarch to the skinsaw cultist with his fearsome war razor, we're really proud of the visual element of Pathfinder #2, and these are just a drop in the bucket when you consider how much art we have jam-packed into this book. Enjoy!
With Pathfinder #2 currently on the proverbial slow boat from China, here's a sample spread from the bestiary to whet your appetite. Introducing: the boggard! Download the 528 KB zip PDF.
In Crown of the Kobold King we introduce the dwarven deity Droskar, God of Toil. Droskar's following began as a reaction against the bon vivant trends that pervaded the dwarven society of their day, instating a dreadful dogma of salvation through endless toil and brutal subservience to the Dark Smith, as Droskar was often called. The dwarves became slaves to their own industry, producing heaps of weapons, armor, and gear to appease their dark god. The wilderness around them was fed to Droskar's fires of industry, until the dwarves choked on their own black fumes and starved in the dust.
The rise of this new religion also saw the first appearance of a new undead monster associated with such endless toil: the forge spurned. When a dwarven worshiper of Droskar perishes, he is brought before his divine lord and judged. If the Master of the Dark Furnace finds him unworthy, he is pierced with burning barbs and returned to the world as a tormented undead creature on an accursed errand to gather souls for Droskar's Furnace. Forge spurned are consumed with their need to forge their soul chains, and prey upon any creature they feel they can easily best. If a forge spurned is felled and its chain taken by another, it seethes with dark fury. A forge spurned stops at nothing to retrieve its chain, lest it be forced to forge another, extending its period of burning torment.
Forge spurned resemble hulking dwarves wrapped in heavy steel chains. Their faces, hands, and bodies are riddled with glowing hot hooks and half-melted razor wire. Black smoke rises from their smoldering beards, framing a freakishly contorted face covered in ash and soot. The tormented beings heft black iron hammers in both hands, and the chains that drape their forms possess the malevolent life of angry metal serpents.
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