Gen Con Facebook Roundup

Friday, August 5, 2011

In addition to the live blog coverage of Gen Con, our intrepid staff has been posting photos to the official Paizo Facebook page to the delight of fans everywhere (as well as those of us stuck back at the office!)

We've rounded up some of their pictures from the show (so far) to show off for today's blog.

Mark Moreland and the Pathfinder Society Venture-Captains dine at the aptly-named "Pope Table."	Dave Gross signs copies of the new Pathfinder Tales novel Master of Devils at the Paizo Booth.

Of course, they haven't just been sharing snapshots from Gen Con, they've been showing off samples of Pathfinder Battles miniatures from WizKids:

Unpainted sample miniature for the Black Dragon promo miniature for Heroes and Monsters (for more information on Heroes and Monsters or future Pathfinder Battles releases, see our press release).

Painted samples of the Beginner Box Heroes minis.	Ezren and Merisiel face off against the Black Dragon in a recreation of the Beginner Box cover art.

As you can see, we're as excited about Pathfinder Battles as all of you are.

Ross Byers
Assistant Software Developer

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Adventure Begins Here!

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

The first RPG product I ever purchased came in a red box, with a fighter laying the smack down on a red dragon. I was 12 and I've never stopped gaming since. I suspect that this fall some young whippersnappers will see this Beginner Box, pick it up, and begin their own journey into this great hobby of ours. With this amazing art from Wayne Reynolds, how can they not? And what can you do to make their journey easier?

Hyrum Savage
Marketing and Organized Play Manager

Golarion Day: Inner Sea World Guide Preview

Thursday, March 3, 2010

OMG! GUESS WHAT HAPPENS NEXT WEEK? THE INNER SEA WORLD GUIDE DOES!

Seems like I've been working on this book for a year. Oh, wait. That's pretty much correct. Feels good that it's finally about to hit store shelves and reach subscribers. In the meantime... as proof that it exists... here are five screen shots I just took of five pages from the book, to whet appetites and let folks know just how awesome looking this book is going to be.

James Jacobs
Creative Director

Illustration by Daren Bader. Wallpaper design by Crystal Frasier. Widescreen version here.

A Plague on All Your Houses!

Friday, February 25, 2011

The latest Pathfinder Tales novel, Plague of Shadows, has started shipping to subscribers and stores. In this novel, written by sword and sorcery icon Howard Andrew Jones, the race is on to free Lord Stelan from the grip of a wasting curse, and only Elyana, his old elven adventuring companion and former lover, has the wisdom and reflexes to save him. When the villain turns out to be another of their former companions, Elyana and a band of ragtag adventurers must set out on a perilous race across the revolution-wracked nation of Galt and the treacherous Five Kings Mountains, bound for the mysterious Vale of Shadows. But even if they can succeed in locating the key to Stelan’s salvation in a lost valley of weird magic and nightmare beasts, the danger isn't over. For Elyana's companions may not all be what they seem.

Plague of Shadows is straight up old-school fantasy adventure. Bands of heroes race to complete a quest fighting dragons and other monsters along the way. This wallpaper showcases Elyanna fighting an umbral dragon (check out Bestiary 2 to see its stats!) inside the Vale of Shadows. To learn how the fight ends, pick up your copy of Plague of Shadows today either here at paizo.com or at your local bookstore.

Hyrum Savage
Marketing and Organized Play Manager

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Design Tuesdays

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

2011 is here at last, and with the start of the new year, we've got a new program that we are happy to unveil. Every Tuesday, you are going to see a blog from one of the members of the design team (that being Sean K Reynolds, Stephen Radney MacFarland, or myself), looking into the mechanics of the game and giving you tips, tricks, and tools to make your game run smoothly and easily.

I am hoping to use these blogs to present new and interesting rules and ideas to use at the game table, perhaps even a few serials, where we explore a concept or idea more deeply. For example, we might run a series of blogs that explore intelligent magic items and how they can be used in your game, giving you a host of samples, and presenting a few new abilities. Or, we might spend a few weeks looking at the rules for afflictions, and adding a couple of new curses, diseases, and poisons to use in your game. Now, I have a list of ideas for what we might use to fill up this space, but here at the outset, I thought it might be useful to ask you, the reader, what you want to see appear in this space. I'll leave the campaign-specific material and preview for the other days of the week—this space will be used exclusively to look at the rules of the game.

I want to hear what you want to see. Check out this thread on our messageboards and add your thoughts to the growing discussion. See you next week.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

Illustrations by Eric Belisle and Wayne Reynolds. Widescreen version here.

Release the Hordes!

December 31, 2010

It’s the last day of 2010, and once again the Paizo offices are closed, this time in honor of the new year. It’s been an amazing 2010 here at Paizo, and we managed to cap it with a great new hardcover book. Bestiary 2 has begun to arrive in stores and in hands around the world, making it easy to surprise your players with new monsters during your games this weekend. Bestiary 2 is full of some great adversaries for you to defeat, and the poster we recently released will help you keep track of which ones have met their demise at the hands of your players. In honor of both the new year and the release of Bestiary 2, here’s another great wallpaper from our art team!

Hyrum
Marketing and Organized Play Manager

Mega Monster Meltdown!

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

All these Bestiary 2 monsters are CR 20 or higher. Deal with it!

If you can.

Illustration by Eric Belisle	Illustration by Eva Widermann
Illustrations by Jorge Maese

Wes Schneider
Managing Editor

Vanquished Beasts!

Friday, October 1, 2010

If you've been paying attention over the last few weeks, you've probably noticed a lot of talk about the whole office putting great effort into wrapping up the forthcoming Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Bestiary 2. Well, as of the end of the day Wednesday, the beasts—over 300 of them— were successfully wrangled into line, made to look sharp, and shipped off to the printer. Look for Bestiary 2 in bookstores, hobby stores, and on paizo.com in November. In celebration of this event, check out these lovely images:

Art by Eric Belisle	Art by Eva Widermann
Art by Hector Ortiz	Art by Craig J. Spearing

Mark Moreland
Developer

2 Many Monsters!

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

This is the final week of editing before we ship the Bestiary 2 off to the printer and that means the whole office is neck deep in monsters. Since we've nowhere else to put them in the ever-more-crowded editorial pit, I thought a nice way to get them out from underfoot would be to exile a few to the blog. So here are a handful of beasties we no longer need immediately on hand. Enjoy!

Art by Damian Mammoliti	Art by Andrew Hou
Art by Florian Stitz	Art by Andrew Hou

Mark Moreland
Developer

Snicker snack!

Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 03:24 PM Pacific

OMG! Reaper is showing off the jabberwocky mini taken from the Bestiary 2 cover. Wow!

Lisa Stevens
CEO

Chaos Unleashed!

Friday, July 30, 2010

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Before the spoilers start rolling at Gen Con next week, behold the cover to your Bestiary 2!

Tune in Monday to see if we can top this incredible cover.

Wes Schneider
Managing Editor

Ghostwalk doodle

Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 01:36 PM Pacific

after the modules seminar

Sean K Reynolds
Developer

GameMastery Guide Preview: It's Here!

Thursday, June 17, 2010

	Illustration by Andrew Hou

As I write this Cosmo is standing in our warehouse, shin deep in packing Styrofoam, yelling about "peanuts" to anyone who passes by. Such strangeness might be chalked up to the daunting nature of his task—though it is hard to tell with Cos—as he's surrounded by huge walls of boxes filled with books. Guides, of a sort. GameMastery Guides, even. Which he's helping to ship out right now. That's right, the GameMastery Guide is shipping at this very moment. Tomorrow at PaizoCon hundreds of gamers will pick up their copies of our newest hardcover, getting one of the world's first looks at this indispensable new arsenal for Pathfinder GMs. In the days and hours to follow, subscribers and game stores should also be receiving their copies (if they're not there already), so keep an eye on your mailboxes and store shelves. And if you don't have your copy spoken for already... well, I won't get into numbers, but you might want to speak up soon! They're on sale now, so the time is finally here!

With the wait being almost over I could close this out here... but that seems lame. But what's left to talk about? We've looked at the rules, the art, the crazy extra elements, the dozens of pregenerated NPCs, the hundreds of charts, the art again, and tons more. Well, how about we look at it all again—in a totally new way. Below is the complete index for the GameMastery Guide, listing every topic, every table, and every NPC in this giant. That's it. That's everything. The whole book. How's that for a preview?

So thanks to everyone for reading, commenting, and being so excited about one of this year's biggest releases. And if you haven't checked out the GameMastery Guides and my past previews already, just click on the "Game Mastering" tag below for a look back at what everybody's been talking about.

As for what's next, next week it's time for something completely different.

F. Wesley Schneider
Managing Editor

Release the Dragons!

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Whew... with all the mad rush to get so many books out to the printer in time for Gen Con, closely followed by the weird sort of "now we get a chance to relax/don't stop to relax or you'll fall behind schedule again!" fugue state, I have a little bit more time to think. And while thinking, I realized that we've pretty much sent the last two adventures in the Kingmaker Adventure Path off to the printer and have started working on the next Adventure Path, "Serpent's Skull," with barely any art previews at all.

So, presented here is art from Pathfinder Adventure Path #36's "Sound of a Thousand Screams." In order to keep folks guessing and throw some uncertainty into the mix, two of these are NPCs from the adventure, one's from the gazetteer of the First World, one's from the "Beyond Kingmaker" article where we talk about continuing your Kingmaker campaign beyond the final adventure, and one's from this volume's bestiary. And at least one of them is an illustration of a character we've named before in our campaign setting but have never illustrated before. And yes... there are a lot of twelve-sided Hit Dice rolling around in this adventure, if you know what I mean... better start working on your anti-breath weapon tactics!

Also, you can tell that our art director, Sarah Robinson, is still on vacation because we don't know who the artists were for these pictures, and thus aren't able to give artist credits. WE MISS YOU, SARAH!

James Jacobs
Creative Director

Dragon Slayers!

Thursday, May 13, 2010

The last five months have been an uphill slog for the entire Paizo team. The goal: produce more than 30 accessories, Adventure Path volumes, modules, maps, novels, and hardcover books, before May 12th—the date by which our August releases need to be to our printer. The task has been daunting, and at several points along the way seemed unlikely, but at 10:30 last night, with the shipping of the Advanced Player's Guide and a scant hour and a half to spare, we slew our literal editorial dragon. Such means not just that (barring calamity) we'll have a big hardcover at this year's Gen Con Indy but that our module and Pathfinder Adventure Path lines are on schedule (even ahead of schedule) for the first time ever! So check out some shots of the hectic last few days around here. As for us, I'd like to say it's time for celebration and long naps, but it seems like that's never the case: we've got far too many cool things in store to rest yet!

The recently slain editorial dragon! (And his fiction-related wyrming!) We've been coloring off sections every time a product ships. And this wasn't even everything!	Erik, Jeff, and Jason in the final moments of the APG. 10:30 p.m. 5/11/10
James, Sarah, and my firmly tied shoes in the final moments of the APG. 10:30 p.m. 5/11/10	James's whiteboard provides much information, most importantly on the status of our senior art directorix.
Jeff, Sarah, and a contemplative James check through the final proofs of the Advanced Player's Guide.	Erik did his invaluable executive proof of more than half the Advanced Player's Guide in two seemingly endless and near sleepless days.
Some editing marks are weird.	A big stack of slain corrections and double checks on the final proofs.
Jason makes his first and Paizo's last marks on the 2010 Editorial Dragon! Erik (playing the theme to Rocky), Crystal, Judy, Patrick, and Sarah look on.	Sutter coup de graces the Fiction Wyrming. James, Rob, and Chris assist.

Wes Schneider

Managing Editor

The GameMastery Countdown Begins!

Friday, April 30, 2009

In just about a month (give or take a week or so), the thousands of pages we set free into the wild promise to return to us in shiny blue binding as the complete GameMastery Guide. In the weeks leading up to the GMG's release we'll be previewing some of that tome's coolest and most innovative aspects right here on the blog. What to kick things off with ended up being a real tricky decision, though. So rather than focus on any one element, I've gone through the book and snipped a handful of shots to give you an idea of what to expect merely from the text of this behemoth. Look closely and you'll likely notice that some snippets tease more than just a chart here or a new rules concept there. Also, since—aside from Christopher Burdett's thematically relevant compass rose—I've gone totally art-light here, tune in next week for a look at some of the GameMastery Guide's incredible illustrations, including its official mascot!

		Illustration by Christopher Burdett

F. Wesley Schneider
Managing Editor

Illustration by Alex Aparin

One for the GMs

Thursday, February 11, 2010

My day... week... life as of late has pretty much been dominated by putting the final (-ish) touches on our next big hardcover, the GameMastery Guide. It's at that weird and exciting point right now where it's making that transition between a maddening number of .doc files and something at actually looks like a book. So between the dozens of tables, charts, stats, and hundreds of pages of advice, some pretty awesome art and incredible layouts are creeping in. While I'll save most of the really exciting parts for previews closer to this behemoth's release, I wanted to throw one of my favorite new half-page illustrations out there. For now, though, it's back to those endless tables. 100 dungeon features, here I come...

F. Wesley Schneider
Managing Editor

Gold Fever!

Monday, February 8, 2010

As I write this the finishing touches are going in on our newest Pathfinder Module, City of Golden Death, the climactic conclusion to the Price of Immortality campaign arc. Written by our own Events Manager, Joshua J. Frost, the adventure takes the PCs to the notorious Isle of Terror, where they'll face agents of the Living God Razmir, ageless menaces from ancient Thassilon, the undying machinations of the Whispering Tyrant himself, and even greater perils! Here's a sneak peak of some of the scenes your PCs can expect to face when the module releases in just a few short weeks. Enjoy!

Illustration by Andres Espara

Illustration by Jorge Maese

Wes Schneider
Managing Editor

Photography by James Jacobs

New Addition to the Paizo Family!

Monday, January 25, 2009

I have a pet pseudodragon! He guards my desk against unwanted intruders, shreds lackluster manuscripts for nesting material, chirps when I forget to go home at night, helps with insomnia, and spell checks documents for me! And if I can brag a bit... he was made by my mom for my birthday a few weeks ago! Apparently, it took her two years on and off to get him just right, with articulated and posable wings and legs, a tail filled with sand from the Point Arena beach (washed and cleaned, of course!), and sparkly hair that doesn’t quite show up as well in the photo as it does in real life. His name is Gwangi. Gaze upon his majesty!

And PS: That’s a map of the entire Stolen Lands just behind Gwangi. Think of it as an "accidental Kingmaker preview," even if you can’t really make out the details.

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

GameMastery Guide Cover!

Monday, October 5, 2009

I may have mentioned this before, but the main villain of Pathfinder’s first Adventure Path, Karzoug, was no stranger to tormenting PCs. He was one of my homebrew campaign’s major recurring characters—a powerful wizard who served as the true menace behind the throne of an evil warlord. In my homebrew, Karzoug wielded a scythe and had already made the transition to lich and wasn’t as concerned with greed, but he was very much still the campaign’s poster child for “evil wizard.” He eventually met his end when a pair of heroes, the barbarian Verik and the wizard Zefram, confronted Karzoug in, of all places, Baba Yaga’s dancing hut. Karzoug was trying to claim the hut’s legendary power source for his own evil purposes, and while this certainly annoyed Baba Yaga, she wasn’t about to give the PCs uncontested access to her magical fortress. And so these two high-level PCs snuck through the depths of the dancing hut filled with fear about breaking or even touching anything, avoiding every single encounter and trap through an uncharacteristic caution that, in the end, served them quite well. I’d intended them to finally reach Karzoug and have the final battle with the evil wizard after the PCs had depleted much of their resources dealing with the natives of Baba Yaga’s hut, and when they reached Karzoug with much of those resources untapped, I figured they deserved the advantage. Turns out, they needed that advantage anyway. Even in the 1st edition of the game, Karzoug was a menace.

And so, when it came to deciding on a villain to inflict upon Golarion, it was with quite a bit of pride and nostalgia that I resurrected old Karzoug. He’d changed specializations (necromancer to transmuter) and weapons (scythe to glaive) and got a promotion (from the power behind the throne to the guy who sits on the throne), but in a lot of other ways he remained the same. Of course, getting Wayne Reynolds to illustrate him was one of the more surreal moments of my gaming career... and now, seeing him on the cover of our upcoming GameMastery Guide, that sense of surreal pride has returned. Wayne Reynolds has done a fantastic job making Karzoug epitomize the role of "super-powerful wizard." Take a moment to look through all of his stuff! Caged imp, pet blue dragon, throne manacles for prisoners, spellbooks casually stacked to the side, crazy crystal ball with some sort of apparatus wrapped around it, a throne that can probably see—and that doesn’t even touch all of his fancy magical equipment he’s got ready to ruin the next PC to step his way!

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Preview #14

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook releases tomorrow at Gen Con and game stores around the country. Over the past 14 weeks, we have look at all of the core classes and one of the prestige classes that can be found in the book. We've taken a look at a host of feats, spells, and magic items, as well as a few other rules bits along the way. This week, we are investigating the most important rule in the game. Not surprisingly, it is also one of the first rules in the book.

This is your game.

The rules in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook are presented to help you tell the stories that you want to tell. They are organized to help speed up play and enrich your world. You might find that, through play, some of these rules do not suit your style of play or do not serve the story you are trying to tell. Feel free to change them. Sit down with your group and discuss what "house rules" you are going to use as part of your campaign. Add, subtract, or even polymorph these rules to fit your needs. If you are the Game Master, you should work with your group to determine what changes are appropriate. If you are a player, remember that the GM is the final arbiter, but do not be afraid to make suggestions or bring new rules to the table for him to review. When you play the Pathfinder RPG, we want to make sure that you have fun. The rules are there to serve that goal, not to stand in the way.

Since this is the last preview, I want to take just a moment to thank all of the playtesters that spent countless hours playing, reviewing, and critiquing the Beta version of the game. I think you will find that they had a large influence on the final design and deserve a great deal of credit for all of its improvements. It was a lot of work to weed through over 100,000 messageboard posts, but the final game makes all of that effort worth it. If you were part of the Alpha or Beta playtests, I would like to say thank you.

As of this posting, a number of folks have already received their rulebooks, and discussions are already taking place on our messageboards about the changes and additions to the game. So, instead of talking about the rules, I wanted to close this preview with a look at some of the fabulous art that you will find in the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook. The Core Rulebook is available in stores and at our booth at Gen Con starting tomorrow. See you on the boards.

Illustrations by Jason Engle

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

Snagged from the Vault: Pathfinder #23—The Impossible Eye

Monday, April 27, 2009

It is with the greatest pleasure that we are able to bring you some fantastic art with which to start your week. Featured here is the cover to Pathfinder Adventure Path #23: The Impossible Eye, painted by Jesper Ejsing. Valeros looks like he's really gotten in over his head this time!

Vadid and Nahk
Preview Purloiners

Imprisoned by Flame
A world of fire and wonder awaits! The path of the planes is fickle and the PCs' road home proves far more difficult than any had anticipated. Emerging from the pleasure plane of Kakishon reveals all the wealth and terror of a vast efreeti palace tightly sealed by ancient magics and situated at the heart of the incredible City of Brass. In this lavish citadel of sculpted flame, the PCs find hints into the burning obsession of their hidden foe. But will their discoveries be of any help to their imperiled world, hidden away in some distant reality? And can they ever hope to escape a prison that has, for untold centuries, imprisoned some of the most powerful creatures of a realm of endless flame?

Artist: Tyler Walpole	Artist: Ben Wootten

Art of Dragons Revisited

Friday, January 2, 2009

So with all of the snow we've been having lately, I thought it'd be appropriate to show off some cold-weather-appropriate artwork. As it turns out, we've got just the thing in the upcoming Dragons Revisited—an entire chapter on white dragons! There's a chapter on all ten of the classic dragons, in fact, but it's those white dragons I'm afraid about whenever I wander outside these days.

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Illustration by Daren Bader

Dragon on Dragon Action

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

With the runaway success of Classic Monsters Revisited, it was pretty much just a matter of time before we started work on the second in what is going to be a series of books that takes well-known monsters from the game and examines them in detail, ten per book. The fact that there are ten dragons in the core rules made the subject for the second book in the series a no-brainer. Check out the cover illustration for that book, Dragons Revisited, here!

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Amiri Just Loves Fightin' Dragons!

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

As the title and art may suggest, our iconic barbarian just loves tusslin' with great winged wyrms! This lovely bit of art is just one component of the cover to Pathfinder #15, "The Armageddon Echo," unfettered by logo or iconic image. Unfettered, I say! I hope you enjoy!

Jacob Burgess
Online Retail Coordinator

"There Are More Things In Heaven and Earth..."

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

In the past few weeks we've talked and teased a lot about what's in the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting hardcover. There have been mentions of peoples and races and countries and organizations, but what's beyond that? In fact, what's beyond Golarion? Does "campaign setting" have to mean just one land, one world, one planet? Or might it mean a whole reality?

The Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting tackles just that question. Personally, I've always been fascinated with planeswalking, and my favorite adventures usually take place in realms beyond the mortal world... and I think James wrote something about a demon once somewhere. It also turns out that the credits for this monster feature Todd Stewart, a modern expert and the go-to guy for fantasy cosmologies. So we got Todd to tackle a new take on the realms beyond the mortal plane. Welcome to the Great Beyond.

Chapter 3 of the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting delves into the realities beyond reality, the domains of the gods, and the organization of the spheres. Aside from deities both familiar and new, there are discussions of new races, non-godly powers fit for worship, musings on planar dragons, a complete map of the spheres, and details on more than a dozen planes (each an entire realm brimming with planar adventure). Looking through the chapter, a few tantalizing headers scroll by: "Norgorber: The Reaper of Reputation," "Sivanah: The Seventh Veil," "Thirteen Demon Lords," "Six Empyreal Lords," "The Whispering Way," "The Maelstrom"—the list goes on and on. In fact, for all you planeswalkers out there, here's a taste:

The Maelstrom/Limbo
Collectively referred to as the Maelstrom, vast swathes of uncharted, unclaimed terrain borders and surrounds each of the Outer Planes. Mysterious and dangerous wild lands untouched by the gods, these regions lack the cohesive stability present in all of the other planes; even the hellish depths of the Abyss possess a structure that the Maelstrom does not. Rather than some ever-changing sea of randomness, when viewed from the edge of another plane, the Maelstrom appears much like that of its adjacent neighbor. The differences grow more profound further away from the stabilizing anchor of the borderlands, eventually falling back into the mutable freedom of perpetual change. The Maelstrom defies the efforts of mapmakers, as its very character shifts and flows like the tide of an unseen ocean, to which the borderlands are but shores and calm shallows.

Crystalline forests melt like candle wax into shallow brine seas with jewel-like icebergs, and then sublimate to vast parched deserts, all within the stretch of days. Still, islands of stability do exist within the depths of the Maelstrom. These islands are ruled by petty gods, exiled fiends, and fallen celestials, and even the rare stronghold of a mortal wizard or priest-king can be found holding itself against the metaphysical lapping tide.

Creatures wandering in from the structured planes, long since grown native, populate the Maelstrom's borderlands, often possessing characteristics and behaviors at odds from their origins. Deeper still, chaos beasts, chaos incarna, and the mysterious serpentine proteans thrive within an environment of plastic potentiality. Claiming to be the first children of the Outer Planes, the keketar, imentesh, and naunet proteans worship godlike beings they refer to as the Speakers From the Depths, whom scholars speculate to be something akin to a pair of conjoined gods or a single dualistic entity.

The Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting hardcover and several infinities worth of new adventures hits shelves this August!

F. Wesley Schneider
Pathfinder Managing Editor

A Glimpse Into the Heart of the Beast!

Friday, June 13, 2008

The Pathfinder Campaign Setting Hardcover is soon upon us and the anticipation around here is palpable (tastes like pancakes, incidentally)! Getting to see, and be a part of, the flurry of activity here is a great part of the job! Allow me to foster and nurture some of that anticipation in you by sharing some of the fantastic art that is going into this beast of a book. Enjoy!

Jacob Burgess
Online Retail Coordinator

Meet Freezemaw!

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

One of the early lessons I learned working on adventures for Dungeon was that RPG players have an extra level of demands when it comes to dragons. You can throw pretty much any other monster into an adventure without worry, but if you want to include a dragon, you'd best be sure said dragon has a history and personality. And honestly, the readers are right (as they often are). Dragons shouldn't be throwaway encounters. They shouldn't just wander by as a result of a wandering monster result. In Pathfinder, I'm going to try to make sure that whenever we have a dragon appearing in the adventure, he or she has a story. Especially, as in the case of Pathfinder #5, when the dragon appears on the cover.

The white dragon on the cover is Arkrhyst—called Freezemaw by the Shoanti—an old white dragon who has lived on Rimeskull for 50 years. In his youth several centuries ago, Arkrhyst was a great and hated enemy of the Shoanti; his raids on the nomads of the Velashu Uplands and the western Storval Plateau were legendary, and many of those tribes still sing of these dark times, and of the countless heroes who sought out his home on Rimeskull to defeat him. None accomplished this goal, but as Arkrhyst grew older, his urge to raid grew less. Content now with the reputation he earned, he sleeps for years at a time on his considerable store of treasure, dreaming of his youthful rampages.

Of course, Freezemaw's only one of many menaces that wait for PCs brave enough to seek out the legendary dungeon of Runeforge in Pathfinder #5—but he's certainly one of the adventure's more memorable villains!

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Dragons of Golarion

Monday, December 3, 2007

So in Pathfinder #4, we finally get around to talking about dragons in our world. We knew going in that this volume's adventure would feature Pathfinder's first official dragon fight (immortalized by Wayne Reynolds in the alternate cover to Pathfinder #1), but we didn't want to stop there. Dragons are the name of the game, and we needed to make sure that ours were distinct enough so that they looked different, but at the same point they had to look like dragons. That meant horns, sharp teeth, long necks, wings, the works. And further, we needed to know about their history, gods, society, clans and bloodlines, physiology and psychology, language, variants, and more.

Fortunately, Mike McArtor is not only exuberant when it comes to dragons, but he's also a great writer (and should it come to it, I know where he lives if his promised words end up being late). They weren't, and in Pathfinder #4 you'll be treated to "Dragons of Golarion: The Myth and the Flame," an article that covers the basics of the dragons of our world.

Oh, and it's got head shots of all ten classic dragons; the five chromatics and the five metallics. Wes will only let me show you two of those ten, so I guess I'll go for the two big guys: gold and red. Check out their majesty!

James Jacobs
Editor-in-Chief, Pathfinder

Wayne Does It Again!

Monday, October 15, 2007

Wayne Reynolds just delivered the cover painting for Pathfinder #5: Sins of the Saviors, and man, is it a doozy! Looks like Valeros has learned a valuable lesson about what it means to play meat-shield for the party when there's a dragon involved.... Click the image for a larger version.

James Sutter
Assistant Editor, Pathfinder

Conquering the Vale

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

There are a lot of things I like about dragons. They're iconic, they fly, they have breath weapons, they're deadly in melee, and they're incredibly intelligent (for the most part). Unfortunately, this usually puts them in the role of "boss monster" or lone combatant. Fighting against a host of dragons either feels a bit out of place or is reserved for very high-level characters. True dragons are also kind of a pain to generate, unlike other monsters.

For GameMastery Module W1: Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale, I really wanted to include a dragon-like monster that was easy to use and could be used in a group, without having to resort to the oft-overused half-dragon template. Enter the flame drake. This offshoot of dragonkind is a degenerate cousin of true dragons that breeds true. Like true dragons, these drakes have breath weapons, can fly, and are dangerous in melee. Unlike true dragons, however, flame drakes are less cunning, prove far less resilient, and do not age like true dragons, making them easier to use both alone and as part of a group (in their case, a rampage of 3–12).

Flame drakes in particular (and there will be other drake types) can unleash a ball of flame that works like a fireball every few rounds. They also have a rather nasty bite that deals a bit of fire damage with each chomp. Finally, flame drakes can call on their draconic heritage a few times per day to take an extra move action. All in all, they're a nasty critter that falls solidly in the CR 5 range. Dangerous? You bet, but nothing that a group of PCs set on taming the deadly wilderness of the Bloodsworn Vale can't handle. Their master, on the other hand, is another story entirely.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager

...And the Dragon Comes in the Niiiiiight!

Friday, April 27, 2007

Just wanted to drop by and give you all a sneak preview of some brand new cover art we got in just in time for the weekend. They say a picture's worth a thousand words, but I'd wager that this one's worth about 22,000... which, incidentally, is how long Jason Bulmahn's W1: Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale module will be when it's all finished. In this 32-page adventure, heroes will be pitted against twisted, evil fey as they fight to reclaim Bloodsworn Vale and reestablish overland trade routes between Varisia and the world beyond. But as this beautifully executed painting from WETA and Savage Tide alumnus Warren Mahy shows us, evil fey are just the beginning of the adventurer's problems....

James Sutter
Assistant Editor, Pathfinder