Illustrations by Kerem Beyit. Wallpaper design by Crystal Frasier. Widescreen version here.
Snakes, I Hate Snakes!
Friday, January 28, 2011
I've been in the gaming industry for a decade now and I still get a smile on my face when new product arrives from the printer and I get to thumb through it for the first time. This week was a banner week as I got preview copies of Flip-Mat Village Square, the new Pathfinder Tales novel Plague of Shadows from sword and sorcery master Howard Andrew Jones, and the theme for this week's wallpaper: "Sanctum of the Serpent God," part 6 of the Serpent Skull Adventure Path. This awesome piece showcases
Spoiler:
Vyr-Azul, the High Priest of Ydersius, the insidious villain of Serpent Skull who plans to restore his god and usher in a new Age of Serpents. You'll finally meet him at the heart of the serpent-god's sanctum, and the fate of Golarion hangs in the balance!
It’s been a long, frosty weekend and we’re still a little lethargic, but lets start things back off right. Check out what’s coming around the corner in the final installment of the Serpent Skull Adventure Path with Pathfinder Adventure Path #42: “Sanctum of the Serpent God.”
We were happy to see the latest volume of the Serpent's Skull Adventure Path starting to make its way to subscribers this week, and that means it's time to start touting the next awesome volume, Vaults of Madness by Greg A. Vaughan.
I'm currently playing this AP (having a great time as a monk/paladin of Irori in Paizo.com messageboard member Karui Kage's game), so I've tried to keep from poring over the existing installments of this campaign, but it can be hard to avoid the art. So while I don't know who or what these pictures represent, here are a few (hopefully spoiler-free) images from Pathfinder Adventure Path #40, which we expect to start shipping next month.*
Tom Rex Found some Dinosaur Art for you Delicious People!
Friday, October 29, 2010
Greetings, meat-flavored fans! What's the scoop? Tom noticed that there is a shocking... no, criminal lack of dinosaur-themed art on this blog. Tom realized this when the Boss changed his messageboard avatar that there was unknown dinosaur artwork lurking on Paizo's servers. Tom likes dinosaur pictures, because they inspire Tom. And because Tom is so much more handsome in real life, dinosaur art makes Tom feel better about his tiny forelimbs and the recent scandals about Tom being a cannibal. (What can Tom say! Tom's friends and family are delicious.)
Anyway, back on subject, Tom! Tom went sniffing through the still-to-be-published art (did you know that Tom's olfactory senses are among the most highly developed in the world? Tom can smell you wherever you hide, so it's better to not bother and just let Tom eat you alive is what Tom is saying). And not only did he find the image that Boss Jacobs stole for his new avatar, but three others! Two from some big book about monsters, and another from some book about some sort of lost city with a big lake in the middle where there are dinosaurs. One of them is not REALLY a dinosaur, but Tom still has fond memories of the Todd Tylosaurus and his megalodon gumbo, so Tom's okay including him in the art preview. That's the scoop on that!
P.S. Sarah is on another continent. Tom, as a result, doesn't known who the artists are for these wonderful pictures. So don't ask Tom who made this art! Tom assumes the artists are yummy, though, and you don't need to know someone's name to know that. That's also the scoop on that.
Paizo sure has been hiring quite a few new people of late. I came on board as a Developer at the beginning of the month, and we just announced yesterday that Hyrum Savage will be joining the team as Marketing Manager. The third new hire of the fall is none other than Andrew Vallas, who started after Labor Day. As Graphic Designer he's been a lifesaver, taking some of the workload off Art Director Sarah Robinson as she puts the finishing touches on Save Doctor Lucky. So far, Andrew's time has been taken up with last minute changes to the Bestiary 2 as we approach the finish line for shipping that to the printer, and laying out Pathfinder Player Companion: Inner Sea Primer and Pathfinder Module: The Godsmouth Heresy.
Andrew first found Paizo while using art from Pathfinder as mini-painting inspiration and through the Planet Stories line of fiction. He attended PaizoCon in June, where he not only played his first Pathfinder game after last rolling dice during the days of 2nd Edition, but he attended the art seminars and met with Sarah, and the rest is history.
And since Andrew works so hard in Paizo's Art Department, we thought it fitting to use his introduction as an opportunity to display some of the incredible art coming to your gaming table next month in Pathfinder Adventure Path #39: "City of Seven Spears"!
There's a line when it comes to what sort of material we put in our products. We try not to tread over the boundary of what might be offensive, provoking, or generally beyond what you might see in a PG-13 rated movie. But every now and then we test those limits—or abjectly bound past them. In Pathfinder Adventure Path #39, the ol' "questionable content" line gets a little hazy; not because of sex or violence, or whatever have you, but because of religion.
There's no doubt religious elements influence the characters and plots of the Pathfinder RPG—clerics, paladins, monks, and witches are playable classes after all, and untold armies of cultists have fallen before legions of adventurers. But we've long danced around one religious tradition with a lengthy history of involvement in sword and sorcery fantasy: voodoo.
We've kept away from this topic—one I've personally wanted to cover since back in the Dragon magazine days—for several reasons, the primary one being that vodou is a living religion practiced and respected in several parts of the world, and no one here knows enough about it to judge what might be offensive. What we do know about, though, are films like The Serpent and the Rainbow and stories like Robert E. Howard's "Hills of the Dead" or "Black Canaan." We also know the "juju zombie," a toughened up zombie who's been in RPGs for years and years (with a name inspired by African fetish magic and in, coincidentally, Bestiary 2). So, motivated by the Advanced Player's Guide's presentation of the oracle, a divine caster who worships a pantheon of patrons and cultivates a host of strange abilities, now seemed like a perfect time to test our luck and take a swing at a new tradition of magic inspired not so much by real-world vodou but more by voodoo films, stories of bayou magic, and swamp and sorcery fantasy.
All of this comes together in Mike Shel's article in Pathfinder Adventure Path #39's "The Path of Juju." Now, oracles can look forward to a new juju mystery allowing them to tap into the mysterious secrets of nature's deadliest wildernesses, while casters of all types might create a host of strange new magical items, from soul trapping powders to the infamous ganji doll. It's all in there, ready for GMs looking to tell tales of swamp magic and mystery or PCs ready to challenge the cities of men with the true power of their ancient beliefs.
Greetings, delicious humanoids! What's the scoop? My name is Tom. Tom Rex. Tom normally doesn't talk to Tom's lunch, but Boss Sutter said Tom has to in this case, and since Boss Sutter is all skin and bones and beans and peanut butter, and thus not edible to Tom's discerning palate, Tom has no recourse but to do what Boss Sutter says. So here Tom is, talking to things that should be screaming as Tom chews them. But Tom is okay with that, because Tom needs his paycheck.
Boss Sutter said Tom should put James Jacobs's original map turnover on this blog, so that you squawking morsels might be able to use it as a handout in your Serpent's Skull games, but Tom can't find the map. Tom thinks it's at the back of one of the shelves, and Tom's arms can't reach that far, and anyone who makes fun of Tom's arms WILL be eaten. That's the scoop on that.
So instead, Tom just kicked in the door to the map archive room, ate the guards, stepped on their stupid robot defenders, and picked up the big untagged map of Smuggler's Shiv in Tom's teeth. Then Tom put it behind the spoiler button on this post. If you're a player in a Smuggler's Shiv game, Tom will kick your ass. Right up into Tom's mouth, where Tom will eat you. So don't peek! The map behind the spoiler button is for GMs only, who want to present a blank map to their players once they find a map of Smuggler's Shiv during the course of the adventure. GOT IT?
Spoiler:
Cartography by Robert Lazzaretti
As for what Tom thinks of the triceratops/torosaurus debacle... doesn't matter to Tom. They're equally delicious whatever their names are. That's the scoop on that!
With the first adventure in the Serpent's Skull Adventure Path, the PCs are shipwrecked on the notorious island of Smuggler's Shiv. But fortunately for the fragile 1st-level characters, they won't be alone against cannibals in the jungle, ghosts in the surf, dimorphodons in the sky, eurypterids in the tide pools, and mysterious bat-winged night monsters. Because they aren't the only ones lucky enough to be stranded on Smuggler's Shiv.
Presented here are five other castaways whom the players will be getting to know quite well during the course of their stay on Smuggler's Shiv. A couple of you out there will probably recognize these characters, since they're the ones I had you play at PaizoCon during the Serpent's Skull preview game I ran. In the actual adventure, though, these five are NPCs, complete with their own secrets and emotional baggage and talents. Keeping these NPCs from killing each other and working together to survive is a key part of the adventure—and each has a fun little boon to grant the PCs if they become good friends. These five will continue to play roles in the campaign as the Adventure Path unfolds, and how the PCs interact with Aerys, Gelik, Ishirou, Jask, and Sasha can ultimately mean the difference between success or failure!
Hey, remember Pathfinder Adventure Path? What? Oh yeah, that thing. That thing we're always working on and we never blog about. We should write something up about that sometime. Yeah, we should. Okay!
This time around on our totally weekly preview of what's coming up in Pathfinder Adventure Path, we're talking interior covers! As you've all seen, in our endless battle against boredom and stagnation we mix up what's on the interior covers of Pathfinder from Adventure Path to Adventure Path. To play up the exotic exploration elements of the Serpent Skull Adventure Path, this time around we're coving these pages with descriptions and sketches taken from the field book of one of Golarion's most esteemed naturalists, detailing some of the wildest and weirdest flora and fauna of the Mwangi Expanse. Chuck Lukacs tackles the task of sketching out these strange life forms month after month, providing GMs with just a little extra when it comes to describing the incredible variety, strangeness, and deadliness of Garund's most dangerous jungles. Check out just one of the beasties detailed right behind the covers of Pathfinder Adventure Path #37—a creature PCs might have a very personal confrontation with in the first adventure of the Serpent Skull Adventure Path: "Souls for Smuggler's Shiv."
"Common Eurpterid"
"The waters around Smuggler's Shiv are thick with predators like sharks, giant crabs, and hungry eels, but the most pervasive may be the sea scorpions, more properly known as eurypterids. With a poisonous sting and the ability to chase prey out of the waves and onto land, these aggressive vermin should be avoided at all costs."
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!
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