2009 ENnie Nominations!

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

The dash toward the 2009 ENnie Awards has begun with Paizo accepting nominations in six categories, including a fan nomination for Best Publisher! These acknowledgments start off the process of honoring the best products and ideas in the last year of tabletop gaming, but in the end it all relies on you! Be sure to check back in with the ENnies this Friday when voting begins, giving you the chance to cast your ballot for your favorite games and accessories.

Here's this year's rundown of Paizo Products up for honors:

Best Cover Art
Pathfinder Adventure Path #19: Howl of the Carrion King

Best Adventure
Pathfinder Adventure Path #19: Howl of the Carrion King

Best Campaign Setting
Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting

Best Cartography
Pathfinder Chronicles Second Darkness Map Folio

   

Best Miniatures Product
Game Mastery Flip-Mat: Waterfront Tavern

Best Regalia
Planet Stories: Infernal Sorceress, by Gary Gygax

And a Fan Award for Best Publisher!

Check out all the publishers at the ENnies Awards homepage, and be sure to check back this Friday for your chance to cast your vote! Thanks to ENWorld and all of you for this year's nominations and the endless support!

Wes Schneider
Managing Editor

Demon Lords of Golarion

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

So, if you'll allow me a moment here to go off on a tangent that's near and dear to my black, twitching, tainted heart—let me talk for a bit about the demon lords of Golarion.

I've always been a fan of demons. I've written at length on my personal blog, on messageboards, in editorials, and in various books about this admiration of all things Abyssal. The one person I've met who can match (or exceed) this perfectly normal and perfectly healthy obsession is Erik Mona. So with both of us pulling some key strings behind the scenes of Golarion, it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that demon lords are going to play a pretty key role in the world.

With the new Second Darkness Adventure Path starting up, we'll be doing quite a bit with those demon lords. In the months to come, you can expect to see a few new demons popping into the Pathfinder Bestiary at times (including at least one well over CR 20 menace), at LEAST one prestige class for demon worshipers, and in Pathfinder #18, an 8-page article about the demon lords themselves. For those who can't wait that long, we've put a preview into the hardcover Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting that lists nearly 30 of the world's known demon lords.

To long-time players of the game, many of the names on that list will look familiar. Many of the names are from real-world mythology (perhaps with a few spelling changes here and there), while more than a few are classic demon lords that, thanks to Necromancer Games' Tome of Horrors, are open content. For now, this list in the hardcover is pretty much all we've got on our demon lords, but since so many of the demons are established names, I thought it'd be helpful to list where they're all from.

Real-World Mythology: Abraxas, Aldinach, Baphomet, Dagon, Flauros, Haagenti, Kostchtchie, Lamashtu, Nocticula, Orcus, Pazuzu, Shax, and Socothbenoth are all from various real-world myths (although in some cases, like Orcus, the real-world inspiration is a mythological place rather than a being).

Open Sources: A few old favorites, like Baphomet, Jubilex, Kostchtchie, and Pazuzu, appear in the Tome of Horrors Revised. Of these, Jubilex is the only one who doesn't really have a real-world mythological source. (Those interested in keeping track of which version is the open content Jubilex and which one isn't the open one need look no further than the spelling of his name, by the way.)

Brand New Demon Lords: And that leaves us with 16 brand new demon lords: the razor-edged Andirifkhu, the brutish simian Angazhan, the mysterious sphinx Areshkagal, the poisonous and fungoid Cyth-V'sug, the insectoid infestation Deskari (whose freaky swarming minions are illustrated here), the froglike and ravenous Gogunta, the murderous werewolf Jezelda, the ghoulish Kabriri, the creeping spider-thing Mazmezz, the deformed and hateful hag Mestama, the dangerously seductive Sifkesh, the troll god Urxehl, the stony gargoyle Xoveron, the dinosaurian troglodyte Xevgavizeb, and beautiful but vampiric Zura. I think that's all of them. These guys and gals were created specifically for Golarion (or in a few cases, imported from my own home-brew campaign world), and beyond a few mentions elsewhere in print, we haven't said much about them yet. That's a situation I hope to change over the next few months, though!

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

The Pathfinder Chronicles ABCs!

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Fantasy tales have a long and infamous history of creating new and difficult to pronounce words—not to mention inspiring decades-long arguments on how to say them. The Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting follows in this grand tradition. In the hopes of causing fewer games to grind to a halt over how to say "sceaduinar" (SKAY doo nahr), though, this 250+ page hardbound tome features a pronunciation guide of more than 300 words, ranging from Abadar (AH bah dar) to Zyphus (ZIE fess), drawn from Golarion and more than 35 years of fantasy RPG history. For a quick look—and a hint of what else you'll find inside—here's the Pathfinder Chronicles ABCs!

A is for Achaekek (uh CHAY kek), assassin of gods.
B is for Barbatos (BAR ba tus), who bears Hell's keys.
C is for Castrovel (KAHS tro vehl), up in the sky.
D is for Drow (DROW), hope this clears things up.
E is for Edasseril (eh DASS ur ill), the runelords' envy.
F is for Flauros (FLOR us), lord of the flame.
G is for Gogunta (go GUN tuh), to whom boggards croak.
H is for Hermea (her MEE uh), a nice place to visit.
I is for Infadibulum (ihn fah DIHB uh luhm), of arcana forgot.
J is for Jubilex (JOOB eh lex), master of goo.
K is for Khopesh (KOH pehsh), a blade with a bend.
L is for Limbo (LIHM boh), where reality is undone.
M is for Mephistopheles (mef uh STOF uh leez), who dwells in the depths.
N is for Nirmathas (NEAR math ehs), land of rangers at war.
O is for Oinodaemon (OIN oh day mon), boss of daemonkind.
P is for Protean (PROH tee uhn), primeval outsiders.
Q is for Qadira (kah DEER ah), our only "Q" word.
R is for Rovagug (ROH vah gug), who got locked away.
S is for Socothbenoth (so KOTH beh noth), my favorite demon lord.
T is for Tian Xia (TEE yawn shaw), where ninjas come from.
U is for Ulfen (OOL fen), where Vikings come from.
V is for Valani (wah LAH nee), father of islands.
W is for Wes (WES), 'cause I wrote this blog.
X is for Xanderghul (ZAHN dur gool), the smuggest runelord.
Y is for Yondabakari (yawn dah ba KAR ee), a river with a very long name.
Z is for Zirnakaynin (zeer nuh KAY nen), den of dark elves.

The Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting—chock-full of words—hits shelves this August!

F. Wesley Schneider
Managing Editor, Pathfinder

Here Comes a Hardcover!

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

So the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting book is at the printer right now. An early print copy of it showed up here at Paizo last week, and it looks gorgeous. It'll be available at Gen Con, but until then, we'll continue posting tidbits and previews here on the blog now and then. For today, we've had a request from the messageboards to see the table of contents, and that sounded like a great idea. So! Without further ado, here it is, along with some art from the book's entry on Varisia!

Foreword 3 Chapter 1: Characters 4   Races 6   Classes 41 Chapter 2: The Inner Sea 52   Overview of the Inner Sea 52   Nations of the Inner Sea 54   Beyond the Inner Sea 152 Chapter 3: Religion 158   Major Gods 160   Other Gods 170   The Great Beyond 178 Chapter 4: Organizations 186   Major Organizations 187   Smaller Organizations 196 Chapter 5: The World 198   History and Timeline 198   The Darklands 202   Domain Spells 204   Equipment 206

Fauna 212   Flora 214   General Feats 216   Languages 218   Lost Nations 220   Prestige Classes 222     Harrower 222     Low Templar 224     Pathfinder Chronicler 226     Red Mantis Assassin 228     Shackles Pirate 230   Psionics 232   Technology 234   Time and Space 236   Trade 238   Weather and Climate 240 Appendices 242   A: Pathfinder Chronicles Locations 242   B: Pronunciation Guide 244   C: Rogue's Gallery 246   D: Wandering Monsters 252 Index 254

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Raising Hellknights!

Monday, July 7, 2008

A little over a year ago we started doing this thing called Pathfinder—you might have heard of it. Early on, we decided that its first volume would debut with a guide speaking directly to players, telling them a bit about the world we'd been cooking up. But honestly, at the time, we knew very little about said world. As James set to writing the premiere Pathfinder adventure, "Burnt Offerings," I was tasked with drumming up that something for players, a project that would become the first Pathfinder Player's Guide. Tricky thing, though, was that the book needed nouns—names, people, places, things—and we really didn't have many of those at the time. So, I made a bunch up.

It's more than a year later and now we have Golarion. But, what's both really funny—and pretty cool—is that now, a bunch of stuff that I just wrote down hoping that it wouldn't sound too silly are tags on our world's map and have pages of detail in the upcoming Pathfinder Campaign Setting. The elves of the Mordant Spire, the gnomes of the shey citadels of Irrere, the god Nethys and Gozreh, cyphermages, a year ago if asked what these things were all I could do is shrug. Now, that's not so much the case. But above all of these, one name that really seems to have intrigued folks was born out of a love of moral ambiguity, fanatical law dogs from film and literature, and hardcore armor: Hellknights. And the hardcover Pathfinder Campaign Setting's got them. While there's still not a new class for these devil-allied, ironclad enforcers (hum, could we be waiting for a new rules system so we don't have to invent the wheel twice?), there's now more information then ever before on the various orders, ranks, goals, and disciplines of these feared enforcers of absolute law. Just take a peek:

The Order of the Scourge: With anonymity and no consequences, every man becomes a criminal. The Order of the Scourge combats the lawless tendencies within mortal hearts through ever-present watchfulness and brutal reminders that no crime goes unpunished. The Order employs a vast network of informants, pays bounties for substantiated accusations, and publicly metes out grim punishments. Under the perfectionist Lictor Toulon Vidoc, the Hellknights frequently travel from Citadel Demain, near Egorian, to patrol crime-ridden slums and annihilate criminal organizations.

Lesser Orders: Numerous lesser orders of Hellknights exist, although few are known outside the borders of Cheliax. For example, Egorian's Order of the Scar stalks murderers and assassins, while the Whisperwood's Order of the Pike hunts down monsters that flourish in civilized lands. Although less pervasive, these smaller orders are only slightly less feared than their better-known brethren.

Expect to see plenty more Hellknight tyranny in the Pathfinder Campaign Setting hardcover debuting next month! Also check out the new face of the Pathfinder player's guides with volume 1 of the Pathfinder Companion: Second Darkness, giving players everything they need to ready themselves for the coming peril! And just a warning: keep your nose clean, 'cause even beyond what's coming up in the hardcover there's plenty more of the Hellknights' merciless brand of justice on the horizon.

F. Wesley Schneider
Pathfinder Managing Editor

Ten Other Gods

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Beyond the 20 core deities, there are those who have not become so ubiquitous that their names and faiths can be found throughout Avistan or Garund. In some cases, this is simply because their worshipers do not actively seek out new members of their faith, while in others it is the deity who discourages growth. In Aroden's case, a once mighty faith has crumbled to a shadow of its former glory after the god himself perished. Beyond these ten, there exist still more deities, but those generally focus on specific races or regions of the world and have not yet expanded out of their relatively narrow confines to touch other realms and believers. The ten Other Gods detailed in the Pathfinder Campaign Setting are listed below, several of which are being introduced to the public for the first time!

Achaekek (He Who Walks in Blood): God of the Red Mantis and assassins.

Aroden (The Last Azlanti): God of human culture, innovation, and history.

Besmara (The Pirate Queen): Goddess of piracy, strife, and sea monsters.

Droskar (The Dark Smith): God of toil, slavery, and cheating.

Ghlaunder (The Gossamer King): God of parasites, infection, and stagnation.

Groetus (God of the End Times): God of empty places, ruins, and oblivion.

Kurgess (The Strong Man): God of competition, sport, and self-sacrifice.

Milani (The Everbloom): Goddess of hope, devotion, and uprisings.

Sivanah (The Seventh Veil): Goddess of illusions, reflections, and mystery.

Zyphus (The Grim Harvestman): God of accidental death, graveyards, and tragedy.

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

"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

Off to Press!

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

So now that we sent all our Gen Con releases off to the printer (thanks to some pretty crazy hours worked last week), things seem weirdly calm and relaxed here at Paizo. Which is dangerous! We don’t want to fall behind again so soon after we just got caught up!

For my part, much of the last month has been spent buried in Pathfinder’s Adventure Paths, so it was pretty exciting over the last week to finally come up for air (even if that was merely to jump into another deep pool of deadlines) to help prepare other projects for press. Like the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting hardcover.

Sweet Desna does this book look incredible! There’s all sorts of tidbits packed into its 256 pages, from writeups for dozens and dozens of nations and regions, to short essays on obscure facets of the world like psionics and technology (yes, including guns!), to all sorts of new deities ranging from minor gods like Besmara (the Pirate Queen) and Zyphus (a sort of grim-reaper type deity) to a nice healthy selection of demon lords, archdevils, the four horsemen, and even the angelic empyreal lords.

And while a lot of the book is pure flavor, usable for any game system, fans of the crunch won’t be disappointed either. Each region comes with at least one new feat, for example, and there’s a pretty extensive section on campaign-specific weapons, armor, and gear. There’s also five prestige classes—one of them isn’t new to readers of Pathfinder (the Red Mantis assassin appears in this book, complete with some errata that properly keys her spells to Charisma rather than Intelligence). The other four prestige classes are all new, and drip with Golarion flavor. Pictured here is the harrower, a spellcaster prestige class that draws power from the mystical Varisian deck of cards known as the Harrow. Among other powers, a harrower gains the ability to draw cards from her deck to power up her spells with metamagic-type effects, and as she gains levels, she gains a bit more control over how these effects are applied. As for what the other three prestige classes are in the book? Well... let’s just say fans of crusaders, chroniclers, and pirates won’t be disappointed!

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

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

It's a Hardcover!

Friday, May 16, 2008

This Gen Con, something pretty exciting is coming to Golarion—a hardcover book! I'm talking, of course, about the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting. Wayne Reynolds gives us the first look at one of the campaign setting's big bad guys, the infamous lich known as the Whispering Tyrant as he takes offense at Valeros, Seoni, and Merisiel's intrusion upon his personal time. Here's hoping those heroes have built up enough experience points to be epic level—otherwise, what are they doing messing around with the Whispering Tyrant in the first place?

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

A Duo of Deities

Thursday, May 8, 2008

The Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer is out now and receiving rave reviews. In case you haven't had a chance to check it out yet, here's an excerpt of what you're missing. I have a soft spot for Shelyn, since she was my first major contribution to the campaign setting, so here's the first official look at her, straight from the pages of the Gaz.

Shelyn

The Eternal Rose
Goddess of beauty, art, love, and music
Alignment: NG
Domains: Air, Charm, Good, Luck, Protection
Favored Weapon: Glaive
Centers of Worship: Absalom, Galt, Sargava, Taldor
Nationality: Taldan

An ancient story tells of how Shelyn stole the glaive Whisperer of Souls from her half-brother Zon-Kuthon in an attempt to redeem him. Obviously, this didn't work, but to the intelligent weapon's great frustration, neither do its continued attempts to corrupt or influence her.

All depictions of Shelyn, regardless of race or ethnicity, show her as a young woman barely out of her youth, with eyes of blue or silver.

Shelyn's ankle-length chestnut hair bears several strands colored bright red, green, and gold. She always wears tasteful clothing and jewelry that accentuates her beauty without revealing too much of it. Shelyn preaches (and practices) that true beauty comes from within, and she favors romances not based solely on lust. Clerics of Shelyn endeavor each day to create something of beauty, whether artistically or through unconventional forms, such as a gardener tending a flower garden.

And, of course, because their histories tie them together, here too is the foul Zon-Kuthon (who also appears in the upcoming Pathfinder #11).

Zon-Kuthon

The Midnight Lord
God of envy, pain, darkness, and loss
Alignment: LE
Domains: Darkness, Death, Destruction, Evil, Law
Favored Weapon: Spiked chain
Centers of Worship: Belkzen, Cheliax, Geb, Irrisen, Nidal, Varisia
Nationality: Alien

The Umbral Leaves, which chronicle the history of Zon-Kuthon, claim that he was once the half-brother of the beauty goddess Shelyn, but that his envy over her talents led him to commit terrible acts against her and her works. For his crimes, the gods of Golarion banished Zon-Kuthon to the Plane of Shadow, there to reside for as long as the sun hung in the sky. Unfortunately, in the depths of the Age of Darkness, Zon-Kuthon emerged from his prison to a benighted Golarion and wept tears of joy. Here was a world ripe for the conquering, hidden from the light of the stars and cloaked in fear and entropy.

Zon-Kuthon is almost never depicted by his followers, but his presence manifests as a deep darkness lurking in the center of paintings, and as a standing doorway that leads only to emptiness.

The Midnight Lord wreaked terrible havoc upon the world in the Age of Darkness, but his malign influence has mostly been purged over the years. The lone exception to this is the Shadow Court of Pangolais, the secret rulers of Nidal. In this dark nation, the faith of the Midnight Lord still rules supreme, the leaders issuing edicts from their pitch-black council chambers.

Mike McArtor
Editor

Andoran

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Andoran, the home of Darkmoon Vale and, by extension, Falcon's Hollow, was once a holding of Imperial Cheliax. With the death of Aroden and rise of Infernal Cheliax, Andoran broke away and became its own nation—one based on the rule of the people. The following information, pulled from the Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer, gives just a little look into Avistan's most powerful republic.

Today, Andoran owes its power to a consortium of political radicals, wealthy merchant lords, and sympathetic aristocrats who seek to spread the political philosophy of Common Rule and open new markets throughout the world. Much of the nation's impressive wealth comes from precious antiquities raided from distant, unmapped lands such as Arcadia and the Mwangi Expanse. Competition for these resources grows fiercer by the year, and exotic locales like the ruin-laden deserts of interior Osirion or slivers of ancient Azlant have hosted proxy wars between agents of Andoran and enemy powers like Cheliax and Taldor.

Andorens seek not just to transform their homeland, but to export their cultural, philosophical, and mercantile beliefs to the world. Years ago, the heroes of Andoran emptied the nation's prisons and freed all its slaves in an attempt to bolster the strength of the Revolt, and its people have henceforth subscribed to a militant abolitionism. Agents provocateurs dispatched from the capital city of Almas actively seek to undermine the Inner Sea slave trade and those nations that support it, which is nearly all of them. The world thus views Andorens as troublemakers and unwanted ideological imperialists.
—Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer

Mike McArtor
Editor

The Proud Chelaxians

Thursday, April 3, 2008

The Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer contains all the common races you're used to—dwarves, elves, gnomes, halflings, the half-breeds, and humans. It also contains, however, numerous human ethnicities that exist across the Inner Sea region of Golarion. Among the most numerous of these ethnicities are the Chelaxians, a group descended from the ancient Azlanti themselves. The following quote appears in the Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer, in a sidebar dedicated to this elegant and haughty ethnicity.

"The distant, bastard descendants of Azlanti refugees spread throughout southern Avistan as if entitled to the land by the gods themselves. Sharp-featured with dark hair, dark eyes, and pale skin, Chelaxians differ from their duskier Taldan cousins due to widespread intermixing with pale-skinned Ulfen raider-merchants in the distant past (from whom they also gained the legendary Chelaxian wrath).

"Chelaxians are best known for their pride and ambition, possessing a sense of entitlement that has followed them through history. They tend to sneer upon savagery and respect strong authority. Quick to be offended and slow to forgive, Chelaxians hold grudges longer than most other humans. They are most common in the current and former holdings of the once-vast Empire of Cheliax, including Andoran, Galt, Nirmathas, Molthune, and the southern reaches of Varisia. Most speak Taldane."
—Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer

Mike McArtor
Editor

Sneak Peek: Gazetteer

Friday, March 28, 2008

From the decadent courts of infernal Cheliax to the crumbling monuments of Osirion's timelost pharaohs, the world of Golarion offers countless opportunities for fantasy RPG adventures! This brief preview of some of the art from the forthcoming Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer gives an idea of the incredible images included in the book. Artists for the Gazetteer include James Zhang, Julie Dillon, and Andrew Hou, with 21 holy symbols designed by Jeff Carlisle!

The Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer (by Jason Bulmahn and some fellow named Erik Mona) is on its way back from the printer, and is currently set for a mid-May release.

Erik Mona
Paizo Publisher

Gazetteer Timeline

Monday, March 17th, 2008

The Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer presents—in addition to chapters about the various nations, gods, and races—a short chapter devoted to history and cosmology. In that chapter is a long timeline of important events in Golarion's past. The following presents a peek at some of the historical events important to various modules and other supplements. And yes, some of these connections are pretty tenuous, but the point is to illustrate how hard we've worked to show how things interconnect in Golarion. So please enjoy!

–5293: Earthfall. The Starstone tumbles to Golarion, creating the Inner Sea and kicking off a thousand years of darkness. Azlant and Thassilon destroyed. Elves depart Golarion.
c. –3472: Founding of Ancient Osirion.
–2323: Shory aeromancers establish Kho as the first of their legendary flying cities.
–1498: The Four Pharaohs of Ascension join forces to rule Osirion, initiating that empire's Second Age.
1: Absalom founded. Aroden, the Last Azlant, raises the Starstone from the depths of the Inner Sea and becomes a living god.
1893: Norgorber passes the Test of the Starstone, following Aroden's path to divinity.
2765: Cayden Cailean drunkenly survives the Test of the Starstone.
3832: Iomedae, heroine of the Shining Crusade, successfully attempts the Test of the Starstone and becomes Aroden's Herald.
4307: Foundation of the Pathfinder Society in Absalom.
4407: Cheliax founds Korvosa in the frontier region of Varisia. (Yes, of course I'd make sure this gets mentioned.)
4508: The Forest King Narven dies in the Arthfell Forest.
4606: Aroden dies, leaving the Empire of Cheliax without a divine mandate.
4640: Diabolists of the House of Thrune wrest control of Cheliax, brutally ending three decades of vicious civil war. A dark shadow envelops the empire.
4697: The Goblinblood Wars shake Isger.
4707: Adventurers reopen the Bloodsworn Vale. Pharaoh Khemet III opens the ruins of Osirion to foreign explorers.
4708: The current year.

Mike McArtor
GameMastery Associate Editor

Gazetteer: Osirion

Thursday, February 28, 2008

The Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer is off to the printer, so here is your first look at what you can expect this juicy 64-page book to contain.

Osirion

LAND OF THE PHARAOHS
Alignment: LN
Capital: Sothis (111,989)
Notable Settlements: Ipeq (12,730), Totra (52,360), Shiman-Sekh (6,680)
Ruler: The Ruby Prince Khemet III
Government: Celestial Monarchy
Languages: Osiriani
Religion: Nethys, Sarenrae, Pharasma, Lamashtu, Irori, Norgorber, Rovagug

For almost 2000 years after the Starstone fell from space to create the Inner Sea, chaos and ruin defined Golarion. The old empires were cast in ruin, strange creatures born of darkness and fear stalked the land. It was a time of barbarism and terror, a slow decline into extinction for humankind. But humanity rose again in the jungles and deserts of the south Inner Sea coast. Osirion, a land of living god-kings and monolithic pyramids, rose as a beacon in a world ruled by barbarism, the first of the great kingdoms of man's Age of Destiny.

A prophet of Nethys known as Azghaad unified the warring tribes along the River Sphinx, initiating Osirion's first pharaonic dynasty in the city of Sothis, which still bears titanic statues carved in the image of Osirion's first ruler. The Osiriani folk honored their pharaohs as gods in the flesh, acceding to their every whim and marching upon their grand ambitions. Within 500 years Osirion controlled vast territories in Thuvia and modern day Rahadoum and Katapesh, as well as a lost colony that eventually became the kingdom of Geb. This First Age of Osirion generated pyramid tombs and temples for scores of pharaohs and their servants, many of which remain undiscovered (and well trapped) to this day.

A succession of lesser pharaohs and temporary foreign conquerors ruled Osirion in the middle centuries of the Age of Destiny, erecting cities and temples of their own in an attempt to leave a permanent mark on history. Most are forgotten today, and during this period Osirion waned in influence throughout the Inner Sea, ceding its marginal colonial territories.

Four competing warlords known as the Four Pharaohs of Ascension halted Osirion's decline about two centuries before the foundation of Taldor, restoring the nation's influence and holdings through using force and guile. The resulting prosperity fueled a rebirth in the nation's spirit, marking the birth of Osirion's Second Age.

In 1532 AR, foreign influence ended Osirion's pharaonic era when Qadiri agents toppled the corrupt government of Pharaoh Menedes XXVI, establishing Osirion as a satrapy of the Keleshite Empire of the East. Over the centuries migrants from Kelesh changed the ethnic character of the nation, crashing many of the old monuments and structures to the ground in an effort to chart a new destiny for Osirion.

This destiny brought the sun-focused religion of Sarenrae to Osirion, whose own religious traditions had always centered strongly upon the movements of heavenly bodies. As the cult of the Dawnflower achieved greater popularity among Keleshite and Garundi alike it became a threat to the satrap, who banished the dervishes to the deserts of Thuvia.

Members of the Dawnflower cult murdered the Satrap of Osirion in 2253, establishing the first in a long series of independent Keleshite sultans who ruled from Sothis. The last of these dictators fell to rebellion exactly 100 years ago, handing the nation to Khemet I, a Garundi prince who traced his lineage back to the Azghaadi Dynasty of Osirion's First Age. Thousands of years of oppression and decline made the people eager for a savior, and Prince Khemet offered them hope. Today, Khemet's grandson rules Osirion, calling himself the Ruby Prince. Some say that he might one day change this title to pharaoh, but such a shift would seriously trouble the desert nation's neighbors.

The youthful Prince Khemet III has opened the borders of Osirion to treasure seekers from around the world, offering a high bounty to those who uncover the hidden wonders of the past. As a result, Sothis is filled with treasure hunters of all shades. While the guards are keen to watch for anyone stealing the heritage of Osirion, there are plenty of ways to smuggle these ancient artifacts out of the country, and Osiriani relics have become a valuable commodity in markets across Avistan.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager

How big is it?

Thursday, October 25, 2007

For some time now, people have been asking us how big Golarion is, and many have had the misconception that Varisia, being our most detailed region so far, comprises the majority of our setting. Nothing could be further from the truth, and to give you an idea of scale, Jason Bulmahn has pulled out the coastal outlines of the two continents that comprise the first Golarion world map (which will appear in the Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer) and dropped in our maps of Varisia and Osirion (from J1: Entombed with the Pharaohs). Don't let the rough sketch fool you, though—the map itself is very close to being finished, and you can expect a load of new world-related tidbits on the blog in the weeks to come. Stay tuned!

James Sutter
Assistant Editor, Pathfinder

Time on Golarion

Friday, August 10, 2007

As our messageboards have recently been packed with folks wanting to know more about the day-to-day business of Golarion, the following is a brief introduction to the dating and timing conventions of our world. Rest assured that you'll be able to find out much more—such as timelines, country overviews, histories, and the rest—in the forthcoming Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer.

Time travels on Golarion much as it does here on our own Earth. Sixty seconds form a minute, sixty minutes create an hour, and twenty-four hours make a day. The people of Golarion measure time much like we do as well, with seven days to a week and twelve 30-day months to a year. Years are marked since the founding of the last great empire, that of Aroden, the Last Man. Although the empire has collapsed, its calendar remains in use to this day. At the start of the campaign, the date is 4707 AR (Absalom Reckoning).

Days of the Week

The days of the week are as follows. Each day has a general purpose that most people in the Inner Sea region follow.

Day	General Purpose
Moonday	Work, religion [night]
Toilday	Work
Wealday	Work
Oathday	Work, pacts signed, oaths sworn
Fireday	Work
Starday	Work
Sunday	Rest, religion

Months

The months in Golarion correspond to our own, with each new year starting shortly after the solstice. You'll notice that the name of each month is etymologically tied to a specific god—residents of Golarion see the gods reflected in the changing of the seasons, and their names for the months reflect this. (Gozreh's month, for instance, is a time of budding and new life, while Zon-Kuthon's is seen as the death of the old year.) Holidays in a given month are generally tied to their patron deity. In order, the months are:

Abadius (January)
Calistril (February)
Pharast (March)
Gozran (April)
Desnus (May)
Sarenith (June)
Erastus (July)
Arodus (August)
Rova (September)
Lamashan (October)
Neth (November)
Kuthona (December)

Mike McArtor
Associate Editor, GameMastery

What's the Difference?

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

One question we've run into repeatedly as we introduce the new world in which both Pathfinder and the GameMastery Modules will be set is, "What makes your campaign setting different?" In order to answer that, we've asked each member of the editorial design team—collectively known as "The Pit"—what they think sets our world apart.

Erik Mona (Publisher)

"The GameMastery world will contain a wider mixture of influences that most available on the market, making it easier to find a home for the type of adventures you and your friends are interested in playing. The world doesn't come burdened with a single overarching plot or expectation of play style, but rather allows for a wide variety of campaigns. Do you feel like exploring a savage frontier? The Lands of the Linnorm Kings or the Hold of the Mammoth Lords provide perfect backdrops. Players who enjoy urban roleplaying and intrigue will be drawn to the political world of Absalom or the treacherous courts of devil-tainted Cheliax. Players interested in science fantasy will find plenty to like in the barbarian nation of Numeria, greatest of the River Kingdoms, where a powerful sovereign and his council of witches rule from the ancient ruins of a mighty vessel fallen from space. They might even get a chance to explore the green and red worlds in the heavens above. The code-phrase we've been using for development of the world beyond Varisia (and including it) is "Planet of Adventure," because it is a place meant to accommodate great campaigns. We're hoping one of them will be yours."

James Jacobs (Editor-in-Chief, Pathfinder)

"I think that the big thing for our campaign setting is the fact that, unlike most other settings, we aren't kicking things off with a line of setting books that detail regions, religions, cities, and histories of the world. We don't want to drown our readers in canon. Rather, we'll be developing our world primarily through adventures written by the best writers we can find. Each adventure in Pathfinder or the GameMastery line can serve double-duty, because once you've run the adventure, there'll remain parts in there that you can use to expand your own campaign world, be it details of a city, a new monster, a haunted forest, a new religion, or whatever. Sooner or later we'll certainly have enough material to cull from the adventures that we'll be able to produce a setting book or something like that, but it won't have been designed in a vacuum. Everything in our campaign world will evolve out of things that are already adventures, rather than evolve from ideas that then have to be turned into adventures.

"Oh, and demon lords and archdevils and celestial paragons and archangels can grant spells to their cultists. That's pretty cool too."

Jason Bulmahn (GameMastery Brand Manager)

"One of our primary goals is to give a campaign setting that uses all of the advantages of the modern rules set while still maintaining a sort of "classic" middle-fantasy feel. We want our world to be one that has a place for almost any sort of play style without flooding GMs and players with a bunch of assumed baselines that make some play-styles impossible or difficult to run. If you want to use our setting to run an Egyptian-styled adventure, you can certainly do that, but it doesn't preclude a swashbuckling game, a feudal knights adventure, a lich hunt, or an urban political game. The trick is balancing these themes and flavors that everyone is familiar with, while still giving it a fresh take that fires up the imagination and allows for GMs to give it their own personal flair. After all, we want this to be your campaign too.

"And, of course, we got ninjas."

James Sutter (Assistant Editor, Pathfinder)

"My biggest problem with most campaign settings is the canon. While as a writer I understand well the joy of having your ideas set in stone, of watching people take what you've written and hold it up as The Way It Is, with gaming I find that it's ultimately a decadent and self-indulgent pleasure, and a little goes a long, long way.

"When I first started working at Dungeon, canon and I went head-to-head on a daily basis. It seemed like every time I had an idea I thought was interesting, someone smiled sympathetically and said, "Yeah, but you can't do that because..." As a GM, who wants to be told "no" all the time?

"That's what makes our new setting so exciting to me. Sure, any new setting will have less baggage than one that's been around for years, but throughout the design process of this world, we've tried to always keep that "less is more" mentality in mind. This is our world, but it's also the players' world, and every time you tell a GM or player, "You can't do that," you've just killed a fun session. It's too easy for a setting to reach a point where, through years of development and source material, it's been detailed down to the last commoner, with no room left to invent, explore, and innovate. Either that, or the broad, sweeping changes you've made to distinguish your setting ("All elves in our setting are XXX!") end up alienating portions of your audience. The rallying cry at our development meetings has been, "Never say never." We've all put in a lot of work to make this setting as interesting as possible, and there will undoubtedly be official supplements someday to support the adventures which are the setting's driving force, but know that as we go along, we realize that this isn't just our sandbox—it's the sandbox of everyone who does us the honor of playing in it. And with that honor comes a certain responsibility."

Jeremy Walker (Assistant Editor, GameMastery)

"Often, a campaign setting is defined not so much by what elements it includes, but instead by what it precludes. Specific themes, elements, and quirks help players and GMs connect with the setting, but oftentimes the very things that first attract gamers become the things that drive them away, as, frustrated by the setting's inability to adapt, they move on to the next unique setting, only to repeat the process down the road when that setting's fresh ideas become stale.

"One might think, then, that the solution is to provide a setting as generic as possible, so that any story can be dropped in just about anywhere. And yet people are looking for more in a campaign setting than a blank sheet of canvas. They want a world in which to tell their own stories in their own way, but they also want a living world that seems real. In this way, a campaign setting is like a matte painting on a movie set. A richly detailed backdrop that, while it exists independently of the characters in the movie, gives their actions context and meaning beyond their individual stories. To create a purely generic world is like shooting a movie in front of a black and white painting—it is immediately, and obviously, unreal.

"So how to provide a rich and detailed world without running the risk of our conventions and ideas becoming stale? Our solution is to provide a campaign setting that includes many distinct areas, each containing their own themes, characters, stories, and ideas. Each area of our world is almost a mini-setting all to itself. Vibrant and lifelike, ready for any story you might wish to tell. And when you tire of a particular style of gaming, why there is always something new waiting over that mountain, up that river, or across that sea."

Mike McArtor (Associate Editor, GameMastery)

"1. Interaction: One of the things that sets Paizo apart is our willingness to listen to those who invest in our creation. Spend some time on the messageboards and I think you'll discover pretty quickly that we interact with our readers, and those interactions are never one-way. We're not going to create the setting through democracy, but when the masses speak, we tend to listen.

"2. Inclusiveness: The newest edition of The World's Most Popular Fantasy Roleplaying Game (TWMPFRPG for short) is all about showing you what you can do, not telling you what you can't. In that spirit, our setting is going to allow for whatever you want to include in your campaign. Everything does—or at least can—exist in our setting.

"3. Variety: It's the spice of life. It's also what happens when you put the seven of us in a room, add caffeine, and shake. Then open the floodgates to guys like Baur and Logue and man oh man, have you got something! If you like dinosaurs and Cthulhu, talk to Jacobs over there. If you like your games a little more whimsical, hey man, I've got your back. From the deepest pits of depravity to the most ludicrous non-sequiturs, you'll find it somewhere in this place.

"4. History: We have the advantage of looking back on three decades of what has come before to see what worked. (And of even greater importance: what didn't.) We're building off the initial groundwork of titans—Gygax, Kuntz, Greenwood, and Grubb, for starters. The seven of us are keenly aware of those who came before, and we want to ensure they (and more importantly, YOU) approve of our creation."

Wesley Schneider (Associate Editor, Pathfinder)

"We're only letting the coolest players and GMs use our world. Rabid, endlessly yodeling goblin warchanters will infest the homes of those found unworthy."