Uncharted Waters

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Ever wanted to contribute to a Golarion-based adventure or submit your spells and monsters to a Pathfinder RPG supplement? You can with the creative and award-winning folks at Open Design. Their official Golarion adventure From Shore to Sea is on track for a spring release, and right now they are playtesting that adventure—and soliciting game design from the project's supporters for the Sunken Empires sourcebook. The Sunken Empires book is a 64-page collection of hooks, tools, spells and monsters to support water-based adventures using Pathfinder RPG rules. Join as a patron and your design contribution just might get you into the credits! Find out more about patron projects and how you can contribute at Open Design.

Also, stay tuned for more behind-the-scenes looks at the creative process involved in taking From Shore to Sea from patron project to printed publication right here on the blog as Paizo's designers continue the open-door creative process already in the works at Open Design.

Wolfgang Baur
Open Design

Carrion Hill Preview #2

Monday, October 12, 2009

The Pathfinder RPG Bestiary has reached our warehouse, and we've loaded it with hundreds of updated monsters for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. However, some of our favorites didn't quite make the cut and had to be left out of the book. Fortunately, we're clever and sneaky, and found a way to get one of the extra monsters into the Pathfinder Module Carrion Hill. After all, in an adventure with Lovecraftian horrors, this shapeshifting creature should feel right at home.

Illustration by Tyler Walpole	Illustration by Hector Ortiz

Sean K Reynolds
Developer, Pathfinder Modules

Jason's New Campaign!

Friday, January 16, 2009

The last year at Paizo's been really hectic and busy. I think I ran one whole session of my Call of Cthulhu game in 2008, and as for actual D&D office games, we pretty much haven't done any gaming. That's no good. Fortunately, now that we're heading into 2009, there may be a change in the air. Either we're finally getting caught up, or we're finally adjusting our sleep cycles to accommodate the new reality—whatever the reason, office games at Paizo are starting up again. I'm hoping to get my own Sandpoint campaign off the ground in February, but Jason's even more on the ball than me. We started the first game of his new campaign last Monday! We're starting out by playtesting the adventure he's writing for the upcoming Pathfinder Module, Crypt of the Everflame. Check out this thread on our messageboards for the gory details! I'm playing Merisiel in this one, and I haven't quite decided yet if I'm gonna do a big detailed journal yet—I'm not sure Merisiel's the type to keep a diary. Maybe a kill list, though. Maybe even a "still needs to be killed" list. Hmmmmm...

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Out and About

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Turns out that we haven't been the only ones busily bustling away to bring you new Pathfinder brand insanity. A quick glance across the boards turns up Hugo Solis's (aka Butterfrog) currently Unofficial Paizo Comic Strip. The first is featured above, but check out his awesome comic thread here.

Also, Paizo—or more specifically Entombed with the Pharaohs and the Critical Fumble Deck—got a subtle shout-out on this week's commodoreHUSTLE by the web comedy troupe over at LoadingReadyRun.com. Be sure to check it out—hilarious stuff. I promise that Tukanem-Hanam, the mummy dragon in question, doesn't always suck that bad. And don't worry, we're totally hooking them up with the sequel, The Pact Stone Pyramid, to give Jeremy a chance to get his revenge.

So yeah! Great work to everyone out there making Pathfinder their own! And if you've been inspired by adventures in Golarion, be sure to show off your talents here on the message boards. We can't wait to see what you've come up with!

F. Wesley Schneider
Pathfinder Managing Editor

The Clash Begins

Friday, November 14, 2008

It's been many, many months since Leandra Christine Schneider won the first RPG Superstar contest, but we're finally almost there—her module, Clash of the Kingslayers, is going through its last bits of editing as I type this. To celebrate, check out some of the art from the adventure!

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Headlock!

Monday, September 29, 2008

Once more, I reveal unto you some great art for Pact Stone Pyramid by Bento Box Studios! Nothing much more to say than pictures of paladins headlockin' mummies. Paladins headlockin' mummies.

Jacob Burgess
Online Retail Coordinator

The Pact Stone Pyramid

Thursday, September 25, 2008

In this interior piece we have a girallon covered in glowing magical hieroglyphics battling Seelah and Kyra, set in one of the interior areas of the Pact Stone Pyramid. Well, it's not really a girallon, it's a magical curse in the shape of a girallon, but when the thing is quadruple-punching your face the subtle difference probably isn't your biggest concern....

Sean K Reynolds
Developer / Editor

Pact Stone Capstone

Friday, September 19, 2008

A new addition to the Pathfinder Modules is coming down the pike, and with it of course comes new art, a cover in fact. It is, once again, a pleasure to bring you, right off of Drew's desk, one hot cover (it's in a desert, ya know) for The Pact Stone Pyramid. Enjoy!

Jacob Burgess
Online Retail Coordinator

Modules: Back on Schedule!

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

It's been a while since we've talked about a Pathfinder Module on this blog, for the simple reason that they were the unfortunate sacrifice to the Deadline Demons that had to be made in order to get everything else on schedule. The good news is that the modules themselves are back on schedule as well now, and with the upcoming release of Hungry Are the Dead you can expect to see a new Pathfinder Module once every other month.

To celebrate, I figured I'd show off art not from one, but from two upcoming modules. See if you can correctly guess which of these illustrations is from the nautical-themed Treasure of Chimera Cove and which is from the grisly undead-themed Hungry Are the Dead!

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

The Creepy Crepitus

Thursday, May 29th, 2008

Here's another peek at the forthcoming Pathfinder Module LB1: Tower of the Last Baron.

It is speculated that Asmodeus spawned the first crepitus devils, sometimes called magewretches, to tempt and corrupt mortal wizards into damning their souls. Yet while it is true that the crepitus is a highly intelligent creature with a gift for spellcraft and all things arcane, its great intellect is countered by its foolishness and inability to competently lure mortals to Asmodeus's will. As a result, specimens seen on the Material Plane are more often slaves than fiendish tempters.

Ecology

A crepitus stands 3 to 4 feet tall, with bright eyes in a saurian head that appears too large for its gaunt, rune-covered body. Its shoulders sprout bat-like wings that allow it to fly with ease, and its sharp talons are surprisingly nimble and capable of fine adjustments when conducting magical rituals. A typical crepitus weighs 30 pounds. Though, like other devils, crepituses don't require food, they take particular joy in consuming wizards' familiars (and sometimes the wizards themselves.) Crepitus devils are native to Hell, and many lurk around Asmodeus's infernal palace, often serving as messengers.

Habitat & Society

Left to their own devices, crepitus devils are cunning, malicious pranksters, content to while away their days flitting about Hell and tormenting lost souls and devils alike. Yet crepituses are rarely left alone for long, and it is likely from this fact that their long-standing racial hatred of wizards stems. Highly valued for their spell-like abilities and intuitive knowledge of magic, crepituses are frequently bound into contracts or enslaved outright by mortal wizards and other fiends, a situation the intelligent devils find exrtemely demeaning. This situation is not helped by the fact that crepituses are frequently the first gifts handed out by higher-ranking demons attempting to seduce mortal magic users. If given an opportunity, a crepitus goes well out of its way to destroy a wizard and burn his precious spellbooks to ashes (not necessarily in that order). Chelish wizards regularly bind crepitus devils as servants, and view having an enslaved crepitus as a mark of prestige.

Crepituses enjoy lording their power over their significantly weaker impish cousins, and referring to a crepitus as an imp is the gravest possible insult.

Mike McArtor
Editor

Art!

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

We're all crazy busy here today making sure you get the awesome products you've come to expect from us. While we're at it, here's a pretty picture of the ever-popular Seoni from Pathfinder Module LB1: Tower of the Last Baron. Enjoy! :D

Mike McArtor
Editor

The Red Raven, Revealed!

Friday, April 25th, 2008

Time again for the blogging! This time it is my pleasure to reveal, with all due fanfare, the One True Cover for our upcoming module W3: Flight of the Red Raven!

Jacob Burgess
Online Retail Coordinator

Meet the Red Raven

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Last year, we ran a contest to determine who would write for us the module W3: Flight of the Red Raven. We received more than 150 entries. The eventual winner, frequent Dragon-contributor David Schwartz, handed over a great adventure. We look forward to working with David again in the future.

Presented here is the Red Raven as he appears in the module, which will be available in May!

Mike McArtor
Editor

Dark Water

Thursday, March 6, 2008

The muddy waters of the great Vanji flow past hundreds of miles of dark jungle. As it flows through the darkness, the river drinks deeply of the blood of thousands of creatures, from the lowliest lizard devoured by a river crocodile to the human sacrifice drowned to appease the dark jungle gods to a battlefield where neighboring tribes rip out each other's throats in casual displays of wanton brutality. The terror and death along the dark banks sometimes gives birth to monsters. Horrifying amalgamations of jungle detritus and human souls, they float along the river, as serene as flowing water, until they encounter a living creature to add to their tranquility.

Jeremy Walker
GameMastery Assistant Editor

Sneak Peek: The Demon Within

Friday, February 29, 2008

Enjoy this art sneak peek of GameMastery Module D3: The Demon Within. The haunted castle awaits you!

Carolyn Mull
Paizo Sales & Marketing Assistant

Sneak Peek: River into Darkness

Friday, February 22, 2008

Enjoy this art sneak peek of an expedition riddled with conflict and danger! GameMastery Module W2: River into Darkness releases in April.

Carolyn Mull
Paizo Sales & Marketing Assistant

RPG SUPERSTAR: WE HAVE A WINNER!

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

In early November Paizo challenged amateur game designers from around the world to show off their skills in a revolutionary online contest called RPG Superstar. From more than 850 submitted wondrous items, celebrity judges Erik Mona (Paizo's Publisher), Wolfgang Baur (Editor-in-Chief, Kobold Quarterly), and Clark Peterson (President, Necromancer Games) narrowed the field to 32 would-be RPG Superstars, and further rounds have narrowed that field in the intervening weeks.

The final round asked the four competing finalists to propose a 32-page GameMastery Module for ultimate publication by Paizo as the Grand Prize of RPG Superstar. Contestants Clinton Boomer (Macomb, IL), Rob McCreary (Prague, Czech Republic), Jason Nelson (Seattle, WA), and Christine Schneider (Neu-Isenburg, Germany) responded with four excellent proposals, each worthy of publication in its own way.

But there can be only one RPG Superstar, and in the end after the celebrity judges had a chance to offer comments and criticism and the general public had their final vote, one proposal stood out as the clear winner.

Congratulations to Christine Schneider for her victorious proposal, "Clash of the Kingslayers." Here's a brief description of the adventure from Christine's winning RPG Superstar submission:

This module will set the heroes against the gods' blind wrath in defence of a dwarven city-kingdom. During the course of the adventure the PCs will cross swords with dwarvish valkyries, fight giants freed from the underworld, unravel an ancient secret, and explore a remote monastery. What starts as a casual dungeon crawl, will turn into a frantic pandemonium as the monastery is imbued with divine life to wage war on the city the heroes might choose to protect or even aid to destroy. Ultimately, the PCs get the chance to slay not one, but three kings in attempt to end this madness and write the final lines of an ancient tragedy. This adventure is intended for characters of 10th-level and will yield enough experience to advance them to 11th-level or even half-way to 12th-level.

As RPG Superstar's Grand Prize, Paizo will contract Christine Schneider to write "Clash of the Kingslayers," which we will release as GameMastery Module S1 in January, 2009.

But you don't have to wait until January to reserve your copy! Head over to the new "Clash of the Kingslayers" product page here on paizo.com to preorder your copy of Christine's winning adventure! If you already subscribe to GameMastery Modules, "Clash of the Kingslayers" will arrive as part of your ongoing subscription.

On behalf of judges Wolfgang Baur and Clark Peterson as well as the whole Paizo Publishing family, congratulations to Clinton Boomer, Rob McCreary, Jason Nelson, and Christine Schneider.

Remember those names, folks. You'll be hearing from all of them in the months and years to come. Though the contest produced only one true RPG Superstar, it also turned up a huge number of fresh voices we plan to work with for a long time to come.

And I'd like to offer one final thanks to you, the readers of paizo.com and to anyone who submitted an entry to this year's RPG Superstar contest. The event has been enormously popular here on the site, and even the wizened old judges learned a thing or two along the way. Something this successful is certain to return, so in the meantime sharpen your pencils and start working on some wondrous items.

The next RPG Superstar is only a few months away!

Erik Mona
Paizo Publisher

Journey Into Darkness

Thursday, February 14, 2008

The next GameMastery Module, River Into Darkness is off to the printer. This adventure features a great trek through the dark and mysterious jungles of the southern continent of Garund (part of the Pathfinder Chronicles world for those of you not in the know). To top it off, there are angry natives, deadly monster, and questionable friends. What more could you ask for? Not much I say. Not much. Need more proof? Here is the back cover copy:

A vast merchant consortium has a simple job for you—one that pays extremely well. All it asks is that you stand guard over one of its outposts for a few weeks until reinforcements arrive. The problem, of course, is that the outpost is in the middle of a vast and dangerous jungle and the natives seem intent upon putting an arrow in you at every turn. If the journey there doesn't kill you, though, you might just learn what is worth risking your lives over.

River Into Darkness is a wilderness-based adventure for 4th-level characters compatible with the world's most popular fantasy roleplaying game. This adventure includes all in information you need to send your heroes on a fantastic journey through the heart of the deep and mysterious jungle, including encounters with terrible monsters and hostile natives.

This adventure is set in the Mwangi Expanse, the largest jungle in the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting, but it can be easily adapted for use in any setting. For more information on this environ, check out the Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager

Sneak Peek: Crucible of Chaos

Friday, February 1, 2008

Here is a sneak peek into one of the living nightmares that you will encounter in the Lost City. Enjoy this evocative art, representative of what is featured in Crucible of Chaos.

Carolyn Mull
Paizo Sales & Marketing Assistant

Terrible Trio

Friday, January 25, 2008

During Ulduvai's final days, when its citizens were caught in the slow but inevitable decline of their once-great civilization, as one by one the other flying cities fell to decadence, disease, conquest, or other misfortune, a strange wanderer arrived in the city and brought with him a relic of uncertain origin but undeniable power. This mysterious outsider found within the city fertile soil: citizens both corrupt enough to submit to perversions that others would find unthinkable, and desperate enough to try anything to escape a fate that seemed as certain as the stars.

Before long, the cult had grown to control much of the city, and at its head were three powerful sorcerers. On a dark night when the time was right, these three leaders brought the cultists together and channeled arcane power through the artifact, seeking to unlock the mysteries of creation and become living gods. The results were not what they expected.

Now, centuries later, these three cultists still linger amongst the ashes of their former civilization. Each controls a separate area of the city, and each is convinced that, given the right tools and enough time, he can return Ulduvai to its former glory and banish the chaos that has warped the city almost beyond recognition. Yet no matter what they do and what secrets they unlock, they are no closer to the answers they seek now than they were on that fateful night centuries ago.

Jeremy Walker
GameMasteryAssistant Editor

Sneak Peek: Hangman's Noose

Friday, January 18, 2008

Here's an artistic sneak peek of our haunting urban adventure Hangman's Noose. Happy nightmares!

Carolyn Mull
Paizo Sales & Marketing Assistant

Monster of Madness

Thursday, January 17, 2008

"We had expected, upon looking back, to see a terrible and incredible moving entity if the mists were thin enough; but of that entity we had formed a clear idea. What we did see—for the mists were indeed all too maliguly thinned—was something altogether different, and immeasurably more hideous and detestable. It was the utter, objective embodiment of the fantastic novelist's 'thing that should not be...'

...It was a terrible, indescribable thing vaster than any subway train—a shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming as pustules of greenish light all over the tunnel-filling front that bore down upon us, crushing the frantic penguins and slithering over the glistening floor that it and its kind had swept so evilly free of all litter. Still came that eldritch, mocking cry—'Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!'"

H. P. Lovecraft
At the Mountains of Madness

Jeremy Walker
GameMastery Assistant Editor

Crucible of Chaos

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Crucible of Chaos has been sent to the printer and is due to come out next month. This module features a number of really cool locations, including a crashed sky city. To get you salivating for this dangerous adventure, here is a look at the final cover and the info from the back of the module.

Uncover the ruins of the flying city

Legends speak of an ancient culture that drifted through the clouds atop immense floating cities. These same tales speak of a horrible catastrophe that brought them low, but no one has discovered the true cause. Now, a mystical compass has been discovered that seems to point to an unexplored valley, one that just might hold the secrets of this lost empire. But will the same catastrophe strike again?

Crucible of Chaos is a journey-based adventure for 8th-level characters compatible with the world's most popular fantasy roleplaying game. This adventure contains details on the valley containing the crashed sky-city, including the natives who live there, as well as information on those who brought about the city's downfall.

This adventure is set in the unexplored reaches of the Realm of the Mammoth Lords, one of the nations in the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting, but it can be easily adapted for use in any setting. For more information on this area, check out the Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager

Meet the Suspects: Part 2

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Last week, we introduced four of the eight suspects the PCs will have to investigate while they are trapped in a haunted courthouse with time running out. Here are the other four candidates for the Hangman's Noose:

The Fool: Ebin Blithoddle is a peculiar gnome who dresses in motley and has a stupid joke and a bad pun for every occasion. Despite the fact that he couldn't make a hyena laugh, the poor old sod refuses to quit, dancing and capering around the courthouse in fits of manic hysteria. Still, a sinister air hangs around the smiling and dancing fool—at times, his eyes seem glassy and his smile looks fixed. Even for Ebin, there is something about this courthouse that is not funny at all.

The Curious: Of all the suspects, Killian Paltreth is perhaps the most normal. Of course, in this adventure, anything normal is automatically cause for suspicion. The alchemist seems like a decent enough fellow genuinely interested in getting to the bottom of the mystery. But who knows what this seemingly honest old man is cooking up in that laboratory of his? And how did he get mixed up in this nasty business?

The Bully: Malgrim Hurkes is one of the most notorious figures in Absalom. The leader of a gang called the Grindle Street Shades, this ruthless hobgoblin has his fingers in much of the violent crime around the seedier districts of the city. Unfortunately, he doesn't take too kindly to being questioned by upstart adventures.

The Innocent: This cute, athletic halfling named Madge Blossomheart was little more than a girl when the crimes were committed, and she retains much of her youthful charm. This unfortunate maiden doesn't even understand most of what is going on... or at least that's what she claims. But what dark secrets could she possibly be concealing behind that glowing smile?

Jeremy Walker
GameMastery Assistant Editor

Quick Drop, Sudden Stop

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Hangman's Noose is the first real murder mystery adventure set in the Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting. As such, it includes a host of suspects, both charming and nefarious. And while each one might have had a hand in the mistrial that caused the haunting in this adventure, one of them truly deserves to hang. If your PCs can't uncover the culprit by dawn, their necks might hang in the murderer's place. Here are just a few of the suspects.

Halgrak: (at right) Known as "Five Toes" due to his mangled foot, this menacing half-orc is a local smith by trade. When things begin to turn sour, though, he quickly becomes certain that everyone is doomed.

Patrissa: Despite her overindulgences, this former adventurer is still quite attractive, wearing a fine dress and expensive jewels. Once locked inside the courthouse, she is certain to turn to the heroes for protection.

Sir Rekkart: (above) This staunch, aging paladin of Iomedae was a part of the jury ten years ago, and is certain that justice was served. Persuading him otherwise might just be an impossible task without solid proof.

Tablark: This grizzled old dwarf has held just about every job one could have in the city of Absalom. When things seem grim, the heroes can count on this dwarf to remain steadfast and confident in victory.

Is one of these jurors to blame? Maybe it was one of the others. Next week, I'll be back to give you a few more suspects to investigate.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager

U2: Hangman's Noose Cover

Friday, December 21, 2007

With Guardians of Dragonfall about to hit our warehouse, the time grows near to take a look at our next GameMastery Module. So, in preparation, here is the cover to U2: Hangman's Noose. It sure looks like Seoni has just about had enough of adventuring... maybe even breathing. Need more info? Here is the back cover copy.

GameMastery Module U2: Hangman's Noose

Ten years to the day after the most horrible injustice in Absalom's history, an implacable spirit returns to have his vengeance upon those who sent him to the gallows. Unfortunately for the heroes, they are among the jury of the damned, and come dawn they will all hang if they fail to find the true culprit.

Hangman's Noose is an urban-based adventure for 1st-level characters compatible with the world's most popular fantasy roleplaying game. This adventure includes details on the terrible crime, those who took part in its cover-up, and the crumbling courthouse where the crime, trial, and execution all took place.

This adventure is set in the metropolis of Absalom, one of the largest cities in the Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting, but it can be easily adapted for use in any setting. For more information on this city, check out U1: Gallery of Evil and the Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager

Elementals of Magic

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Long ago, before the Age of Darkness, in a time when powerful empires of magic ruled the land the arcanatons were first seen on Golarion. Drawn by the confluence of magical power, these creatures are the raw stuff of arcane energy given life and form. Powerful in their own right, when given a source of magic upon which to feed, they become nearly unstoppable.

But times change and empires fall. In the darkness that followed Starfall, much was lost, and as power left the world these creatures of arcane energy withered and died, deprived of the magical power that they needed for sustenance. Only a few linger still, tied to the rare relics of power that still remain from those ancient times.

Long the self-proclaimed masters of magical power, the many races of dragons thrived on Golarion while humanity was still little more than savage beasts. It was they who learned the secrets of summoning and binding these creatures of elemental magic, and they yet remain the dragons' servants, ever watchful for arcane adepts that would plunder the treasures of their masters. When it came time to construct an important symbol of their power, it was inevitable that they would choose to include arcanatons among the Guardians of Dragonfall.

Jeremy Walker
GameMastery Assistant Editor

Dragonfall First Look

Thursday, December 13, 2007

With GameMastery Module E1: Carnival of Tears shipping out to all of your waiting hands, it is time to turn our attention to the next module, J2: Guardians of Dragonfall. Over the next few weeks we will be previewing some of the monsters and villains behind this draconic plot involving one of the more interesting locales in the Pathfinder Chronicles world, but for now, here is a look at a great piece of art from the module. Stay tuned.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager

Faster Than A Speeding Buick

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

When flipping through GameMastery Module E1: Carnival of Tears, one thing immediately jumped out at me. There is a creature, known as a quickling, in the module with a speed of 240 feet. At first I though this must be a misprint, but Jeremy assured me that it was correct. This fey, called Prig in the module, is so blindingly fast that catching him is half the encounter. Fortunately for you, he is in the mood for mischief, not evasion. To celebrate the upcoming release of Carnival of Tears, I thought I would give you a few fun facts concerning this speedy antagonist.

1. Looking back at D1: Crown of the Kobold King, if Prig started at the beginning of the dungeon, he could make his way all the way down to the king, slap him in the face, and make it back to the surface in four rounds with time to spare.

2. If he had an open road, Prig could run from one end of the Bloodsworn Vale, featured in W1: Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale, and back again in a little over one hour, since he has a land speed of just over 109 mph.

3. With a running start, Prig could easily jump over the underground lake featured in D2: Seven Swords of Sin.

4. Check out U1: Gallery of Evil—Prig could run 16 complete circles around the Gauthfallow Mansion in exactly 1 minute.

5. Using his Spring Attack feat, if Prig started out 100 feet away from Scepter (from J1: Entombed with the Pharaohs), he could run up, pinch his nose, and then run away, ending his movement outside the range of every single one of Scepter's spells and his wand rifle.

6. In E1: Carnival of Tears, Prig can use his Jump skill (+100) to easily clear 25-foot-tall tents and cause no end of havoc for your PCs.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager

The Riders of the North

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

The fey of Darkmoon Vale were not always evil. For decades they lived and played under the spreading branches of the forest, content to remain close to the land that sustained them. But recently, things have changed within the forest. The establishment of the lumber mill in Falcon's Hollow has given rise to a veritable army of woodsmen bent on leveling the forest and plundering its wealth of darkwood. Hunters and trappers have descended into the forest, seeking furs and trophies to take back to the markets of Andoran. Slowly but surely, the creatures within the forest began to change. Anger and fear replaced the capricious playfulness of its fey guardians, and the icy grip of hate descended on the land. Far away, in her frozen palace in Irrisen, the Witch Queen sensed opportunity, and dispatched a cold rider to Darkmoon Vale.

With the first breath of winter's frost he arrived in the forest, and as ice and snow descended upon the land, his corrupting presence wormed its way into the hearts of the fey, transforming them into creatures of nightmare.

In E1: Carnival of Tears, the PCs must face off against this implacable foe who seeks to drive the humans from Falcon's Hollow, and in so doing, gain an unbreakable hold over the fey creatures that live there. Cold Riders are terrifying armored majesties, clad in sable cloaks of frost, a pair of almost ridiculously large crystal-blue antlers cresting their dread helms of ice and steel. These dark monsters were once princes of the forest. Brought living before the Witch Queen, she stole their songs and their love of green and beauty and replaced them with cold hate. The riders are her knights gallant and her favored minions in her war on the sun, the green, and all things that recoil from her frigid touch. They delight in perversion, slaughter, and the corruption of other fey. It is their solemn duty to bring fresh souls and candidates for transformation into cold riders back to their queen's court, and they relish this charge. The paired mini-whirlwinds of effervescent frost swirling in their visors can chill the hearts of the most stalwart with a frigid glance, and the vapor-fog floating from them often takes the shape of their former fair features, screaming in silent agony and twisting into malformed wisps in the rising wind.

Jeremy Walker
Assistant Editor, GameMastery

I Am Afraid of Clowns

Monday, November 19, 2007

No, seriously, they kinda creep me out. This is not some sort of abject terror that makes me run screaming anytime I happen upon the "spokesclown" of a certain famous fast food restaurant, but it does make me shudder. Suffice to say, when we started planning out adventures, I knew that having one populated by horrible carnival folk would be a winner (or if you prefer... a "wieenahh"). Anyway, GameMastery Module E1: Carnival of Tears is scheduled to hit our warehouse soon, so now seemed like a great time to show you some of the horrors this festival has to offer. Let's see: Horrible sideshow freaks, check. People slaughtered by the dozens, check. Carnival games that get more than a bit deadly, check. And of course, evil little clowns (well, sort of), check. To top it off, the entire adventure is set in Falcon's Hollow, the starting point for D0: Hollow's Last Hope and D1: Crown of the Kobold King. While these adventures are not necessary for play, they do add a great bit of continuity and background to the area.

Need a bit more convincing? Here's the back cover copy from E1.

IT'S ALL FUN AND GAMES UNTIL SOMEONE LOSES HIS SOUL

On the eve of a terrible winter, the carnival comes to Falcon's Hollow, bringing with it one last chance for fun before the long cold nights to come. But when mirth turns to murderous mayhem, only the heroes can stop the terror-filled ride.

Carnival of Tears is an event-based adventure for 5th-level characters compatible with the world's most popular fantasy roleplaying game. This adventure includes details on all of the carnival's many attractions, both playful and deadly, as well as the shadowy assailants bent on slaughtering the townsfolk.

This adventure is set in Falcon's Hollow, a small town nestled near the boughs of the Darkmoon Vale. This area is also the site of GameMastery Module D1: Crown of the Kobold King, available online or from your favorite local game store.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager

"I Know the Secret of Dragonfall..."

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

"Psst... you. Yeah, you! I've got a secret to tell ya. You gotta keep this one quiet, though, because they'll kill ya if'n you know about it. Who? Dragons, of course! "Word is that when most dragons are close to death, the make a pilgrimage to this place called Dragonfall, where their bones are laid to rest with those of their kin, regardless of color or creed. There they wait, for the gods only know what reason. This is no ordinary boneyard, though—oh no. It's watched over by ferocious protectors who slay any who so much as lay eyes on it. Rumor has it that most of these wyrms take all of the treasure with 'em when they die, piling it up into one gigantic horde. That'd be enough scratch for you and me to buy ourselves a crown or two, eh? Of course, I'm not sure I can tell ya without getting a bit of coin in return. For my wife and kids you see... this secret is about all we have. I think a thousand gold crowns should be enough."
    —Conversation with a shifty beggar in the alleys of Kaer Maga

GameMastery Module J2: Guardians of Dragonfall is due to release later this month. We promise to let you have it for a little less than a thousand gold crowns...

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager

And the Winner is...

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

After combing through more than 150 initial queries and almost a dozen detailed outlines, we have finally found our winner of the GameMastery Open Call contest. The winner will write GameMastery Module W3: Flight of the Red Raven. Scarce information about the plot was given out, and the entrants had to combine that, along with the title, to come up with a compelling adventure full of exciting encounters and memorable villains.

In the end, David Schwartz came out on top. David's proposal hit a nerve with the staff, as his submission was both well-written and full of evocative scenes. This adventure is slated to hit store shelves in May 2008. While you might not see any more news on this one for a while (as David will be busy writing it!), here is a revised blurb describing David's adventure, along with our mock-up cover:

The Vernal Key has been stolen from the town of Azurestone and the notorious Red Raven is the culprit. With a terrible winter setting in, the small community faces a gruesome fate without its protection. To recover the Key, the heroes must face off against brazen outlaws, freezing weather, and dangerous predators, but the trail leads to even greater peril. For the Red Raven's path heads straight into the Jarl's Prison, a maze of ice and snow from which there is no escape!

Hearty congratulations go out to all of our finalists. Picking one of them as the winner was not easy task, as any one of them might have made for a great adventure. And don't forget, for all those who didn't win this contest, there's still plenty of time to enter RPG Superstar and make your big break that way!

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager

Terrifying Transformation

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

The new GameMastery Module J1: Entombed with the Pharaohs has arrived in our office and is about to ship. In anticipation, I have decided to turn you all into terrible undead servants, forever bound to the tomb of the Four Pharaohs of Ascension. Are you ready? Great! Please look at the following four images:

There! Does your skin itch a bit? Do you have the urge to wrap yourself in linen bandages? Feel the need to go "Urrrrrrr?" Congratulations, you are now one of hundreds of terrible mummy guardians bound to the pyramid for all of time! Anyone who sees all four of these images is cursed and transformed into a horrible mummy. This, of course, includes any unfortunate player characters that dare to explore this ancient tomb.

Happy Halloween everybody. Now get out there and spread some undead menace—you don't even need your mummy's permission.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager

Meet the Competition

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Welcome to Sothis, capital of the great desert nation of Osirion, gateway to the mysteries of the sands. Centuries ago, the legendary ancient pharaohs ruled over a nation of sorcerers and slaves with an iron fist, wielding godlike magical abilities unlike anything in the modern world. Now they are gone, and all that remains of their wonder and terror lies buried beneath the dunes, concealed in vast stone pyramids and protected by traps and curses that reflect the height of their terrifying ingenuity. But the prospect of being eaten alive by beetles in the dark corridors of some lost tomb doesn't seem to bother the myriad adventurers, guides, soldiers, mercenaries, swindlers, thieves, and noblemen that have come from all over the world to get a chance to plunder the lost treasure of the pharaohs.

Among those who have recently arrived to stake their claim on these treasures is a group of adventurers led by a Chelish noblemen named Paracount Julistar, who just happens to be one of the most famous Osiriontologists in the world. Fanatical, yet suave, Julistar is an archetype of his fellow countrymen, and has carefully assembled a private team of profiteers from across the globe to race the PCs to the Find of the Century.

Collectively, this group of specialists is known as Her Majestrix's Expeditionary, and includes Xaven, a hardcore, wisecracking tomb raider who has spent so much time outwitting the traps of the dead he's begun to lose his grip on reality, Scepter, a brooding ex-Pathfinder sharpshooter who sports a bandolier of custom-crafted magic wands and employs a specially built wand-rifle, Hrokon, a half-orc shock trooper, and Lonicera, a drop-dead gorgeous liar and master of the long con. Together, they are prepared to give the PCs as much as they can handle and more as the two groups pursue the prize that awaits them in J1: Entombed with the Pharaohs.

Jeremy Walker
Assistant Editor, GameMastery

Top 5 Open Call Mistakes

Friday, October 12, 2007

So, we're not going to have time to send out detailed feedback to everyone who failed to make it to the second round of the Open Call for W3: Flight of the Red Raven. But I know that people want to know what they did wrong, or how they can improve for the future, for the next open call or for other endeavors. With that in mind, here are the five most common mistakes people made that caused me to reject the submission.

1. Novel-writing. An adventure is about the PCs. People who had experience submitting to Dungeon had an advantage here, as it's something I've been saying for years. No matter how fascinating your backstory is, no matter how many tangled plotlines you have between complex NPCs, in the end, the most important thing I want to learn from your proposal is: what happens to the PCs during this adventure? That is what most of the adventure will be about, it's the only thing the players really care about, and it's the basic quality upon which all adventures are ultimately judged. For that reason, the most important questions were: "What are the two obstacles?" "What does the final encounter look like?" and "What is the new monster?" The "Who took the object and why?" question, while important, was probably the least interesting question from my point of view. If you spent over half your proposal answering this question, that's bad.

2. Details, details. The module failed to meet the minimum standards for either: following instructions, writing quality, or some other "mundane" detail. Several of the queries I read did not make any sense. Several more were rife with grammatical errors, spelling errors, or other fundamental problems. And there were a few that were written almost entirely in passive voice. Any of these things really hurt your chances. Also, I'll throw one more mistake in this category. Several people based their adventure around monsters, classes, or concepts that are Wizards of the Coast's IP. If your main villain was a hexblade, or your most important monster was a nerra, your proposal didn't get far.

3. Been there, done that. The module simply wasn't very creative. This is a hard one to quantify, and subject somewhat to individual taste, but nevertheless, if your plot was straightforward, your challenges predicable, your "moral quandary" at the end clichéd, and your villain pulled straight from a movie or book, then we weren't that interested. The best proposals, the ones that got passed through to the next round, all contained at least one element that provoked some kind of emotional response from the editors. Whether we thought it was funny, tragic, romantic, creepy, exciting, or mysterious, the important thing was that we got involved in the story. That's probably the hardest thing to pull off with any proposal, but its also the most important. If you can draw us into your adventure, we are going to want to print it.

4. Overly ambitious. The proposal was inappropriate for the level. There are two ways this could happen. First of all, if your proposal involved monsters or challenges that were clearly beyond what 4th-level characters could handle, it was an easy pass, since it demonstrated that you didn't really know how the CR system works. But there was another way you could trip up here too. 4th-level characters are not equipped to save the world. If your plotline involved ancient demons emerging from the Abyss to destroy the planet, or a mad lich plotting to undo creation, you missed the point, even if the monsters themselves were the right CR. At 4th level, the PCs are still just beginning their careers, if they are facing epic forces and saving the world now, what will they be doing at level 12? That's not to say that the PCs shouldn't be doing important things, but saving the world is not in the cards, at least not yet.

5. Breaking the toys. The adventure created or modified a large amount of campaign setting continuity. This is a simple matter of practicality. We don't want to blow up cities or nations, destroy mountains, or make major shifts in the campaign setting in the context of these modules. Especially when the writer doesn't have a lot of history working with us.

I hope that gives you guys something to go on for the next time around. In closing, I just want to thank you all for submitting. There were lots of great ideas, and it was difficult, in the end, to narrow it down to the right number. This won't be the last open call we do, and I hope to see many of you again for the next time around.

Jeremy Walker
Assistant Editor, GameMastery

Open Call Round 1 Results

Thursday, October 11, 2007

The results for Round 1 of the GameMastery Module Open Call are in. It may have taken a marathon meeting, about half a dozen cans of Diet Dr. Pepper, and a host of minis to play with while we chatted... but it's finally done. In the end, we couldn't settle on 10 candidates as initially promised, and instead decided to go with 12! Those who advanced will have a little more than two weeks to submit a full outline, including sample encounters and monsters.

All of the acceptance and rejection emails have now been sent out, so you might want to go check you inbox right about now. Congratulations to those who got accepted. For those of you who did not make the cut, do not despair: we're combing through the entries to see if any of the monsters might make suitable entries into the Pathfinder bestiary section.

We got a lot of really great entries, and trimming them down was not an easy task. There were a large number of proposals that probably would have made for a great module, but unfortunately cuts had to be made. So keep an eye out for future writing opportunities, for both the GameMastery Modules and Pathfinder alike. Next time, we might pick you!

Didn't make the cut and want to share your ideas with others? Feel free to post your ideas to our messageboards.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager

Looting the Treasure Chest

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

We've received quite a few questions about the GameMastery Treasure Chest over the past several weeks and I thought I would take a moment to give you the skinny on this box full of goodness.

This box gives you a wide assortment of our most popular GameMastery products, including an original adventure (TC1: Into the Haunted Forest) that ties together all the products into one "deluxe" game experience. Here's what the box contains.

TC1: Into the Haunted Forest
Critical Hit Deck
Item Cards: Elements of Power
Campaign Workbook
Map Pack: Inns
Flip-Mat: Woodlands

Now, if you happen to own a bunch of these products, but still want the module, no worries. TC1: Into the Haunted Forest will be available separately for just $5 (note that this module is not part of the subscription deal, so if you want it, you will need to order it as normal). As for the module itself, you do not need these products to run the adventure, but they do include all the maps and treasure cards used in the adventure. (Incidentally: TC stands for "Treasure Chest," in case you're wondering.)

Hope that clears things up, but if you have any further questions, feel free to post them to our messageboards.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager

GameMastery Open Call: Closed

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

The first round of the GameMastery Module Open Call closed yesterday at noon, and let me tell you, there was quite a rush there at the end. Can an email program smoke? I think mine did a little yesterday.

All told, we received 168 entries over the course of nine days, with most of them coming within the final 48 hours. Following the closing of the contest, I have gone through and stripped the names from files, assigning them all a number. After printing them and sorting them into three even stacks, Mike McArtor, Jeremy Walker, and I have dug in, reading all about wondrous dragon eggs, stolen town icons, missing children, and a veritable swarm of red ravens.

Of interest to me (and perhaps only to me), the shortest entry clocked in at just 245 words while the longest came in at 1,405. The word count limit only caught 7 proposals, but other problems (such as incorrect format or lack of name) nabbed another 11, bringing the final total down to an even 150.

Mike, Jeremy, and I are all feverishly looking through our stacks of 50, picking out what we feel are the best to bring to a contest meeting later this week, where we will narrow down the search to ten finalists. For those of you who are anxiously waiting, expect word late this week or early next. Feel free to send bribes, but since this is a blind review, I am not sure it will help you much.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager

You got GameMastery in my Dragonlance!

Monday, October 1, 2007

While seeing folks play in our campaign world is of course the biggest compliment we can receive, here at Paizo, we understand that many people have been playing in alternative game worlds for a long time, and simply aren't interested in switching over. As a result, we're always excited when we hear about someone getting jazzed enough about our products to mine out ideas or convert them over to their favorite setting.

Thus it was with great enthusiasm that we stumbled across this article over at the fan site Dragonlance Nexus, all about converting the kobolds introduced in D1: Crown of the Kobold King for use in your Dragonlance game. If you're a Dragonlance fan—and there are certainly a few of them around here—hit it up and check out the author's thoughts on the kobolds' religion, subraces, and more.

And if there's something else from the Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting that you've been using in your Dragonlance game... why not submit it to the Nexus and spread the wealth?

James Sutter
Assistant Editor, Pathfinder

Shadows Behind the Canvas

Friday, September 28, 2007

In his years of studying magical art, the sinister Imron Gauthfallow has collected a number of unique pieces from across the continent. But when he looted a spectacular piece from the abandoned mansion of a dead elven scholar, he got more than he bargained for. When he unveiled the painting in his own gallery, he unwittingly released a shadowy lurker.

These undead spirits of darkness were once the celebrated elven artisans. Betrayed by their own pride, ages ago they were tricked by the fey of the First World and bound away into shadow. Twisted by their hatred and loneliness, they were transformed into stunted, shadowy versions of their former selves. In time they discovered portals back to the real world. Ironically, these "portals" were in fact the paintings they had crafted so many centuries before, collected in galleries all across Golarion. Obsessed with their lost lives, the shadowy lurkers found their own works, and jealously guarded them from being seen by lesser beings. Over time, the shadowy lurkers have learned to manipulate the minds of people in the same way they used to play with paint and brush. Masters of light and illusion, they can be a deadly trap for the unsuspecting art enthusiast.

For more information on the perils of paint, be sure to check out GameMastery Module U1: Gallery of Evil.

Jeremy Walker
Assistant Editor, GameMastery

GameMastery Module Open Call

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Paizo has a long-standing tradition of bringing new authors into the gaming industry. We hope to continue that tradition with the GameMastery Module Open Call. With the Open Call, we're giving you your chance to join our stable of experienced authors who bring Pathfinder and the GameMastery Modules to life. All you need to do is download the guidelines here (40 KB zip PDF), give them a read, and warm up your keyboard. The guidelines document includes a brief synopsis of the adventure we're looking for, rules on how to send a query, and an overview of the Open Call process. One skilled author will be chosen to write W3: Flight of the Red Raven, due to come out next year.

This is your chance to write for us. Let's see what you've got.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager

Masterpiece of Horror

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

The idea of paintings coming to life is certainly not new. It's been excellent fodder for horror movies for years. It's surprising, therefore, that not much has been done with the concept in classic fantasy. The upcoming edition in our GameMastery Modules line tries to fill in that gap somewhat by bringing you Imron Gauthfallow and his Gallery of Evil.

Some of Imron's most useful discoveries in his quest for revenge are the painted creations. These creatures are crafted from nothing more than paint and imagination. Crafted as facsimiles of real creatures, they posses the mindless obedience and indomitable nature of automations. Perhaps their most frightening quality, however, is that a painted creation can replicate almost any creature and, to the unobservant, can easily be mistaken for the real thing.

Jeremy Walker
Assistant Editor, GameMastery

A Picture's Worth…

Thursday, September 6, 2007

With Seven Swords of Sin now out the door and arriving in mailboxes everywhere, it's time to start looking at September's new GameMastery Module. This month we are releasing U1: Gallery of Evil. This module is our first urban adventure (hence the U code), so we thought we would start out proper by exploring one section of Golarion's most important city: Absalom. This vast metropolis sits on the isle of Kortos in the great Inner Sea, making it of vital importance to the region.

Gallery of Evil specifically focuses on the Ivy District, known as being home to many of the city's most influential artists and craftsmen. It's only natural, then, that the adventure focuses on the darker side of art, with one crazed master turning his works loose on his unsuspecting critics. Over the next few weeks, we will explore some of this module with a bit more depth, but for now, here's one of our favorite art pieces and the teaser text from the back of the module.

Art for Murder's Sake

The great city of Absalom is known as a center for trade, education, and art. Inside the Ivy District reside dozens of famous artists, but one has the talent to bring his paintings to life and uses paint to conjure terrible monsters bent on destruction. Can the player characters stop the mad painter before he perfects his art?

Gallery of Evil is an urban adventure for 8th-level characters, compatible with the world's most popular fantasy roleplaying game. This adventure includes details on the metropolis of Absalom's Ivy District, as well as the home of the diabolical artist and his twisted works. The PCs must track down the deadly paintings and discover the true identity of the artist behind it all.

This adventure is the first to feature information on the metropolis of Absalom, one of the largest cities in the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager

  

Delve of Doom Results!

Friday, August 31, 2007

Gen Con was a great show for Paizo, as usual, but this year had a new addition to our booth presence. It all started with a little contest around the office to determine who could design the most deadly dungeon chamber. While this idea was all well and good, we would need some "test" subjects to run through our gauntlet of pain, and thus the idea of running a delve at Gen Con was born.

Using the fabulous Master Maze 3D dungeon terrain pieces produced by Dwarven Forge, along with our Critical Hit Deck, Combat Pad, and item cards, we set out to murder as many unsuspecting visitors to our corner of the booth, and murder we did. Of course, we also gave out some great prizes to those who managed to succeed, including free production, discounts at the booth, and even some real swords.

Every unfortunate soul who met his end in the depths of Tirana's death trap became a red dot on our oversized delve maps, as a warning to others. Of course, that didn't seem to help much, as by the end of the show there were 255 red dots on the maps. Considering that we ran roughly 1000 players through the delve, a 1-in-4 death rate is pretty respectable (mental note: make next year deadlier). Of course, part of the fun was figuring out whose rooms caused the most deaths. Phil Lacefield's rooms certainly had the most kills as a whole, but no individual room had more kills than Publisher Erik Mona's doom-filled Vrock chamber. Congrats to Erik for having the least compassion toward poor player characters.

If you missed out on the delve, never fear. Many of its chambers were used as inspiration for GameMastery Module D2: Seven Swords of Sin, which should be hitting your store shelves any day now.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager

Science in the Dungeon

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

If there's anything that the other editors and I butt heads about around here, it's the amount of science that should be present in our fantasy—or rather, the amount of science fiction. I make no bones about the fact that I'm a huge sci-fi fan, and if given my druthers I'll almost always err on the side of too much rather than too little. Which means that, given the overall traditional RPG fantasy feel of our campaign setting, it usually falls to Jacobs, Wes, or someone similar to rein me back. (For instance, no matter how much I lobbied, neither of them would budge and allow me to put a magical particle accelerator or space elevator in the Varisia backdrop... which is perhaps for the best.)

In D2: Seven Swords of Sin, the setting of a research facility abandoned by the mysterious Council of Truth allowed me ample opportunity to blend fantasy and science to my own peculiar tastes. The generator room (magic-powered and water-cooled!), the recycling unit (where corpses turn into valuable potions!), the incinerator (get rid of those undesirables!), and the turbines that supply the dungeon with air all scratched an itch that rarely gets addressed in a lot of fantasy settings. By far the most sci-fi element, however, was one of the new monsters: nanites (which were promptly renamed the construct swarm by the Powers That Be).

Few current trends in science capture my imagination more than nanotechnology. Just reading about all the advances in medicine and manufacturing that are coming about as we speak due to tiny, autonomous robots makes me giggle and start expounding loudly on how We Live In The Future (which, as Jacobs will tell you, happens on a regular basis). And while writing D2 I got to thinking: most of the reason we've taken so long to get where we are with nanotech is due to manufacturing limitations. But with magic, construct technology is already in place, and size is changeable at a whim. It seemed to me like a natural choice. And if it allowed me to put in a hermetically sealed "clean room" and a man transformed by a horrible, intelligent swarm that prefers to fight its battles in your bloodstream... well, more's the better. So, fully prepared to have to rewrite that room, I threw it in.

And, to my great surprise, it stayed. For that, I give many thanks to the GameMastery team. May they not regret their decision.

Now just wait until we start talking about Golarion's moon....

James Sutter
Assistant Editor, Pathfinder

Delve-o-vision!

Monday, August 27, 2007

We'll have the scores for Paizo's Deadliest GenCon Delve Room contest up soon, but it's taking us some time to tabulate all the character deaths... it seems the majority of valiant PCs went down like field mice under a rotary mower. Until then, here's the first of several YouTube videos people took of fan favorite author and messageboard regular Nick Logue introducing delve players to his unique (and decidedly kinesthetic) brand of game mastering.

James Sutter
Assistant Editor, Pathfinder

4th Edition

Friday, August 24, 2007

We're all back from Gen Con, and aside from the launch of Pathfinder and our new Planet Stories novel line, the hot news at the show was the announcement of Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, from Wizards of the Coast. Messageboards across the internet, from paizo.com to EN World and Wizards of the Coast's own site, are abuzz with discussion of what was revealed at the show, what changes are in store for our favorite game, and what the future may hold.

Naturally, lots of folks want to know what the announcement means for Pathfinder and for our line of monthly GameMastery Modules.

Right now, the answer is this: It's too soon to tell.

No one at Paizo has seen a copy of the new rules yet, nor have we seen a draft of the Open Game License for it (yes, there will be one). We have plenty of reasons to believe that the new game will include lots of improvements over the current system, and that the new OGL will, if anything, be even more permissive than the one for 3.0 and 3.5.

Ever since the announcement of the end of Dragon and Dungeon magazines, we've been careful to say that Wizards of the Coast and Paizo are still on good terms, that we're still communicating with one another, and that we hope to work together in the future. This is not just so much blown smoke. The guys at Wizards have been very forthcoming with information on the new edition, and we look forward to learning even more in the weeks and months to come. I am personally optimistic that this will, for the most part, be a welcome change at my gaming table.

But it's way too early to say what Paizo will be doing about 4th edition. Please give us some time to take a look at the new rules, to take a look at the new OGL, and make an informed decision. We promise we'll let you know what we're planning just as soon as we figure it out ourselves.

For the time being, both the Rise of the Runelords and Curse of the Crimson Throne Adventure Paths will be released as announced for the 3.5 rules set, as will all GameMastery Modules at least up until May of 2008, which is when Wizards will release the 4th edition Player's Handbook.

All of our announced products for the first quarter of 2008 are "rules-light" and should not be adversely affected by the change in edition whether we convert or not. We will be making no significant changes to the announced product schedule.

I'm aware that many Paizo customers will not be converting to 4e. Honestly, before I heard some of the things I heard at Gen Con, I wasn't sure I wanted to convert either. So I sympathize.

Pathfinder currently plans to support officially sanctioned conversions for Castles & Crusades and True20, so assuming we do convert, I suspect it is very likely that we (or some affiliated partner) will provide 3.5 conversion guidelines.

Or we might stick with 3.5. We haven't seen the rules yet, and can't make the decision until we do.

One thing I can say for sure: As a gamer I would be a lot happier with a game that doesn't require two hours of prep-time for four hours of play. I have heard that the new system addresses this problem, and that strikes me as excellent.

If Wizards of the Coast can streamline the rules without robbing the game of its variety and complexity, I will be very impressed.

So far, I am optimistic.

Erik Mona
Publisher
Paizo Publishing, LLC

Kaer Maga

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Now that D2: Seven Swords of Sin is starting to make it out into people's hands, I'd like to talk a little bit about my favorite part of writing it: designing the city of Kaer Maga.

Going into the project, there were two different ideas for where the adventure should be set. For me, it seemed to call for an urban setting, a crazy city where anything went and the law was sketchy at best. Publisher Erik Mona, however, was eager for Varisia to have an iconic castle, a massive dungeon complex that we could return to again and again as we saw fit. The solution? Push the two together and build a city inside a castle—an enormous Thassilonian ruin of unknown function, to be exact. At this point Erik and the rest of the GameMastery team gave me the go-ahead and, armed with the working title "Dark Market," I sat down to write.

As anyone who's played in one of my adventures can probably tell you, I like to play with morality. To me, the interesting thing about evil is that it's so rarely self-identified as such. One of my biggest peeves in adventures, fiction, or film is what we around the office refer to as "moustache-twirling"—villains that are evil simply because they enjoy being evil. (Shortly after that comes my disdain for boring ol' "insanity" as a villain's motive.) In real life, things are usually much more gray and fuzzy—no evil deed exists in a vacuum, and even the most "evil" people I can think of tend to have reasons why their actions make sense in their own minds.

This aesthetic was at the front of my mind when writing about Kaer Maga. To me, all big cities are by definition neutral—get enough people together, they'll balance each other out. In Kaer Maga's case, this neutrality is the result of a free market taken to the extreme, an anarchist, libertarian utopia where people are left to sink or swim entirely through their own machinations. While many would look at the gritty streets, where every shameful vice is yours for the purchasing, and call it evil, I'd point out that Kaer Maga is also the freest of the free cities of Varisia. In rooting the city's "evil" in an ideal many of us share, I hoped to make the scene feel a little more familiar and organic.

Along with the questionable morality, it was important to me that Kaer Maga be a monstrous city, a place where we could get a taste of the alien delights that Golarion has to offer and remind the folks who inhabit Varisia that there's far more beyond the mountains than they might imagine. For those purposes, a city of refugees and squatters seemed perfectly poised to capture the sort of cultural mish-mash that I love in places like Star Wars' Mos Eisley or China Miéville's New Crobuzon. Knowing that I wouldn't have space in a 32-page adventure to truly detail many of the residents, I took a page from some of my favorite sci-fi and fantasy authors and tossed in a bunch of allusions and off-hand references with only the barest explanations. Wormfolk? Bloated Ones? Sweettalkers? When I first wrote those names, at 3:00am in a darkened room, my bleary brain didn't know any more than their names. As soon as I went back and read them, however, my imagination went into overdrive trying to think up what they could be... which is exactly what I hope happens to everyone else. While I couldn't resist from detailing some of them in the Pathfinder Journal for The Hook Mountain Massacre, I promise I'll try to leave at least a few of them alone.

For now.

James Sutter
Assistant Editor, Pathfinder

From Delve to Dungeon

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you likely already know about Paizo's delve event at this year's GenCon, in which convention attendees will have the chance to run through part of a deadly, trap-filled dungeon, potentially winning fabulous prizes. You also probably know that the delve is closely related to the new GameMastery Module we'll be releasing, D2: Seven Swords of Sin. But what most people don't know is exactly how one became the other...

The Paizo delve was written as part of an informal internal contest to see who could write the deadliest, most creative dungeon rooms for a set map within a certain EL range. Each of the interested staff members (after deciding the pecking order by rolling initiative, of course) took turns choosing until all of the chambers were parceled out, then took their best shots. The resulting mishmash of horror was then edited, judged highly entertaining, and pronounced ready to be Paizo's first GenCon delve.

But somewhere in the early stages of the project, an idea began to form. Suppose someone had a really good time with the delve, and wanted to take it home to their own party? What if we could have an adventure module there at the show that incorporated most of the delve, plus a bunch of extra material? The decision was made, and I was tapped to give form and structure to our cruel meat grinder of a dungeon.

It wasn't always easy. A delve, for instance, needs only the barest plot—when each party's only playing for a few minutes, it's hard to get much roleplaying in. For a writer like me who is, admittedly, more of a story fan than an out-and-out brawler, it was an interesting challenge. Where in our world, for instance, could adventurers reasonably expect to find such a varied an eclectic collection of rooms? The answer, as it turns out, is the anarchic squatter's paradise of Kaer Maga, a cliff-top city housed inside the walls of an enormous Thassilonian artifact. Possibly the freest of Varisia's fiercely independent cities (if the most morally questionable), the background material on Kaer Maga remains my favorite part of this module—so much so that we return to it in the third installment of the Pathfinder's Journal. But more on that next week.

Even with a location, however, we still needed a story capable of tying fiendish dinosaur-riding goblins to eladrin warriors and vampire bladepriests. Once we figured out that Tirana was trying to combine the weapons of the Runelords' ancient champions for her own personal gain, it seemed to me that the natural setting for such a bold experiment would be in a secret, abandoned research facility. Armed with that knowledge, the next step was to trim off the rooms that just didn't fit and retool the ones to make them work together as a unit. Following that came the writing of the new rooms—because you didn't think we'd just repackage the delve, did you? No, if you get a chance to go to GenCon and see the massive tables covered with three-dimensional dungeon terrain, be sure to keep in mind that all of those rooms amount to about half of the actual adventure. For many of the extra chambers, I enjoyed playing up the research facility aspect, complete with incinerators, recycling units, turbines for proper air circulation, and laboratories with strange new monsters run amuck. And, of course, no module set in a city is complete without at least one gang turf war.

All told, writing D2 was a unique experience, and I hope that those of you who read through it have as much fun as I did. Next week I'll be back with a bit more information about Kaer Maga.

James Sutter
Assistant Editor, Pathfinder

The Fey Are Coming

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

GameMastery Module W1: Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale has arrived in our warehouse and is about to ship to subscribers (although if you sign up now, you can still get the module and a free PDF). Although I've chatted about fey before, now is as good time to look at the fey in this module with some detail. If you plan on playing this module be forewarned—spoilers lurk below.

Here are some facts about the Roseblood Sprites, presented as a Knowledge (nature) skill check.

DC	Information
13	Roseblood Sprites are evil fey that live in an area known as Bloodsworn Vale. They are a menace to travelers and workmen alike, and even to adventurers if encountered in a large group (known as a bushel).
18	These fey have the ability to transform into ordinary rose bushes, and have a penchant for using the beautifully thorny plants in their armor and weapons.
23	Roseblood Sprites have a number of magical abilities involving trickery, and can pass through wooded areas with ease.
28	Roseblood Sprites who congregate in large groups are often led by a king who is far more powerful than his kin, with the ability to awaken rosebushes and turn them into sprites.

Beyond this basic information, the fey living in Bloodsworn Vale have another nasty habit. As of late, their victims have been found mutilated, missing one or both of their ears. Rumors hold that this is some sort of trophy gathering by the malicious sprites, but some say that something far more sinister is afoot.

Well, that's all for Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale. If you've not checked out this module, stop by your local game store, visit our booth at GenCon, or take a look through some of the other posts on this blog. Next week, we'll start "delving" into D2: Seven Swords of Sin.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager

Letter Designations

Monday, August 6, 2007

First things first—if you haven't already checked it out, D0: Hollow's Last Hope is now available as a free PDF download right here. What are you waiting for? It's free!

Ahem. We now return you to the topic at hand: module letter designations.

So D0: Hollow's Last Hope is a prequel of sorts to D1: Crown of the Kobold King. It follows, then, that D2 is a sequel to D1. Right?

Well, no, actually. D2 is completely unrelated to D0 and D1. On the other hand, E1 is set in Falcon's Hollow, the settlement that serves as the starting point of D0 and D1. Confused yet? Let us help sort out things a bit.

These alphanumeric designators hearken back to the old way of numbering modules from the earliest days of RPGs. With a few exceptions (the A, D, G, and Q series, for example) the older module lines used their alphanumeric designators to denote adventures of a similar nature that aren't related. Don't think of any series designator we've announced so far as being a set of sequels you can run one after another. Consider each adventure separately unless it specifically calls itself a sequel to an earlier adventure. The designator is just there to tell you what kind of adventure to expect, with the number telling you the order in which we published it.

What, then, do the designators mean?

D is for Dungeon. These adventures take place primarily in a dungeon, whether that means an underground complex or some other kind of self-contained area for PCs to explore.

E is for Event. These adventures focus on some kind of event you can place anywhere you want, such a jousting tournament, a royal wedding, or (as in the example of E1) a carnival. Although all E adventures will be set somewhere in our campaign setting, they are the easiest to place anywhere you want or need them.

J is for Journey. These adventures either focus on a journey to some exotic locale or else deal with what you find once you get to such an interesting place. (J1 takes place in Osirion, the Egypt analog of Golarion.)

U is for Urban. These adventures take place in cities and focus on the kinds of adventures you can only have when surrounded by thousands of other people. (U1 occurs in a wealthy district of Absalom, one of the largest cities on Golarion.)

W is for Wilderness. These adventures occur in the wild places of the world. You might have a hint of civilization in a W adventure, but the main focus is on the untamed areas. (PCs in W1 attempt to civilize Bloodsworn Vale.)

C is for Cookie. That's good enough for me.

At some point in the future we will undoubtedly release modules that belong together in a series, at which point we'll likely give them their own designators. There have been whispers of an M series, for example, wherein Erik Mona creates several linked adventures set on our southern continent. And, of course, sequels to previous adventures in a series might occasionally crop up. We'll make sure to make that very clear when it happens.

Mike McArtor
Associate Editor, GameMastery

Welcome to Fort Thorn

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

With GameMastery Module W1: Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale just about to ship out to subscribers, it's time to introduce your PCs to their new home: Fort Thorn. This small community is the only bastion of civilization in the Vale and, as such, makes for the most likely home base for explorers. The following are descriptions of a few key places:

A3. Keep

Aside from the shrine, Fort Thorn's keep is the only other stone building in town. This massive two-story structure is home to Sir Gyrad Tolgrith (NG male human fighter 4/ranger 2) and all of his men. The first floor of the structure contains the meeting hall, armory, mess hall, kitchen, and storage rooms. The second floor contains a smaller, private meeting hall, the barracks, the planning room, and Sir Tolgrith's private quarters.

Fort Thorn's current staff includes 40 soldiers (LG male human warrior 2), 4 scouts (NG male human ranger 2), 2 sergeants (LG male human fighter 4), and Sir Tolgrith.

A6. The Boar's Bones

Shortly after settling the fort, the soldiers faced their first crisis when the food caravan was late and their supplies ran low. Sir Tolgrith sent out his scouts to forage and hunt, but after three days they had not found much. On the fourth day they scored big, dragging the carcass of an enormous dire boar back into camp at the same time the supply caravan finally arrived. During the evening's festivities, the boar was picked clean and the fort's cook, Orrend, kept the bones.

A month later, Orrend (CG male halfling expert 3) opened up the Boar's Bones, a small inn and tavern, to serve the off-duty soldiers, workers, and visitors who happened to stop by. The bones were carefully reconstructed with wire and wood, and the now-intact dire boar skeleton sits in the middle of the tavern with a pouch hanging from its tusks. Orrend insists that any tips given to the boar are sent to its grieving kin.

The food at the Boar's Bones is of good quality (4 sp per meal), combining local ingredients with caravan supplies. Orrend has yet to perfect his rose petal ale, so whenever he has a new batch ready, all tankards of it are half price (2 cp). Rooms at the Boar's Bones are simple, with only a single cot, washbasin, and cupboard apiece, but clean and free of vermin (1 gp per night).

A8. Shrine to Erastil

Every morning, the lone bell of this stone shrine tolls twice to start the prayer service. The shrine is dedicated to Erastil (LG god of hunting, trade, farming, and family), also known as "Old Deadeye." The shrine's lone cleric, Father Apar (LG male human cleric 5), tends to the spiritual needs of the community, including healing and other minor spellcasting. Father Apar offers these services for free to the soldiers, but all others must pay the usual price. Father Apar also has a number of divine potions and scrolls for sale, but none worth more than 300 gp.

Father Apar's morning sermons are usually quite calm affairs, with the elderly cleric reading from holy scriptures and addressing current concerns. Sir Tolgrith makes sure to attend twice per week, but never on a regular schedule. After the morning prayers, Father Apar walks around town, talking to the locals about their problems or tending to the sick. Once per week, after the day's labor is over, Father Apar invites all to an archery challenge in front of the fort. To the winner he gifts a potion of his own creation (usually cure light wounds).

There are, of course, many more places to visit in Fort Thorn, but I'll leave those secrets for you to discover.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager

Gold, Land, and Title!

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Those are the rewards promised to those who conquer the Bloodsworn Vale. In just a few weeks, you might be able to claim those prizes.

Since we are getting pretty close to the release of this module, we realized we have yet to show off a map of this large, untamed wilderness. To avoid spoilers, the map is untagged (and might just make for a good player handout, if you're thinking of downloading it). That said, there are a couple of points of interest on the map that bear some explanation.

Fort Thorn: As the only settlement on the map, Fort Thorn (the small dot near the center) is of vital importance to the region. Although its commander, Sir Tolgrith, hopes one day to make it self-sufficient, it currently depends upon a steady stream of caravans for provisions and other basic supplies.

The fort is a walled community surrounded by a 20-foot-tall palisade of tree trunks, upended and carved to points. Beyond this security there is nothing but wilderness. Tall trees and endless thickets of wild rose bushes cover much of the surrounding terrain. There are no farms or outlying buildings affiliated with the fort—any who dwell outside its walls are hermits, monsters, or worse.

The Path: This trail is being cut through the vale to establish a vital trade route with Varisia's neighbors. It is currently under construction and time is running out to meet the king's deadline.

The Petal and Coldrun Rivers: These two slow-moving rivers provide fresh water to those in the region, although the Petal (which runs past Fort Thorn) has a nasty tendency to foul every few weeks, causing sickness in those who drink from it at those times.

Mist Lake: The calm waters of this lake are perpetually shrouded in mist that moves overland to cover the nearby swamps. The residents of Fort Thorn avoid this area, as they say it is haunted.

There is, of course, much more to explore in the vast reaches of the vale, but to learn about it you just might have to journey there yourself.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager

Falcon's Hollow

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

In celebration of the release of the free PDF of GameMastery Module D0: Hollow's Last Hope, the start of our Module Subscription Service, and the eminent release of D1: Crown of the Kobold King, we thought it was high time that we gave you some information about the small town featured in both modules: Falcon's Hollow. For more information, make sure to check out the appendix in Crown of the Kobold King.

Falcon's Hollow makes an excellent base of operations for a party of PCs seeking adventure in Darkmoon Vale and the dungeons beneath Droskar's Crag. In addition, the schemes of crooked politicians, lumber tycoons, and flesh-peddling crime bosses in Falcon's Hollow offer a breadth of opportunities for conflict and action. The party may become embroiled in local politics as this fledgling settlement grows and factions arise who seek a formal government in hopes of throwing off the crushing yoke of the Lumber Consortium. Additionally, the party may become involved in religious struggles between various sects devoted to all manner of strange deities, some merely against the grain of common theocracy, others downright evil and bent on corrupting the souls of the simple folk who call the Hollow home. Finally, crime is one of the largest sources of revenue in town, and gangs of organized thugs engage in every illicit activity imaginable. Good heroes residing in Falcon's Hollow won't go long without rubbing these syndicates the wrong way, and the PCs may be swept up in street wars with local criminals before they even have the chance to venture into the Vale and seek their fortunes.

Places of Note:

Church of Iomedae: With all the downtrodden to preach to in Falcon's Hollow, missionaries of Iomedae, Goddess of Valor and Justice, have established a foothold in town. Many other religious sects who fled to the Hollow to escape the Church of Light's persecution resent Iomedae's followers, and tensions run high between congregations, often resulting in less-than-holy brawls on the muddy thoroughfares of Worship Way.

Goose'n'Gander: The local general store in Falcon's Hollow is run by the only gnome resident, named Brickasnurd Hildrinsocks, who sells everything from standard amenities such as grain, lamp oil, ink, and mining supplies to such rare oddities as alchemist's fire, antitoxin, a fat petrified pseudo-dragon, and stuffed nixies (all the rage this season).

Hollow Tribunal: This is where the diminutive halfling Magistrate Vamros Harg dispenses merchant licenses, stamps mining and lumber claims, and passes judgment on criminal and civil cases. Most Falconers enjoy the irony of the Hollow Tribunal's name, since the justice meted out there is rarely equitable. The fact that Harg is firmly in Gavel Thuldrin's pocket is well known, but rarely uttered in public by those who value their lives.

The Sitting Duck: Located a little too close to the town palisade for many folks' comfort, the Duck is the local hotspot for adventurers, explorers, and other rapscallions looking for adventure. The tavern serves a potent local brew of fermented darkwood leaf that can floor an ogre in a few tankards. Raucous games of "knivesies" and "mig-a-mug-tug," two dangerous local recreational activities, both with a high rate of maiming injury, often rage late into the night. Many adventurers share tales of Darkmoon Vale and information on Droskar's Crag, and other surrounding locations can be gleaned here for the price of a mug of ale.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager

Free RPG Day is Tomorrow!

Friday, June 22, 2007

Tomorrow, June 23rd, is the first annual Free RPG Day, where you can stop by your local game store and pick up a free product. As mentioned in the post from April 24th, you can pick up the very first GameMastery Module, D0: Hollow's Last Hope tomorrow as part of this exciting event.

Hollow's Last Hope is a prequel to D1: Crown of the Kobold King and covers much of the lead-up to that adventure, taking brand-new 1st-level characters up to 2nd level and getting them ready for the challenges the kobold king has in store. The adventure also features a plot that allows it to be run as a stand-alone event. Here is some of the text from the back cover:

The Town of Falcon's Hollow Needs a Miracle
The plague has come to the town of Falcon's Hollow, and not even the town's priest can abate its wretched course. With the coughs of the sick and the wails of the dying echoing through town, the local herbalist uncovers a cure, but she needs some brave heroes to retrieve the ingredients. Finding the cure means risking the dangerous Darkmoon Vale, infiltrating a witch's haunted hut, and delving the ruins of an abandoned dwarven monastery.

Due to its smaller size, Hollow's Last Hope does not include pregenerated characters. We wanted to make sure you could run the adventure as part of Free RPG Day festivities, though, so to help on that end, we've put together four ready-to-play PCs. You can download a PDF of these PCs right here.

To find a game store near you that is sponsoring the event, go to freeRPGday.com. If you miss out on Free RPG Day, but still want to get your hands on the module, you can order a physical copy through our store (for a small fee) or you can download it as a free pdf starting Monday.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager

GameMastery Module Subscriptions

Friday, June 15, 2007

You asked for it and we deliver. GameMastery Module Subscriptions are now available.

Starting today, you can sign up for an ongoing subscription and ensure that you don't miss out on a single sneaky kobold king, forgotten vale, or sinful sword. Sign up now and once D1: Crown of the Kobold King releases, it will be shipped to your door and you'll be able to download a PDF of the adventure (an $8.99 value) for free. The subscription continues with W1: Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale next month, and D2: Seven Swords of Sin in August. Each module includes a free PDF and your choice of shipping options.

Now for a couple of conditions. The ongoing module subscriptions are at the normal cover price, but soon you will be able to combine shipping with your Pathfinder subscription to save a few bucks. You will even be able to choose which one waits each month until the other is ready to ship. If you want your Pathfinder right away, it will ship with the previous month's module, or you can choose the opposite. Look for these options in the coming weeks (although you can sign up now and make your choices later). Note that this subscription does not include D0: Hollow's Last Hope due to extremely limited supply (although you can score a copy at Free RPG Day on June 23rd, check out www.freeRPGday.com for further details).

We want to send 32-pages of evil to your mailbox every month. All you have to do is ask.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager

Seven Swords of Sin Revealed

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Say what you will about their morality, the rulers of ancient Thassilon knew how to govern. Knowing the horror that a full-scale duel between them would unleash, the Runelords settled on an elegant means of solving disputes. Each of the seven wizards created a unique blade imbued with the barest shadow of his might, and whenever two disagreed, each would bestow his blade upon a chosen champion, whose job it was to decide the matter in bloody arena combat. To be a champion for one of the Runelords was the greatest honor a warrior could aspire to... though generally a short-lived one.

While most of the great Thassilonian wonders were shattered or lost in the empire's fall, there are those who whisper that the swords themselves remain, hidden and awaiting hands to wield them. To the Thassilonians, they were known as the Alara'hai, the Seven Blades of Conviction. Given the Runelords' reputation, however, most scholars today know them by a different name.
—Pathfinder Chronicles

A while back, it was decided that Paizo would run a delve at this year's GenCon—an enormous three-dimensional dungeon that would allow participants to walk up to the booth and play 15 minutes of D&D for free, battling an array of cruel traps and monsters and collecting keys that could potentially win them real-world treasure (the exact nature of which I'm not allowed to reveal yet, but trust me—it's some quality loot). In keeping with the spirit of things, we decided to make the creation of the delve into something of a game itself—each interested member of the Paizo staff was assigned a few rooms and an EL range and told to fill it with unique traps and monsters, with the goal being to see whose room could kill the most players at the convention. People went to work with gusto, and soon the delve was a bizarre menagerie of deadly encounters, each stranger than the last. But as the idea germinated, we came to realize that this delve was too cool to be a one-shot deal—there had to be a published product. We could take the established rooms, add enough new dungeon encounters and plot elements to double its size, and weave a storyline that tied it all together. Everyone agreed that it was a good idea, and soon the adventure had a vague concept, a title, and a slot on the release schedule. Time went by, and the process rolled onward without issue. Then one day in a product meeting, someone asked who was going to be revising the rooms and writing all the extra content.

"Oh," said GameMastery Brand Manager Jason Bulmahn. "Sutter is."

I was drinking at the time, and promptly coughed tea into my sinuses. "What?" I squeaked.

"Surprise!" Bulmahn said. "I thought it would be more fun to tell you this way. You'll have a month to write it. Get to work."

Thus was born GameMastery Module D2: Seven Swords of Sin. In the weeks that followed, we faced several unique challenges in developing this adventure—things like finding a narrative that made sense of encounters like fiendish goblins riding dinosaurs and living cauldrons spewing boiling magma, or coordinating the numerous tie-ins with the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path—but at the end of the day I'm really happy with how the adventure turned out. In Swords, PCs discover that a powerful sorceress named Tirana has stolen numerous powerful magical weapons dating back to the days of ancient Thassilon, and are contracted by the Church of Abadar to recover them before she figures out how to unlock their full power. To do so, the PCs track the thief back to Kaer Maga, an anarchic outlaw city built entirely inside the ruins of a great Thassilonian structure (and my favorite part of the module, but more on that in later posts). Once there, they have to locate Tirana's headquarters and descend into an abandoned research facility filled with traps and monstrous guardians, finally coming face-to-face with the wizard herself, who wields the legendary Sword of Lust.

With several new monsters and magic items, a squatter metropolis on a cliff, a deadly dungeon with an old-school, Tomb of Horrors feel, and pages of art as gorgeous as the cover shown above, I'm hoping this module will have something for everyone.

James Sutter
Assistant Editor, Pathfinder

The New Stat Block

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Since we have sent a number of modules out to the printer, we recently came to the realization that it was high time to show off the new stat block. Mind you, there are a lot of things you are going to find familiar, but some things are brand new. When it came time to start working on Pathfinder and the GameMastery Modules, we took that opportunity to improve and tinker, while still trying to retain the easy-to-use format everyone has come to know and love.

Specifically, we tried to streamline the information a bit, so that you can more easily get at what you need. For example, AC, hit points, and saves now come first in the defensive section. All other abilities (such as immunities, resistances, and so on) get grouped together beneath these (as evasion is in the example). The offense section gets a similar treatment, with the information you need most grouped toward the top.

Next is the tactics box. Instead of having a tactics section in the encounter, it made more sense to include that with the stat block, so that each monster could have its own information. You get a section for what it does before and during combat, as well as a small bit on its morale telling you if it ever decides to run away from the fight. Some kobolds make great use of this particular section.

The last section in our examples covers the creature's statistics. This information is not generally vital to every combat situation and thus gets referenced far less often. This is not always the case, though, so you might see some of these statistics noted in earlier section so you don't miss them. For example, if a creature has improved grab, you can be sure that we will note its grapple bonus up in the offense section.

The two particular monsters in our sample page from D1: Crown of the Kobold King do not have any special abilities that require in-depth explanation. If they did, this information would go at the very end in its own section. The slurk, for instance, has a pair of abilities describing how its slimy belly grease and sticky back goo work (and no, those aren't the real ability titles).

As always, we want to hear from you. What do you think about the new stat block? Let us know in the forums, and remember that tonight is also the weekly GameMastery and Pathfinder chat. Check out the blog post from 5/02 to learn how to join in.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager

Forge Spurned

Friday, May 18, 2007

In Crown of the Kobold King we introduce the dwarven deity Droskar, God of Toil. Droskar's following began as a reaction against the bon vivant trends that pervaded the dwarven society of their day, instating a dreadful dogma of salvation through endless toil and brutal subservience to the Dark Smith, as Droskar was often called. The dwarves became slaves to their own industry, producing heaps of weapons, armor, and gear to appease their dark god. The wilderness around them was fed to Droskar's fires of industry, until the dwarves choked on their own black fumes and starved in the dust.

The rise of this new religion also saw the first appearance of a new undead monster associated with such endless toil: the forge spurned. When a dwarven worshiper of Droskar perishes, he is brought before his divine lord and judged. If the Master of the Dark Furnace finds him unworthy, he is pierced with burning barbs and returned to the world as a tormented undead creature on an accursed errand to gather souls for Droskar's Furnace. Forge spurned are consumed with their need to forge their soul chains, and prey upon any creature they feel they can easily best. If a forge spurned is felled and its chain taken by another, it seethes with dark fury. A forge spurned stops at nothing to retrieve its chain, lest it be forced to forge another, extending its period of burning torment.

Forge spurned resemble hulking dwarves wrapped in heavy steel chains. Their faces, hands, and bodies are riddled with glowing hot hooks and half-melted razor wire. Black smoke rises from their smoldering beards, framing a freakishly contorted face covered in ash and soot. The tormented beings heft black iron hammers in both hands, and the chains that drape their forms possess the malevolent life of angry metal serpents.

Jeremy Walker
Assistant Editor, GameMastery

I Hate Fey

Friday, May 4, 2007

I've never been the biggest fan of fey. Every time I use one in a game, there tends to be a quiet undertone of giggles and cheap jokes. Today, for example, when discussing this very blog post, we came upon the idea of chatting about the fey that play a part in W1: Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale. Within seconds, Wesley Schneider called out that I like "pretty, pretty princesses." Suffice to say... you can see why I don't like fey.

That said, when we plotted out Conquest the idea of using fey as one of the villains just made sense, and I set out to make fey something players might fear instead of mock. There is a dark side to nature, a savage side that these fey, known as roseblood sprites, fully embrace. You won't catch them frolicking through the forest or tending to a grove of flowers. These fey are more likely to paralyze you with poisoned rose thorns, murder you, and cut off your ears for their demented king. The illo sketch above is just one of the sketches from this module, showing the moment that our hero stumbles upon their grim feast (that hunk of meat might just resemble a human thigh). That ought to keep players from giggling.

And now I toss the question back to you—are fey pint-sized hippies, unhinged nature spirits, or something else entirely? Post on our messageboards and let us know what you think.

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

Hail To The King

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Kobolds have been around for a long time. From the ratlike little dog-men of the early editions, to the more recent incarnation as draconic lizards, these guys remain one of the game's favorite foils. Usually depicted as sneaky, conniving trap-makers, they also have a history of being cute, pathetic monsters struggling to find their place in the dungeon, usually at the bottom of the local food chain. When we went looking for an iconic monster to kick off our line of 32-page modules, the kobold was an easy choice.

We couldn't just settle for the traditional kobold, though. Not when we had the chance to do so much more. When we asked Senior Art Director Sean Glenn to redesign the stale old monster and give it a fresh look, what we got back exceeded all of our expectations. (Sean, for his part, readily admits to sending Sam, the World's Ugliest Dog, along as reference. Can you see the resemblance?) Meaner, nastier, and definitely more evil, these guys have that special something that sets them apart from the pack. They have style. To give you an idea, here are some of the kobolds from "Crown of the Kobold King."

The reign of Merlokrep, first of his name, all-mighty Dragon King of the Truescale Kobolds, has suffered misfortune from the day of his coronation. But the sturdy resolve that saw him through the murder of his eighteen siblings and cleared his path to the throne has held his tribe together through the accidents, attacks by their new monstrous neighbors, and the king's own homicidal outbursts of rage over both. Merlokrep is always happy to offer visitors an honored place as Great Sacrifices to the Crown, ready to wine and dine them before ripping them open and pulling out their hearts.

Vreggma, Chief Consort and Only One Allowed to Nag-Nag His Greatness, loves to gaze at her own reflection. Her continued pursuit of shiny good-good causes an endless amount of trouble for her King, resulting in a third of her tribe perishing in haphazard mining excavations over the years. She immediately attempts the coquettish seduction of anyone that enters her lair, but if her advances are rebuffed or her collection of shiny good-good is threatened, she flies into a spitting rage that belies her sweet veneer and attacks viciously.

Jekkajak, called by many "He Who Forgets More Than You or He Knows," is the Truescale's shaman. His mysterious prophecies are taken very seriously by the rest of the tribe, at least when he is awake. Jekkajak is a walking corpse of a kobold, whose withered old white scales are stretched tight over bone. His puny skeletal snout contains a lone tooth and constantly dribbles drool. His milky eyes focus intermittently on his surroundings.

Merlokrep's cruel mining foreman, Lekmek, works a gaggle of slaves to death in search of "shiny good-good" for Vreggma. Sadly, gold is not on the menu in his glum mines, whose walls are riddled instead with veins of iron ore. Vreggma's displeasure at the lack of gold is the source of many headaches for Merlokrep, who in turn takes out his frustrations on Lekmek. The foreman vents this mounting aggravation through harsh beatings administered to his digger-slaves on an hourly basis.

Finally, its never really made sense that all kobolds should be brownish gray. Since there are five colors of chromatic dragon, we created five differently colored kobolds. But when we got the art back from our artist, we discovered that we had not five, but six colors. Which begs the question: what do we do with this guy?

If you've got an idea, post it to our messageboards and let us know!

Jeremy Walker
Assistant Editor, GameMastery

The First One's On Us

What's better than a high-quality, full-color, 16-page adventure? A free one, of course!

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

On June 23rd, gamers celebrate a whole new holiday just for us: Free RPG Day. On that Saturday, gamers across the country can stop by their friendly local game shops and pick up free roleplaying products. Seeing how much we love free stuff here at Paizo, we couldn't help but get involved. Come the 23rd, the first GameMastery Module, D0: Hollow's Last Hope, will be available for free at these stores.

When we first heard about this event, we were pretty excited, but pulling it together in time turned out to be a real challenge. While we kicked around several ideas, we quickly decided that, since D1: Crown of the Kobold King is for 2nd-level parties, it only made sense for us to get players to that level with an introductory adventure. In fact, the plot of Crown seemed to beg for it, as the adventure takes place in a forbidding forest and a ruined dwarven monastery but doesn't spend a lot of time getting the PCs there. But therein lay a new roadblock—we didn't want the free adventure to be mandatory for full Crown enjoyment, and vice versa. So we thought hard, and hit upon a unique plotline for Hollow's Last Hope—the quest for a plague cure—that could stand alone and still allow DMs of Crown to strip out the free adventure's plot and tack the extra encounters seamlessly onto the beginning of D1.

Once that was figured out, the biggest hurdle became the time crunch. Because we found out about Free RPG Day late in the game, we all—particularly Wes Schneider and me, who teamed up to write it—had to pull together and work hard to get the writing, art, layout, etc. finished in half the time normally allotted for such a project. (And believe me, the work difference between a 16-page module and a 32-pager isn't as large as you'd think.) But in the end, we didn't cut any corners, and managed to put together a product that looks as great as it reads—cartographer Chris West and the artists over at UDON continue to astound us with their work, particularly on such short notice.

As for what you can expect to find in the module itself, I won't spoil things too much, but manipulative worgs and animated cauldrons that dance around and swallow people whole sound like fun to me. We also made a concerted effort to sprinkle the module liberally with details tying in with Crown of the Kobold King, as well as tidbits that'll go farther toward building up our game world. For instance, though the hut you search in Hollow's Last Hope belongs to a relatively low-level witch, rumor has it that she actually studied under a much more notorious hag from the north... someone whose name you might just recognize...

For more information on Free RPG Day, go to www.freerpgday.com. If you somehow miss out, check back here soon for more information on how to score your own copy of the module.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager