So, I was out sick yesterday, and as a result missed out seeing Pathfinder #46 get sent off to the printer. Which is pretty exciting, since that volume's got more Lovecraftian awesomeness in it than anything we've done to date? The proof is in these out-of-context illustrations by Scott Purdy that are sure to get everyone thinking that the Carrion Crown Adventure Path will be taking some pretty drastic and unexpected turns! (Fans of Carrion Crown's Ustalav locations can breathe easy, though, since these pictures are from the foreword and the bestiary of the book, and thus don't actually depict events that occur in this volume's adventure.)
In penance for yesterday's blog post being all mean about not giving out new art and punishing folks and all that, I present to you four more monsters from the upcoming Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Bestiary 2! What do these monsters all have in common? They're all based on monsters that come from mythology or the public domain—see if you can recognize any of them! Look for Bestiary 2 in bookstores, hobby stores, and on paizo.com in November.
Wednesday night we finished session #3 of Exiles of Zirnakaynin, my high-level, all-evil, all-drow-noble campaign. This session started with getting James Jacobs and Rob McCreary caught up to the rest of the group, as they missed session #2 due to bad cases of the sicky sickies. Once sisters Alivorah (James) and Ylvirixna (Rob) reached the pleasure-haven drow city of Far Parathra, they were attacked by mysterious creatures that crawled out of the angles formed by the walls and floors of their hotel rooms. Similar creatures attacked the rest of the PCs at the end of session #2, and most of Wednesday's game involved six individual, simultaneous battles against these creatures, as all the PCs had split up for the night.
Things I learned in last night's session include:
Even a creature of the Mythos can succumb to a baleful polymorph if you try enough times (ook ook!).
Remembering you have Combat Casting can be the difference between successfully casting a ground-zero flame strike and eye-rolling failure.
14th-level fighters and inquisitors can deal a horrendous amount of damage in one round.
Fast zombies make fine litter-bearers but poor obstacles against CR 9 opponents.
Letting a demon possess a PC sometimes means the PC goes crazy and destroys her sister's undead lackeys.
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.
Carrion Hill is a 5th-level urban horror adventure in the style of H. P. Lovecraft's The Dunwich Horror. Chock full of mythos goodness, this book has references to the Outer Gods, underground ghoul societies, and (of course) the spawn of Yog-Sothoth. Here's a quick peek... avert your eyes if your will is weak!
As part of the ongoing series about Paizo's own Appendix N, I had the opportunity to interview the editor-in-chief of Pathfinder Adventure Path, James Jacobs, about the books and movies that most inspire his own writing. He proved very generous with his time and gave me quite a detailed look into his plan of a "shared mythology" for Pathfinder and the sources that inspired its creation. Once again, the interview proved long enough that I have had to break it into two parts. In this first part, James discusses his literary influences.
David: Although I know you're a huge fan of movies, and horror films in particular, let's discuss books first. Which authors or works have stuck the longest in your mind?
James: H. P. Lovecraft was definitely the biggest inspiration. He's my favorite author, and not just mine: Stephen King, Robert Bloch, Gary Gygax, and others expanded on the themes that he created. Lovecraft didn't want to write about vampires or other classic creatures of horror, as these had become cliché at the time when he was writing, so he created his own pantheon of cosmically horrific, god-like beings. He was particularly successful because he encouraged other authors to use the names he had used. Robert Bloch, Fritz Leiber, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, and Henry Kuttner were all contemporaries of Lovecraft who communicated with him and were influenced by the Cthulhu Mythos that he created. He also pieced together another pantheon of creatures throughout the works of authors for whom he was a ghostwriter, which expanded the Mythos. So his influence is pretty far-reaching.
This is very much like what's going on with the OGL—here are the base concepts of D&D, and other writers or companies can build and share a single mythology. This is what happened with Lovecraft—his themes of cosmic horror influenced the likes of Stephen King; this was the horror of the ordinary, in which libraries and shacks in the woods could become places of terror. Horror is the main source of my inspiration, and why grisly things are going on in Pathfinder. I like to find authors who can carry on this vision—Nic Logue and Richard Pett being two great examples.
Clive Barker is another big inspiration. My grandma and grandpa introduced me to old horror novels and comics when I was young. I remember reading my grandpa's Vault of the Unknown, Tales of the Unexpected, House of Mysteries, and Beware! My grandma would shove Clive Barker or Stephen King into my hands and tell me, "Read this! You'll enjoy it!" Zon-Kuthon is the most obvious example of Barker's influence on Pathfinder, as he is basically a Cenobite from Hellraiser. As Barker's stories mellowed out and became less gory, they took on a more magical, fantastical tone. In fact, his novel Weaveworld served as a primary inspiration for the demiplane of Kakishon in Pathfinder Adventure Path volume #22, "The Edge of Eternity."
It appears that this post has already exceeded the length I was aiming for; the rest of the interview, it seems, must wait for later. In the second installment, James rounds out his discussion of his favorite authors, discusses the fine line between homage and pastiche, and talks about the movies that most influenced his style of game design.
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