Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Preview #14

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

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

This is your game.

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

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

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

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

The Roof is on Fire!

Friday, April 17, 2009

You may have noticed a preponderance of previews lately on the Paizo blog. As exciting as it is to see new art and sneak peaks of things to come in Pathfinder, the number of previews in fact correlates directly with the amount of work we have to do here in the office. In short: things here at Paizo have been pretty crazy. With the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook and Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Bestiary just around the corner, the Editorial Pit has become a scene of furious activity, as everyone works to get products out the door. Even the interns aren't immune to the frenzy! Here is glimpse of what is going on at Paizo this week:

Sarah Robinson is putting the final touches on Pathfinder Adventure Path #23: The Impossible Eye.

Wes Schneider and James Jacobs are busy developing the final chapter of Legacy of Fire, Pathfinder Adventure Path #24: The Final Wish

Sean K Reynolds continues his simultaneous development of Qadira, Gateway to the East and Jason Bulmahn's Crypt of the Everflame, the first Pathfinder Module to use the Pathfinder RPG rules.

Chris Carey and James Sutter have their hands full editing the Pathfinder RPG and Pathfinder #24.

Jason Bulmahn has spent the week entering changes and making last-minute tinkering with the Pathfinder RPG.

Vic Wertz, Lisa Stevens, and Erik Mona have sequestered themselves away while they edit the Pathfinder RPG.

And Hank Woon and David Eitelbach are busy doing development for Pathfinder #24 and writing blogs, of course!

Here's an illustration by Tyler Walpole from Pathfinder Companion: Qadira that pretty accurately summarizes the state of things around here right now. Now back to work!

There comes the sound of a whip cracking.

Snagged from the Vault: Genie Binder

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

From upcoming Pathfinder #22 we bring you the mighty genie binder, whose dark magic commands the awesome might of the djinn, depicted here by artist Kevin Yan...

While any spellcaster capable of casting planar ally, planar binding, and binding spells can conjure and bind genies, the true genie binder is a spellcaster who has devoted his life to the pursuit of this practice. Most genie binders study the works of Sulesh the Great religiously, but the best of them understand that even Sulesh wasn't infallible, and use his works as stepping stones to further perfect the act of genie binding.

While most genies abhor the act of binding and bottling, many have an odd appreciation and respect for actual genie binders. Nothing delights an efreeti more than to see a djinni ensnared, for example, and the jann are quite pleased to see their elder brothers and sisters brought low.

Vadid and Nahk
Preview Purloiners

Illustrated by Christophe Swal

Roots & Beginnings: Taldor

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Next month, Pathfinder Companion: Taldor, Echoes of Glory will be hitting the bookshelves of game stores and subscribers everywhere. Hank and I had the opportunity to edit the book recently, and Taldor will definitely please those gamers that enjoy a little (or large) dose of Byzantine politics in their game.

I spoke with Joshua J. Frost, the Events Manager for the Pathfinder Society and the author of Taldor, Echoes of Glory, about the sources of inspiration for Taldor. According to Josh, he envisioned the decadent, failing empire as a mix between the cultural decadence of Amsterdam during the 16th and 17th centuries and the exceedingly complicated politics and government of the Byzantine Empire.

The Gilded City of Oppara, the heart of Taldor and the rotten core of a failing empire, was modeled after the opulence and corruption found in historical Amsterdam. At the time, the economics of the city were largely geared toward making a handful of individuals obscenely wealthy, while the rest remained mired in the middle and lower classes. Such a division between rich and poor is obviously reflected in the politics of the Gilded City, where the Royalty and Senatorial classes live in opulent decadence while the masses toil away as laborers, conscripted soldiers, and penniless vagabonds. 16th and 17th century London also inspired the aristocratic culture of Taldor, particularly with regard to the importance young men of Oppara place on the possession of a fine sword; the concept of Oppara's "young blades" comes directly from this period of British history.

Josh's studies of the Byzantine Empire inspired Taldor's convoluted political system. The expansive bureaucracy of the Taldan empire, the power of the emperor to elevate officials and common citizens to higher ranks, and the division between the "bearded" aristocracy and the "unbearded" masses were all modeled after the complicated politics of the Byzantine aristocracy. In particular, the tendency of the Byzantine emperor to bestow numerous, seemingly redundant titles upon "the Bearded Ones" of the aristocracy directly inspired Taldor's elaborate hierarchy of aristocratic titles.

GMs who love to include political intrigue should look no farther than the Byzantine Empire—indeed, the bureaucracy of the empire was so vast and tortuous that the word "Byzantine" has become synonymous with decadence and duplicity. If you can't wait to include dangerous, double-dealing political intrigue in your campaign, or to simply explore the decaying empire of Taldor in greater detail, look for Pathfinder Companion: Taldor, Echoes of Glory next month!

David Eitelbach
Editorial Intern

Artist: Eva Widermann

The Pathfinder Wiki

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Hello Paizonians! I would just like to take a moment to talk about, for those of you who are not already aware, the Pathfinder Wiki. The Pathfinder Wiki is a community project run by our forum's very own yoda8myhead, and to date has over 1,100 articles related to Golarion and various Pathfinder-related products. If you haven't had the pleasure, you should hop on over there and check it out. Or, if you're interested in helping to build a vast database for you and your fellow Pathfinder GMs, contribute something yourself! (There are tutorials and help articles for the wiki illiterate.) While, of course, we don't condone verbatim copies of our products being regurgitated in a public forum, we do appreciate and welcome brief and succinct synopses of Pathfinder content. Basically, it would be great if you know someone who is interested in learning about Pathfinder for you to be able to point them to the wiki and have it do the job of introducing him or her to all the goodness that is Pathfinder.

So, whether you're looking for more information on this character or that country, hoping to introduce your players to Golarion, or want to help build a fantastic Pathfinder resource, stop on by the Pathfinder Wiki when you get the chance.

Hank Woon
Editorial Intern

Snagged from the Vault: Dark Markets—A Guide to Katapesh

Friday, March 6, 2009

Once again, fellow Paizonians, my colleague and I have managed to pilfer a spectacular sneak glimpse into the vault. Behold the Zephyr Guard, illustrated here by Jason Engle...

Vadid and Nahk
Preview Purloiners

Though the Pactmasters are rarely seen outside their palace walls, they are keenly alert of all that transpires within Katapesh through their network of spies and active patrols of the Zephyr Guard. The Zephyr Guard is made up of diverse ethnic groups and races, but mostly humanoids such as humans, half-elves, and half-orcs. Their unifying feature is their expertise in combat and the precision with which they carry out their duties. A Zephyr Guard squad is usually composed of five elite soldiers (LN fighter 4) and their squad leader (LN fighter 6). Each squad leader carries a charm of aluum control, which is magically bound to them, making it useless to anyone else. Aluum are powerful golems created to maintain order in Katapesh when other forms of authority fail (see the Appendix for statistics). Dormant aluum are scattered through the city in key locations for the Zephyr Guard. They stand silent vigil at street corners, in the shadows of buildings, around busy squares, and throughout the numerous bazaars. No matter where one goes in Katapesh, an aluum is never far away.

Look for the full article on the Zephyr Guard in the upcoming product, Pathfinder Chronicles: Dark Markets—A Guide to Katapesh!

Illustrations by Jason Engle

Katapesh Fashion Show

Monday, January 12, 2009

One of the fun things about moving out of Varisia and into a new land for the Adventure Path is that the NPCs end up looking quite different. While generating art orders, I suspect we've spent days surfing the net looking for more and more exotic outfits and apparel to clothe our characters in. The upcoming Dark Markets: A Guide to Katapesh bears the fruit of those hours of Internet research—pictured here are three of the NPC portraits that appear in the book, each representing a different type of character you might encounter during an adventure in the region, be they surly half-orc merchants, graceful but deadly swordfighters, or even a desperate young child who MIGHT just grow up to be a world-famous iconic paladin!

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

All Aboard for Absalom!

Monday, December 15, 2008

Earlier this week, we got in our first bound copy of Guide to Absalom. In the hectic "GO GO GO!" mentality that is the Editorial Pit, we're often surprised when books we send out do what comes natural and show up in completed print form back at the office. It sounds funny, perhaps, but that's the way it is in crazy Paizo-land!

Anyway, the book reminded me that we actually haven't shown off that much art from Guide to Absalom. This blog rectifies that! Behold, one of the First Guards of Absalom by artist Andrew Hou, and a nice view of the Starstone Cathedral by Ben Wootten.

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Legacy of Fire

Friday, December 5, 2008

Although Second Darkness is only two-thirds of the way to being out on store shelves, we here at Paizo are already heading deep into the fourth Adventure Path. The cover art for the first installment, Pathfinder #19's "Howl of the Carrion King," just came in, and while you can check out the actual cover over at the Paizo store, I thought it'd be cool to show off some of the new art here on its own! With Legacy of Fire, Jesper Ejsing joins the ranks of Pathfinder cover artists—I can't wait to see what he comes up with as the adventures grow increasingly genie-riffic!

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Eando's Final Bow

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

When we first started the Pathfinder's Journal, back in Pathfinder #1, we really didn't know what it was going to be. Was it a travel guide? An in-character support article? A series of standalone short stories?

By the time we reached Pathfinder #2, however, it was clear that what Pathfinder really needed was something different—a straight-up epic fantasy story with a familiar character who would give us fun world details, yes, but who would also pull people through them via a fast-paced narrative. Something that GMs, players, and even non-gaming fantasy enthusiasts could pick up and use to immediately get a sense of Golarion. And to do that, we needed a protagonist. Enter Eando Kline.

Eando's story arc has taken numerous directions since those early days, as we grew ever more ambitious with his destiny. What started as standalone travel journals became adventure-path-spanning short stories and finally a full 18-part novella leading him halfway across our world to confront the mysterious leaders of the Pathfinder Society—and all stemming from that mysterious little box he runs across in his first episode.

Many quality authors have helped to shape Eando since his conception two years ago, and through his adventures shaped parts of Golarion: before Eando's travels took him there, we knew next to nothing about Belkzen, Kaer Maga, or any number of other locations in northwest Varisia. Moreover, he gave us an archetype to work from in designing the Pathfinder Society. It wasn't always easy reconciling so many different voices and styles—something that's been my department since The Hook Mountain Massacre—but in doing so Eando became a living, breathing character, chock-full of flaws and little moments of heroism.

And now, after 18 episodes, his story is coming to a close.

It was my honor to write the final chapter in Eando's saga, and I hope that when it arrives in your mailbox or local game store you'll find it a fitting conclusion for Golarion's first action hero. Along with the story, you'll also find a two-page NPC write-up with Eando's post-conclusion stat block and featuring this awesome character portrait from Jason Engle—a little thank-you present to all those readers who've been asking us "So is Eando a bard, or what?" for the last 18 months.

Starting with Pathfinder #19, all of the Pathfinder's Journals in a given adventure path will be by a single author, and feature a single story arc with a new protagonist. For Legacy of Fire, that's New York Times bestselling author Elaine Cunningham, who'll be introducing us to Channa Ti, a half-elven, half-Mwangi water druid making her way through Katapesh and Osirion in search of a lost city and an imprisoned god. Talk about exotic—even Eando would approve.

Eando Kline may be back someday—his type always tends to pop up just when you least expect it—but for now, at least, his sun has set, and it's time for some new heroes to take the stage. I hope you've enjoyed his story. I know I have.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have something in my eye...

James Sutter
Pathfinder Editor

illustration by Iker Serdar Yildiz

Planet Stories and Pathfinder: Together at Last

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Science fiction and fantasy. To much of the literate world, they're the same thing—they even get shelved in the same section at all but the most enlightened bookstores. Yet among those who enjoy these genres the most, the lines between the two are sharp and expansive (even if no two people agree on where that line is drawn). Many of the friends whose book recommendations I take to heart scoff at the idea of getting science fiction chocolate in their fantasy peanut butter—they'll read one but not the other. It's a sort of literary apartheid.

For me, though, there's never been that divide. Science fiction and fantasy are two great tastes that taste great together, and I don't mind rocking some boats to keep the ampersand in SF&F.

Sometimes, of course, the purists are right. Every time Wes and Jacobs comb through one of my manuscripts to make sure I'm not slipping hidden particle accelerators or robots into Pathfinder, I'm forced to admit that they're correct to do so—it's important to keep a world internally consistent, and getting too hung up on science in a magical setting can break the feel (or the author). Never mind how cool it might have been to make Varisia's towering Spindlehorn a space elevator for ancient thaumateurgic astronauts... it just doesn't fit.

Which is why I was so happy to get a chance to write the "Into the Black" support article for Pathfinder #14, a gazetteer of Golarion's solar system and the diverse cultures which inhabit it. These days, I spend a lot of my time buried in Planet Stories manuscripts, visiting worlds like Leigh Brackett's exotic and dying Skaith in the Eric John Stark books, or Robert E. Howard's Almuric, not to mention swashbuckling Burroughsian pulp like the Mars novels from Michael Moorcock and Otis Adelbert Kline. With this article, I (with significant influence from publisher Erik Mona) got the chance to finally bring hardcore Planet Stories SF into the Pathfinder Chronicles setting.

While I included many more modern SF tropes, from the terminator-line society of Verces to the irradiated liches of Eox the dead or the Jovian floaters of Liavara and Bretheda, Golarion's closest neighbors are straight out of the sword and planet genre epitomized by the Planet Stories books. The green planet of Castrovel, with its steamy jungles and beautiful telepathic matriarchs, meshes completely with the 1930s image of Venus, and any fan of Burroughs or Brackett will quickly recognize their Mars in Akiton's four-armed warriors and desert strongholds.

If you're like me and already enjoy mixing and matching your genres, I hope Pathfinder #14 hits the spot. And if you're a Pathfinder or Planet Stories purist, well, this might be a good point to give the other camp a shot and see what you've been missing. After all, despite what Dr. Egon Spengler might say, sometimes it's good to cross the streams...

James Sutter
Planet Stories Editor

Pathfinder RPG Prestige Classes

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

There were a fair number of rules that had to be cut from the Beta Playtest Edition of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Prestige classes were one of the unfortunate casualties. Fortunately, along with the magic of the Internet, we can release these rules to you for playtesting and review. This document will be available on Monday, October 27th from paizo.com, but in anticipation, we thought we might give you a sneak peak at one of the classes in the document. Take a look at some of these new powers for the duelist prestige class.

Precise Strike (Ex): A duelist gains the ability to strike precisely with a light or one-handed piercing weapon, adding her duelist level to her damage roll.

When making a precise strike, a duelist cannot attack with a weapon in her other hand or use a shield. A duelist's precise strike only works against creatures with discernible anatomies. Any creature that is immune to critical hits is not vulnerable to a precise strike, and any item or ability that protects a creature from critical hits also protects a creature from a precise strike.

Parry (Ex): At 2nd level, a duelist learns to parry the attacks of other creatures, causing them to miss. Whenever the duelist takes a full attack action with a light or one-handed piercing weapon, she can elect not to take one of her attacks. At any time before her next turn she can attempt to parry an attack against her or an adjacent ally as an immediate action. To parry the attack, the duelist makes an attack roll, using the same bonuses as the attack she chose to forego during her previous action. If her attack roll is greater than the roll of the attacking creature, the attack automatically misses. For each size category the attacking creature is larger than the duelist, the duelist takes a –4 penalty on her attack roll. The duelist also takes a –4 penalty when attempting to parry an attack made against an adjacent ally. The duelist must declare the use of this ability after the attack is announced, but before the roll is made.

Riposte (Ex): At 5th level, a duelist can make an attack of opportunity against any creature whose attack she successfully parries, so long as the creature is within reach.

No Retreat (Ex): At 9th level, enemies adjacent to the duelist that take a withdraw action provoke an attack of opportunity from the duelist.

Make sure to stop by on Monday to grab this free pdf to add to your game. The playtest period for these rules begins on November 24th and will run through December 7th.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

Drow-chemy

Monday, September 8, 2008

As the Second Darkness Adventure Path progresses, the PCs will become more and more familiar with the countless ways the drow have to inflict pain, suffering, and ruin. In Pathfinder #15, alchemy is added to the dark elves' arsenal, including alchemical ammunition for their ubiquitous hand crossbows.

Acid Bolts: These metal bolts have a glass section in the middle, filled with acid. On a successful hit, they deal normal damage and 1d4 points of additional acid damage. Acid bolts do not cause any splash damage. Cost: 40 gp per bolt.

Drow Poison Bolts: These iron bolts have small resin tips that break when the bolts strike their targets. Inside is a dose of drow poison. Anyone struck by a drow poison bolt must make a DC 13 Fortitude save or fall unconscious for 1 minute. After 1 minute, the subject must succeed on another DC 13 Fortitude save or remain unconscious for 2d4 hours. Those using drow poison bolts do not risk poisoning themselves, but the strange tip affects the bolts' accuracy. Double the range penalties when using a drow poison bolt. Cost: 100 gp per bolt.

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Good Versus Evil

Friday, August 22, 2008

One of the most rewarding parts of seeing the upcoming Gods and Magic come together is seeing each of Golarion's core 20 deities illustrated. We've seen a few show up here and there in Pathfinder already, but in this book, it's all of them! Pictured here are two of our world's deities—sinister Asmodeus and indomitable Iomedae.

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Putting the Adventure in Your Hands

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Next month's Pathfinder marks more than just the launch of the Second Darkness Adventure Path, it also premieres a new addition to Pathfinder's pages with the first of our new Set Piece adventures! Eight-page adventures tied to that month's Adventure Path entry, Set Pieces present GMs with a host of options whether they're playing the ongoing Adventure Path, running their own games, or simply need an iconic location. Each Set Piece is built as an optional Adventure Path episode and includes details on how to include it in the month's adventure. For GMs craving lighter fare, though, these scenarios are flexible enough to adapt to any ongoing campaign or even serve as short, one-night adventures. There's also no telling when your game might need a familiar fantasy location—whether it be a thieves' guild, pirate ship, monster-haunted ruin, or one of countless other archetypical adventure sites—making Set Pieces useful to GMs who need a locale on the fly when their players zig when they're supposed to zag.

The first Set Piece, Tim Hitchcock's "Saint Caspieran's Salvation," presents a Riddleport thieves' den insidiously hidden beneath the guise of a rundown chapel. Forced to distinguish scheming swindlers from the truly needy, the PCs need to wade through a crowd of questionable castoffs to uncover the misdeeds rooted amid the hostel's good work.

Unfortunates of St. Caspieran's
d6 Mission Encounters

1 Ukkar the Fierce: Once a raging warrior, Ukkar's legs were crushed in a cart accident and had to be amputated when they turned gangrenous. Now he sits in a small cart and pushes himself about with his calloused hands.

2 Sylee: This orphan girl stares silently with fearful eyes, desperately clutching a dirty rag doll with a missing arm.

3 Lil' Lirt: A young boy tries to slit one of the PCs' pouches or pockets with a razor and make off with whatever's inside. If caught, he bawls for mercy.

4 Jhonas: When away from Father Padrick's side, Jhonas walks the mission, talking to different parishioners and vagrants, trying to learn from their perspectives as much as offer them his blessings.

5 Pauper's Hand: These troublesome thieves are always milling about. If one spots a PC, he hurries to alert the other guild members.

6 Mika the Fallen: This poor mad fellow walks around barefoot wearing nothing but old sackcloth. He believes he's a fallen angel sent to redeem himself by offering comfort to lost souls. To those he feels suffer most, he offers true salvation—walking with them up to a high rooftop and pushing them off.

You'll meet this lot and more of Riddleport's most desperate and despicable residents in "St. Caspieran's Salvation," the first Pathfinder Set Piece adventure, coming up next month in Pathfinder #13.

F. Wesley Schneider
Managing Editor, Pathfinder

Character Traits, Part II

Monday, July 21, 2008

Back on June 23, I gave you a preview of the Character Traits system we're introducing in the Pathfinder Companion line. There, I'd mentioned that there were several different kinds of traits for you to mix and match—with a single trait roughly equaling half a feat in power, by picking to Character Traits your character effectively starts with a bonus feat that's tailored specifically to his or her background and personality.

Today, I'd like to preview what traits look like. Presented below are five of the ten Combat traits. These traits comprise a small portion of the 40 basic traits presented in the Second Darkness Player's Guide, and represent generic traits that you can pick from for any character for any campaign in any setting. Later installments of Pathfinder Companion will present more Golarion-specific traits for race, region, and religion, but these basic 40 traits comprise the baseline for them all. Again, when you pick your two character traits, you can only pick one from a particular category—a character can't have two Combat traits, for example. Picking traits from different categories, after all, is a great way to make a character seem a bit more well-rounded.

But enough of the chatter. On with the preview traits! (Oh, and you'll see lots of "trait" bonuses mentioned; this is a new type of bonus that never stacks with itself, but stacks with other bonuses.)

Anatomist: You have studied the workings of anatomy, either as a student at university or as an apprentice mortician or necromancer. You know where to aim your blows to strike vital organs and you gain a +1 trait bonus on all rolls made to confirm critical hits.

Armor Expert: You have worn armor as long as you can remember, either as part of your training to become a knight's squire or simply because you were seeking to emulate a hero. Your childhood armor wasn't the real thing as far as protection, but it did encumber you as much as real armor would have, and you've grown used to moving in such suits with relative grace. When you wear armor of any sort, reduce that suit's armor check penalty by 1, to a minimum check penalty of 0.

Bullied: You were bullied often as a child, and you are now constantly ready to defend yourself with your fists when an enemy comes near. You gain a +1 trait bonus on attack of opportunity attack rolls made with unarmed strikes. Note that this trait does not grant the ability to make attacks of opportunity with your unarmed strikes—you'll need to take a level of monk, the Improved Unarmed Strike feat, or some other similar power to gain the use of this Character Trait. However, that doesn't prevent you from selecting this trait. You'll simply not be able to make use of it until a later point if you do.

Courageous: Your childhood was brutal, yet you persevered primarily through force of will and the hope that no matter how hard things might get, as long as you kept a level head you'd make it through. You gain a +2 trait bonus on saving throws against fear effects.

Deft Dodger: Growing up in a rough neighborhood or a dangerous environment has honed your senses. You gain a +1 trait bonus on Reflex saves.

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

A Legacy of Lavender

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Next month, readers of Pathfinder #13 will meet Saul Vancaskerkin and Clegg Zincher, two scheming crime bosses from Varisia's famed pirate paradise, Riddleport. But the premiere entry in the Second Darkness Adventure Path isn't the first time the Vancaskerkin family and Boss Zincher (Pathfinder #14's cover boy), have shown up in Pathfinder. Would you believe that both received a nod all the way back in Pathfinder #1?! Turns out that the Vancaskerkin line has been causing trouble in Varisia for some time now, even leading to Orik Vancaskerkin's participation in Sandpoint's problems in "Burnt Offerings":

"After a scam involving a tiefling prostitute, a shifty alchemist, and an elixir of love, Orik was forced to flee Riddleport. He's pretty sure that Clegg Zincher, the now-dead alchemist's powerful brother, still carries a grudge for what Orik did to the alchemist when he discovered, to his horror, that the elixir of love was actually just cheap ale laced with lavender." (Pathfinder #1, pg. 45)

While Orik was schlepping around Thistletop, though, his brother Verik was getting into no end of trouble in Korvosa, serving as member of the city guard (Pathfinder #8). And all the way back in Riddleport, their dear old dad, Saul Vancaskerkin, started cooking up a scheme to reclaim some of his local clout (Pathfinder #13). But behind many of the Vancaskerkin family's troubles hides a singular tiefling harlot, a pretty face with a purple dress and pointed tail named Lavender Lil. In Pathfinder Companion: Second Darkness, a story that started over a year ago can finally be told:

"Like many of the city's tieflings, Lil grew up an orphan in Riddleport. She earned her coin by telling stories on street corners, where her fantastical tales garnered just enough copper for a bite to eat. Although a gifted storyteller, Lil's exotic good looks drew more attention than her tales, and soon a local pimp forced her into his flock.

"As she matured, Lil's sultry purple eyes and her love for flowers earned her the nickname 'Lavender.' Her talent for storytelling matured alongside her looks, and rumors circulated that her grandfather was Varisian and her grandmother was a devil-woman. While Lil had no strenuous objections to working as a prostitute, she missed the freedom of life on the streets. Her dreams never grew grand enough to imagine life as a noble lady, a brave adventurer, or even a wife or mother. All Lil wanted was the freedom to claim her own life and to manage it, for ill or good."

Lavender Lil appears in the first entry into the Persona section of the new Pathfinder Companion line, a section which details a new, fully statted personality from Golarion. Check out Lil's side of the Vancaskerkin tragedy, the entire "Second Darkness Player's Guide," and tons of new info for characters and GMs of all stripes in Pathfinder Companion: Second Darkness next month!

F. Wesley Schneider
Pathfinder Managing Editor

Raising Hellknights!

Monday, July 7, 2008

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

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

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

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

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

F. Wesley Schneider
Pathfinder Managing Editor

Exploring Paizo's Pathfinder Society Organized Play, Part 5

Thursday, June 19, 2008

We know that a pathfinder's loyalties are often split between the Society and the nation that birthed them. We ask only that you endeavor to keep your interests in discovery and exploration ahead of your country's interests.
—Venture Captain Alissa Moldreserva

In Part 1, we unveiled our first faction, Andoran, and spoke a little about the faction system we'll use in Pathfinder Society Organized Play. In Part 2, we announced our second faction, Cheliax, and we talked briefly about faction prestige, how it's earned, and what it means for the world of Golarion as well as what it means for you as a member of the Pathfinder Society. In Part 3, we revealed the third faction for Pathfinder Society Organized Play: Osirion, Land of the Pharaohs. In Part 4, we brought you the fourth faction: Qadira, desert frontier kingdom, gateway to the massive continent of Casmaron, and the westernmost satrap state of the Padishah Empire of Kelesh. For Part 5, we uncover the final faction: Taldor, Golarion's decadent, failing empire with its fingers still gripping hard on the shores of the Inner Sea.

TALDOR
Decadent Failing Empire

The sun of Taldor's empire has set. It is up to us to see it rise again in our time.
—Baron Jacquo Dalsine

Old Taldor once ruled the entire northern coast of the Inner Sea, from gold gilded Oppara to the wild frontier of Varisia. Now it's reduced to a quarter of its former glory. As Old Taldor's gaze turned ever inward, its vassals and conquered colonies slowly slipped away without a fight. Andoran and Cheliax broke off hundreds of years ago, and few in Taldor had either the desire or the motivation to go to war to stop it. Why bother dealing with petty trifles in the countryside when your own political destruction is taking place in the lime light of Taldorian high society?

It's easy to forget Taldor's former glory and dismiss the entire country as a band of narcissistic fools who spend more time preening their wigs than they do defending their borders or quelling the unrest roiling within their great cities. Little do most know that while the majority of Taldor's upper crust are more concerned with this season's fashions than the well being of their collapsing empire, a few of the world's most dangerous operatives are honed in the constant battleground of Oppara's feuds. Old enmities between ancient houses have engulfed the Gilded City in shadowy violence and assassinations for hundreds of years, and more than a fair share of skilled adventurers have come up surviving the feuds, either as hired muscle or scions of noble houses mixed up in these simmering cauldrons of bloodshed.

Taldorians are decadent bon vivants, favoring rich foods, ornate attire, and jeweled accoutrements for even the most minor of casual affairs. To a Taldorian, appearance is an expression of power, and a keen sense of fashion represents a keen mind. Their appreciation for the arts extends beyond fashion and painting, dabbling in sorcery, dueling, and the murky strategies of politics and war. A Taldorian mind, when raised to ire, is a dangerous thing, and the rest of the Inner Sea is about to receive a painful reminder of this timeless fact.

Goals: Get Back in the Game

Petty differences and ancient feuds have slowly ground Taldor down from a great polished stone to a whittled nub. The key to restoring the empire's sense of purpose lies in finding an enemy to galvanize Taldor's splintered factions, an endeavor worthy of rediscovering the nation's august past glory. Seizing the political reins of Absalom is the perfect medicine for the wasting disease deep in Taldor's bones.

Methodology: Wolf and Tiger

Our weakness must now be our strength: centuries of petty infighting have afforded us one weapon – surely there is no one who can claim as true a mastery of intrigue as we Taldorians!
—Baron Jacquo Dalsine

Taldor's strategy for seizing control of Absalom lies in turning its enemies against one another. Misdirection and psychological warfare are the orders of the day. Taldorian missions involve sparking old enmities between Qadira and Osirion, driving Cheliax and Andoran to rekindle their old war. "Sick the wolf on the tiger and the hunter's work is done" is an old Taldorian saying, and the mantra by which Taldor's agents create havoc around the Inner Sea.

Check back in a week to learn more about Pathfinder Society Organized Play. Don't forget to check the Pathfinder Society messageboards as well to learn about some awesome opportunities to help launch Paizo's organized play at this coming Gen Con!

Joshua J. Frost
Director of Sales & Marketing

Nicolas Logue
Organized Play Coordinator

Off to Press!

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

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

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

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

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

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Meet the NPCS: Allevrah of Kyonin

Monday, June 16, 2008

For the first twelve installments of Pathfinder, we introduced our twelve iconic adventurers. With Second Darkness, our third Adventure Path, we're switching tactics. Since there's only 11 core classes (we kind of cheated with Seltyiel a little, making him our "iconic multiclass" character), starting with Pathfinder #13 our cover characters are instead iconic NPCs from the current adventure path or campaign. Of course, that means that we'll be needing to walk a thin line between showing off our new characters and spoiling key plot points for the adventures themselves. Second Darkness is a good example, since the nature of the main bad guy race isn't obvious immediately in play, but by the end of the first adventure, it should be. It's a small spoiler to players who see the cover, but that's less important than having an eye-catching cover in the first place, really.

But there's a world of difference between showing off an illustration of a character and posting an extensive back story for that character. For the iconic heroes, this was never a problem since they don't actually appear in the adventures. Going forward, though, it's probably not a good idea to spell out exactly what an NPC's role in the adventure is. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that just because an NPC shows up on a cover doesn't mean that NPC is a bad guy. We'll be putting potential allies of the PCs up on the cover now and then as well.

Pictured here, for example, is an elven general named Allevrah. She's a pretty important member of Kyonin's military forces, and has certainly seen her share of battle (note her clipped ear—the result of a close call in a battle against a babau assassin—wound whose scar she wears with pride as a trophy). Her role in Second Darkness is pretty important—important enough that we chose to illustrate her on the Gen Con alternate cover to Pathfinder #13, but if you want to know what that role is, I'm afraid you'll have to play the adventure!

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Exploring Paizo's Pathfinder Society Organized Play, Part 3

Thursday, June 12, 2008

As for your life and limb I make no promises, young novice. Rest assured that you shall never succumb to boredom and your exploits will be sung and scripted for the common folk to marvel.
—Venture Captain Alissa Moldreserva

In Part 1, we unveiled our first faction, Andoran, and spoke a little about the faction system we'll use in Pathfinder Society Organized Play. In Part 2, we unveiled our second faction, Cheliax, and we talked briefly about faction prestige, how it's earned, and what it means for the world of Golarion as well as what it means for you as a member of the Pathfinder Society. For Part 3, we unveil the third faction for Pathfinder Society Organized Play: Osirion, Land of the Pharaohs.

OSIRION
Land of the Pharaohs

We must find the strength of mountains buried in our past and bring it to bear on those fools who think we are nothing but dust in the wind.
—Amenopheus, the Sapphire Sage

Osirion was once the most glorious empire of Golarion. Pharaohs ruled as gods on earth, their monuments towered over even Thassilon's mightiest, and their armies could churn a kingdom to mud and blot out the sun on wings of death. Now, Osirion ages from millennia of foreign rule under the rulership of the youthful Ruby Prince Khemet III, who hearkens back to the ancient days of Osirion's glory. One year ago, Khemet opened the vast deserts of Osirion – long closed by the Keleshite overlords who held the nation as a satrapy of Qadira – to foreign exploration. Today the great treasures and arcane formulas of the living gods of ancient Osirion are unearthed for the entire world to see, and the ascendancy of the Land of Pharaohs is at hand. Most Inner Sea nations view Osirion as a relic from a bygone age. In truth, Osirion is a slumbering giant that, when awakened, could wash away all fledgling challengers with the power of its traditions. The Osirion are wise people who look deep into the past for answers to present troubles. Their sense of history gives them a unique perspective on the ebb and flow of power in the political landscape of the modern Inner Sea. Many folk of Osirion are of old Garundi blood, bronze—skinned, and gifted with the noble bearing of the ancient pharaohs. It would take a special brand of fool to ignore this semblance of power and dismiss the Osirion faction as less of a threat than any of the other four factions clamoring for control of Absalom.

Goals: Uncover the Power of the Past

In bygone ages, the pharaohs of Ancient Osirion created wonders beyond reason. They concocted potent arcane plagues to decimate their enemies and erected mighty monuments capable of entrapping the souls of deities. Let the other factions jockey for meager political fancy or table scraps like favorable economic sanctions. Osirion is interested in rediscovering the powerful artifacts of its heritage, and preventing their theft by aggressive powers such as Cheliax. Once these powers are returned to their rightful hands, no one shall dare breach Osirion's borders again.

Methodology: Hide Your Power, Lest the Enemy Seek to Take It from You

The grasping hands of petty thieves cannot take what they do not know you have.
—Amenopheus, the Sapphire Sage

For centuries now, the other powers of the Inner Sea have regarded Osirion as an impotent nation of conquered people. Osirion wouldn't have it any other way. Since the Ruby Prince ascended the ancestral throne a few decades past, Osirion has been gathering its power and preparing to make a bid for supremacy on the Inner Sea. Most of the Osirion faction's missions involve quietly undermining the power of their enemies. Osirion agents in Absalom plant the seeds of dissolution with a whisper or a poisonous draught, never with a naked blade, and never with a witness. Just as most of the Great Emerald Sphinx is buried beneath the sands of Osirion's deserts, so is the nation's power carefully hidden in secret brotherhoods and spies loyal to the pharaonic throne. When Absalom sits firmly in Osirion's grasp, then Khemet III shall declare himself Pharaoh in the tradition of his ancestors and Osirion's Second Golden Age shall follow.

Check the blog again on Tuesday for more information on Pathfinder Society Organized Play!

Joshua J. Frost
Director of Sales & Marketing

Nicolas Logue
Organized Play Coordinator

A Favorable Companion

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

We're finishing up a whole bunch of great products this week, all of which will be available at Gen Con in a couple months. As most of you are probably keenly aware, we launch a whole new Adventure Path in August with the first 96-page chapter of Second Darkness. In addition, we provide the most comprehensive look at Golarion and the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting with our expansive 256-page campaign setting hardcover. Not to be outdone, of course, is the Pathfinder RPG Beta release, a 400-page behemoth chock full of awesome.

Don't overlook, though, Paizo's release of the first of its new line of products that provide useful flavor and new rules for GMs and players alike: the 32-page Pathfinder Companion. Each Pathfinder Companion will cover some topic related to the campaign setting in great detail, presenting both flavorful information and new character options.

This first Pathfinder Companion fills the role of the Second Darkness player's guide, but goes so much further. In August's Companion, we introduce a structured and expansive traits section. We first introduced traits in the Curse of the Crimson Throne player's guide, but with this player's guide we set out more defined rules and a much greater variety of available traits. In each subsequent Pathfinder Companion, we'll introduce some more traits to give you an even greater selection to choose from.

In fact, to give you a little glimpse at what we've got coming your way, here's a short excerpt and a bit of art for you.

Character Trait Design Philosophy

At its core, a Character Trait is approximately equal in power to half a feat—in fact, at one point, we considered calling them "Half Feats" but abandoned that idea when we realized it implied a point-based system that didn't really exist (there's no such thing, for example, as a "Double Feat"). Yet a Character Trait isn't just another kind of power you can add on to your character—it's a way to quantify (and encourage) building a character background that fits into the world of Golarion. Think of Character Traits as "story seeds" for your background—after you pick your two traits, you'll have a point of inspiration to build your character's personality and history from. Alternately, if you've already got a background in your head or written down for your character, you can view picking his Traits as a way to quantify that background, just as picking race and class and ability scores quantifies his strengths and weaknesses.

One more thing—Character Traits are for PCs. If you want an NPC to have traits, that NPC will need to "buy" them with the Additional Traits feat. Player characters are special—they're the stars of the game, after all, and if they have an advantage over the NPCs of the world in this way, that kind of makes sense. The pregenerated characters presented in Pathfinder and the modules will not have bonus Traits selected for them—we're leaving those choices to you if you wish to use one of them as a PC.

Mike McArtor
Editor

Exploring Paizo's Pathfinder Society Organized Play, Part 2

Thursday, June 5, 2008

No barfly at the local tavern who blusters on about his "adventures" shall ever know the heart-pounding rush of facing down the winds of Abendego on the prow of a pirate king's ship, or the majesty of the dawning sun cresting the Sphinx's brow at Sothis.
—Venture Captain Alissa Moldreserva

In Part 1, we unveiled our first faction, Andoran, and spoke a little about the factions system we'll use in Pathfinder Society Organized Play. In this segment, we'll talk briefly about faction prestige, how it's earned, and what it means for the world of Golarion as well as what it means for you as a member of the Pathfinder Society.

Missions and Prestige

You gain faction prestige by succeeding in specific missions. In a single scenario there will be one to three missions dedicated to your specific faction, all tasks that if completed give your faction an advantage in Absalom's shadow war. You might need to make sure a crime lord dies, protect an innocent merchant, save a kidnapped child, hand off an important missive, foil an assassination, or steal an important communiqué. Whatever the mission, a positive outcome earns you and your faction anywhere from one to three points of Faction Prestige. Every Pathfinder Society Scenario offers the same potential amount of Faction Prestige to each faction. It's up to you to make sure your faction scores higher than its competitors.

As you advance in Faction Prestige your faction rewards your excellent service. At the same time, the factions with greater prestige gain power and their star rises in the ongoing storyline of the season. Every month a Pathfinder Missive (our monthly newsletter) will let everyone know which factions are increasing in dominance over the city of Absalom and which factions are being nudged ever closer to ignominy and ineffectualness. At the season's conclusion, the faction scoring the most Faction Prestige rules Absalom from behind the scenes, while its enemies gnash their teeth and their kingdoms suffer the consequences. Having a Pathfinder in the winning faction gains that character access to rewards you wouldn't otherwise be able to obtain. (More on rewards later.) Every season ends in June at the Origins Game Fair in Columbus, OH. July is a "bridge" month between seasons during which the loosely connected storyline of the previous season comes to a close while foreshadowing the new season to come. Faction Prestige is reset in July, so that when the next season of Pathfinder Society Organized Play kicks off at Gen Con, every faction once again has the possibility to rule Absalom from the shadows.

And now a sneak peek at Cheliax, the Infernal Empire, and the second unveiled faction for Pathfinder Society Organized Play.

CHELIAX
Infernal Empire

Asmodeus himself smiles upon our endeavor and we shall not rest until the entire world trembles before Him.
—Paracountess Zarta Dralneen

When Aroden died, some say the soul of Cheliax perished with him. The once mighty empire tore itself apart, and only through the power of three noble Houses, each steeped in deviltry, was order restored. The empire runs on the backs of fiends now, a perfect machine of hellfire and blood, where morality surrenders to the needs of law and order. It's easy to curse Cheliax as a nation of devil-lovers, but few can argue with the results of their fiend-binding craft. House Thrune, the greatest of its diabolic noble families, has brought the empire under control once more. Cheliax rises like a dark star, as strong as ever, despite the recent losses of Galt and Andoran to rebellious forces.

Asmodeus proves as powerful a divine patron as Aroden ever did, shepherding his people toward glory and dominance of the Inner Sea. His plans reach eons into the future, and the minor setbacks of yesterday are all factored into the cost of doing a devil's business. The Chelish always plan for a long campaign, and never trifle over today's skirmishes. In the end all will burn in hellfire. It is only a matter of time and calculated conquest.

The pale-skinned Chelish believe themelves superior to all other peoples. Their compact with great devils gives them power beyond measure, and no other nation of the Inner Sea can compete with their summoners and warlocks when it comes to trafficking with dark forces. These devils require payment for their service, often offered up in the form of tender flesh and boiled blood. Slaves are an important resource of the Chelish as are artifacts of ancient power whose secrets are revealed to them by their timeless patrons. Even as Andoran revels in its newfound freedom, the tendrils of Cheliax's empire continue to expand. Arcadia lays open before them and Sargava is ready to fall under their hellish sway. The Inner Sea will fall with the rest as soon as Absalom rests firmly in the bloodied hands of House Thrune.

Goals: Hell on Golarion

The Chelish plan to spread the dark influence of Asmodeus across the face of Golarion. They bring order to chaos, quell the troublesome concepts of freedom and self-determination, and leave broken souls eager to accept the bondage of slavery in their wake. The world must come to terms with the order of things. Mortals serve at the knee of greater powers. The devils of the Nine Hells are Golarion's natural overlords and if the rabble gathered along the coast of the Inner Sea can't be made to understand this simple fact, then they will be purged in a torrent of fire.

Methodology: The Kiss and the Lash

A true corrupter can convince a man to hand over his soul, a blissful smile on his face.
—Paracountess Zarta Dralneen

The Chelish are masters of seduction as well as pain. They bring their enemies to heel with promises of aid, riches, and glory, but keep them in line with cruel lashes and hellfire. The Chelish faction wins others to its dark cause with temptation. Lust, power, riches, vanity, the Chelish offer all, and cater to the sinful nature in every man to bring him low. If a foe cannot be seduced, he must instead be scourged. Many missions of the Chelish faction involve tempting upright people into darkness and vice, and then threatening to expose their sins unless they aid the empire as dutiful agents. The tricks of devils have claimed men's souls since time immemorial and they serve the Chelish well in their quest for control of Absalom.

Check the blog again on Thursday for more information on Pathfinder Society Organized Play!

Joshua J. Frost
Director of Sales & Marketing

Nicolas Logue
Organized Play Coordinator

Visiting Belkzen

Monday, June 2, 2008

In Pathfinder #11, we journey into the hostile, orc-infested Hold of Belkzen. While the adventure “Skeletons of Scarwall” itself is primarily limited to one single ruin in this savage land, we also have a gazetteer of the Hold in case you want to do some sightseeing along the way. All manner of surprises and dangers await discovery therein—check out the following two sample locations excerpted from the article as examples!

The Brimstone Haruspex: Though highly independent, even proud orc chieftains sometimes seek advice. When this happens, most warlords send their seconds-in-command to the Brimstone Haruspex, the temple complex high in the caldera of a smoking volcano. Here a group of ancient and inbred orc monks offer guidance in exchange for massive tribute. In addition to maintaining the only supposedly complete record of orc history—a lengthy series of cave paintings stretching all the way back to the orcs’ initial emergence—the monks are also oracles, breathing in the vapors from the active fumaroles in order to spin weird and bloody prophecies. Unfortunately, the fumes that give them their insights are highly caustic, permanently scarring their faces and lungs. It is for this reason that most leaders choose to send their seconds-incommand with questions, as the cruel and prudent priests frequently opt to dangle petitioners in the sulfurous pits to gain the revelations firsthand.

The Skittermounds: These tall, sandy mounds stretch for miles across the foothills of the Mindspin Mountains, and are avoided by all but the truly desperate, as they represent the openings to a vast and complex series of ankheg nests. For the most part, the warring ankheg armies are content to battle each other in their leagues of underground tunnels, noticeable to those above only as a low buzzing, though foolhardy travelers might occasionally witness a colony raising a new mound entrance with frightening speed and efficiency. Every few years, however, runoff from intense storms in the mountains floods the plain, causing the colonies to erupt from their holes by the thousands and press eastward, consuming all in their path.

Sech Nevali: Also called the Hanging Monastery, Sech Nevali is a relic from Thassilonian times, a vast stone temple complex suspended over a mile-deep chasm by immense chains running between three high mountain peaks. Originally dedicated to the Peacock Spirit, the monastery is now inhabited by an order of secretive, isolationist monks who believe (correctly) that not even orcs would brave the most treacherous mountains in Belkzen in order to disturb their solitude. Yet what their ultimate purpose could be in such a remote and inhospitable place remains a mystery beyond Sech Nevali’s swaying walls.

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Meet The Iconics: Seltyiel

Monday, May 26, 2008

Born from a dead mother amid screams and disgrace, this sickly half-elf would never have survived had he fallen into his stepfather's waiting arms. In a cruel trick of fate, his half-sister's tears stole the infant Seltyiel's chance for a mercifully short life.

The bastard son of the duped Lady Phiaura Bhrostra and the brigand-sorcerer Lairsaph—the so-called Feign Prince of Cheliax's Whisperwood—Seltyiel was never meant to survive. Through guile and illusion, the half-elf was conceived as a living disgrace to the sonless Bhrostra family—stern, martial-minded traditionalists who had long hunted the woodland bandits. The tragedy of his wife's death in childbirth, compounded by the dashed promise of a male heir, nearly drove Lord Ghran Bhrostra mad, and only his daughter's sobs stayed the lord's blade. For the next 12 years, a continuing river of tears ensured the young bastard's life.

Raised by his sister Sioria, young Seltyiel lived a humiliating fiction. In words, he was Lirt, an adopted waif who lived in the light of the Bhrostras' boundless charity. In the truths whispered from servant to mocking lord, though, he was living proof of Lord Bhrostra's failure as a husband, a lord, and a man. Keenly aware of his family's disgrace, Lord Bhrostra frequently reminded his wife's son of his loathing with beatings and broken bones.

Two weeks before Seltyiel's 13th birthday, with the bedridden youth already nursing a thrice-broken arm, a drunk and enraged Lord Bhrostra rampaged into the bastard's attic room. The boy could scarcely fight against the burly lord and took a fierce beating before reflexively lashing out. Catching the unsuspecting lord below the waist, the boy's blow sent Lord Bhrostra stumbling backward and tumbling down the steep attic stairs. Seltyiel stared down at his stepfather's unconscious body in terror. Without a word to his sister, the bloodied and crippled half-elf fled into the Whisperwood that night.

For days, the boy wandered the forest, soaked by rain, slashed by vipervines, chased by a boar, and pushed to the brink of starvation. As his continued merciless fortune would have it, though, three scowling brigands found the youth. Terrified, Seltyiel repeated the name he'd heard Lord Bhrostra curse a thousand times over: Lairsaph. Bemused, the scoundrels dragged the boy to his father.

Lairsaph laughed for nearly an hour after discovering that Lord Bhrostra had actually raised his whelp, and in cruel amusement welcomed his son into his camp. The Feign Prince gave the boy the name Seltyiel—a corruption of the elven word for malicious humor—and turned his mind to finding a use for the youth. In the weeks following his son's arrival, the sorcerer made several cruel attempts to coax forth some evidence of the boy's inborn arcane ability. Despite his efforts, though, it swiftly became apparent that his son possessed none of the brigand lord's sorcerous blood. Disgusted, Lairsaph dismissed Seltyiel, relinquishing him to the ranks of his craven, sycophantic followers.

For the next decade, Seltyiel scraped out a life among the thieves of the Whisperwood. Pale, morose, and slight of frame, he suffered endless abuses at the hands of his father's gang, and as Lairsaph and his men grew rich off brigandry and violent raids, the half-elf performed menial tasks and scavenged from scraps. Gradually, though, as the boy grew into a young man, he cultivated a quiet intellect and began collecting the objects his father and his men discarded—typically the letters, ledgers, and books of the merchants they preyed upon. Slowly he taught himself to read, first Taldane, then other languages. As he neared his 20th birthday, he made his greatest discovery amid a treasure-stripped caravan wagon: a tattered tome, a book of simple magic. Seltyiel became obsessed. For years, the bastard read the tome over and over, learning its runes, memorizing its symbols, and gaining some measure of control over the cantrips within.

In the half-elf's 23rd year, Lairsaph and his men made a daring robbery, stealing a fully-loaded taxwagon headed back to Egorian from the Majestrix's eastern holdings. Although cunning, the brigand lord was unprepared for the infernal queen's swift reprisal and the skill of her hunters. A half-legion of Chelish soldiers led by an Order of the Rack Hellknight tracked Lairsaph to his hidden camp and turned an evening's debauchery into a night of fire and blood. The swift attack scattered the Feign Prince's men, making them easy pickings for the merciless soldiers. In a blur of shouts and slashing blades, Seltyiel found himself fleeing—to his shock—at his father's side. Through the night, war hounds and the tenacious Hellknight pursued the father and son. Lairsaph exhausted every spell he could conjure attempting to stymie the ironclad hunter, but still the infernal knight came. Finally, knowing his capture would mean a lengthy torture followed by a dramatic execution, Lairsaph turned to his son, drew him close, and, with the butt of his spear, shattered Seltyiel's kneecap.

Knowing only that the criminals of the Whisperwood were led by an elf, the Magistrix's men drug Seltyiel back to Egorian in chains. For weeks, the half-elf suffered constant tortures and arcane assaults to his mind. Gradually, though, his captors accepted that he was not the brigand lord Lairsaph, but merely the Feign Prince's dupe. Dismissed as just another bandit, he was thrown into a dank Chelish dungeon and, for nearly 5 years, left to rot.

During Seltyiel's imprisonment, the whispers came. Seemingly drifting from the darkness in the depths of his reeking cell, they were a cool balm to the fires of his angry wounds and smoldering hatred. They reminded him of his fear, his violent youth, his loathing, and betrayal. They also told him much: tales of magic more ancient than the gods, paths to lost treasures with feckless guardians, and the names of beings who could teach him secrets unknown to men. For long years he listened, and his soul turned to steel. If he was to ever have anything, he would have to take it himself. He would have riches and influence like Lord Bhrosta. He would have respect and fear like Lairsaph. He would have revenge.

In 4707, Seltyiel was released. Cold and determined, he walked from Egorian to Westcrown, murdering two thieves met along the way with arcane fire. Using their twice-stolen coin he bought passage on a ship with no clue as to its destination. He would kill his fathers, he would have revenge—but first, he would have power.

Seltyiel debuts as a pregenerated character in volume 13 of Pathfinder.

F. Wesley Schneider
Pathfinder Managing Editor

Meet The Artists: Concept Art House

Monday, May 19, 2008

So, it struck me that we haven't spent much time on this blog talking about art. We've shown off plenty of it, but remember, it all has to come from somewhere! Sometimes we go to specific artists to get illustrations for Pathfinder products, but we also work with several studios of artists as well. One of our favorites to work with is Concept Art House.

Concept Art House is an international art studio/outsourcing company whose clients include the film industry, video games, print media, and entertainment related intellectual properties—like Pathfinder. The core founders have over 20 years of industry experience, and while they're headquartered in San Francisco, California, they also have a full production studio in Shanghai, China. You'll be seeing plenty of their work in the pages of Pathfinder products (such as the two illustrations featured with this post), but if you'd like to see more, head on over to their art galleries at www.conceptarthouse.com. Trust me, it's worth the visit!

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

The Cinderlander

Monday, May 12, 2008

In "A History of Ashes," you'll be introduced to a wide cast of misfits, troublemakers, heroes, anti-heroes, and outright villains. The complicated part? For many of these NPCs, which of those roles they'll end up playing will depend on how the PCs interact with them. One such character is the mysterious Cinderlander, a man whose family was slaughtered by the Shoanti, leaving him with nothing but a burning need for vengeance. He abandoned his former life and walked into the Cinderlands, where he became a figure of legend—many Shoanti believing that the Cinderlander can't be a living man, but rather a spirit of wrath fueled by men slain during these raids into the southern lowlands.

After years of hunting and killing Shoanti, the Cinderlander gradually achieved two cynical epiphanies—first, no matter how many Shoanti he killed in his lifetime, there would always be more; and second, that the Shoanti were already a doomed culture, gradually being crushed between civilization to the south and more brutal orcs to the north. His righteous fury largely exhausted, the Cinderlander now rents himself out as a guide for those who seek to cross the Cinderlands in safety, facilitating the inland travel of southerners. He secretly resents the paradox that over the years he has gradually become far more like the Shoanti he hunts than the Chelaxian heritage he thought he was defending, yet he knows little else.

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Second Darkness

Friday, May 2, 2008

With Pathfinder #12, we'll have introduced our twelve core "iconic" characters, the heroes you'll see going up against the bad guys in all Pathinfder products. These iconics are basically meant to be stand-ins for your PCs, but once we hit our 11th one (Lini the gnome druid), we'd covered all of the core classes. Our 12th iconic will be our "iconic multiclass" character—a fighter/sorcerer (keep an eye for his debut on our blog in a few weeks), but after that, we didn't really want to dilute our iconics by coming up with new ones. Nor did we want to put the same characters on the cover over and over.

Instead, with Pathfinder #13, our cover characters are transitioning from PCs to NPCs. Just as Karzoug appeared on the alternate Gen Con cover to Pathfinder #1, going forward, we'll be putting important NPCs from the adventure on the cover. In some cases, this NPC will be that adventure's primary villain, but in others the NPC may end up being an important ally. Pictured here is the cover to Pathfinder #13, which unveils our first drow character as well—whether or not she's destined to be an ally or an enemy isn't something I'm going to spoil here. But, come on. She's a drow! And look at that crossbow! You can't get into the good-guy meetings with that kind of accessorizing going on!

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

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

The Yetisburg Address

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

A few appropriate remarks, spoken by President Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863, after a two-hour fusillade of yowling by the Right Abominable Statesman, Senator Everett OrYARRadoogOOch'ook!ook!:

Four score and seven yetis ago, our fathers discovered on the northern fringes of this continent a new breed of soldier, conceived in the Belly of Hell, and dedicated to the proposition that not only men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a rarely civil war, testing whether those yetis, or any yetis, so ill-conceived and so odiferous, can long be endured. We are met on a great charnel house of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that those yetis might be once again returned to Canada. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this, for they do us no good at all here.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not even find—this ground. The brave yetis, living and dead, who struggled here, have pretty much torn it to ribbons, far above our poor power to reconstruct. The yetis will little note, nor long remember what we say here, as they have the attention span of a chamberpot. It is for us the humans, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished collection of random soldiers' body parts, which they who fought here have gnawed down to the bone. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they ran screaming from the field, those that could walk, anyway—that we here highly resolve that these dead should not have died in pain, oh such horrible pain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new resolve to solve its own damn problems—and that government of the people, by the people, and specifically only for the people, shall not rest until every last man-ape is driven from its shores. Really, what in thunderation were we thinking?

The Red Mantis

Monday, April 21, 2008

In Pathfinder #9, we officially introduce one of Golarion's most sinister villains—the order of assassins known as the Red Mantis. Clad in signature red and black armor, wielding serrated blades, and wearing magical mantis masks to enhance their sight and to strike fear into the hearts of their victims, the Red Mantis have long stalked the nights and nightmares of their prey. Dutiful and discreet, professional and deadly effective, these killers' blades cull commoners and counts with equal ease, with no spell, secret safe house, or army of guardians comforting those taken as a mantis's mark. And for those with the gold and guile to attract the attentions of the Red Mantis, their coin buys the assassins' promise that those slain by their sawtoothed sabers do not just die, but will never rise again.

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Meet the Iconics: Lini

Monday, April 14, 2008

In her many explorations and journeys, Lini encountered numerous large animal predators, with whom she seemed to possess a certain affinity. More than once, Lini's traveling companions or enclave came under threat from some great bear or razor-clawed cat, but with a series of soothing noises and precise motions Lini always tamed the beast and sent it on its way.

Lini's success at calming animals came to an end one day when a snow leopard bound out of the trees and pinned her to the ground before she could react. Her friends scattered, leaving Lini alone to face the beast. Although fascinated by the cat's power and speed, and appreciative of its beauty, Lini trembled under its massive paw and tears leaked from her eyes. She knew she faced her doom, and she found it cruelly ironic how death came to claim her.

Yet the leopard did not strike.

"Your friends have abandoned you," a calm feminine voice intoned out of Lini's sight. "Despite the times you saved them, they left you to die." Although Lini could not see the woman, Lini knew of the Norn of the forest and suspected she was one of them.

"Please help me," Lini whispered, her chest struggling to rise under the great cat's crushing paw.

"You do not need my help, little one. You need hers."

Lini looked at the snow leopard, deep into its eyes. She saw neither hunger or malice. Still struggling just to breathe, Lini stared into the great cat's eyes and asked, "Will you help me?"

Inexplicably, the snow leopard lifted its paw from Lini's chest. A coughing fit then overcame the small gnome, and when she finally recovered she looked around her. The snow leopard was gone and Lini saw no sign of the Norn. She looked around frantically, suddenly alone and scared. A small gnome in a large world.

"Come back," Lini cried. "Don't go! Please don't go. Don't leave me alone." She sank to her knees, tears afresh on her face, until she heard the sound of approaching footsteps.

The snow leopard had returned. With the delicateness of a mother tending to her cubs, the great cat licked gently at Lini's face, whisking away her tears. Lini threw her arms around the leopard's neck. "You are my friend, aren't you? I will call you Droogami. That is what we call good friends."

Lini looked down then and picked up a stick from the forest floor before clambering up the cat's side to perch on its back.

"Let us go, then, Droogami. We have no need for this place."

In the years since her departure from the Lands of the Linnorm Kings, Lini has collected more than a dozen sticks—one from each forest or wood she visits. In her resting time after long days of travel, she sits at Droogami's side and peels the bark from the sticks, smoothing and polishing them incessantly.

Lini debuts as a pregenerated character in volume 13 of Pathfinder.

Mike McArtor
Editor

Quarantine!

Friday, April 11, 2008

Queen Ileosa quarantines Old Korvosa! Bridges destroyed! People separated from their families! The shipments of supplies grind to a halt! Chaos ensues! Check out the great art that tracks the quarantine of Old Korvosa, from Pathfinder #9.

Mike McArtor
Editor

Andoran

Thursday, April 10, 2008

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

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

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

Mike McArtor
Editor

A Letter from the Front

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Dearest Clarabelle,

It's been passing long since last we embraced. After months of fighting in this damnable battle between the states, I fear I shall never hold you in my arms again. It's the Yetis, Clarabelle—they've torn off my arms at the shoulders. I write this hasty note to you with pen firmly in mouth. I trust my tears shall not disrupt the ink and that our love will carry me through the challenging months to come.

In the weeks after the traitorous Secession, the shaggy beasts came from the darkened forests of the Canadian north. My grandfather remembered tales of the hulking monsters serving in the front lines of the enemy in 1812, but this time, the generals claimed, they would battle on the side of the righteous Union.

Believe me, Clarabelle, these Yetis fight on no side but their own. In the first few battles their razor claws and savage maws tore great bloody holes in the ranks of the enemy, but bullets in a territory of war know no difference betwixt friend and foe. This Wednesday last I had occasion to misfire my carbine into the back of one of the shaggy white beasts, and he turned on me with the fury of a savage beast. It was all the doctors could do to save my life that wretched day, and the worst of it is that my wedding band now rests with my festering fingers in the belly of that overgrown, odiferous meat-monkey.

I write with trembling lips that Johnny Reb has Yetis of his own, disgusting hair-patched beasts they purchased from the distant North. I am no longer certain of the future of our Union, but I can say with confidence that war breeds greater and greater weapons of destruction, and now that the Yetis have joined the field on both sides, there can be no assurances as to the eventual victor of this conflict.

May God above save us from the wretched Yetis. May God above save the Union!

Yrs with great love and admiration,

Private Enoch Umberhaur
1st Regiment, Minnesota Volunteer Infantry
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
July 2, 1863

The Proud Chelaxians

Thursday, April 3, 2008

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

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

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

Mike McArtor
Editor

Meet the Iconics: Amiri

Monday, March 31, 2008

There are a million ways to die in the Realm of the Mammoth Lords. The natives of this brutal land are the nomadic Kellids, and they have made the best of this primal world. Amiri is one of these barbarians. Although she was blessed with a combination of independence and brawn, Amiri's childhood remained one of constant challenge. To the people of her tribe, the Six Bears, brawn and bravery were not ideal characteristics for a woman to have. To the Six Bears, a woman's role was simple—raise children, tend to the sick, and forge bonds with other tribes. Women were resources. When a tribe wished to form an alliance, they would send gifts of meat, furs, treasure, and daughters. Amiri didn't see herself as livestock, and every chance she got, she tried to one-up her brothers and cousins. When a hunter went out and caught a caribou for the tribe, she would go out and catch two. When a party of orc raiders stumbled into their hunting grounds and a tribal hero killed four, she took it upon herself to kill six. Her constant sense of competition made her few friends—her brothers were both intimidated by her ferocity and enthralled by her beauty, while her sisters knew that each time she went against tradition, they would all be punished.

When Amiri finally came of age, her reputation had spread beyond the Six Bears. The other tribes took to calling her the "Soft Chieftain" of the Six Bears, a name that humiliated her almost as much as it did her kin, inferring that they were weak for allowing one of their women to grow so independent and strong. None of the other tribes wanted any part of her—her continued presence among the Six Bears caused much strife between once friendly tribes, and so the elders determined that there was but one choice—Amiri had to die. The only problem was the commonly held belief that murder of one's kin was the greatest taboo and the surest path to Hell.

The opportunity to be rid of their troublesome sister rose soon enough, when word came of a tribe of frost giants who had been sighted in the nearby mountains. The elders organized a warband to scout the mountains and to drive back the giants, and they made sure that Amiri was included in the band. Shocked but proud to have finally been chosen, Amiri didn't notice how the elders smiled at her eagerness to be on her way. The elders knew that Amiri's sense of competition would swiftly get her in over her head, and in secret tasked the rest of the hunters to goad her into just such a situation.

The warband headed up into the Kodar foothills, and it wasn't long before they found evidence of giants. One morning, the leader of the band rushed into camp, waving a dagger the size of a man's arm over his head. The warrior claimed to have single-handedly slain a giant and to have taken his dagger, and the others in the band congratulated him on his skill and bravery. Amiri took the bait, and announced that she would return by sundown with an even greater weapon. She could have no way of knowing that the dagger was part of the deception—that the warband had brought it with them as a prop to incite her into a foolish plan.

What the warband themselves didn't anticipate was that Amiri would find a frost giant. After wandering the mountains, she came to an immense body at the foot of a cliff—the giant had fallen to his death weeks before, and at his side lay his immense bastard sword. Although Amiri knew that she had not killed the giant, she also knew that all she needed was his sword as proof—certainly her kin wouldn't think to dispute her claim with such a grand trophy. Yet when she returned to the place she had left her kin, she found the camp empty. Concerned, worried that they had fallen victim to the region's dangers, she tracked them, catching up with the warband halfway back to the tribal camp. As she approached the camp, though, she realized something was amiss—they were talking of her, and they were laughing.

Creeping unseen to the edge of the camp, she realized that she had been duped. She heard her kin mocking her ways, of how she had fallen for their ruse, and how even now she was likely cooking in a giant's stewpot. That they seemed grateful and so at ease with her death was not what enraged Amiri. It was the proof that her own people thought of her as a fool that did it. Eyes blazing, Amiri stepped into the camp and held her new sword out, proclaiming that even now she had bested them. The other warriors, shocked to see her alive, quickly fell back to laughter, pointing out that she could hardly wield such an ungainly weapon. Her fury growing, Amiri hefted the weapon and tried to adopt a menacing pose, but the weapon's size threw her off balance and she toppled over, much to the other barbarian's growing amusement.

It was enough. With a roar, Amiri leapt back to her feet. Her rage filled her body, clouded her vision, stole over her soul. Two of the barbarians had been decapitated by her immense sword before they realized that death had come. The battle was swift and brutal, with Amiri not noticing the blows that landed on her, simply stepping from one traitor to the next and cutting them down.

When her rage finally subsided, Amiri realized what she had done. She knew that the hunters had certainly deserved their fates, but they were still kin. That her reasons for murdering them were, to her, valid didn't change the ties of blood. She knew that she had cut those ties, and so she turned her back on the remains, trusting that they would be discovered by another hunting party soon enough. As she headed west into the lands of Irrisen and the unknown reaches beyond, her heart was for the first time free—no longer was her future tied to traditions that would constrain her. She has come to value her oversized sword, and even though she can only truly wield it properly when her blood rage takes her, it has become as much a part of her as her fierce independence or her fiery heart. She no longer sees herself as a member of the Six Bears, but never speaks of the circumstances that forced her to flee her homeland. Some things are better left unsaid.

Amiri debuts as a pregenerated character in volume 13 of Pathfinder.

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Gary Gygax: Remembered

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

The galley proofs for Gary Gygax's novel, The Samarkand Solution, are sitting on my desk right now, ready for the final check-off before we send the book to the printer. Sitting above my desk, packed into little cardboard sleeves, are dozens of copies of Dragon, the original RPG magazine for which Gygax served as publisher in its earliest days. Until recently, I served as publisher of that magazine, and it always made me proud to know I was following in Gary Gygax's august footsteps.

Gary died this morning in his sleep, bringing to an end a decades-spanning career that created an industry and brought joy to millions of people. The game he created with Dave Arneson&Dungeons & Dragons&has had a more profound influence upon my life than any other factor save my family, and his passing has affected me deeply.

When I was a kid growing up with D&D, Gygax's name was on the cover of just about every official product. He wrote the best adventure modules, he set the template for all future campaign settings with the World of Greyhawk, and perhaps most importantly he introduced a generation of kids to a game that was more than a game. I've met many of my closest friends in the span of my entire life because of Gary Gygax.

Last year, I launched Planet Stories, a line of fantasy and science-fiction trade paperbacks aimed at reprinting some of the classic works of sword & sorcery that inspired Dungeons & Dragons and fantasy gaming in general. In the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide, a fascinating work that surely serves as Gygax's masterpiece, Gary thoughtfully included Appendix N: Inspirational and Educational Reading, a list that included such luminaries as Michael Moorcock, Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Lin Carter, Fritz Leiber, H. P. Lovecraft, A. Merritt, Jack Vance, and more.

So in addition to my friends and my career, I also owe Gary Gygax an unpayable debt of gratitude for introducing me to the greatest fantasists who ever lived and a lifetime of excellent reading. Planet Stories is, in some small sense, my attempt to repay that debt by bringing many of these fine authors back into print to be enjoyed again. Like Paizo Publishing itself, Planet Stories exists because of Gary Gygax. I chose to honor Gary by including several of his own exciting fantasy novels in the Planet Stories line, including the imprint's very first release, The Anubis Murders.

It was the release of The Anubis Murders at last year's Gen Con Indy that brought me and Gary together for the last time. As the show's Guest of Honor, Gygax had more than a full schedule, but he was able to carve out a couple of hours a day to sit at the Paizo booth and sign autographs of his book while sharing thoughts and memories with his fans. And the stories those fans told were just incredible. For a full hour I listened as gamer after gamer approached Gary and told a variation of the exact same story: "Thank you for a game that has brought me so much joy. Thank you for a game that has brought me so many friends. Thank you for making such a positive impact on my life."

Sitting next to Gary at last year's Gen Con made me realize what a huge cultural impact Gary Gygax had made on all of us. Never before have I seen such honest appreciation. Never before had I been so moved and so proud to be working with a man who had made such an impact on my life. On all of our lives.

When a friend passes away, it is easy to be sad, to think about what might have been had he lived another year, another ten years. But my friends, I am here to tell you that Gary Gygax knew what a difference he had made in all of our lives, and he was proud to have made it.

Not bad for a life's work.

I'll miss you, Gary Gygax. We all will. Goodbye, my friend.

And thank you.

Erik Mona
Paizo Publisher

Meet the Iconics: Sajan

Monday, March 3rd, 2008

Birthed to parents of the padaprajna caste of warriors in beautiful Vudra, Sajan Gadadvara and his twin sister Sajni learned to hold a temple sword before they could walk. Strict padaprajna discipline forged a tight bond between the twins, who spent even their infrequent times of rest together, practicing the latest martial techniques taught to them. On their twelfth birthday, the twins were forcefully separated: Sajan went to live with the fighting men of the ghana padaprajna, while Sajni joined the battling women of the sastra padaprajna. Despite their separation, the twins continued to meet when they could, sparring and joking as they had in their childhoods.

As the insightful narrative of the Vigrahin Patitraka states, "A warrior's life is to war." Thus it was that Sajan's lord embroiled himself in a conflict with a neighbor. Most of the army fielded by Sajan's lord consisted of conscripts wielding tools of their trades, while the valuable padaprajna watched the battle in reserve. The warriors deduced quickly that they stood on the losing side, but they were duty-bound to fight to the death when instructed. Instead, their lord stole from them the glory of battle-death when he sued for peace after his conscripts fled the field. As part of his surrender, the lord gave over half of his sastra padapranja—including young Sajni.

Distraught, Sajan returned to his barracks in tears (for which he received severe beatings from his own father), and vowed that night to be reunited with his sister. Several weeks passed before he found his opportunity for escape. He fled into the countryside and slipped stealthily into the city of Sumadhadra, through whose gates Sajan watched his sister pass. After several days of clumsily seeking information on his sister, he finally discovered that all the traded sastra padapranja were loaded onto ships bound for distant Jalmeray.

Sajan quickly hired himself as a guard aboard a ship bound for the far-away island, and several months later he found himself on its heavily guarded docks. Within a week, Sajan uncovered the fates of most of the sastra padapranja, who worked as guards and courtiers for the island's thakur. Sajni was not among them. More weeks passed before Sajan learned that his sister had, like him, signed on as a guard aboard a trading ship—hers bound for a place called Absalom.

The desperate young padapranja gained passage to Absalom and, upon arrival, stared in wonder at its size and splendor. It seemed to him that the strange western barbarians he found himself among were incapable of a place so grand. By the time he found his bearings and rejoined his search, however, he found himself without leads, for the sheer size that so impressed him also made finding his sister nearly impossible.

Sajan knows he cannot return to Vudra, for the padapranja there would execute him as a deserter. He cares not for his home country, however, and continues to seek out any clue that might point him toward his sister.

Mike McArtor
Editor

The Doctor is In

Monday, February 18, 2008

How sick would you have to be before you'd drink the tonic this man is offering you?

In Pathfinder #8's "Seven Days to the Grave," your characters get to find out. The cheery chap pictured here is one of the Queen's Physicians, part of Queen Ileosa's official response to the plague that strikes Korvosa in the second installment of the Curse of the Crimson Throne Adventure Path. Of course, we can't take full credit for the costume design for this guy—it's more or less whole-cloth from the actual plague doctor suits worn in medieval times during the black death. Think of it as an early haz-mat suit. Unfortunately for the real-world doctors who wore these suits, they did relatively little to protect them from infection. Sure makes them look creepy, though!

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Introducing Gaedren Lamm

Monday, February 4, 2008

See that wretched fellow over there? The creepy old man with the ratty clothes and the pet alligator? That would be Gaedren Lamm, one of the first villains your PCs will be facing in the new Pathfinder Adventure Path, Curse of the Crimson Throne. One part criminal mastermind (like Fagin from Oliver Twist), one part feeble but bitter and evil old man (like Mr. Burns from the Simpsons), and one part classic RPG guild master of thieves, Gaedren Lamm is more than just a simple end-boss of a dungeon. He's the reason your new PCs became adventurers in the first place.

In the Curse of the Crimson Throne Player's Guide, we introduce several background traits that each player can look through, selecting one to apply to his character's history. Although each background trait gives you a small bonus to your character (something on par with about half the power of a feat... a +1 bonus to a particular saving throw, for example), they also give you something more: a built-in reason to hate Gaedren Lamm. Perhaps he murdered your father. Maybe he kidnapped your cousin. Or perhaps you grew up as one of his orphan pickpockets, and experienced a childhood of physical abuse and pain. Whatever your choice, you'll have a reason at the start of the campaign to side up with the other PCs—all of you will share a hatred for this despicable old villain. And when a mysterious figure gathers you together with news of where Gaedren Lamm's hideout actually is, how the criminal pays for his crimes will be up to your group.

Just make sure to watch out for his alligator.

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

The Sable Company

Thursday, January 31, 2008

The Guide to Korvosa details Varisia's unofficial capital, a militaristic city tolerant of fiends but ever strict in its applications of law and punishment (especially the punishment). Three military branches protect the city from external and internal threats: the peacekeeping Korvosan Guard, the hard-hearted Hellknights of the Order of the Nail, and the elite hippogriff riders of the Sable Company. Here is just a taste of what the beloved marines of the Sable Company are all about.

Sable Company
First by tradition, and later by an addendum to the city's charter, the Sable Company does not answer to the leader of Korvosa, regardless of the leader's title. Instead, the commandant of the Sable Company reports directly to the Seneschal of Castle Korvosa.
Commandant Marcus Thalassinus Endrin leads his hippogriff-mounted marines in defense of the skies and waters of Korvosa. Shipboard raids and airborne threats fall under the jurisdiction of the black-clad Sable Company, and its members offer aerial and amphibious support to Korvosan Guard operations. The Sable Company works closely with the Korvosan Guard and relies on its ties with that group to coordinate efforts with the Hellknights and Acadamae (neither of which the Sable Company gets along with).

Mike McArtor
GameMastery Associate Editor

Meet the Iconics: Lem

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Although Lem was raised in the lap of luxury, his childhood was anything but comfortable. He had the unfortunate luck to be born into slavery, to a mother indentured to one of Cheliax's countless noble families. Lem was sold a half dozen times to different nobles before he reached the age of two. Such is the fate of most of Cheliax's halflings (often called "slips" by that nation's citizens). Halflings are much valued as slaves in Cheliax since they take up less room and since their inborn optimism ironically stunts escape urges. Halflings born into slavery in Cheliax are prone to think of their lot in life as "lucky." They are fond of saying, "At least we aren't living in the gutter or starving!"

Nevertheless, halflings who rankle at the concept of enslavement do appear. Halflings like Lem. Growing up a slave in the devil-haunted empire of Cheliax exposed Lem to a shocking range of decadence and debauchery. He learned from a young age how to say what his superiors wanted to hear, and as he grew older, these skills often secured him less onerous jobs. While his kin toiled in basement washrooms or tended hellhound stables, Lem was taught to play the flute so he could entertain at family gatherings. Yet Lem was not blind to the discomfort of his brothers and sisters, and when he learned that a dozen of his kin were to be sacrificed to a devil as an offering to seal a new trade contract, Lem knew the time to act had come. Taking advantage of his increased mobility in the manor, it was a relatively simple trick to light a few fires in secret corners and then ensure that all of his halfling kin were safe in the slave's quarters. The manor burnt quickly, but Lem was shocked to see his kin rush back to the manor in a hopeless attempt to aid in extinguishing the flames. As the place burnt to the ground, and the halflings bemoaned their fate and the loss of their shelter, Lem slipped away into the night, bitter and distraught over this unexpected turn of events.

Lem left Cheliax by stowing away on a merchant vessel and never looked back. He rarely speaks of his childhood today, but one can see its effects in his high disdain for law and order, and his intolerance for cruelty. Always quick to side with the underdog, Lem has learned that his most powerful traits are his optimism and sense of humor—virtues that almost make up for his small stature and impulsive nature. Lem's reasons for traveling with his current companions vary upon the day and his mood, but he certainly values their strengths—and the never-ending supply of comedy material their antics provide him.

Lem debuts as a pregenerated character in volume 7 of Pathfinder and in GameMastery Module W2: River Into Darkness.

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

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

Long Live the Queen!

Friday, December 28, 2007

Queen Ileosa Arabasti, the beautiful young wife of Korvosa's current monarch, isn't very popular among the nobles and citizens of her city. Not that she cares all that much about what those lesser fools think of her. Keeping the rabble happy is her husband's job, after all—Ileosa's got more important things on her mind. But what could those things be?

Stay tuned in to Pathfinder, for as we begin our second Adventure Path, Curse of the Crimson Throne, Queen Ileosa's plans for the city should quickly become obvious.

HINT: Now's not a good time to move to Korvosa.

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

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

Meet the Iconics: Seelah

Monday, December 17, 2007

Although still viewed by many theologians and traditionalists as a newcomer to the world's faiths, Iomedae the Inheritor seems poised for greatness among the divine. Certainly her numerous orders of paladins have risen swiftly to take on the vaunted role of paragon in many societies. Evangelical in their exuberance to spread word of her wisdom, Iomedae's missionaries were pivotal in the defense during the fabled Siege of Solku. They sacrificed their lives saving the town from gnoll slavers, and although none of them survived the siege, their presence lived on. Particularly in the eyes of young Seelah.

Seelah's family came to the walled town of Solku as pilgrims fleeing the atrocities of distant Geb to the distant south. Unfortunately, they traded one peril for another, and within months of their settling in Solku, the gnolls of White Canyon began their infamous pillaging. Seelah's parents were slain in the first of these raids, leaving her orphaned at the age of 14 in a strange town. She did what she must to survive on the city streets, pickpocketing and bullying and even hiring herself out as a mercenary. When a group of Iomedae's knights arrived to defend Solku, Seelah was immediately taken with their beautiful, shining armor, and within an hour she had stolen a particularly fine mithral helm with a golden bird upon its brow. Yet then, something strange happened—Seelah became overwhelmed with guilt at her theft. For days, she agonized over the act, trying (and failing) several times to pawn the helm. During the Battle of Red Hail, Seelah realized that one of the bravest knights, a woman named Acemi with hair in long braids, fought the battle without her helm. This was the woman's undoing—in holding Solku's gates, she took a mortal wound to the skull from a gnoll's flail. The woman's heroism carried the day, but that evening she died of her wound.

Wracked with guilt, Seelah approached Acemi's body as her companions prepared for her pyre. They watched silently as Seelah placed the stolen helm over the dead woman's head, and then climbed onto the pyre aside her to join her in death. The paladins were moved beyond words—they had known from the start that Seelah had stolen the helm, but Acemi had forbidden her brothers and sisters from collecting it, hoping that the helm would bring the desperate orphan enough money to survive for another few months. The knights of Iomedae took Seelah in that night. Although she has come to terms with Acemi's death, Seelah still regrets the theft that ironically brought her into Iomedae's arms. She originally came to Iomedae out of guilt, but in the past several years, that guilt has transformed into a powerful love and faith in the Inheritor.

The young paladin wears her hair in Acemi's style and is trained in the use of the longsword. In so doing, she hopes to carry on the good work that Acemi might have done had she not fallen at the Battle of Red Hail. It's the least she feels she can do to make up for a death that she allowed to happen.

Seelah debuts as a pregenerated character in volume 7 of Pathfinder and in GameMastery Module W2: River Into Darkness.

James Jacobs
Editor-in-Chief, Pathfinder

Meet the Iconics: Harsk

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Not all dwarves are meant for the mines. As a young dwarf, Harsk spent every spare moment outdoors under the wide skies of southeastern Varisia, particularly at night beneath the stars, where his keen vision made him a hunter without compare. While generally uninterested in his family's traditional smithing, he still inherited enough of their tinkering ability to construct his own crossbow, a heavy, highly accurate weapon that few others are able to wind. Eschewing the company of his fellows, few things made Harsk happier than crouching in a tree stand with his bow, listening to the wind through the forest leaves and waiting for deer or larger prey to wander by.

           

That all changed twenty years ago, when his elder brother, a fine captain named Sigur, led a dwarven war band from Janderhoff against a small party of giants that had descended from the Mindspin Mountains to raid and pillage. Out of affection, Sigur offered his less-experienced sibling the chance to come and prove himself as Sigur's chief scout and second-in-command. Calm and peaceful by nature, Harsk turned him down, failing to see the honor his brother was doing him until several days after the company had departed. Traveling light and fast, Harsk caught up with his brother quickly—but not quickly enough. Misjudging the size and skill of the raiding party, Sigur led his band into an ambush, where it was slaughtered to the last dwarf.

           

With his brother's blood still fresh on his hands, Harsk went mad with rage. That night, he stalked through the giants' camp like a vengeful wraith, slaughtering giant after giant with his crossbow before melting back into the forest, only to reappear elsewhere and take another victim. When the last giant was left gurgling in the dust, Harsk took up his brother's axe and slipped off into the trees, vowing to forever be the voice of justice in the wild places, to keep balance and prevent the sacrifices of noble men like his brother.

           

Harsk, like many of his kind, is gruff and taciturn, but there ends most of his connection to dwarven society. Something of a loner, he prefers to spend his time outdoors, communing with nature, though he occasionally travels alongside others whose goals match his own. Uninterested in the beer and ale that so characterize dwarves in the minds of human society, Harsk instead drinks pot after pot of strong tea to keep his senses sharp. While he never lets his brother's axe out of his sight, he wields it only as a last resort, knowing that his true skills lie in the hunt and striking from darkness.

James Sutter
Assistant Editor, Pathfinder

Meet the Iconics: Ezren

Friday, October 26, 2007

For many adventurers, wanderlust strikes at a young age when minds are impressionable and the urge to escape the doldrums of homelife become too much to resist. In other cases, there's never a choice at all—being raised on the streets leaves few other options available for those who do not wish to become criminals. Rarest are those who come to adventuring late in life.

This was Ezren's path to adventure. Born to a successful spice merchant in one of Absalom's more affluent districts, Ezren's childhood was pleasantly safe. As the fourth of six siblings, he never knew the responsibility implicit in being the eldest (and therefore the one expected to carry on father's trade) or the freedom of being the youngest. He enjoyed the comforts of a well-to-do family, lived in a neighborhood relatively safe from crime, and seemed poised for a life of mediocrity.

That changed when his father was taken away, charged with heresy by the church of Abadar. The charges were too spurious to stick, and while his father escaped excommunication, the damage had been done—his father's business fell to pieces. Shocked, dismayed, and convinced that his father was innocent, Ezren abandoned his future and spent his adult life trying to repair his father's ruined reputation. So when Ezren finally uncovered irrefutable proof of his father's guilt, and he realized he'd wasted his life on a lie, he turned his evidence over to the church and said goodbye to his home, his family, and his life.

At the age of 42, Ezren is full aware that he's missed his adulthood, yet at the same time he looks forward to discovering the world, and making a difference for a cause that he believes in. His dissatisfaction with family, religion, and government left him precious little to trust but his own intellect—in fighting for his father's redemption, he had become a gifted researcher, scholar, and intellectual. Lacking the spry limbs of youth, the trust in religion, the strong arm of the soldier, or the way with words of the politician, Ezren felt he had but one option open. He traveled to tarnished Oppara, capital of Taldor and one of the oldest cities of the continent of Avistan, hoping to join one of several prestigious schools of wizardry. Yet time and time again, he was turned away due to his age. No wizard seemed to want an apprentice who, in many cases, was older than them. So Ezren was forced to strike out on his own once again.

Over the next decade, as he traveled Avistan, Ezren studied where he could, picking up tricks of the wizard's trade here and there. The combination of arcane study mixed with his worldly first-hand experiences have given him an edge over young wizards fresh out of apprenticeship and eager to make names for themselves. Ezren knows about the many ways the world can trick and betray you, but now he's finally begun to master the art of magic, giving him the tools to fight back.

Ezren is scheduled to make his debut as a pregenerated character in volume 7 of Pathfinder and in GameMastery module U2: Hangman's Noose.

James Jacobs
Editor-in-Chief, Pathfinder

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

The Ivy District

Thursday, October 4, 2007

GameMastery Module U1: Gallery of Evil takes place against the backdrop of the largest city in Golarion: Absalom. This burgeoning metropolis is filled to the brim with people from all walks of life across three continents. Easily the most cosmopolitan city in the world, Absalom must expect the unexpected. In the jaded manner common to many large cities, nothing really surprises them.

While we intend to unveil more about our iconic major city over the course of the next several months, for now we are going to limit ourselves to one district at a time. The idea is to enable the readers to drop these districts into whatever major city they use in their own campaigns, while slowly building up Absalom's identity, history, and culture. In time, this metropolis will become one of the major centerpieces of our entire campaign setting, and in Gallery of Evil, we give you the first of Absalom's districts to be revealed: the Ivy District.

As one of the oldest districts in the city, the Ivy District sits a good distance from Absalom's outer walls. Its tranquil parks, flowering, ivy-lined streets, industrious mercantile and artisan zones, and upper-class homes have been blessed with relatively little disruption from the countless sieges that have shattered against the city walls and seaside cliffs surrounding the Isle of Kortos. The Ivy District is the hub of culture and art within Absalom and, some might venture, the greatest influence on the styles and trends of its neighboring kingdoms.

Winding cobbled stone streets and hard-packed dirt roads, separated by narrow drainage canals that eventually empty into the sea, wend their way through the district. Decorative bridges connect numerous streets with one another, each one decorated somewhat differently from the next, with bas relief sculptures, murals, or even tiled mosaics appearing seemingly at random. Its streets are among the busiest in the city, save only the market and dock districts.

The Ivy District is the most popular location in Absalom among those who appreciate the arts and the finest products and entertainment gold can buy. Because of the Ivy District's reputation for beauty, fine art, and masterwork trade goods (fine blades, stylish and top-quality armor, renowned gem cutters and jewelers, exquisite clothing, carpentry products, and so on), it is also very tempting for thieves. The district has a surprisingly low theft rate, however, thanks to the efforts of a well-paid District Watch and the Brotherhood of Abadar, which patrols the streets looking for signs of unlawful activities and disturbances.

One of the most significant areas of the Ivy District is The Ivy District Park and Topiary Menagerie. This public park is filled with beautiful oak groves, pines, beech trees, weeping willows, cedars, and a wide variety of more exotic flora. Flower gardens and fruit-bearing trees line the neat dirt paths that wind through the park, and a large pond dominates its center. At places where the water is narrow enough, gorgeous bridges arch across its placid surface. Ducks, geese, colorful fish, and frogs live in the pond. Other wildlife lives here too, such as squirrels, owls, foxes, and hares. The druidic members of the Perfumers' Conglomerate tend all the life here. Through continual effort they manage to keep the trees, grass, and flowers pruned and blooming all year round. The sparkling clean water and happy and healthy wildlife are a testament to their hard work.

One of the park's main attractions is located at the center of a tall hedge maze: the topiary menagerie. Shrubs and bushes have been expertly pruned and trained into shapes of animals, people, and even rare and magical beasts. Although this wonderful horticultural menagerie seems innocent enough, the park's attendant druids recently discovered a group of teenage kids dead in the surrounding maze and a topiary unicorn missing from the menagerie. The stab wounds on the bodies were enough to confirm their suspicions of the missing unicorn's involvement, but they haven't determined how it happened or what happened to the missing topiary killer.

Jeremy Walker
Assistant Editor, GameMastery

Bidding Adieu to Volume 2

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

So after what felt like years of waiting (it was more like weeks), we finally got in our office copies of Pathfinder #2 today! Which also means that we'll be shipping them out to subscribers and distributors very soon. I actually walked by a pallet of them down in the warehouse earlier today, and seeing "SKINSAW MURDERS" written on a stack of boxes as tall as me was strange. The Skinsaw Man came out of a game I ran back in college set in my own campaign world, and seeing the word on those boxes really brought it home—the word may have been born in central California, but then it went up to Seattle, then over to England, then back here, then over to China, and now it's back here and ready to begin its final step in global saturation. It's exciting. And a little surreal.

In any event, that's about a wrap for Pathfinder #2! We'll have an alternate map of Magnimar to show you on Friday's blog post, and then starting next week we'll start revealing tidbits about Pathfinder #3: "The Hook Mountain Massacre." Demented ogres, haunted campfires, castles and gazetteers and lake monsters, oh my! I can't wait to show some of it off!

In fact, I don't want to wait. Check out this sneak preview of one of the pieces of art from Pathfinder #3. Who could this dwarf be? Does he have nefarious plans for our heroes? Why is his ass so tiny?

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

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

Pathfinder #2 Art Show!

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Pathfinder #2 is off at the printer, which means it's time to give you all a sneak peak at some of the fabulous art we've got going into this volume. From the lamia matriarch to the skinsaw cultist with his fearsome war razor, we're really proud of the visual element of Pathfinder #2, and these are just a drop in the bucket when you consider how much art we have jam-packed into this book. Enjoy!

James Sutter
Assistant Editor, Pathfinder

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

Meet the Iconics: Kyra

Monday, July 30, 2007

The priests of Sarenrae lead double lives. Known to her faithful as the Dawnflower, the Healing Flame, and the Everlight, she teaches temperance and patience in all things. Compassion and peace are her greatest virtues, and if enemies of the faith can be redeemed, they should be. Yet there are those who have no interest in redemption, who glory in slaughter and death. From the remorseless evil of the undead and fiends to the cruelties born in the hearts of mortals, Sarenrae's doctrines preach swift justice delivered by the scimitar's edge. To this end, she expects her faithful to be skilled at swordplay, both as a form of martial arts promoting centering of mind and body, and so that when they do enter battle, their foes do not suffer any longer than necessary.

Her priests are often categorized into these two camps—those who favor redemption as a method to defeat the enemy, and those who favor the blade. Kyra is certainly one of the latter. Born in a small farming town to loving parents, Kyra grew up in the shadow of one of the Dawnflower's shrines. She was taken at a young age with the beauty of the shrine's stained glass, and the grace of the three priestesses who practiced swordplay on the nearby hill each dawn as they offered their morning prayers. When bandits attacked her small town, Kyra watched as the priestesses did their best to reason with them—and when that came to naught, to end them before they could do more damage. Unfortunately, the bandits were too strong, and the village burned. Kyra was one of the few survivors, and on the smoking ruins of the shrine she swore her life and sword arm to Sarenrae, swore to protect those who could not protect themselves and to not spare the blade when the time for redemption passes.

Possessed of a fierce will and pride in her faith and skills with the scimitar, Kyra has traveled far since her trial by fire. She lost her family and home that fateful day, yet where another might be consumed by anger and a thirst for revenge, Kyra has found peace in the Everlight, and in the belief that, if she can prevent even one death at evil hands, her own losses will not have been in vain.

Kyra, along with the rest of the first four iconics, makes her debut as a pregenerated character in volume 1 of Pathfinder and D1: Crown of the Kobold King.

James Jacobs
Editor-in-Chief, Pathfinder

Meet the Iconics: Merisiel

Monday, July 23, 2007

The elves have a name for elven children unfortunate enough to be born and raised in human society—the Forlorn. In a few rare cases, these foundlings or orphaned elves find loving homes with humans, although the fact that, over the course of their childhood, one-time playmates become their effective guardians and foster parents results in a strangely skewed sense of the self. Most Forlorn aren't as fortunate—they live on the streets as almost eternal urchins, watching alone as their companions age and move on to greater things.

Merisiel is one of the Forlorn, only now emerging from decades spent as a child of the streets into a young adult ready to make her own way in life. A master at stowing away on ships, she's called dozens of cities home, leaving one for another when her companions outgrew her or she outlived them. Life has been hard for Merisiel, made more so by the fact that she's always found it difficult to master skills that come easily to her companions. Never the sharpest knife in the drawer, as the saying goes, Merisiel has learned to make up for this by carrying at least a dozen of them on her person. When things go wrong with her carefully laid plans (as they almost always seem to do), the knives come out and what needs to be done gets done. To date, Merisiel hasn't met a problem that can't, in one way or another, be solved with daggers.

Merisiel's life experiences have taught her to enjoy things to their fullest as they occur—it's impossible to tell when the good times might end. She's open and expressive with her thoughts and emotions, and while she's always on the move and working on her latest batch of plots for easy money, in the end it comes down to being faster than everyone else—either on her feet, or with her beloved blades.

She wouldn't have it any other way.

Merisiel, along with the rest of the first four iconics, makes her debut as a pregenerated character in volume 1 of Pathfinder and D1: Crown of the Kobold King.

Click the image for a larger version of Wayne Reynolds' stunning portrait.

James Jacobs
Editor-in-Chief, Pathfinder

The New Kids

Friday, July 13, 2007

Readers who've had a chance to check out D1: Crown of the Kobold King have doubtless noticed the pre-generated characters at the back. But whereas Valeros and Seoni both had pictures... we didn't have illustrations for our human cleric of Sarenrae, Kyra, or our stabby short-tempered elven rogue, Merisiel. Look for each of these two to get their own "Meet the Iconics" entries in our blog in a few weeks, but for now, these awesome sketches from Wayne Reynolds give us a great preview of our next two heroes.

James Jacobs
Editor-in-Chief, Pathfinder

Sean Signs On

Thursday, July 12, 2007

The Rise of the Runelords Player's Guide reveals the twenty core deities of our new campaign setting, including their alignments, portfolios, domains granted, and favored weapons—everything a player needs to know to create a cleric character. Yet there's much more to each of our deities than just this.

Starting with Pathfinder #2, we'll be presenting detailed write-ups of all twenty core deities. Fans of the Core Beliefs articles that have been running in DRAGON magazine for the last three years will find themselves on familiar ground here, especially with fan-favorite author Sean K Reynolds at the helm. His first installment details Desna, the goddess of dreams, stars, travelers, and luck, a faith that plays a central role in many of the adventures in Rise of the Runelords. You can look forward to information about Desna, her church, her faithful, new spells, new magic items, prestige classes (like the starknife-throwing priest illustrated here by Ben Wootten), and more—everything a believer of the Song of the Spheres will need to know to bring Desna's word to the masses. We're planning on detailing four deities a year (two per Adventure Path), with Lamashtu, the goddess of monsters and madness, coming next in Pathfinder #4.

James Jacobs
Editor-in-Chief, Pathfinder

Humans of Varisia

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

As mentioned in previous blog posts, the Varisian region contains three prominent human ethnicities:

Chelaxian: Monument-haunted Magnimar and imperial-minded Korvosa vie for control of southern Varisia. In these cities and the numerous vassal settlements of each, the majority of the populace can trace their ancestry to the sharp-featured people of Cheliax. Those of Chelish descent possess dark hair and eyes contrasted by pale skin—along with a taste for artistic fineries and high art.

Shoanti: Across the northeastern reaches of Varisia, the seven ardent tribes of the Shoanti make their homes. A turbulent people adhering to traditions unchanged in hundreds of years, these natives live harsh lives, preying upon predators and eking what they can from an unforgiving land.

Varisian: Passionate and fiercely independent, Varisians (shown in the sketch presented here) lend their name to their homeland. While these clannish wanderers can be found in many lands, nowhere are larger populations found than in the land of their ancestors.

Insular and adhering to an ancient, nomadic way of life, extended families of Varisians form wandering communities, traveling wherever fate directs them. Varisians don't believe in claiming land and thus see no hardship in their nomadic lifestyle. While nature provides for most of their needs, these wanderers often visit the cities and towns of settled people to trade art and curios from their travels, earn coin by entertaining and performing small jobs, and sometimes to con and steal from the unwary—a practice indulged often enough to make Varisians widely distrusted and unwelcome by those not of their society.

The typical Varisian possesses deep olive skin and hair that ranges from black to auburn, often worn long by both men and women. Customary tattooing leads most to exhibit complex patterns and symbols significantly different from those worn by the Shoanti who share their homeland. As wanderers and often entertainers, Varisian dress tends toward extremes, from functional garb fit for traveling to wildly impractical dress meant to accentuate their dancing, exotic tattoos, and naturally fit forms.

Wesley Schneider
Associate Editor, Pathfinder

Founded on Murder!

Monday, May 21, 2007

The foundation of a new town is not a matter to be taken lightly, nor one to be funded by one soul. Four powerful families from the city of Magnimar had designs on settling a region 50 miles to the northeast, and rather than work against each other, they consolidated their efforts and formed the Sandpoint Mercantile League. These four families, the Ameikos (glassmakers and jewelers), the Valdemars (shipbuilders and carpenters), the Scarnettis (loggers and millers), and the Deverins (farmers and brewers), sailed north to claim their land after securing the rights from the Magnimar Charterhouse. Yet when they arrived, they found the place already settled by a particularly large tribe of Varisians, who held the region as a traditional place to spend the winter.

Unwilling to change course, the Sandpoint Mercantile League began a series of talks with the Varisians, promising them an important place in the new township. Unfortunately, after a week of talks seemed to go nowhere, an impatient man named Alamon Scarnetti took matters into his own hands. Rounding up a group of his brothers and cousins, the Scarnettis mounted a murderous raid on the Varisian camp, intending to kill them all and leave evidence implicating local goblins for the deed. Yet the Scarnettis, too drunk and overconfident, only managed to kill five Varisians before they were themselves forced to flee, leaving behind three of their own. The incident caused a several-month delay, but eventually amends were made and the town of Sandpoint was born.

Despite these violent first months, in the forty-odd years since Sandpoint was founded, things have been rather calm and quiet. The late unpleasantness, involving Chopper's murderous spree and followed closely by the Sandpoint Fire, constitute the worst thing that's happened to the town. Yet Sandpoint's current mayor, Kendra Deverin (female human aristocrat 3/expert 4), can't shake the feeling that the unpleasantness was but a preamble, and that dark times indeed are coming to her home town.

The excellent headshot accompanying this post is one of several Andrew Hou's worked up for Pathfinder—Kendra Deverin herself. Kendra has served as Sandpoint's mayor for the past five years. Lawmaker, judge, and general peacemaker, she has proven to be both an adept diplomat and stern hand when need be, both skills honed during her youth in Magnimar. With a personal—some say sisterly—style of governing, most of Sandpoint's citizens hold deep respect for their fiery-haired mayor.

James Jacobs
Editor-in-Chief, Pathfinder

Meet the Iconics: Seoni

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Back by popular demand, the second in our line of Wayne-Reynolds-designed iconic characters is the beautiful and mysterious sorceress Seoni.

Unlike the barbarians-gone-native on the eastern plateau or the colonial Chelliaxian immigrants of the south, Seoni is a native Varisian, a nomadic race whose closest real-world cultural analogue is the Romani. Or at least, she's mostly Varisian—as might be apparent from her otherworldly grace, there's something not quite human in her ancestry. Though she doesn't have any hard facts, Seoni herself has picked up on some of this, and is constantly pushed to search deeper into the mysteries of her heritage by strange dreams that she doesn't understand.

More than just ornamentation, Seoni's runic tattoos play a large role in her personality. Coming from a people where tattoo magic maintains a strong following, hers are simultaneously a manifestation of her power and a tool to aid in her castings. The sheer number adorning her skin, as well as the similar patterns woven into her clothes, are a mark of status among her tribe, though many of the so-called "civilized" residents of Varisia look upon such body modification with distaste.

Despite being a consummate adventurer, Seoni is something of an enigma to her compatriots. Quietly neutral on most matters, bound by codes and mandates that she rarely feels compelled to explain, the sorceress keeps her emotions tightly bottled. Extremely detail oriented—what the more pugnacious members of her party call a "control freak"—Seoni is a careful and meticulous planner, a schemer who frequently finds herself frustrated by the improvised plans of her more impulsive companions. Despite all of this, Seoni has stuck by her comrades through numerous tight spots, a fact that continues to amaze and confuse Valeros, who wonders loudly (although not altogether unappreciatively) about "the witch and her schemes."

As with so many things, however, if Seoni understands her motivations, she's keeping that knowledge to herself.

Seoni, along with the rest of the first four iconics, makes her debut as a pregenerated character in volume 1 of Pathfinder and D1: Crown of the Kobold King.

James Sutter
Assistant Editor, Pathfinder

Meet the Iconics: Valeros

Monday, May 7, 2007

One of the many lessons we've learned in our tour with Dragon and Dungeon is that people like iconic characters. A lot. It seems like every day a new thread pops up on our messageboards wanting to know more about the ill-fated Abelard the paladin, the tiefling fighter, or James Jacobs's notorious Tyralandi Scrimm. As such, when we sat down to develop the iconics for Pathfinder, we knew going into it that what we came up with needed to be more than just easy art reference. These iconics needed to live up their name and represent our world, our ethos, and our whole idea of what gaming is about. Fortunately, with Wayne Reynolds onboard to design the visual elements, we knew that what we received would blow our socks off—which it has.

Along with representing our game world, however, these iconics pull double-duty as pregenerated characters in Pathfinder and the GameMastery Modules. Each adventure will be accompanied by four of our iconics, statted up to the appropriate level and ready for you to sit down and start playing with a minimum of effort.

So without further ado, I'd like to introduce the first of our iconics: Valeros, a male human fighter who will be making his first appearance at second level in D1: Crown of the Kobold King.. While a fan of two-handed fighting using his longsword and shortsword, his true favorite tool is the tankard attached to his belt. Despite the devil-may-care attitude implicit in his pose (and hair), he's actually got a strong moral streak that keeps him neutral good... a quality that he feels is directly responsible for the mass of nicks and scars covering his face and gear.

James Sutter
Assistant Editor, Pathfinder

Raising The Runelords

or, "How To Recover From a TPK and Make It Look Like You Planned It All Along"

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Once upon a time, I was running one of my favorite adventures, White Plume Mountain, for my players. They messed up good, got split up, and ended up all being dominated by a certain vampire charged with guarding a certain hammer. Now, I didn't want to admit I had a TPK on my hands, so I took a cue form another favorite adventure, "The Mud Sorcerer's Tomb," and introduced a whole ancient society of primeval necromancers over the span between game sessions, and next time we gathered, I had the now-dominated PCs sent by their new vampire lord to release the first of several slumbering wizards from a forgotten age. They let one out, but then escaped their charm and spent the rest of the campaign trying to undo what they'd done. But the idea was too cool to let my players fix. They defeated one of the ancient wizards, but once one woke up, the others came back in a chain reaction. Today, my world has several new nations ruled by these reborn necromancers, all because back in college a few friends of mine blew their saving throws.

And now, that fateful happenstance extends to Pathfinder. The ancient Runelords of Thassilon have developed into their own unique force, but they certainly owe their conception to that fateful day deep under the game's most famous volcano. Reproduced below are some of my notes on the nature of the Runelords and Thassilon. Warning for those who plan on playing in the Rise of the Runelords campaign: serious campaign spoilers ahead!

The Runelords

In the first Pathfinder blog post I mentioned how we needed to build a new region to set Rise of the Runelords in. In fact, it's more complicated than that. We actually had to create TWO regions. The first of these is Varisia, the realm in which the new Adventure Path takes place. The other is Thassilon, the ancient empire that once sprawled across much of this corner of the world. An empire that was, at its height, ruled by seven powerful wizards known as Runelords.

Thassilon was a sprawling empire that covered an area about as large as the western half of the United States. The Runelords were maniacal arcanists who used magic to fuel their own decadent vices. They forged alliances with dragons and enslaved giants by using secrets of rune and glyph magic stolen from the aboleths. With their enslaved giant armies, the wizards of Thassilon built massive tombs, enormous magical constructs, and staggering monuments that survive today, mute testimonies of a mysterious age long past. Yet as all evil empires must, Thassilon fell. The reason for this fall remains a mystery, but as the end drew near, the seven Runelords retreated into the depths of their greatest monuments, entombing themselves with orders for their minions to release them later to reclaim their empire. Alas, Thassilon's minions were enslaved or slaughtered. No one was left to waken them, and so the wizard kings of Thassilon slumbered for countless ages. Virtues of Rule, Sins of Magic

At Thassilon's dawn, the Runelords held that wealth, fertility, honest pride, abundance, eager striving, righteous anger, and well-deserved rest were the seven virtues of rule—rewards that one could enjoy for being in a position of power. But the Runelords soon abandoned the positive aspects of these traits, instead embracing greed, lust, boastful pride, gluttony, envy, wrath, and sloth as the rewards of rule. Today, long after the fall of Thassilon, the original seven virtues are held as the great mortal sins, although only a few scholars who have studied ancient Thassilon know of their true sources.

The Runelords' magic was closely tied to these seven categories, to such an extent that they developed their own schools of magic. All of the Runelords were specialist wizards. They recognized seven schools of magic (lumping divination magic into the universal school), and each school was associated with one of the seven sins. A Thassilonian wizard selected one sin when he became a specialist, and that determined his prohibited schools, as detailed below.

Envy
Focused on the suppression of magic other than your own.
Specialty: abjuration
Prohibited Schools: evocation and necromancy

Sloth
Focused on calling agents and minions to perform your deeds for you, or used magic to create what you needed as you needed it.
Specialty: conjuration
Prohibited Schools: evocation and illusion

Lust
Focused on using magic to control and dominate others to force them to satisfy your desires, and in the control of other creatures' minds, emotions, and wills.
Specialty: enchantment
Prohibited Schools: necromancy and transmutation

Wrath
Focused on the destructive powers of magic, and the use of magic to channel destructive forces.
Specialty: evocation
Prohibited Schools: abjuration and conjuration

Pride
Focused on using magic to perfect your own appearance and your domain through trickery and illusions.
Specialty: illusion
Prohibited Schools: transmutation and conjuration

Gluttony
Focused on the use of magic to manipulate the physical body in order to maintain an unending thirst for continued life.
Specialty: necromancy
Prohibited Schools: enchantment and abjuration

Greed
Focused on the use of magic to transform things into objects of greater value or use, and for the enhancement of the physical self.
Specialty: transmutation
Prohibited Schools: enchantment and illusion

The Big Bad End Guy

Although Rise of the Runelords touches upon many different aspects of the ancient empire of Thassilon and its evil rulers, we knew from the start that we wanted to focus on one Runelord as the main bad guy for the campaign. Not only is it better to have a single villain for PCs to obsess over and hate, but by leaving the other six Runelords more or less undeveloped, we're leaving lots of room for further expansion to this Adventure Path and our campaign setting as a whole. We also knew that, in order to realize his evil plot, this Runelord would be harvesting the souls of creatures that had succumbed to his favored sin.

But still—which sin to pick?

Wrath seemed like the obvious choice, because who can't get behind an explosion-launching bad guy who has fire for blood and lightning for hair? (That's probably a little over the top, but you get the idea.) Wrath certainly fit well with the giants we wanted to use, but it broke down when you applied the themes to the second adventure, which requires a group of murderers who are murdering prominent citizens. If we went with wrath, they'd just be killing themselves off.

So then we looked at lust. Also a great sin to build a villain off of, and it certainly works well with the second adventure in a Jack the Ripper sort of way. But then we get back to our giants. These guys are huge menacing brutes. Not really known for being sexy and what not. So lust was out the window too (though it shows up in the GameMastery module Seven Swords of Sin).

That was when we hit upon greed. With the Runelord of greed, we had a big bad end guy who had a built-in way to tempt and gain his minions; he was filthy rich. Giants are certainly easy to see as greedy, and having our murderers stalking and killing merchants and politicians (and maybe even adventurers like the PCs!) worked perfectly. It also gave us some interesting options when designing his look. Gemstones embedded in his knuckles and forehead! Tattoos made out of gold! And if we do our job right, and our Runelord of greed ends up being a really effective villian, you get to see the looks of worry on your players' faces when, at the end of the Adventure Path, you remind them that there are six more Runelords still out there. Runelords associated with far more violent sins than greed…

And that's how we ended up with Karzoug, Runelord of Greed, becoming the first megavillian of Pathfinder. That's him up near the top of this page. He's lookin' pretty good for a guy who's probably over a thousand years old, eh?

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

   

Attention To Detail: The Story Behind Pathfinder's Supporting Material

Saturday, April 21, 2007

When coming up with the format for Pathfinder, one of the biggest questions we faced as a team was, "Okay, adventure path, check—but what else is going to be in there?" While we knew that the adventure that is the heart of each volume would grab people, that only accounts for a bit over half of each book. Something that's hard to grasp until you're actually staring down the barrel of a pagination is just how massive each one of these books is going to be—without in-text ads to eat up space, almost a hundred pages is a daunting amount of white space. What were we going to put there?

Ideas flowed fast and furious, and many of them quickly crashed and burned. Everything from familiar content like appendices of magic items and reports on current gaming news to outlandish proposals like a miniature Adventure-Path-related comic book in every issue (my own misguided suggestion, and an undertaking only slightly less expensive than putting a man on Mars). In the end, however, we came up with two guiding principles for all "back matter" (as we've taken to calling the supplementary pieces).

1. Everything in an issue of Pathfinder must be actively useful to a DM running the Adventure Path.

2. At least some of it needs to be fun and useful for players as well as DMs.

While one of the nice things about the Pathfinder format is that supplementary pieces have the luxury of being more free-form with their structure, much of the back matter in Pathfinder falls into one of the following general categories.

Cities and Regions: One of the strongest selling points of Pathfinder, in my mind, is that it gives you literally EVERYTHING you need to run a campaign. While we of course encourage people to adapt the Adventure Path to their own homebrew campaign worlds—some of us at the office are doing the same thing—we also think it's important to make the setting itself as compelling as the plot. In Rise of the Runelords alone, we have three extensive city write-ups detailing cities that the PCs will visit in the course of their travels—Sandpoint, Magnimar, and Xin-Shalast. These aren't just town stat blocks—these are massive affairs filled with locations, NPCs, backstory, encounters, and maps of surpassing intricacy and beauty. (You'd think I was exaggerating, but when Wes Schneider brought in the map he'd drawn of the city of Magnimar, site of the second adventure, I would have sworn he'd traced it off of Google Maps... there was simply too much detail. When asked how he managed it, he shrugged and replied, "latent obsessive-compulsive tendencies, I suppose.") In addition, we'll also have a large-scale map of the entire region of Varisia, in which Rise of the Runelords takes place, with write-ups for dozens of locations that simultaneously help flesh out the world and give you instant story starters for additional adventures. (I don't know about you, but I'm always a huge fan of provocative regional maps that give you just enough flavor to get your mind going, then turn you loose.)

Ecological Write-ups: Designing a new setting and working under the OGL means that we have the opportunity to introduce new monsters and re-imagine classic ones. (If you want a taste of where we're headed, scroll down to the last blog post on the goblins in our world.) In Rise of the Runelords, we plan to reveal our vision for stone giants and dragons in depth, taking things beyond a mere MM entry and showing you their society, their beliefs, their insides... in short, everything that makes them tick. Because while a good illustration can make a monster intriguing, it's how they think (and how you play them) that makes them great adversaries.

Gods and Demons: Similar to my feelings on monsters, I think that gods and demons (somewhat interchangeable terms in our world) are the most fun when they have engaging stories. Several times in each Adventure Path, we'll pick one of the gods or demons from our campaign setting and give you an in-depth look at everything about them, from their story and stats to their worshippers and heralds. For the first path, that'll be Desna, Song of the Spheres and patron of gypsies, and Lamashtu, the Goddess of Monstrous Birth.

Additional Encounters: What if your party skipped half the encounters in part of an adventure, or heads off in a direction you hadn't expected? Additional encounters in the region, conveniently tied to the Adventure Path, can help save you a lot of scrambling.

Bestiary: One of the few supplementary sections guaranteed to be in each issue, the Pathfinder bestiary will contain a number of brand-new monsters each month, both actively involved in the adventure and unrelated but thematically tied. For a sneak preview of what sorts of creatures you can expect to see in the first volume, keep watching this blog!

NPCs: It takes more than just a stat block to make a fun NPC, and whenever possible, Pathfinder will present the supporting cast—both heroes and villains—in an expanded format designed to be easily to cut-and-pasted into other adventures.

Pathfinder Journal: One of the other constants in the back matter, the Pathfinder Journal will explore a new aspect of our campaign setting each month and help tie together elements of both Pathfinder and the 32-page GameMastery Modules, helping to increase cohesion and give you even more options for expansion.

Miscellaneous Crunch: Ah, the joy of the miscellaneous category! Here you'll find everything from new spells, rules, and feats tied to sin magic (a magic system tied to the seven deadly sins and utilized by the Runelords) to pieces on how to run and maintain your own keep or castle.

History: I'm sure that by now you're probably getting the general gist of the Pathfinder ideology, but the history of a game world is just as important—and potentially inspiring—as it's geography. A chance for us (not to mention some of the biggest names in the RPG business) to shade in the historical background of our world? Yes, please!

Pre-generated Characters: Never again will you have to worry about players forgetting their character sheets at home. Each volume of Pathfinder will feature pre-generated characters based on Wayne Reynolds's stunning depictions of the Paizo iconics, allowing you and your party to grab the book and jump straight into the adventure with a minimum of prep time.

Whew! Keep in mind that those are only a few of the broad categories you might find in each volume—as I mentioned before, one of the things that excites me most about Pathfinder personally is our freedom to run the pieces that need to be run, regardless of whether or not they fit in with an established section. To build something from the ground up and have the authority to experiment is a glorious thing, and I believe strongly that when an author says, "how detailed should section XXX be?" and we can answer, "as much as it needs to be," everyone wins... especially the reader.

James Sutter
Assistant Editor, Pathfinder