Worlds Without End...

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

In my last blog post, I talked at length about how excited I am to see the authors in Worlds of Their Own—all of whom have made a considerable splash in the fantasy genre through their shared-world fiction—turned loose to write in settings entirely of their own devising, in which their word is the only law and all the toys are theirs to break as they see fit. I also gave you a sneak peak at snippets from the stories by R. A. Salvatore and Michael A. Stackpole.

This week, rather than gushing further about the book, I thought I'd just jump right into the snippets—after all, anybody who wants to hear my opinion (or express their own) can always jump over to the Planet Stories messageboards and chat with me, Erik, and the rest of the crew at their leisure.

So without further ado, I'd like to introduce Jeff Grubb, whose fingerprints are undoubtedly all over your favorite game settings, regardless of what they might be. In addition to rulebooks like the original Manual of the Planes and D20 Modern, he's been heavily involved in novels, comics, and design work for everything from Magic: The Gathering to Spelljammer, the Forgotten Realms to Unearthed Arcana, Dragonlance to Warcraft. Most recently, he's been hired to write the latest installment for the popular Guild Wars video game series. Little surprise, then, that his fabulous story for Worlds of Their Own, "Catch of the Day," is one of my favorites in the volume. It's a fun, energetic tale of a world where humanity has been forced to the mountaintops, sailing above the thick and dangerous atmosphere of the lowlands in buoyant airships, and in which a certain naive scholar ventures off the maps in an effort to discover the truth behind the phrase "here there be dragons..."

"Fable," said Meridan. "Saga. Epic poetry."

"Lost fact," countered August. "I take it you do not believe in the Lost Times?"

"If you challenge me to deny that man once lived beneath these clouds, I will defer to your greater knowledge. But if you ask me if I am a nostalgic, longing for the past, the answer, I'm afraid, is no."

"I confess surprise," said August. "I always thought of captains as romantics at heart."

"We captains are pragmatics," said Meridan. " You have to be, to survive away from the safe shores of the peaks. You cannot long for the past, I'm afraid, so I leave it to the poets."

"And historians," said August evenly. "So tell me, Captain, what do you think happened to the world? How did it get like this?"

"It doesn't matter much, does it?" said the captain. "The world is as it is, and we just have to live in it."

"I always heard," said Baker, "that there was a crystal heart at the center of the world, and someone broke it and released a cloud that wrapped around the globe."

"Nay, you're daft," said Crossgreves. "They had too much hoojoo. Too much magic. That caused the world to cloud over."

"You're both wrong," added Sandotter. "It just started raining one day and forgot to stop. It's just simple natural processes."

The captain, pouring herself another mug of wine, asked, "So, Mister Gold, how did the world come to be wrapped in clouds?"

"No one knows," said August Gold. "But I think someone killed a god."

There was a silence for a moment around the table, then everyone broke out at once. All except Meridan.

"Really," said Sandotter, with a giggle.

"Now that's daft," said Crossgreves. "Begging your pardon, Scholar."

"It would explain why the Churchmen act like they have a wasp up their kirtles," said Baker, "if somebody killed God."

"Not God," corrected August. "A god. There were many such powerful beings once, the old tales say. Only some being of that magnitude could cause it to start raining and keep raining for a hundred years, wrapping the world in a blanket of clouds such that the only survivors had to hike up the mountaintops and start again. And only killing such a being could release such power."

Crossgreves snorted, but Baker and Sandotter nodded.

"Have you proof of your gods?" asked Meridan.

"No. I don't even have proof of my dragons yet," said August.

"I've been meaning to ask, Mister Gold," said Meridan. "Tell me, how do you intend to prove the existence of your fabled dragons?"

"Why, Captain, I thought you had figured it out, looking at my equipment," said August Gold calmly. "I intend to go fishing for them."

If Jeff Grubb is the face of old-school D&D, Monte Cook is the cutting edge. The award-winning author of the Dungeon Master's Guide and Ptolus, Arcana Unearthed and his own take on World of Darkness, Monte is one of the most respected names in gaming, a legend in his own time. Now, in Worlds of Their Own, he dives into the Lands of the Diamond Throne, the world in which his Arcana books are set, in which giants battle dragons for control of an entire continent...

You said," the dragon noted, raising its head higher, "that you know who I am."

"Oh, yes. Perhaps you thought that such lore had been lost, but the akashics have made sure your crimes would always be remembered. I know who you are, Nithogar the Wicked. Nithogar the Hated. Nithogar the Despoiler."

"These are epithets I must have earned after I left."

"Then how about this one, dragon: Nithogar, creator of the dramojh." Out of habit, Re-Magul spat as he said both "dragon" and "dramojh."

Nithogar flexed his wings. "You know nothing of it, Hu-Charad."

"Nothing?" Re-Magul's eyes flared. "You are ancient, it is true, but I am no mere youth. I was there when the stone ships arrived on these shores, one of the first off the boats. I remember the battles with the dramojh—the so-called 'dragon scions.' I battled their dark sorcery and demonic powers. I saw friends and relatives die in their claws and teeth. They scuttled out of the shadows and they raped this land like nothing before them or—thank all the singers in the Houses of the Eternal—since."

"So your kind dealt with the dramojh. I am aware of that. And you were some kind of leader in your campaign against them. What do you want from me—gratitude? So be it. Thanks to you, giant, and to all your kind."

And with a sneer, he added quickly: "Now be on your way."

Re-Magul recoiled. No one had ever spoken to him like that regarding the hated dramojh.

The dragon pointed to the east with a long, sharp claw. " Your ancestral home lies in that direction." He lowered his talon and added, "I trust your vaunted sailing craft still work."

"I know where my homeland lies, beast! I left everything and everyone there to come here to deal with the chaos you created."

"Really, giant. Is that so? And what made the dramojh your problem? I recognize that they were an abomination, but why do you, hailing from across the boundless sea, care about such matters?"

"We are the wardens of the land!"

"We are the land!"

The shouted words of both giant and dragon echoed dully across the landscape. Each could feel the fevered breath of the other. Re-Magul trembled with anger, while the only change in the dragon's demeanor was an intensity of color growing behind his narrowed eyelids...

James Sutter
Planet Stories Editor

Here Comes Gen Con, Doo-Doo-Doo-Doo

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Gen Con 2008 is roughly 22 days from the moment you read this blog. Paizo is unveiling more new products, hosting more new events, and cramming more game play into the Paizo booth than we have ever done at any convention. To give a taste of what you'll find at this year's supreme gaming event and to make those of you who can't make it seven flavors of raving envious, here's a full list of Paizo events we'll debut at the show:

Pathfinder Society Organized Play
Though most of the Pathfinder Society Organized Play events are totally sold out, there are still a few that have open slots. If you didn't sign up for these slots during pre-registration, no problem! Grab yourself two generic tickets per slot at the show and come ready to play. Keep an eye on the Pathfinder Society website for character creation guidelines that should be posted around August 1. The following slots still have availability:

Slot 2: Thursday 1 P.M. to 5 P.M.
Scenario #3: Murder on the Silken Caravan
Scenario #4: The Frozen Fingers of Midnight

Slot 7: Sunday 8 A.M. to 12 P.M.
Scenario #3: Murder on the Silken Caravan

Slot 8: Sunday 1 P.M. to 5 P.M.
Scenario #1: The Silent Tide
Scenario #2: The Hydra's Fang Incident

Pathfinder Adventure Path Preview: Ascension of the Drow
Though this event is completely sold out, we'd be remiss to not include it in the list of Paizo events at Gen Con. Ascension of the Drow is a Nicolas Logue-run Paizo mega-event that will determine the ruling house of a Drow city to be featured in Pathfinder #16. More than 100 players, Game Masters, and special guests will play a variety of Drow, demons, and maybe even gods as they battle for total supremacy.

Assault on Falcon's Hollow: a Paizo Delve
Last year's delve went smashingly (pun intended) and we knew for this year's delve that we'd need to line up an even greater number of monsters to raise our tallies of PC deaths and TPKs even higher! Come by Paizo Booth #2221 during dealer hall hours, grab a pre-generated Pathfinder Roleplaying Game character, and test out the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game's combat system while you protect the tiny village of Falcon's Hollow from a ravenous horde of horrendous undead. Accomplishing pre-determined goals will win you and your party keys. Those keys just might open our treasure chest, winning you fame, fortune, and some free stuff. Sponsored by Dwarven Forge.

Paizo Publishing Seminars
Judging by pre-registration numbers alone, we may very well "sell out" most of our seminars at Gen Con this year (they're free to attend for Gen Con attendees.) Pre-registration numbers are the highest attendance counts we've ever had for Gen Con seminars and the show hasn't even started yet!

Writing for Paizo
Thursday 5 P.M. to 6 P.M.
Marriott — Indiana Ballroom C

Sticking with 3.5: the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and the Future of Paizo
Friday 5 P.M. to 6 P.M.
Marriott — Indiana Ballroom C

Pathfinder Adventure Path Preview
Saturday 5 P.M. to 6 P.M.
Marriott — Indiana Ballroom C

Worlds of Their Own Author Signing
Many of today's best (and best-selling) fantasists got their start writing shared-world fiction supporting roleplaying games. Worlds of Their Own collects more than a dozen thrilling tales, providing an exciting overview of the original worlds and characters of authors who achieved their greatest fame writing stories they do not own. Worlds of Their Own presents an unprecedented sampler of fantasy and science-fiction adventure tales from some of the best-loved and best-known authors in the genre.

Worlds of Their Own authors Ed Greenwood, Paul S. Kemp, Michael A. Stackpole, Greg Stolze, and Editor James Lowder will be on-hand in our booth on Saturday, August 16, 2008 from 2:30 P.M. to 3:30 P.M. signing copies of Worlds of Their Own. Copies of the anthology will be available for sale in the booth.

Worlds of Their Own Mega-Signing
Saturday 2:30-3:30 PM
Paizo Booth #2221

The Gamers: Dorkness Rising Signings
The Gamers: Dorkness Rising will finally be unleashed upon the world at Gen Con! Paizo is the exclusive hobby distributor for Dead Gentlemen Productions and we're pleased to host a full-time signing area in our booth throughout the show. If the dealer hall is open, someone involved with The Gamers: Dorkness Rising will be in our booth signing copies of the DVD. As of today, we expect the following folks to spend time in our booth:

Don Early, Producer
Matt Vancil, Writer / Director
Nathan Rice, Lodge / Sir Osric
Steve Wolbrecht, Composer
Scott Brown, Leo / Turk / Flynn the Fine
Christian Doyle, Gary / Fastidian / Luster
Matt DeMille, Production Designer / Art Director / Set Decorator
Brian Lewis, Cass / Rennard / Brother Silence
Jen Page, Luster (Female) / Professor

The Gamers: Dorkness Rising Signings
Thursday through Saturday 10 A.M. to 6 P.M.
Sunday 10 A.M. to 4 P.M.
Paizo Booth #2221

We hope to see you there!

(If you don't get the blog title, think Beatles. You're welcome for getting that song stuck in your head.)

Joshua J. Frost
Director of Marketing

Drizzt in an X-Wing

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Do I have your attention yet? I thought so. That's one nice thing about nerd culture (a term I use in the most affectionate way)—we've got some easily recognizable triggers. For better or for worse, there are certain touchstones that all of us in a given nerd subgroup are familiar with (and no, I don't mean lolcats). I'm talking about the big stuff—the media that shaped our favorite genres so irreversibly that there's really no extricating the two. Sure, you can theorize about how modern fantasy might have evolved if Tolkien had left those manuscripts in his bottom drawer, but really, it's something of a moot point.

Which is why I'm so excited about Worlds of Their Own.

Still following? I mean, let's just look at the author list here for a second. In the same book, we've got Monte Cook, Elaine Cunningham, Richard E. Dansky, Ed Greenwood, Jeff Grubb, Gary Gygax, Paul S. Kemp, J. Robert King, William King, James Lowder, Will McDermott, R. A. Salvatore, Steven Savile, Lisa Smedman, Michael A. Stackpole, Greg Stafford, Greg Stolze, and Nancy Virginia Varian. That's huge. These are folks who have, through their shared-world fiction and gaming accomplishments, left an indelible mark on our subculture. And in Worlds of Their Own, editor Jim Lowder (who's done some pretty seminal work himself, with his bestselling Ravenloft novels, among others) turns these authors loose to write in worlds of completely their own design, where their word is final and not subject to an intellectual property's owner. Needless to say, the work is stunning—I mean, we've got half a dozen New York Times bestsellers, Nebula award winners, and more here—and often surprising to those only familiar with an authors' shared-world stories.

As it would be a huge task to try and explain each of these authors' impact, I decided to just pick two today and show off chunks from their stories. But who to choose? William King? Richard Dansky? Some of the authors I was able to set aside for future blog posts—after all, this is not the first time Planet Stories or Pathfinder has worked with folks like Gary Gygax, Elaine Cunningham, or Ed Greenwood, nor will it be the last. In the end, though, I had to go with the two who inspired the title of this post: R. A. Salvatore and Michael A. Stackpole.

R. A. Salvatore is probably the biggest success story in shared-world fiction. With his creation of the dark elf hero Drizzt Do'Urden for the Forgotten Realms, he blew the doors off the shared-world industry and went on to write numerous popular creator-owned series, from his Spearwielder's Tales to the Crimson Shadow stories. His piece in Worlds of Their Own, "Mather's Blood," is set in the world of Corona, home of his DemonWars saga. Check it out:

On one of those gusts came a cry of anguish that sliced the heart of Mather Wyndon, a scream of pain and fear from a voice that he knew well.

He drew out his sword and used it to lead the way through the tangle of branch and snow, pushing out into the frigid air, trying to orient himself and determine the direction of Bradwarden's howl. The wind was from the northeast still, and it had carried Bradwarden's cry, so Mather set out that way, circumventing Dundalis, the smoke of the many chimneys thick in the air. Soon he found a path cut through the drifts—by goblins, he knew, though he could hardly see on this dark night. He didn't dare light a torch, fearing to make himself a target, but he understood his disadvantage here. Goblins were creatures of caves and deep tunnels. They could see much better in the dark than even an elven-trained ranger.

Mather was not surprised when he came through one large drift and caught a flicker of movement to the side, a missile flying straight for him.

He sent his energy into Tempest, and the sword flared with angry light. He brought the blade whipping about, intercepting the hurled spear and knocking it harmlessly aside, and then slashed back, deflecting a second.

The third got through...

Michael A. Stackpole is probably best known for his wildly popular X-Wing: Rogue Squadron series, which breathed new life into the most famous pilots of the Star Wars universe. He's also done work for Battletech, has numerous creator-owned projects such as the DragonCrown War and the Age of Discovery series, and in 2008 had an asteroid named after him. This story, "Keeping Score," is set in his Purgatory Station universe:

The ambush seared scarlet light through the mauve jungle. Sara had felt it coming a heartbeat before beams flicked out—things had gotten too quiet for a second. The enemy fire manifested as full shafts of light instantly linking shooter and target, then snapping off, since light traveled far too fast for even the most augmented eyes to see it as tiny bolts. Ruby spears stabbed down from high branches, or slanted in from around the boles of trees, here and there, as the Zsytzii warriors shifted impossibly fast through the jungle.

Sara cut left and spun, slamming her back against the trunk of a tree. Her body armor absorbed most of the impact and she continued to spin, then dropped to a knee on the far side of the tree and brought her LNT-87 carbine up. The green crosshairs on her combat glasses tracked along with the weapon's muzzle, showing her where it was pointed. The top barrel stabbed red back at the ambushers, burning little holes through broad leaves and striping trunks with carbonized scars. Fire gouted from the lower barrel as chemical explosives launched clouds of little flechettes at the unseen attackers.

To her right Captain Patrick Kelloch, the fire team's leader, laid down a pattern of raking fire that covered their right flank while she concentrated on the left. Flechettes shredded leaves and vaporized plump, purple lotla fruit. She thought she saw a black shadow splashed with green, and hoped one fewer laser was targeted back at her, but the Zsytzii were harder to hit than she'd ever found in virtsims.

Bragb Bissik, the team's heavy-weapons specialist, stepped into the gap between the two human warriors. Underslung on his massive right forearm were the eight spinning rotary-barrels of the Gatling-style Bouganshi laser cannon. Into each barrel was fed a small lasing cell, consisting of a chemical reagent that released a lot of energy really fast. The cell converted that energy into coherent light of great power and intensity that blazed for almost a second once the reaction had been started. The cannon whined as the barrels spun. The red beams slashed in an arc, nipping branches from trees and burning fire into the jungle's upper reaches.

The weapon spat the smoking lasing cells out into a pile at the hulking Bouganshi's feet. The brilliant red beams bathed him in bloody highlight. Hulking and broad-shouldered, the Bouganshi could have been a demon from any number of human pantheons, and Sara hoped the Zeez would find him purely terrifying.

As Bragb's fire raked the higher branches, two beams stabbed out from the ground to hit the Bouganshi's broad chest...

James Sutter
Planet Stories Editor