Worldscape Workbook—The Chainmail Bikini

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

We're a month away from the release of Pathfinder Worldscape #1, the launch of an all-new comic book series from our partners at Dynamite! Pathfinder Worldscape throws the Pathfinder adventurers Valeros, Seoni, Merisiel, and Kyra into a prison dimension that draws in the greatest warriors of three worlds, giving us the unique opportunity to cross over the Pathfinder adventurers with Dynamite's incredible roster of fantasy and pulp characters, including Red Sonja, John Carter of Mars, Tarzan, and a host of others. I'm quite excited about the series as a Pathfinder publisher and as a pulp fan, but to be perfectly frank, the thing that excites me most about Pathfinder Worldscape is the fact that I am writing it.

I've previously contributed scripts to the Pathfinder: Goblins!, Pathfinder: Origins, and Pathfinder: Hollow Mountain series, but this is my first go as the sole writer for all six issues, and overall the Worldscape project is one I've been working behind the scenes to make happen for years, almost since the very first Pathfinder comic ever came out. I'm thrilled and humbled by the opportunity to write comics featuring the iconic characters we created, but mixing that with the chance to script the exploits of characters created by Robert E. Howard (and Roy Thomas), Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Frank Frazetta pushes the experience over the top for me to the point that it's become a real creative highlight of my career.

Pathfinder Worldscape also provides me with the opportunity to work up official Pathfinder RPG game statistics for some of these legendary heroes. As with previous Pathfinder comics series, each issue of Worldscape contains a short RPG appendix and a pull-out miniatures-scale poster map. The first issue naturally leads with official game statistics for Red Sonja, one of Dynamite's flagship characters and one of the true pillars of sword & sorcery comics. Putting together Red Sonja's Pathfinder stats was a fascinating experience in game design and creative adaptation, and in the process of making it all work it occurred to me that it might be fun to open up my creative process a bit here on the Paizo blog, and discuss—step by step—my thought process on bringing these characters to life—Pathfinder style.

So, welcome to the first installment of the Worldscape Workbook, where I plan to do just that, on a more or less weekly basis. Throughout the month leading up to the Worldscape series and during the release of the issues themselves, I'll be opening up my brain here every Wednesday (because Wednesday is new comic book day!) and letting you know what went into adapting these characters, and why I made some of the decisions I did.

Even though I'm taking the design lead on this project, of course there are lots of other people involved, giving me suggestions, modifying my mistakes, and generally snickering about my bad decisions directly to my face in advance, ideally to spare me from all of you laughing in my face after the issue comes out, and it is too late to do anything about it. These conversations have taught me a lot about the design philosophy at play within Paizo's editorial and design department, and as I was sitting there thinking about how interesting it was to sink my teeth into this stuff, it occurred to me that a lot of you would probably find it pretty interesting, too.

I won't be posting the game statistics here on the blog—you've got to buy the issue for that—but I do plan to talk about why I made certain decisions, and (sometimes just as importantly) why I didn't make certain other design decisions (or why I did, and Jason Bulmahn made me change it). In the process I'll be revealing some of my own design blind spots and stupidities, which I figure some of you will also appreciate.

So let's begin at the beginning, with the character featured in next month's Pathfinder Worldscape #1: RED SONJA!

In the following weeks, I'll discuss things like Red Sonja's statistics, her new sword-devil archetype, her class, her equipment load-out, and so on, but first things first. I've got to address the chainmail bikini.

It goes without saying that there is not currently a bikini armor type in the Pathfinder RPG, so figuring out the value of Red Sonja's armor wasn't as simple as simply picking out something appropriate from the Core Rulebook. The smallest bit of armor there that's even remotely close is the chain shirt, and while the original version of Red Sonja way back in the 1970s DID wear a chain shirt (along with some fantastic hotpants), the current incarnation wears decidedly less material.

As an aside, one of my biggest surprises in researching about 100 issues of Red Sonja comics from various eras is that her chainmail bikini isn't really chainmail.

That's more appropriately a type of armor called "coin mail," which also isn't in the Core Rulebook, in bikini form or otherwise. So my first decision regarding Red Sonja's armor was that I was going to have to invent an entirely new type of armor for her, which I did:

New Armor Type: Decorative Armor

Little more than a few small patches of cloth adorned with bits of metal, decorative armor is more a fashion statement than practical protection. Despite its impracticality, decorative armor can be enchanted with enhancement bonuses and special armor qualities.

Cost 5 gp; Armor Bonus +0; Maximum Dex Bonus —; Armor Check Penalty 0; Arcane Spell Failure 5%; Speed (30 ft.) 30ft.; Speed (20 ft.) 20 ft.; Weight 5 lbs.

This passed muster with a couple of Paizo's developers, but "decorative armor" met its match when I passed it by Jason Bulmahn and Owen K.C. Stephens, who correctly pointed out that I had created it only as a kludge to get Red Sonja enhancement bonuses, and that this type of armor would be too tempting to monks and wizards, who would gain all of the upside while suffering none of the downside. Jason did thank me for at least putting that 5% spell failure chance in there, but I'd only done that as a trick to sneak it by him, and it didn't work.

So decorative armor was dead, as I pretty much knew it would be, and I had to figure out something else. To be honest, I wasn't too bothered, as the solution never really worked for me, anyway. Slapping three triangles of a dozen silver pieces over your breasts and crotch doesn't really make for effective protection of any kind, so facing rejection of my armor solution, I went back to my original original idea, which is far, far simpler.

Red Sonja's chainmail bikini isn't armor at all.

Instead, I decided, Red Sonja would derive most of her Armor Class from a combination of a naturally high Dexterity AND a special ability of her sword-devil archetype.

But an archetype requires a class, and what class is Red Sonja? Check back here next week, and I'll tell you!

In the meantime, check out a recent interview I did with Bleeding Cool about the series with lots of details on the plot, characters, and how the whole project came together.

You might also consider setting up a Pathfinder Comics Ongoing Subscription to make sure you don't miss the first issue, which hits comic stands on October 19th!

Thanks for your time, and we'll see you in next week's Worldscape Workbook!

Erik Mona
Publisher