Paizo Publishing, LLC® today announced the eight RPG Superstar contestants who were selected by the voting public to move on to Round Four. This round focused on the creation and design of a unique character to fill the role of villain in any campaign.

"Round Three was the most challenging round yet, with a few previous fan-favorite contestants failing to advance," said Erik Mona, Paizo's Publisher and one of three RPG Superstar judges. "We weren't just looking for bad guys or monsters—we wanted nasty, evil villains worth basing a campaign around. The eight remaining finalists have survived three difficult challenges so far, and only the very best will survive."

For the initial open call, more than 850 entrants were submitted a wondrous item using the 3.5 SRD. Each entry needed to be 200 words or less and had to include proper mechanics and flavor. Entries were eliminated for ignoring the entry requirements, for using non-Paizo intellectual property, or for simply not being creative enough to fit the mold of an RPG Superstar.

Round Two asked the Top 32 finalists to write a 1,000-word description of a fantasy nation describing that nation's people, history, geography, government and hidden secrets. No entries were eliminated this round on technicalities, though the judges often derided an entry for being too stereotypical or too mundane.

Round Three sought a 500-word description and a stat block for a fantasy villain from the Top 16. Eight very strong candidates were selected by the voting public to move to Round Four. Several potential RPG Superstars were eliminated this round by not creating a character that fully matched the judge's expectations of villainy. "The pitfall [in Round Three] was not finding the villain seed and getting sucked into the stat block," said Clark Peterson, Publisher of Necromancer Games and one of the RPG Superstar Judges.

The winners of RPG Superstar's Round Three for are:

The RPG Superstar Top 8 are now required to create three thematically-linked monsters as might appear in a published monster supplement or as new monsters in the appendix of a published adventure. Submissions are due by Monday, January 7 at 12:00 P.M. (noon) Pacific Time. Fan voting for Round Four submissions begins January 10 and ends January 15. The six contestants advancing to Round Five will be announced January 16.

For a complete RPG Superstar schedule, including rules and a FAQ, visit paizo.com/rpgsuperstar.

The winner of the first RPG Superstar contest will be announced on February 20, 2008. The Grand Prize is a paid commission to write a 32-page adventure for Paizo Publishing's GameMastery Modules line.

ABOUT PAIZO PUBLISHING
Paizo Publishing, LLC is a leading publisher of fantasy roleplaying games, accessories, board games, and novels. Paizo's GameMastery™ line offers game masters fun and useful tools to improve their fantasy roleplaying experience. Titanic Games™, Paizo's board game division, unites the greatest game designers to create compelling, challenging games like Stonehenge and Key Largo™. Paizo.com is the leading online hobby retail store, offering tens of thousands of products from a variety of publishers to customers all over the world. Paizo's Planet Stories™ line of science fiction and fantasy novel reprints promises a master class in the genre aimed at building the greatest fantasy and science fiction library ever assembled. In the five years since its founding, Paizo Publishing has received more than a dozen major awards and has grown to become one of the most influential companies in the hobby games industry.

Necromancer Games is a trademark of Necromancer Games, Inc. All other trademarks are property of Paizo Publishing, LLC. ©2008 Paizo.