Anthony Adam's page

Hi

Cozy Cooking in the time of Corona

I don't usually self promote, but helping people hardest hit by the pandemic and recent events is something I have taken an active role in. Now I need as many of you as willing to help out.

I reached out to publishers and fellow freelancers to build a cookbook of simple and fun recipes to help purchasers make their supplies go further, to have fun as a family and at the same time to raise funds for those hit by the pandemic, be it health workers, families suffering tremendous loss and so on.

Legendary Games stepped up, saying 100% of all pdf sales of such a cookbook would go to this fund-raising effort. A print version is to be made in due course but for now, the pdf is out. The print version will need to cover printing cost, but aside from that, the rest of the sale price will go to the fund as well.

Please consider getting a copy. Links below. It is available now.

Even if you aren't interested in the book yourself, please can you help spread the word by sharing the links on your social media? Please mention it is for charity. I am getting nothing from this, nor are any of the contributors or publishers.

Thank you in advance for your kind attention and time.

I dont know if it will be available on the Paizo store, but if it appears on there, please comment below with the link for me, thanks.

Stay safe, keep well,

Anthony

Legendary Games product page

Drive Thru product page

I once wrote something for Outland Entertainment a few years ago, Secrets of Soul Magic -

It introduced a variant of the Necromancer who travels the world laying restless souls to rest. He would communicate with the deceased and gain powers from their souls by use of a soul gem. Whilst the soul was held in the soul gem, he could freely communicate with the soul, identify the reason for their unrest and work towards resolving those problems.

I was lucky enough to have Sean K Reynolds cast his critical eye over it and he commented it had a very "Dresden" feel to it, and quite liked it, so I must have gotten something right.

Although it was for Pathfinder 1, I could look at converting it to 2e - if there is any interest.

I've tried finding it on the usual stores and here at Paizo, and via Google, but it seems to have disappeared down the internet ether, so I am willing to share my original text if anyone would like it? Just PM me here on Paizo and I'll pop it up on a Google Docs share and send the link.

So, Pathfinder 2 released officially on 1st August - so what other world shaking events occurred on this date?

1498 Christopher Columbus lands on "Isla Santa"
1732 Foundations laid for Bank of England
1785 Caroline Herschel becomes 1st woman to discover a comet
1834 Slavery abolished throughout the British Empire
1893 Henry Perky and William Ford patent Shredded Wheat
1933 National Recovery Administration (NRA) is founded
1944 Anne Frank's last diary entry
1953 Fidel Castro arrested in Cuba
1996 "A Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin is published

Any famous Births or Deaths on this day? But of course...

Births:
1901 Pancho Villa [Francisco Guilledo] (118)
1936 Yves Saint Laurent (83)
1942 Jerry Garcia (77)
1972 D-Von Dudley (47)

Deaths:
0030BC Mark Antony, aged 53
1903 Calamity Jane [Martha Jane Canary], aged 51

So there you go, Pathfinder 2 was released the same day that we first got A Game of Thrones.

There you go, some useful(less) trivia to make your day.

First apologies to Sara if this is a problem post, but I noticed a couple of issues with the temperature table... NOT C/F related ones >.<

Issue 1: -21F and -20F both fall into both Extreme Cold and Severe Cold. My unofficial fix is to end Extreme Cold at -22F

Issue 2: The temperature adjustment, when it applies, means that the lower band temperatures can be found in the adjusted Mild Heat range and in the Normal heat range. My unofficial fix here is to add the adjustment asterisk to the upper temperature of the normal range.

Something like this, including Cs for those that need them...

TABLE 10-13: Temperature Effects
Category__________Temperature_______________Fatigue___Damage
Incredible cold......-80F (-62C) or colder..............2 hours.......Moderate cold every minute
Extreme cold.........-79F (-61C) to -22F (-30C)......4 hours.......Minor cold every 10 minutes
Severe cold............-21F (-29C) to 12F (-11C).......4 hours.......Minor cold every hour
Mild cold................13F (-10C) to 32F (0C)............4 hours......None
Normal...................33F (1C) to 94F (34C)*...........8 hours......None
Mild heat................95F (35C)* to 104F (40C)*....4 hours......None
Severe heat............105F (41C)* to 114F (45C)....4 hours......Minor fire every hour
Extreme heat.........115F (46C) to 139F (59C)......4 hours......Minor fire every 10 minutes
Incredible heat......140F (60C) or warmer...........2 hours......Moderate fire every minute
* Adjust temperatures down by 15F / 9C in areas of high humidity

Hey everyone,

I hope this is the right place to make a suggestion or two.

If you go back to the video to say 00:19:56...

I know this is going to be a sacrilegious suggestion, and it's a two-parter - but...

Could the players have a name plate, showing their character name on a colored background - each a different color - which will match the second part of the suggestion?

Paint the miniature bases the same color as the name plate!

This allows us to easily remember who is who in a combat - black bases are npcs/enemies, colored bases are our stalwart band of heroes. It will also allow us to see how much trouble they can get in as their miniatures will stand out better. It will help the detail pop, especially for those people watching on devices with smaller screens.

It was a great start - looking forward to the next one!

Thanks for your time,

Ant (TemplateFu)

Please can the playtest pack be updated with a printer friendly version of the character sheet - i.e. plain white background rather then the papyrus colour like background.

Although the coloured one looks fab, it's very hard on my pocket to print these for my group. This will save me a fortune in ink/toner.

I wont be printing quite so many tracking sheets, so I can live with that one.

A very, very many thanks in advance.

Looking at the list as it's growing, I think you can vote for up to 5 creatures per CR to be voted for. I didn't realise how stingy a single vote per CR was until I tried listing mine >.<

Going forwards, please use the name as found in the sheet for your votes, it will make it so much easier for me to update the totals.

So, there are 6 Bestiaries available for PF 1.0

Some of you may have seen/used/contributed to my wish list sheet I maintained leading up to Bestiary 6.

With the announcement, I thought it might be an idea to do something similar, listing the creatures people would most like to see in the first Bestiary for Pathfinder second edition.

Now, there are some stalwarts we will have to have, like goblins, orcs, skeletons, zombies, and so on - the classics.

Let's assume 60-70% of the Bestiary will be classics, leaving 30-40% we can have some influence on maybe. It may be too late to help Paizo decide what to include in the first 2.0 Bestiary, it may not, so here's what I propose.

I will maintain a sheet of creatures listed in all the Bestiaries and I will regularly report the trends and top votes, collating and updating on a weekly basis.

The sheet will be tab separated by CR and will include a vote count column, creature name, type, and source. It will be as forumlae free as possible, maintaining highest compatibility will all the sheet readers and versions as possible.

All you have to do is post into the thread voting for one to three creatures of each CR you want to vote for.

Although I start with the Bestiaries, if your really want to vote for something in an AP or other Paizo product, please do so, quoting the source book it is from, and its CR so I can add it to the correct tab.

Additionally, you can request up to 4 brand new creatures not yet available, but must supply the origin of the creature - e.g. aboriginal beliefs, Slavic folklore, a url/web link to the lore behind the suggestion.

I will pop in here and collate the votes once a week, posting the current top 5 or so of each CR, and providing a drop box / google drive type link to the current sheet.

Once we start seeing a trend, I might ask for more votes from everyone to add to their list to fill out a preferences - it all depends how active this idea is and whether it is helping everyone, including Paizo, or not.

Let's give it a try, the worst case is our votes are too late to be taken into account, best case is we get a Bestiary that the majority of us really like the final selection of creatures within it.

No need to explain votes, or argue against votes - it's personal preference, so let's just keep this thread clean and vote heavy. Discussions are invited, just please in a separate thread - it will make it much easier for me to collate the votes that way.

In this thread, we are just collating our personal preferences, looking for that sweet overlap that the majority will enjoy.

Just post something like (these are made up) for your votes,

CR 1 - Binky - Bestiary 12
CR 6 - Flumph - Bestiary 99, Snow Flumph - Bestiary 100
CR 12 - Campanestri - Bestiary 15
CR 29 - Jason Bulhman - AP Dungeons of Paizo, Chapter 3 - The desk of Horror

New Creature - Slime Haggis, from the annals of Scottish legends.
New Creature - Rotten Rose, from the annals of English folklore.

Also note, there are some things we can't ask / vote for due to copyrights, like Illithids, so don't vote for those, we can't have them.

So vote away... while I build the sheet this weekend and populate with the first votes.

Freelancing reaction (I might be the only one like this right now, I might not...)

Looks at pile of 1.0 work he was working on...

Announcement made

Looks at pile of 1.0 work he was close to finishing...

Looks at pile of 2.0 conversion work to be redone...

Thinks about how big the 1.0 core book was, and realises he has to read 2.0 again when it comes out...

And then new Bestiary rules to follow...

Thinks of nice kind Paizocon Paizo staff and what they just did to his workload...

Thinks "You (insert favourite rude word here in capitals)!"
(add as many exclamations as you feel appropriate :P)

Rolls up sleeve...

Realises there is only one core book all of a sudden to worry about...

Feels better about that... a little...

Remembers his self funded, self promoted Pathfinder blog on Pathfinder games design...

Horror strikes faster than the Horror rules in a game run by Jason B...

...Even... more... to... convert...

"You (insert another favourite rude word here in capitals)!!"

Checks ink in the pen...
...oil in the lantern...
...mice in the internet wheel...
... puts daily Paizo 2.0 playtest visit on calendar...

... and sets to work, starting with re-planning everything! >.<

I really miss eating, erm, analysing entries, so I would definitely watch this with hunger, cough, interest, and will most certainly be active in the feedback areas.

Looking forward to updating the issue index sheet with lots of new names. Good luck all.

If you haven't found the sheet yet and want a copy to quickly find something you need, it's here. Covering issues 1 thru 17 at the moment. Enjoy.

The issue index has now been updated to include all issues 1 thru 17.

Some interesting snippets coming out of the counts...

The following are not a submission count as some articles have multiple submissions, like the Bestiary and Wondrous Item articles.

If we exclude the 17 forewords, there have been 599 articles in Wayfinder so far, which means the first article in Issue 18 (excluding the foreword) with be the 600th article!

We have had 198 articles by RPG Superstar finalists, so in all likelihood, the 200th Superstar article will be in issue 18.

We have now had 397 unique contributors! So issue 18 should see our 400th contributor!

Not long now to submit to issue 18, themed to the Fey and the First World - the call can be found here!

You are an inspiration to many, so by way of example and as a parting gift, let me share... I was running through some developer training with Sean a couple of years ago, presenting as one of my tasks a revised version of a creature now published in Wayfinder. He said in his review that you would like this one, that it had all the flavour and twistedness you enjoy. Although I cannot hold a candle to your work, those words were to me an incredible compliment. So thank you for being such an inspiration.

For someone who owns dungeon forge, the things that I find I am often lacking tend to be the dressings, so from your list... in the order I would be looking to buy them... (+) indicate new suggestions from me.

Campfires
(+) Tents/Ruined Tents
Treasure Chests (+) Sacks spilling over, bulging and tied at the top
Fountains/Wells (+) Town Statues/Monuments
(+) Gallows/Stocks/Town Notice Boards
(+) Market Stalls
(+) Wagons/Gypsy Caravan
(+) Pews, Church large candelabra, altars, altar ornamentation (sacrifial blades, blood bowls, religious books, etc.)
Tables/Chairs/Benches
Bookcases
Beds
Armoirs/Cabinets/Desks
(+) Pillars, especially fancy gothic type ones.
Barrels (+) Wooden crates (various sizes)

As an aside for those looking for pillars - cake tier supports work very well when painted to look stone like ;) - and they are relatively cheap and easy to get from most baking suppliers.

"Many parts of Birmingham are connected to JRR Tolkien, author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. He grew up in the city and parts of it inspired the imaginary people and places in his epic fantasy tales."

So check out the FREE - Birmingham Tolkien Trail.

This page leads off with that freebie and has things to see and do in Birmingham...

And this page supposedly scrolls through 273 things to do in Birmingham! - that should keep you busy.

Enjoy browsing!

I haven't been myself but this is the Paizocon UK main site

Belabras wrote:

Kalimint wrote:

Captain Phoenix wrote:

Well done everyone!

Any chance of some feedback if we didn't make the cut? Or a hug?

I would be happy to give feedback on fiction pieces, if anyone would like it. I've had a lot of experience writing, editing, and workshopping.

If you wanted to start a Pathfinder writing group, I think you'd find there is a demand for it.

I would be interested.

And if you want to practice and get some feedback from TemplateFu, his second RPG Superstar like challenge is now open...

Template Fu Challenge 2: Design a Villainess of Numeria

So many times, the villain of the piece is male, so with this challenge, it is time to redress the balance. Does your villain confront the PC’s directly, work as a foil behind the scenes, hide behind a front patsy, strike from the shadows? Are they a person of great power or influence, a leader of a religious sect or organisation, or have the PC’s wronged them in a past adventure?

Design a villainess that will test every aspect of the PCs gaming skills using the Pathfinder ruleset. Ensure your villainess satisfies the following criteria:

• The villainess must be female! – obvious, I know.
  
• The villainess must operate in and optionally originate from Numeria!
  
• The villainess should be suitable for use as a long term foil of a player group.
  
• The villainess should be CR 12
  
• She must be a villain and not just an NPC!

Entries must be submitted to this thread until a "Challenge Closed" message is posted by TemplateFu. Submissions posted after this closure post will not be reviewed. A two week warning post will be made prior to the challenge closed post.

The entire submission, including the title, must not exceed 2,000 words. This word limit includes all formatting code. It is higher than previous villain rounds for two reasons, the first is that the template can eat word count at a high rate, then second is that with a higher CR, you will need them for tactics, spell lists and a generally larger stat block.

The post must contain the submission only and no other messages, qualifying texts, explanations or anything else. Each submission must stand alone for review. Do not follow your submission with any such qualifying additional posts either, you must wait to comment only after review and feedback is given.

If your submission is not left standalone, it will not be reviewed by TemplateFu.

Forum posts include a Preview button to view what your submission will look like. Please use it before submitting for review.

Presentation

I have attempted to bring the old template from the 2008 Superstar template up to date with current game rules. So I will be more lenient on templating issues, but I will require the format provided below to form the general layout and composition of entries.

You should not use ALL CAPS for any part of your submission, even when it appears that way in Paizo products. That is just a font, so don't make things all caps, keep it reader and reviewer friendly.

"zz" is a placeholder to indicate you should replace that text with appropriate information.

Please note that not all section or lines are required in all designs, so if you don’t have a villain with an aura for example, then lose the aura line, if they can’t cast spells, lose the spell section and so on.

If a section is marked <Required>, then I require this section to be included in your design, e.g. the tactics section is required even though you might not need all the sub parts.

Note that in your submission, the <Required> tag should not appear, so remove them before submitting please!

Finally, for the introductory description, describe what the villainess looks like, now what they are doing. Leave the action for the GM to describe when the villainess is encountered, do not force any assumed actions upon them.

If you are not sure what goes into any section, please refer to existing villains and the 2008 Superstar round 3 entries for reference - or ask for clarification in a separate thread to keep this thread reasonably clean. Thanks.

The expected framework and ordering follows:

Introductory Description <Required>

Name, (optional alias) CR ##
XP #,###
Female zzRace zzClass ## / zzClass ##
zzAlignment zzSize zzType
Init +##; Senses zzSense +##, zzSense +##; Perception +##

----- Defense ----- <Required>
AC ##, touch ##, flat-footed # (+## zzModifier, +##zzModifier)
hp ## (##d##+##); fast healing ##
Fort +##, Ref +##, Will +##
Defensive Abilities ##/zzAbility; DR ##/zzMaterial; Immune zz; Resist zz ##, zz ##; SR ##
Weaknesses zz, zz
Special: zzSpecial

----- Offense ----- <Required>
Speed ## ft., fly ## ft. (zzManeuverability)
Melee zzAttacktype +## (zzDamage plus zzOthereffect), zzAttacktype +## (zzDamage)
Ranged zzAttacktype +## (zzDamage)
Space ## ft.; Reach ## ft.
Special Attacks zz, zz
Spell-Like Abilities (CL ##zz; concentration +##)

At will—zz, zz
1/day—zz, zz

9th—zz (DC ##), zz (DC ##)
8th—zz (DC ##), zz (DC ##)
7th—zz (DC ##), zz (DC ##)
6th—zz (DC ##), zz (DC ##)
5th—zz (DC ##), zz (DC ##)
4th—zz (DC ##), zz (DC ##)
3rd—zz (DC ##), zz (DC ##)
2nd—zz (DC ##), zz (DC ##)
1st—zz (DC ##), zz (DC ##)
0—zz (DC ##), zz (DC ##)

Opposition Schools (zzSchool, zzSchool)

----- Statistics ----- <Required>
Str ##, Dex ##, Con ##, Int ##, Wis ##, Cha ##
Base Atk +##; CMB +## (+## zzConditionalmaneuverbonus); CMD ## (## vs. zzManeuvername)
Feats zzFeatname, zzFeatname
Skills zzSkillname +##, zzSkillname +## (+## zzCondition); Racial Modifiers +## zzSkillname, +## zzSkillname when zzCondition
Languages zzLanguage
SQ zz
Gear zzGear, zzGear

----- Special Abilities -----
zzName (Ex/Sp/Su) zzDescription

----- Background ----- <Required>
zzVillainessBackground

----- Motivation ----- <Required>
zzVillainessMotivation

----- Appearance ----- <Required>
zzVillainessAppearance

----- Plot Hooks ----- <Required>
zzplotHook

----- Sources Used ----- <Required>
Please list the source books used in the creation of your villain – this would not normally be in a villain description, I am requesting it to aide my reviewing. Thanks in advance. Adding page references is optional, or links to PRD rules and pages is also an option, just so long as the viewing public and reviewers (I for one) can work out where things have come from.

Challenge Time Frame:

Submissions may be made immediately after this post in this thread.

Challenge 2 - Two Week closure warning is scheduled for Friday 10th March 2017

This is just a warning post to tell you that you have just 14 days left to submit.

Challenge 2 - Closes on Friday 24th March 2017

Due to time zone differences, on the last day for submission, I will post a 4-hour and 1-hour warning on the thread to make it easy for all to know when submission closure is imminent. I will do this for each and every challenge.

The next two weeks will be reviewing and feedback posting for me and everyone else who wants to join in, which means…

Challenge 3 - Announcement will be on Friday 7th April 2017.
Challenge 3 will span the Easter holiday period for those that observe such, so it will be slightly longer in terms of time available to submit.

Challenge 4 will likely span my Paizocon visit, so that too might be a larger wordcount and longer time span so I can relax and actually get some gaming and networking done. ;)

Eligibility To Enter

This challenge is open to ANYONE - this includes previous winners and finalists, it includes Paizo staff and freelancers, absolutely anyone is welcome to have a try.

Unlike RPG Superstar, here, every round, every challenge is fully open for anyone to enter. It doesn’t matter if you won previously, have reached stages that preclude you from entering Superstar again or not.

You are all welcome.

Even if you are already published and simply want to join the fun, please do so – we can all learn from the professionals too!

DISQUALIFICATION: Submissions will not be reviewed by TemplateFu for the following reasons:

• Submission is not a female villain
  
• Submission is not tied to Numeria.
  
• Submission was posted after the "Challenge Closed" post for this challenge.
  
• Submission exceeds 2,000 words.
  
• Submission is not CR 12.
  
• Submission is not formatted per the supplied template
  
• Submission does not conform to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.
  
• Submission is not standalone, e.g. it has qualifying posts or commentary made prior to review.
  
• Submission is copied from a previously published source.
  
• Submission has been previously submitted to RPG Superstar.
  
• Submission uses rules, monsters, or copyrighted material from publishers other than Paizo.
  
• Submission uses alpha, beta, under development or pre-release material.
  
• Submission has excluded source references.
  
• Submission is not the first submission from any entrant, only your first submission will get reviewed.
  
• Submission is not posted to the challenge thread that these rules are posted to.
  
• Submission has embedded links to sources that do not link to the official Paizo PRD

Issue index has now been updated to include this issue.

You can view it from here - unless Google share messes up. :P

Total Wayfinder articles now available for free: 578
Total Wayfinder contributers to date: 384

Most contributions - Author credits : Tied at 20 a-piece, Neil Spicer and Jeff Lee
Most contributions - Artist credits : Carlos Torreblanca with 46 credits, Liz Courts firmly in second position with 40.

Review to follow starting in approximately two weeks, after reading it to enjoy and digest, and then reading it again in review mode.

Much cleaner indeed!

You missed a few formatting items though...

the first para should show start with the item in lower italics including the base item...

"At the tang of this anchoring exhausting adamantine mancatcher lies..."

second para, italicise the spell and remove the preceding "a" and following "spell". Capitalise the save type and shorten it as we know what it is a save against from the prior line.

"This mancatcher can grapple anyone of any size regardless of the size of the weapon. Once the wielder of this mancatcher manages to grapple someone with this weapon, they can let go of the weapon and treat the weapon and the person inside it as if they were under the effects of telekinesis. A DC 22 Will save negates."

para three, consistent wording on saves, and don't forget to capitalise the save type... a slight rewording to save words, it probably could be better, but I think it shows how revisiting a day or so later will allow you to catch and tighten verbose areas.

"...A DC 22 Will save negates. Failing the save imparts a profane bonus to the same ability score of the target equal to the penalty that would have been inflicted."

Construction line spells should be lower italics...

Requirements Craft Magic Weapons and Armor, greater bestow curse, telekinesis; Cost 48,912 gp

Okay, using recent item rules, the word count of the above is 347 words, 47 words over limit and so would be automatically disqualified from the competition.

Templating Issues first...

Title - Defiler's Maw should be in bold.
Aura - nothing should be capitalised and should end with a ";" after transmutation
Slot - well done for using none instead of dash, but it needs to end with a semicolon again :)
Price - seems quite expensive on first glance - this often happens when applying the pricing rules religiously - I would check against existing items of similar power to see if there are some price reductions that can be applied. GP should be lower case in price (and cost)
Weight is missing - even if there is no weight, the weight label should be present with a weight entry of emdash. That said, what is the weight of a standard mancatcher - it should at least match that.

Quick scan of description -

Description Header is missing.
first paragraph - the whole of the item should be italicised, not just the modifiers
second paragraph - spell name should be slower case and italicised. Word confusion - affect / effect - when you are affected by something you are under its effect's :D - so you need the word effect and not affect. The Will in the save line should be capitalised.
third paragraph - as with normal/as with regular - reword this para so the duplication can be removed.
fourth paragraph - save capitalisation again, also spells should be italicised - also check existing save wording - you can merge two lines here saving quite a few words.

Construction section next

Header is present
Spells should be italicised, well done on getting them alphabetically ordered, that ordering is often missed.
Terminating ";" is missing again.
Cost is half of price - however with weapons this is not the normal calculation due to components item prices being included in the cost which are not doubled into the price. So I would have expected something like 96,912 for the price, as you have - assuming 912 is the material costs etc, then the cost would be 48,912 and not 48,456. This is a weapon, so the rules are slightly different to wondrous items.

okay, back to the description and effects.

Paragraph 1 - try to avoid like, similar and such words - be definite in your description, we don't want to know what something is like, we want to know what it is. The first paragraph is the place for description, materials etc so well done there but this description is way too long at 64 words - that's quite a chunk out of the 300 word limit. I personally start to worry if my description hits 50 words, and am uncomfortable at 40 words or more.

Paragraph 2 - the DC should be based on the spell and caster levels so should be calculated and quoted - by leaving it to the GM to determine, you are adding more work to an over worked player - don't do that when it can be avoided.

I like the idea of having a weapon that pins an opponent and can be left pinning them while you go deal with other threats - it could be a great way to catch someone alive for later interrogation.

Paragraph 3 - I actually think this is adding extra complexity that might get in the way of a smooth flowing combat scene. The magic of the item is being able to be left untended and should not really affect the escape from the item unless there was something magical about the grappling of the foe. I think this whole paragraph can be dropped, let the existing rules cover escape from the item.

Paragraph 4 feels like a bolt on which leads to swiss army knife syndrome. I think if paragraph 3 is dropped, then this is probably okay. the wording does need some juggling as it is a bit bloated and non standard with regards existing save wording. I also think it is the major contributor to the cost.

If you drop the third and fourth paragraphs, you then have a nice weapon to pin opponents in place and be left untended. It would be simple, concise and eminently useable with a pricing point fitting nicely at the lower cost brackets of the game.

There you go, hope some of that is useful.

Template Fu Challenge: Design a Fey/First World Wondrous Item

Design a compelling wondrous item, in 200 words or less, for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, using the Item Creation guidelines on page 548 of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook.

The wondrous item must be suitable for a Fey/First World based campaign. Those submitting items for review are encouraged to look at the Campaign Setting supplement The First World, Realm of the Fey for inspiration. Do not post "generic" items, the item must be closely tied to the Fey/First World

Entries must be submitted to this thread until such time as a "Challenge Closed" message is posted by TemplateFu. Submissions posted after the closure post will not be reviewed. A two week warning post will be made prior to the challenge closed post.

The entire submission, including the title, must not exceed 200 words. Oh yeah, real old school word count for this one - grin. This word limit includes all formatting code. The post must contain the submission only and no other messages, qualifying texts, explanations or anything else. Each submission must stand alone for review.

Do not follow your submission with any such qualifying additional posts either, you must wait to comment only after review and feedback is given. If your submission is not left standalone, it will not be reviewed by TemplateFu.

Forum posts include a Preview button to view what your submission will look like. Please use it before submitting for review.

Presentation
Use the presentation for magic items found in the Wondrous Items section of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook (page 496).

You should not use ALL CAPS for any part of your wondrous item submission, even when it appears that is used in the core rulebook. That is just a font, so don't make things all caps, keep it reader and reviewer friendly.

"ZZ" is a placeholder to indicate you should replace that text with appropriate information for your wondrous item.

When posted, your base format should look similar to this...

ItemName
Aura ZZstrength ZZschool; CL ZZth
Slot ZZslot; Price ZZ gp; Weight ZZ lbs.
Description
ZZItemDescriptionParagraph
Construction
Requirements ZZfeats, ZZspells, ZZotherrequirements; Cost ZZ gp

NOTE: You must use the format from the Core Rulebook, not the graphical magic item format used in Ultimate Equipment.

DISQUALIFICATION: Submissions may not be reviewed by TemplateFu for the following reasons:

• Submission is not a wondrous item.
  
• Submission is not tied to the Fey/First World requirement.
  
• Submission was posted after the "Challenge Closed" post for this challenge.
  
• Submission exceeds 200 words.
  
• Submission is not formatted per the Core Rulebook format.
  
• Submission does not conform to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.
  
• Submission is not standalone, has qualifying additional posts made prior to review feedback posts.
  
• Submission is copied from a previously published source.
  
• Submission has been previously submitted to RPG Superstar.
  
• Submission uses rules, monsters, or copyrighted material from publishers other than Paizo.
  

On your marks...

Get Set...

GO!

This Challenge is now OPEN

This challenge is open to ANYONE - this includes previous winners and finalists, it includes Paizo staff and freelancers, absolutely anyone is welcome to have a try.

Enjoy.

I look forward to reviewing your submissions.

While we all are sad or disappointed about Superstar being on hiatus, and while we all understand the reasons behind it, I think one of the things that we are saddest about is the sense of loss of community, of not being engaged with voting, assessing, talking design openly.

The community mind set is vast and always produced so many divergent thoughts and ideas that every designer, want to be, new, and old, always learnt something from it.

As someone who has taken part in every season of superstar, starting as a "fan boi", progressing through the years and feedback threads, creating a recognised alias for feedback, I thought to myself

"As a community member, I surely can keep the spirit alive and the community engaged in some way."

So here it is.

This thread is similar to blazing 9, it is kind of a round by round thread where Template Fu, yours truly, is offering some of his free time to critique designs you post to this thread.

Please note that I have a full time job, and am a freelancer, so that free time is limited. This means that I can only review 5-10 submissions a week, usually at weekends, so I request that you only submit something for review if you have every intent of becoming a freelancer/games designer.

Even with that, it is unlikely I will get to review everything, so I invite my fellow superstar forum members to this thread to help keep the designing fun alive and well.

I have only made top 100 in superstar, so my feedback is neither official, nor always correct - it is just guidance in the hope you find something useful in what is said on your designs. And if I do get something wrong, I am happy for you to tell me - so I can continue to learn and grow too!

As I have always maintained through the years, my feedback is always on your design, nothing is personal - I do promise open and honest feedback, even if it might hurt because that is what is best for everyone, open and honest feedback.

My requests for submissions may venture into Starfinder at some point, but for now, I am going to stick with Pathfinder. Around once every month or so, the design task will change giving everyone an opportunity to try their hand at many of the Superstar rounds that have taken place over the last ten years.

I will always endeavour to give a good focus to the thread challenges, maybe picking particular products as your research starting point. The next post I make will be the initial design challenge.

There is no prize or voting in this thread, it is purely a place to discuss design tasks in depth and keep our superstar community alive. Now, I know that posting stuff on Paizo open forums means you are surrendering ownership of that which you post, so if you don't want to do that, I quite understand and fully respect your decision.

That said, having met the people at Paizo, I would expect with their highly professional manner that if you did post something here that they liked and wanted to use, they would approach you directly about it.

I may post the odd thing myself for you to review by return, but the main purpose of this thread is for TemplateFu to keep his claws sharp and his belly full :D

... kidding.

No, really it's for us all to continue to learn and grow as designers and to keep the Superstar community alive and well. I hope you make use of my offer.

I have only one request - please, really, really please, use the templates. Format your entry.

I know we all get antsy about badly formatted entries, but the reason I ask is a simple one... a badly formatted entry will pull my focus away from the actual design and most of your feedback will be "didn't use the template".

It is much easier to critique a properly formatted submission which means that I can review more of them in the same amount of time. Thank you so much in advance.

The challenge posts will always be all bold so that you can see when a new challenge starts. I will also post an all bold "challenge closes in two weeks" post and a "challenge closed" post so that you can have some deadline practice too. Each new challenge will then be made approximately 7-10 days after each challenge closed post to allow everyone I time to catch up reviewing those last minute submissions.

So, watch for my next post, it will be our first design challenge. I think I have a good one, and yes, for old times sake, and as a nod to the Superstar we know and love, it will be for wondrous items.

If you dont mind a little cutting and gluing, the paper models of the wormhole game system are pretty awesome - these can be found on the Worldworks Game site.

And Trekkie should now have his Ancient Tombs - enjoy.

OK, I need to start sending out those Ancient Tombs, so if you won first place on any draw, PM me linking the draw post showing you as a 1st place winner so I can check a lot easier please.

Then I can get you pdf into your downloads :)

If you already own Ancient Tombs, let me know and I'll try and surprise you with something else.

Add me to the next draw please - aaaand add a copy of Ancient Tombs to the prize list which I shall cover for the next draw.

Sorry it's been a while, but I am now getting back to finishing the bestiary review. I will start posting those up on Saturday 3rd December.

Once that is done, I am going to gather up all my reviews and reformat them to a single page on my blog site which I will link when they are all up and done - there will be a Reviews section on there, with Wayfinder being the first subsection.

This is to allow you the comfort of reading the whole review without needing to jump around and scroll to different pages/forum posts.

Thanks for your patience.

If you have access to a 3d printer, this site has lots of stl models of different space ships, some free, some not. All printable to whatever scale floats your boat. Enjoy.

Are there some new names on that list?

I do believe there are.
<snip>

Indeed there are, congratulations to all and a big welcome to the new talent appearing for the first time, namely...

Baker, Kate
Banach, Matt
Breitmaier, Dave
Forrester, Jon
Hargrave, Violet
Hersh, Jeffrey
Hite, Nicholas
Jolly, Brian
Litchfield, Zack
Taft, Jeff
Watt, Calvin
Youngblood, Kelly

Now you all get to enjoy the editing experience AND the long, long, long, loooooooong wait for release day! :P

The Shadow of Freedom
Now we have the last of the short stories for this issue, set in the mist enshrouded, cobbled streets of Maashinelle. The location, a tavern, closed, after hours, a meeting, and a betrayal. This story clearly sets out to illustrate the seedy undertones and machinations of the less than savory residents of the river kingdoms. It is dark, moody and atmospheric. There is some good character interaction in this story, and the ending left me wondering what happens next.

The art work, a top third page wide panel, depicts the three main protagonists of the story in the inn at the moment of betrayal and treachery. Although accurately representing a pivotal point of the story, it felt to me a little unfinished...

– the bartenders apron, flat and monotone with no shading to depict the flexibility and undulation of such a garment, it looks like a flat cardboard panel hanging from the trouser belt
– the blue cape on the lady, the inside should have deeper shades the closer the cape is to her body to give that sense of depth
– uniform lighting from a single candle, there should have been deeper shadows and shades the farther out from the candle
– maybe some shadows being cast on the floor by the individual nearest to the light source.

These niggling things gave the impression that time was running out for submitting the piece and that final shading and detailing pass of art didn’t get completed. A shame, it showed real potential to be a magnificent piece.
Article: 8/10, Art: 6/10

The Witch-Tree Sacrifices: A Side Trek Adventure
And now a side trek adventure by one of the magazine’s editors no less! Rolls up sleeves :P

Actually, there is a very great deal to interest players and GMs in this offering – I love the idea of a town clock causing a town to fade in and out of existence, that really grabbed me from paragraph one.

It is very fey based, so those with a love of all things fey will truly get a kick out of this adventure. Time has also been considered in the design, a race against a time limit is a great way to add tension to the party as they race to save the day.

This is a fine example of a well constructed adventure, it has a reason why the adventures would get involved, it has time and elements built into the encounter areas and the adventure as a whole. It introduces some commonly used fey along with those not used so often and uses them in surprising ways.

My only concern, minor though it is, was with the selection of creatures on the ritual sacrifices tables – now, it did use Bestiaries 2, 3, 4 and the Game Mastery Guide and NPC Codex – all of these entries readily available via the on line PRD

But...

One of the creatures was from an Adventure Path – which may not yet have made the PRD bestiary lists. I would expect that most people taking the free magazine might not have access to all the bestiaries, adventure paths, modules, setting supplements etc., so do please try to ensure any creature you use is easily found on the PRD online or detail them enough to run them as part of the adventure.

In this case, the table is more an order of sacrifice / scene setting list, so isn’t quite so important, but do consider your selections and try to satisfy the broadest audience you can.

So we have an excellently constructed adventure, did the art meet the challenge laid down by the words – oh my yes. The maps are gorgeous, beautiful renditions of clearings in wild places, the trees marvellously rendered and all subtly different – no cut and repeat paste on these trees. The attention to detail is quite breathtaking.

I am not going to spoil the adventure for players reading this article, but suffice to say, next time someone asks me how to construct an adventure for Wayfinder, I know which one I shall point to.
Article: 10/10, Art: 10/10

Wow, another 10 out of 10 for words and art – this issue is rocking it!

Review running total so far: 49,997 characters, or 8,721 words. 40 articles have now been reviewed in depth. There is just 1 article remaining to be reviewed – the bestiary selection.

For this last article I intend to review each creature in turn rather than as a whole article thus providing some feedback directly to all of the authors whose creatures got selected. I will score the bestiary as a whole as well, purely for my index sheet ;)

There are 8 creatures in this issues bestiary. These reviews will follow shortly.

My thoughts... I'm with the Doctor....

Dinosaurs! ... On a Spaceship!

Bring it on.

Sound of a Thousand Whispers
I wasn’t quite sure how to categorize this next piece. It comprises three linked parts consisting of a background short, a new haunt and a magic items section. The whole article centers on a nymph who defended the wilderness of the Thousand Voices. I think here that too much was being attempted in one single article as the background felt too short, I wanted more of the history of the nymph and maybe some of the things she did to protect the wilderness. The haunts and magical items dovetail nicely into what background there is.

I think if the magic items had been separated out into a separate, we could have had a good background for a nice haunt and separately, a supporting article of items (with maybe a couple more items added for good measure). This would have needed prior agreement with the editors though, so I suspect the single submission word wall hit this article hard.

The art is very dark and moody, and so very fitting for the background of the article. My only concern with it is that there are two competing light focuses in the composition. This drew my eyes alternately between the hand and the moon and was quite distracting – I think had the moonlight been more subdued, the desired effect would have been achieved.
Article: 7/10, Art: 8/10

The Hut: A Tavern by the Sellen River
Next we have a very nicely detailed riverside stop-over. The Hut of the article is unusual for most taverns as there is more focus on providing good food and a family like company to visitors. In addition to detailing the proprietress in detail (albeit without a stat block), the thing I found to be missing was a map of the hut. I desperately wanted to see the layout, how many tables and chairs, how big the kitchen, how many berths and rooms available for overnight stay, and so on. With the rich tapestry painted with the words, the lack of map feels like a missed opportunity.

The article ends with a goodly selection of rumors, a collection of tiny plot seeds for the GM to pick up and run with. They all seamlessly integrate into the lore and legend of the Hut of the article.

The art piece is a rendition of what you would see as you are welcomed in through the main entrance. Looking through the doors and windows of the art, the expected volumes of trinkets and decorations seemed to have been missed – this is a shame as the description of the inner decorations was really flavorful in the article itself. Man, why wasn’t there a map…
Article: 9/10, Art: 8/10

“Steady As You Sail”: A Song of the Sellen
Next up we have a song/poem about travelling the river Sellen. I really liked the consistent metre of the stanzas, and the short but catch chorus between stanzas. What was also impressive was that by following the song, you can with map follow the journey of the song along the river. Very nicely done indeed. As is usual with a well-constructed piece, you are left wanting more, and with only the one song of the article, I felt like I needed another one or two at least.

The accompanying art is a wonderful water color style piece of life rafting along the Sellen. It represents the beauty and peace of life on the water and none of the hazards. I liked it, it may not be to everyone’s taste in style, but for me, it fit the article perfectly.
Article: 9/10, Art: 9/10

Review running total so far: 37,946 characters, or 6,606 words. 31 articles have now been reviewed in depth. There are just 10 articles remaining to be reviewed. These will follow in shortly.

Hendric’s Journal: The Echo Wood Expedition
The next article falls fully into Pathfinder Journals territory, detailing a selection of entries found in a travelers diary. Set in Echo Wood, near Deadbridge, the presentation is a traditional gothic horror mystery that is very evocative of childhood fears. One of the shorter fiction pieces in the magazine, but dripping with atmosphere, I wouldn’t read it by candlelight if I were you.

The accompanying art is a greyscale rendition, not so heavy with lines as to prevent coloring it in if you enjoy such activities. The image portrays something trying to get into the inn room, but just like the story, your imagination gets to fill in the gaps.
Article: 9/10, Art: 8/10

Side Trek: Encounters at the Creek Crossing
Next we have a couple of small encounters of low CR level, helping making journeys between locations a little more planned and interesting for your players. Both encounters take place at bridge crossings, to spice it up, you can swap out the rivers or roads being spanned and instead have the bridge over a nice chasm with a nightmare drop – these offer high utility and a great ease to just drop into ongoing campaigns.

The first encounter is heavy on roleplay, dealing with problems for those living around the locale of the bridge whereas the second encounter deals with what lies below the bridge.

The accompanying art draws from the second encounter, full page and full color, it’s a nice piece that could be shown to the players while running that encounter. I tell you now, that is no ordinary hungry toll-demanding troll under that bridge… that’s down right creepy.
Article: 8/10, Art: 9/10

Weal or Woe: A Matter of Honor
Next we have a weal or woe, presenting two more NPCs for your players to interact with. These particularly fire up the latent swashbuckler in me. I love the stories of the musketeers and the legends of dueling at dawn, and these draw heavily from those. Both NPCs presented are excellent combatants, excelling in swordplay and having enough detail to present their personal ethos and beliefs very well. Running them will be fairly straightforward and easy to incorporate into an ongoing game.

Each NPC receives its own accompanying art, and everything is there that you would expect to see of the swashbuckling flamboyant sword masters. Both are full body drawings, both in full color and both of similar style and execution that I couldn’t decide which of the two I preferred. Suffice to say, I liked them both.
Article: 9/10, Art: 8/10

Songs of the River Kingdoms: New Bardic Masterpieces
Some bard love is now available for the bardists amongst us. Only those who use the PRD or have their own copy of Ultimate Magic will use Bardic Masterpieces, but that say, there is enough detail in each of the seven for GMs to be able to use them off the cuff.

I think my favorite is the Dagger River Shanty, which I can see me using with my river pirates against my players, and my least favorite was Melancholy of the Landlocked Sea. I can’t put my finger on exactly why that one didn’t inspire me so much as the rest, but one thing that contributed was that the name didn’t hint at the duality of the effect for me.

The art renders a full body, pixie like and very mischievous looking bard playing a stringed instrument. I think it might be a rendering of the Dagger River Shanty due to the goodies rendered at her feet. I wasn’t so keen on the mono color background as with the theme of the magazine, I would have preferred to see some sort of water/river based backing to the character.
Article: 8/10, Art: 8/10

Armies of the River Kingdoms
The bulk of the next article provides ready-made army stat blocks for the major regions of the river kingdoms. There are some gems in here and the occasional oddity – for example, Tymon’s entry, drawing from a pool of gladiators who have won in the arena - I personally wouldn’t have gone for a gargantuan army. The life of a gladiator is normally short and intense, so I wouldn’t expect so many to still be living.

A new army tactic is also detailed, the art of assassination of an army’s leadership, and new army resources for moving upon the waters of the river kingdoms are also presented. On the whole, the article provides enough ready-made army material for any GM to have their river kingdoms explode into war on many fronts.

The artwork is one of my favorite pieces of the issue, a shark riding sahuagin/lizardfolk. It just oozes fun and nasty at the same time, full color and just cool, really cool.
Article: 8/10, Art: 10/10

Review running total so far: 34,595 characters, or 6,002 words. 28 articles have now been reviewed in depth. There are just 13 articles remaining to be reviewed. These will follow along shortly.

Timitius wrote:

I'm a bit surprised, though. I figured Numeria was more popular than River Kingdoms.....maybe not. Maybe just more "weird".

I would have expected imaginations to run wild with tech items and alien monsters or alien PC races of funky types (like an ooze race), particularly with Starfinder fresh on people's minds.

I had a look at doing some items, the problem was that they either ended up being too magical in nature and not very Numerian or they went to the other extreme of being too technological with little to no magic about them.

I personally found it very difficult to strike the magic/tech balance, and I wont submit something I am unhappy with - Wayfinder and its readership deserve only my best work.

Uringen Advancements in Alchemy
Now we have an alchemist archetype with oodles of Uringen flavor, and a healing chemist vibe. It provides an interesting supportive healing to magical healing. The only power that struck me as odd was replacing poison use with avoiding attacks of opportunity when performing heal checks in combat. The reason it struck me as odd is that many medicines, and some healing techniques are based on the poisons they counter, so taking that away from the healer to simply avoid an attack felt out of place and a little out of balance.

When designing archetypes, one of the hardest things to do is swap powers at equitable level of utility and power. I think this poison swap is possibly detrimental to the aim of the archetype, but that is just my gut feel.

There is also a collection of new discoveries suitable for all alchemists, and not just the archetype presented, each making sense and giving more diversity and flavor to an alchemist character.

The artwork clearly represents the archetype in the process of ministering to a patient, almost mixing the unguents at the moment of application. I loved the dressing style of the alchemist in the art, a mix of swashbuckler and gunslinger replacing blades and guns with vials, potions and chemical pouches.
Article: 8/10, Art: 8/10

The Rats of Canboulon
This next article was quite fascinating, taking ratfolk in an interesting spin – to that of river gypsies, plying trade and mischief along the waterways of the River Kingdoms. Considering the word count limits, the article provides a surprising amount of detail including the vessels they sail in, their society and government, their culture and the antics they get up to. I enjoyed this article immensely and will definitely be introducing these creatures to my players.

The art accompanying the article took me back to my childhood Peter Rabbit books days, it felt like something I would find in those illustrated children’s books. I found this added to the article by depicting how innocent they might look to a newcomer, perhaps aiding them in their acts of mischief or trade.
Article: 9/10, Art: 9/10

Magic Items: Heirlooms of Fallen Kingdoms
And now some river kingdoms inspired magical items for treasure piles and arming up the NPCs with – hey, my NPCs use the treasures! So we have three wondrous items and a magical weapon.

The first wondrous item is a magical hat inspired by a witch’s black pointed hat. I licked this one as it was also on theme with the cackling of our legendary witches.

The second item messes with luck, something very difficult to do and get right. I think for the effect, 1 minute duration is a bit short and limits the use of the item to moments of combat – it could quite safely have been increased to a more useful and impactful duration beyond combat by making it an hour.

The third item I felt would have been more fitting for an Ustalav / Horror themed issue as it was based on carved pumpkin lanterns – especially as the effect is decidedly creepy.

The weapon is a trident that can pin targets, causing bleed every round the target is pinned. The amount of bleed is quite small and as the wielder has to maintain the pin, I am unsure if being “taken out of combat” each round is worth the bleed – I tend to use pinning for capturing opponents alive, so this just didn’t feel right for me.

The accompanying art is of the trident – beautifully rendered from the description, I particularly liked the shaft of twisted steel. I also liked the dried blood effect, almost rust like, on the trident tines.
Article: 8/10, Art: 8/10

Review running total so far: 29,978 characters, or 5,200 words. 23 articles have now been reviewed in depth. Still plenty of the issue left so more review to follow shortly.

Ok, the sheet is now complete with issue content, so back to reviewing for me :)

Please use the link above as google drive is not syncing properly still, so I had to recreate and re-link the share - gah!

Here are some extra fun and interesting tid-bits...

15 issues... the summary ;)

541 written articles (excludes pure art and cover submissions).
168 of these articles written by 49 RPG Superstar contenders (from Top 32 placers through top 4 finalists and winners).

366 individuals have contributed written work, art or both (which is why this number is slightly smaller than the total of the next two).
258 individual authors of the written word...
126 individual artists providing visual candy...

Top 7 writer credits...

20 credits Spicer, Neil
19 credits Lee, Jeff
13 credits Turner, Ian
11 credits Costello Jr., Ryan
11 credits Crenshaw, Paris E.
11 credits Fox, Guy
11 credits Gimmler, Christoph

Top 7 art providers...

43 credits Torreblanca, Carlos
38 credits Courts, Liz
27 credits Mallon, Dave
25 credits Moore, Alex, J.
25 credits Sperry, Ashton
24 credits Solis, Hugo
20 credits Frasier, Crystal

Most popular submissions...

102 articles Fiction: Short
55 articles Setting: Gazetteer
41 articles Setting: Weal or Woe
37 articles Rules: Items
27 articles Encounters: Side Treks
27 articles Rules: Archetypes

Some fun numbers for you - 10 out of 15 issues now in the sheet.

So, for the first 10 issues - how much free stuff is there to delight you?

Articles (inclusive of foreword and cover art) - 368

Top 10 Article Types:

075 articles Fiction: Short
034 articles Setting: Gazetteer
027 articles Setting: Weal or Woe
020 articles Setting: Pathfinder Journal
017 articles Bestiary: Creatures
017 articles Encounters: Side Treks
017 articles Rules: Items
014 articles Rules: Prestige Classes
011 articles Rules: Archetypes
010 articles Miscellaneous: Poetry

And how many people have successfully gained credit in this august publication's first 10 issues?

Unique named Contributors - 259

Top 6 writer credits so far...

14 credits Spicer, Neil
13 credits Lee, Jeff
10 credits Costello Jr., Ryan
10 credits Fox, Guy
09 credits Gimmler, Christoph
09 credits McAnulty, Jonathan

Top 6 artist credits so far...

28 credits Torreblanca, Carlos
26 credits Courts, Liz
23 credits Sperry, Ashton
22 credits Solis, Hugo
17 credits Mallon, Dave
17 credits Frasier, Crystal

Will these contributors still be top after the last 5 issues are added - can't wait to find out, grin?

The ever so nice anniversary update for Windows 10 really messed my Office registration up (repair and re-register was needed) and my file shares on google docs. Grrrrr.

All sorted now after much hair pulling, but you will now need this new link to the sheet!

Following your kind suggestions and feedback, thanks, you now have a new table added containing article and art credits so you can see who the prolific repeat writers/artists are.

Also added columns for scores and links to my reviews, the first review for Wayfinder 1 pasted in to illustrate.

Issues covered are now 1 thru 7.

Yeah, my name will appear in the contributors list soon, my first appearance in the magazine is coming up! :P

More review coming soon - just had a crazy week overruling all my plans. Sorry.

In the interim, I was populating a spreadsheet with my reviews and realised what I was building was a nice, useful article index...

* furious copy paste to a new sheet to hide the evidence :P *

So, for your patience, on this link is a handy dandy reference to the first five issues. I will keep adding the issues in when I get a spare moment, I thought it might be a good idea to seek feedback and suggestions from those interested enough to download it, in case of major changes needed before I get too far into it.

Shared by google docs, which doesnt seem to offer all the filtering etc I put into the sheet, but does allows you view the data in your browser if you dont have excel.

Sorry, it is an excel sheet with table formatting - meaning if you are using excel and download your own copy then you can filter by issue, by content type, by author, by artist, you can also sort alphabetically by clicking the sort buttons.

This should also allow you to quickly find that favorite article or read everything by your favorite authors, find the art/eye candy from your favorite artists and so on.

Enjoy.

Old school - Star Frontiers!

Absalom station was actually the destination of ship that crashed into Numeria (it was on auto pilot, thought it was on docking course and was not expecting the station to be wrapped in Golarion the plant).

The station had experienced some long forgotten disaster resulting in it falling silent for eones, it's body mass and gravity well attracting space matter around itself, eventually forming the planet Golarion with the station becoming the core of the world.

When the gods spirited Golarion away, the space station got left behind and the rays of the systems star started to power the station again as it returned to life...

On the subject of "seems" - it is basically a short form of "appears to be". Now there are times when it would be okay to use these terms, when your item has an appearance that is disguised in some way, however, the templatefu says

"Don't tell me what it is like, tell me what it IS"

Your wordcount is precious, seems and appears to be are great word wasting constructs as to me, and as a designer, they indicate the writer is unsure about what they are describing.

Be definite, let me know what things are, not what they may be. Be bold and confident - it gets you noticed.

I broke this habit at last, and I am sure it was a contributing factor in achieving Top 100 last season :)

Odd thought; how does one go about brewing in zero gravity? Certainly the station will have some sort of artificial gravity, but if it fails? Ivan must have his vodka!

Maybe the station is of sufficient size and density that it naturally generates a gravity sufficient to be normal Golarion gravity.

This post completes my review started in the review section… yeah, I blew the character limit again! >.<

So, let’s continue…

The Sweetest Fruit
A Mwangi diversion now greets us, a moody short story that keeps you guessing right until the end. Speaking of the end, this story suffered a little I think from the impending word limit wall, it felt slightly rushed as up until the last few paragraphs, there was a slow well-paced build to the story. The twist at the end leaves you guessing. The artwork depicts the main baddie revealed in the story, although the angle of the head seemed off slightly to me.
Article: 8/10, Art: 8/10

Gro’kosh
A CR10 plant creature! One thing I loved about this creature is its ability to dominate creatures it implants with its seeds. This explains how the plant creature can survive and be tended by these minions and also provides additional forms of defence for the clever GM to spring upon unsuspecting players. The art work gives a very thistles on rose bush appearance that fits well with the creature description and abilities.
Article: 9/10, Art: 8/10

Shadows of the First World
Now we have another bloodline, Shadow. The theming on this one is very much tighter and coherent than I found in the Ancestral bloodline previously reviewed. The article continues with a shadow themed prestige class that is a great fit and has high synergy with the Rogue classes, and caster classes that invest in the stealth skill. The accompanying art renders the prestige class in extremely high details, I loved it.
Article: 9/10, Art: 9/10

The Blood-Slicked Mantle
Wow, a whole page magical item – I love magical items, and this one is an actual artifact! There are a lot of costs, benefits, and powers for both player and GM to keep track of, but such is the nature of old school artifacts and this one feels so very old school. All of the powers make sense and are related in various ways. I liked this item and can see a lot of roleplay opportunity from it as well. The artwork shows a super depiction of the shoulder throw that this item is fashioned like.
Article: 9/10, Art: 9/10

The Mwangi Expanse – Senghor
Something different again, this magazine continues to delight and surprise the reader. Now we have a setting article that fleshes out the Mwangi port city of Senghor. The bulk of the article tells of two major NPCs that the party can meet and interact with – each giving some history to various aspects of the city’s formation. I definitely see this article as the precursor to the now featured Weal and Woe articles of later issues. The line art is simple yet effective.
Article: 8/10, Art: 7/10

From the Rookery
At first the title made me expect a bestiary of avian fowl-ness – yes, managed a pun in the review, grin. What I found however was an awesome selection of avian based spells – covering the cleric, druid, paladin, sorcerer and wizard classes. Some spells seem apt to me for the advanced classes, I can definitely see the oracle and witch making use of some of these, especially Plunging Hood. The artwork shows a flacon mistress of elven descent, and is a nice line art that begs for my coloured pencils to begin their work.
Article: 9/10, Art: 8/10

The Gallery Below
Next we have an article about a hidden gallery with a quite extensive list of content. This article would be of great use to any GM in populating a treasure room or gallery with “art fantastique” for the players to encounter and then try to trade away. The banner artwork for this article depicts many of the items listed for a corner viewpoint looking into the galley room itself.
Article: 9/10, Art: 8/10

Too Small to Notice
And so, the closing article, another journal styled story set in artic like conditions. Shorter than the previous journal items, it is a refreshing read and a nice way to close out the issue. Again the journal ends at a point where the reader is left wondering what happens next, but I think that is the nature of lost journals when found, the writer has indeed met an untimely demise leaving the PCs to finish their task. The artwork clearly indicates the freezing conditions by depicting so much fur around the story protagonist.
Article: 8/10, Art: 8/10

In summary, this is a simply stunning first issue of any community produced magazine I have ever read in my 43 years of gaming. The amount of love for the setting, and for the game, by every contributor, be they writer or artist, simply shines through. This magazine set a very high standard for the issues that follow and I can tell you now, those following issues continue to raise that bar ever higher. A magnificent first issue that every Pathfinder GM and Player should acquire and read. Overall, I score this first issue as a whole…
Articles: 9/10, Art: 9/10

And award it a well-deserved 5 stars.

For those who like a more spiritual sci fi... might I suggest trying Enya and Clannad?

Then of course we have Holst The Planets and Wagner The Ride of the Valkyrie.

And don't forget the amazing 2001 A Space Odyssey and related.

Hey all

Just so it doesnt get forgotten, please can we have postcards in future for we foreigners to send a little of Paizocon home to our loved ones. Just a simple Paizocon Wish you were here, maybe with a goblin screaming "so we can eat you". It doesnt need a number, so they can be reused every year.

Now, to more serious stuff.

I travelled 5000 miles and I made it, the journey was hard and I was very stressed on arrival due to my aspergers and being in an enclosed space with many people for a 10 hour plus flight.

I just want to pass on how absolutely amazing and unbelievable EVERY member of staff was (and those who met me who weren't staff too), especially to me - most of you knew of me which blew my mind somewhat but the thing that truly showed how special you all are is that you were all aware of my aspergers as I was very open about it in the forums before coming.

All of you, staff and public, made every effort to ensure I was comfortable and happy whenever we talked. Your gestures were overt enough that I could read them. I felt comfortable and safe, and I felt I had found a new circle of friends.

I ended up finding a support group that was unexpected and unbelievable. So much so, that even though I hate being stuck in an enclosed airplane for over 10 hours, I am going to come back again for more. You are all superb people.

I really cannot put into words how amazing you have all been, I felt like I belonged from day 1 of the con - that is so amazing to someone like myself who suffers problems in social crowds that I simply cannot put it into words, so allow me to close simply and heartfeltly (if that's a word)...

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I was there (at Paizocon 2016) when the announcement was made - very excited and pleased that this will soon be coming to my game table!

Thank you Paizo!

*chuckles quietly to himself in his head, always amused at Enlil's confidence, sure in his knowledge that something always goes wrong...*

The only physical evidence of his amusement are his twinkling eyes and a wry smile upon his lips.

A weather-beaten dwarf sits, eyeing the teacups with a look of suspicion. He does not drink yet, but does sit, placing the mother of all crossbows across his lap and poses his concerns...

"Permit me to introduce myself, I am Darvful. I have some concerns, which if I may, I state openly and with no malice or intent to insult intended. If I understand correctly, the guards will react with lethal response to us as if this were a real raid, to which we may have to respond in kind for our own safety.

These guards are innocent and uninformed, yet we may have to maim or kill them if we are to be successful in our assault. What assurances do we have that this act will not result in us becoming the hunted... hmmm? Or are you asking us to fail in our assault in order to convey an image of success in the transport's security measures to your lord?"

Event has been updated with title and description. Good luck to the six brave souls who decide to attend.

Wow, Sara wishing luck to participants. Ok, officially scared now.

Whatever happens to the six lucky souls, remember this, you will all have a valid reason (or set thereof) to take full and active part in the blame cosmo thread forever after.

And whatever you post in that blame thread, it's all Cosmo's own doing :P