Sir_Wulf's page

DM admited he screwed up so politely ask him/her to add to the next treasure pile to help keep the game going.

Actually, I plan to avoid gaming with him in the future. I have been gaming for over 30 years; if someone is unwilling to believe me when I cite the rules with 100% confidence and won't let me show him where it's quoted, I'm done with him. This was an RPGA event, so he isn't allowed to alter the scenario, nor to add to the treasure later.

Everyone makes mistakes (I certainly have!), but most people listen to others when they say that they are 100% confident about something.

Sexism sucks!

I am in an office with the majority of people are female. And funny enough they occupy all the managment positions. I get crap from female co workers (like greetings of Hi f***er!) and get to hear how men suck, are pigs, should pay for everything, a-holes, etc. What can I say? I'm the guy. I've mentioned it to my supervisor. Her response "Well stand up for yourself."

(Snip, snip, snippity, snip...)

I'm sorry that I hijacked your discussion with my rant the other day!

I work in a very "PC" environment, where double standards like that are still common, where I've seen coworkers receive formal discipline for cussing and a guy can get fired for "ogling" a woman. You need to inform your coworkers politely that you don't feel comfortable with the tone of their comments. Quietly document exactly what happened, what you did to address it and any supervisory response. Bend over backward to be friendly, courteous, and thoughtful, so that there is no question that you have a personal anuimus against any of the people involved.

If things don't significantly improve, take it up the chain to a higher level supervisor. When you produce your file of notes with dates, names of the staff present, what happened, and your supervisor's inadequate response, I guarantee that you'll get attention. Nothing frightens middle management like an employee who's clearly "building a file" to prepare for possible legal action.

After fighting for a while, one of the PCs cast Protection from Evil on himself and the thing was unable to hit him. This gave us the clue that the skeleton had been summoned, so he "corked" it away from the other party members until the summons' duration ran out. The DM hadn't actually been tracking the rounds, so we fought it for about 16 rounds (The DM admitted afterward the thing should have only been around for 10).

The party won, but it cost us nearly every consumable we had. Two potions of Cure Light Wounds, 2 flasks of alchemist's fire, a scroll of Lesser Orb of Acid and about 14 charges from a wand of cure light wounds were burned up, a ridiculous cost for a third-level party.

I noticed that as well. I don't want to instigate a discussion of what each alignment ought to be (we're not going to all agree, so let's just skip the heartburn), but it feels as if the authors don't want to feature evil characters that aren't meant to be killed by the heroes.

Just because someone is evil, it doesn't follow that he lacks redeeming virtues. History books are filled with people who brutally preyed upon their enemies and betrayed their friends with Machavellian abandon, yet were regarded as wise leaders and patrons of the arts. Nazis are regarded by many as the epitome of modern evil, but many Nazi officers were excellent, disciplined soldiers, loyal to their country, good fathers and husbands, snappy dressers...

I think that the authors may have vaccillated about how rotten they wanted some of these characters to actually be, so they described people as neutral, when their actions were rather nasty.

Don't do it! A site I visit regularly (www.strolen.com) had someone submit the Bra of Holding as a wondrous item and our collective INT scores each dropped 4 points!

We were fighting a troll skeleton. It was dishing out 15 to 20 points of damage a round.

Since our party was made up of a 3rd level bard (a good cheerleader, but a lousy fighter), a halfling rogue 1-wizard 1 (fighting undead wasn't her forte, either), her dog, my 4th level cleric (running around healing the barbarian like crazy), a 1st level barbarian (repeatedly unconscious after getting some love from the troll bones), and an 3rd level archer (useless against the skeleton), the dog was potentially the most effective damage dealer left standing (doing 1d6+4 with the bard's inspirational boost).

He had his minion fanbois do it for him... Ninja computer geeks, every one of them.

Haldefast, this discussion seems to be dealing with two separate issues.

From your statements, you felt that the first scenarios of the Savage Tide Adventure Path left the player characters with few options other than combat and following the "clue trail" and saw the structure as supporting a repetitive "fight, loot, fight..." cycle.

As the responses that you've received must suggest, many people disagree with your perception. I know that I didn't see these scenarios that way. I was enthused by the opportunity to plug elements of "Lost Shrine of Tamoachan" into the campaign, and didn't see the limited encounter described by the author as the group's only option.

The authors of the Paizo scenarios aren't able to anticipate the needs and tastes of every group: They are forced to take a lowest-common denominator approach to many situations. The encounter with the phanatons is an excellent example of that. By throwing the PCs into a dangerous situation where they can help the phanatons, the author facilitates an alliance that might not otherwise happen. Certainly, it's contrived, but how often do PC groups spontaneously ally themselves with strange creatures they met by chance? Without a reason to trust each other, the party and the phanatons are likely to ignore each other.

Your group may be excellent, your DM may be excellent, but something is wrong if you're frustrated with an adventure series. Your feeling is that the scenarios themselves are poorly conceived, an accusation that the authors and editors naturally resent and disagree with. They did the best that they could, but no scenario will suit everybody that plays it.

The second issue that has entangled this thread is one of disrespect. Your posts can seem very inflammatory. You may not read them as such, but it's hard to tell what you're trying to accomplish. If you're critiquing the adventure path and offering suggestions for what you would like to see in future adventures, please remember that these people worked hard on the adventures you think so little of. They feel insulted when you criticize their efforts. When your words are perceived as being disrespectful, they are naturally going to defend themselves.

BUT: I am also angry at the two adventures before yours. They were railroads in the literal sense, whereas your adventure mostly lacked any intellectual, roleplayng or tactical depth, but left us the choice of the order in which we approach the sub-encounters.

You have to admit that you wrote that in anger. How can you expect to achieve anything with such inflammatory writing?

Haldefast, what do you want to accomplish here? If you think Paizo's authors should do things differently, consider their reasons for the "railroady" structure that irritates you and then suggest what you would do instead. Comparisons like "look at Fortress Badabaskor" don't really help much. I love some of the old-school Judges' Guild material, but their structure is very different from the plot-based adventures that you dislike. If there's a way to reconcile those differences, explain your ideas how. There's no one here that couldn't potentially benefit from different ways to approach writing and DMing.

I get tired of people (especially DMs) who lay down the law about rules when they don't know the rules. I had a DM recently who ruled that my daughter's riding dog's bite attack was piercing damage and so couldn't go through the DR of a monstrosity that was pounding us to paste. I could have showed him what the rule was, but he didn't want me looking things up in the Monster Manual during the game. I told him that I was dead certain that the bite was not solely piercing damage and he declared that he had made his ruling and we needed to move on.

Only an idiot rules against a father who's trying to keep his 10 year-old daughter's character alive and won't let the player use the accursed rulebook to show him the accursed rule.

"Railroading" is good when the line leads where the players want to go. It's bad when the "rail job" forces them into situations that don't make sense for them.

It's the DM's job to present the plotline in an appealing way. If he gives the impression that the party has no choice but to follow the rails, they will inevitably rebel.

Conversely, it's the players' job to keep an open mind about the path they're following. If they decide to be contrary, deliberately ignoring the "plot wagon", then the DM needs to find out what they really want to do, as the planned plot obviously doesn't appeal. I've had players that refused to cooperate because they wanted to "hijack" the game into something revolving solely around their character, but most people are more reasonable than that.

In some ways, this fight really should be a cakewalk for the party. Just as druids get a plus in one of the earlier scenes, and paladins get a bonus in another, these scenes let elves have a pass.

An adventure has to present a storyline. If it doesn't, it's not an adventure, in my opinion; it's a sourcebook.

I'm not sure I agree with this academic distinction because I don't agree that adventures have to present a storyline.

You are just using the term differently from the way that Mr. Jacobs is using it. All adventures should contain the basic elements of plotting: The player characters come into conflict and need to make decisions. The conflict may be against monsters, allies, environmental factors, or even each other (Paranoia, anyone?), but the presence of a defined conflict is core.

Once you have conflict, the need to make decisions and take action, you have a story.

For some reason, each time I have tried to download this, I have received a "The compressed (zipped) folder is invalid or corrupted" error. Has anyone else had trouble?

Dickens was a great author, but Great Expectations was one of the few books that I never finished reading. Thank God for Monarch Notes! I didn't touch Dickens again for nearly 20 years, but then I found an anecdote of his about "begging letter writers" and realized he can be a riot to read. (He was moved by one man's plea about his dead wife, so he went to visit the unfortunate fellow on a whim. When he discovered the man was a scam artist, Dickens tried to take him to court, with predictably disasterous results.)

I enjoyed Laurell K. Hamilton's "Vampire Noir" Anita Blake series for the first several volumes, but eventually they degraded into a morass of repetetive soft-core porn. I didn't think I could be bored by descriptions of seduction, kinky sex, and vampiric orgies, but she managed to do it.

You could feed their preconceptions. Set up a short side quest, where Aldern needs to be rescued from some ridiculous predicament in the southern part of the map. That will reinforce their ideas about what a useless twit he is, and they may decide that the side quest was what the detailed areas to the south were about.

Have you guys seen any products or resources that work well as maps for the locations in Burnt Offerings or The Skinsaw Murders? I enjoy detailed and realistic combat maps, but the only ones that I've seen so far were for the first battles in the AP, so my game had already passed that point.

One side effect though is that now the party wants to explore Foxglove's lands. I overdid the creepy factor, and they asked him a bunch of questions about his house. I think I'll have Shalelu make her appearance in the next session to curb their appetite for another Aldern encounter.

The

should keep them busy for a while, and you can push them toward with exaggerated tales of goblin atrocities ("Something must be done!").

What did he tell them? "Oh, THAT old place? It's been closed up for years; you wouldn't believe the mold problem it has. There's a reason that I prefer to rent rooms in town."

Perhaps Sheknub tried to recruit Vorka, achieving partial success. He got her to come along to raid the Licktoads, but Vorka got a bit snackish on the way there and turned on him before they reached the Licktoad's lair. Sheknub's followers fled in terror, becoming lost in the marsh. Vorka decided that she didn't want the Licktoads to find out what she had planned, so she pursued the remaining Birdcrunchers around the Brinestump Swamp. The Birdcrunchers found a small boat and piled in, successfully evading their pursuer. Unfortunately, they soon lost the oars and none of them swims well, so they are trapped on a small island in the swamp.

The Licktoads, baffled by the shenanigans, have sent cautious scouts (The skinniest goblins in the tribe) to ask Vorka what she's doing. Chief Skilmut has decided that this is all some devious Birdcruncher plan to draw him into an ambush, so he's got his remaining troops organizing a complicated ambush of his own. Unfortunately, the goblin attention span works against him: Not only are his warriors constantly wandering off of their assigned positions, he keeps changing the plan himself. None of the Licktoads is sure which of Skilmut's schemes is the current one.

When the PCs arrive, they will discover wandering Licktoad scouts and disoriented Birdcrunchers. The Licktoads' defenses are a complete shambles, but their warriors are ready to spring two or three mutually incompatible ambushes on them. The remaining Birdcrunchers need to be rescued, as they are sure that there's a monster watching them from beneath the water: They already drove it off once by setting their boat on fire.

If the Licktoad leadership had been taken out in the raid and attendant intergoblin feuding, much of the tribe's strength might be scattered. Eager to avoid the confusion of a goblin succession brawl, many warriors might be in hiding, waiting to see who ends up in charge before they decide who to align with.

My (non-goblin) PCs went on a side quest to raid the Birdcrunchers, discovering to their horror that the tribe's leader had a pet he had kept home to fend off retaliaton from the longshanks: A dire skunk! The Birdcrunchers had fled to bolt holes among the rocks of Devil's Platter, since angry longshanks would often show up at their caves after any of the tribes caused problems.

If one of the Licktoads' fallen leaders had a nasty pet, it may still be guarding his lair, keeping the other goblins away.

I would expect Nualia to force the goblins back into alliance, if possible. She still wants the town destroyed, and needs troops to complete her grand vision.

I've been trying to think of roleplaying "bits" that would tempt the player characters with one of the seven deadlies. Hopefully, I can throw in one or two during each game session.

1.) A careless, drunken woodcutter drops a load of firewood onto the PC's foot. (Wrath)

2.) One of the Scarnettis offers to help sell some of the loot the PCs found. He's going to Magnimar, and wants to help them evade the local taxes. (Greed)

3.) In the tavern, a local is recounting tales of the "Heroes of Sandpoint", exaggerating their heroics and inviting them to expand upon his fanciful hyperbole. (Pride)

4.) A young man treats the characters rudely, clearly envious of their success. Later, his lovely fiancée stops by to apologize for her intended's rudeness. She has had a bit too much to drink, and makes her interest plain toward one of the PCs. (Wrath, Lust, or Envy, depending on the PC's motives)

5.) An old woman repeatedly offers the PCs delicious meals, telling them "You must eat! Look at you, you're all skin and bones!" She's very thankful that the heroes slew a goblin that had menaced her, but she clearly cannot afford such generosity. (Gluttony)

6.) When they really should be following up some of the clues they have found, the PCs are invited to a picnic by Ilsoari Gandethus. The old sage wants to find out if they're interested in the ancient Thassalonians. He won't share his more radical theories with the PCs until he knows them better. (Sloth or Pride)

Obviously, PCs may navigate these hurdles without embracing any of the sins, but each has the potential for characters to realistically make suboptimal choices. I would be interested in other situations and entanglements DMs have used to help the characters "show their quality".

If you wanted to increase the challenge, you could also increase the number of wild boar encountered. Wild pigs aren't solitary creatures, and encountering several of them would make the hunt much more dangerous.

My group's player characters wore their armor and kept their weapons with them: There are rampaging goblins somewhere out there!

If you want "ninja" in your Runelords setting, you don't have to import them from some distant land.

Choose one of the cultures conquered by the Chelaxians as they rose to prominence, then declare that some of these people resisted their oppressors by resorting to stealth and assassination: Look at the social developments that led to the historical Japanese ninja.

Perhaps the Varisians of some isolated area developed skills not seen in other parts of the land: They crafted weapons that could be hidden or disguised, evading the vengeance of their cruel overlords. When times were more prosperous, the secret techniques of these hidden warriors fell into disrepute, but now, with Chelaxian tyranny again on the rise, they have returned from the shadows that cloaked them.

Have the hidden warriors begin as rogues, with a few specialized weapons allowed. To balance out the bonus weapon skills, they have substantial social obligations and restrictive codes of honor. Their leaders are members of the Shadowdancer prestige class.

Portions of the Thistletop stronghold may have burnt, but remember:

1. Goblins are scatterbrained.

2. Goblins love fire.

Based on that, it's reasonable to rule that if the fortress could be burned down easily, it would have burned long ago.

In all likelihood, Thistletop has already had several fires in its history, which resulted in slipshod patches of stone, wattle and daub, and mud. Fires breaking out will burn until they hit one of these unintentional firebreaks, then will die out.

I haven't been able to get my copy yet, but plan to start running Skinsaw as soon as it arrives in my local game store. Since I like to have appropriate miniatures for the various encounters, any suggestions people have about suitable minis would be appreciated. I doubt that I'll have time to paint many if I can't get a head start.

One thread that I looked at suggested ghoulish servants: Have any of you seen figures that would work for that? I'd love to find a "butler" miniature and paint it up as a pallid undead.

I would love to see a portion of the Paizo site set aside for fan-created supplemental material like this, so that it doesn't vanish into the depths of the discussion boards.

If Paizo Publishing is open to suggestions for additional map pack elements, I would like to mention a few that I would love to see:

Docks and piers, with a dockside warehouse filled with barrels and crates, small boats and barges, a ferry, and a ship. Amusing details might include a pillory, a customs office, and fishmongers' stalls.

Rooftops detailed with chimneys, various roofing materials (some in poor repair), and gabled windows. Some roofs could include rickety walkways or planks over alleys, bird coops, and rooftop platforms for magical rituals. If the roofs matched some of the buildings that were featured in other packs, they could be used as the next level of a multi-level fight!

Geomorphic forest elements that could be assembled in different combinations, with a game trail leading across a streambed, fallen trees, patches of scrub undergrowth, moss-encrusted statues, and ancient, gnarled tree trunks.

A riverside shrine modeled on Ancient Egyptian floorplans, with a similarly-styled river barge, priest's quarters, a courtyard with a central well, and a villa modeled on Roman floorplans.

I just wanted to voice my appreciation for the new iconic character. I've always used a "Sean Connery voice" for one of my Living Greyhawk characters, so I expect that the new iconic is going to fit right in in my games.

What was his name again? Tym Gandminster?

Perhaps a set of Tegel Manor "battle maps" sized for miniatures could be produced on tan pebbled stock, printed in brown ink similar to the old-school Judges Guild Wilderlands maps. The single-color process would be cheaper, and the art would be less elaborate. Maps could be double sided, as long as the sections printed on the back were nowhere near the sections on the front.

I always liked those maps...

The art we've had in for ogre hooks is pretty much across the board, which is one of the problems of inventing a new weapon and illustrating it before you have solid reference handy. The hook itself is a two-handed weapon, no matter what size of monster uses it...

I described the ogre hook to my players as similar to a jagged-edged pruning hook (or guisarme head) set onto an axe handle, advising them to ignore the sketch in the Player's Guide. Smaller, lighter ones exist: These are basically sickles, as already covered in the rules.

Looking at the art in the various books, it's clear that people have very different ideas of what an Ogre Hook is supposed to be. The picture in the Rise of the Runelords Player's Guide depicts a meathook-type weapon, while the cover art from The Hook Mountain Massacre depicts ogres carrying two different types of hooked weapons. Some of the ogre's weapons are short hooks similar to sickles, while others have long wooden hafts suited for two-handed use.

This was actually my plan, although I was only going to give XP after Tsuto, Erylium, and Nualia. It risks making it a bit video gamey with a feel of "boss battles", but it also prevents the Wizard from inexplicably knowing two new spells after a fight, or the Rogue suddenly knowing a new skill out of nowhere. Adding a Ripnugget "XP point" might be a good idea, to prevent the characters from jumping two to three entire levels at once after Thistletop.

Like in the books or movies, they didn't just "know a new skill out of nowhere": They've been working on that skill a long time, but they just gained the confidence to try out their abilities...

"So, Black Asp, you think you have us defeated! I'll bet that you didn't know that I can do... THIS!"

The important part is to say something hopelessly melodramatic, something that makes it clear that the character has had their "new" abilities for some time already, but chose to unveil them only when they were truly needed. If your players watch enough B-movies, they can level up in the middle of a fight and still make it fit the genre.

"Dare I try the Entangling Ritual of Norkrath? We have never before assayed such perilous magic!" asked Delecta the Invoker as the goblin hordes rushed toward the party.

"Yes! We have no choice!" answered Brother Ransom, fear in his eyes.

I give exp after each session, and found that most of the party was going to be just a bit shy of second level before the catacombs. To remedy this, I gave the bard a roleplay bonus after she participated in a "battle of the bards" at the Rusty Dragon, gave some exp for dealing (badly) with Shayless, and sent the party onto a side quest to investigate the lair of the Birdcruncher Tribe.

If anyone wants the details of the side quest, I would be glad to share them. It was short on goblins, as they had retreated to bolt holes hidden on the Devil's Platter (and they'll get their fill of goblins soon enough, when they head for Thistletop).

What about Kaijitsu's business and/or properties? Would a plot with the Scarnetti family traying to take over Kaijitsu's properties be interesting? I think there was a post sugesting something similar. Any ideas?

In my game, the party captured Tsuto and saved his sister, so she was going to reward them by making them part owners in the glassworks, once it's up and running again. The party isn't really tied in to the area, so this was going to stir up issues with the Scarnettis. "We've put years of our family's blood and sweat into this town, then we're forced to watch strangers come waltzing in, taking advantage of that poor girl's tragic loss! What do these 'adventurers' know of running a business?"

Since most of the glassworks' employees were killed, some people that had worked there in the past were going to apply for work there again. Unfortunately, these workers are tied in to the Scarnettis; they were fired before because of attempts to intimidate the rest of their crew into backing the Scarnettis' attempts to take the place over.

Eventually, the workers will find a way to cause problems for Amieko and the party, giving the Scarnettis an opening to take the glassworks over. "These people shouldn't be in charge of something as important to our town as the glassworks! We need someone responsible to ensure that business survives."

I have been an active participant in Living Greyhawk since 1993, and have also enjoyed Living Arcanis quite a bit. Based on what I've seen, I'd like to offer my opinions and suggestions regarding an ideal “Living” campaign.

I look for typos, and I check my spelling, then I see that I've been dumb.

(Sigh...)

I meant 2003.

I have been an active participant in Living Greyhawk since 1993, and have also enjoyed Living Arcanis quite a bit. Based on what I've seen, I'd like to offer my opinions and suggestions regarding an ideal “Living” campaign.

Living Greyhawk had many great things going for it. The campaign’s division into geographic regions allowed the writers and players to develop ongoing plotlines and themes for each of the continent’s lands. The campaign staff developed detailed rules limiting character access to feats, classes, magic items, and spells: These ensured that the flavor of the setting wasn’t distorted by “broken” class and feat combinations. The campaign record system made it difficult for cheating players to illegitimately boost their characters’ power, ensuring that high-level characters in the campaign have truly “earned” their status.

Living Arcanis has a number of great features as well. Their system for crafting magic items and magic item certificates allows players to trade off items they find or make, but limits the abuses such a system can cause. The secret societies provide great fodder for roleplaying (even if they sometimes cause conflict between characters and players). Their adventure recording system works well.

These campaigns have their weaknesses, as well. Greyhawk’s system makes it difficult for low and mid-level characters to keep interesting magic items that they find. They can’t make magic items for each other or trade the ones they have. On the other hand, the numerous small certificates issued in Arcanis can be a nuisance to organize and manage. Party members sometimes try to get the most impressive magic items just to sell them off, depriving less fortunate players of cool items.

Both campaigns have had occasional problems with plots written to encourage conflict between party members: While some moral conflict is a good thing and encourages deeper roleplaying, major conflicts between party members can be very discouraging.

If I were responsible for the structure of “Pathfinder: Evolution”, I would incorporate aspects of both campaigns. I would start with Arcanis-style certificates and magic item documentation, strictly limiting how many items can be traded. (Each item would have a minimum level listed, below which no character is allowed to possess it)

I would encourage regional identities for different areas, not limiting people’s ability to play other regions’ scenarios, but encouraging different writing teams to concentrate on particular areas of the continent, developing ongoing plots and NPC relationships there.

Unfortunately, the "Living" name won't do, since that's the RPGA's/WotC's baby. “Pathfinder: Evolution” is a catchy alternative.

Occasionally, adventures in the living campaigns were adapted for a wider range of party levels than was really appropriate. Some scenarios just aren’t appropriate for all party levels. Instead of scaling these adventures to a broad range of levels, perhaps a Pathfinder campaign could adopt structured limits and rules for starting off characters at higher levels. This would reduce the need to scale adventures, because players could more easily come up with an appropriate character of any given power level.

As long as they didn't draw blood, they should be OK, right?

In an Age of Magic...

For a Land in Need...

Heroes will Arise!

Gentlemen, Destiny calls.

Someone get the phone.

These magnificent Elvish ears could be the inspiration for restyling of several other races:

Brightly-Colored Dwarvish Balloon Noses

Long, Scrawny Gnomish Necks

Half-Orc Manicures

Curvaceous Halfling Babes (Pervy Hobbit Fancy, anyone?)

My players finished the Glassworks, then I sent them off on a sidequest to get them all to second level: They were a few Exp short.

I was curious about what roleplaying bits people had come up with in the aftermath of the Glassworks.

My players went on a side quest to raid the Birdcruncher goblins. For the purposes of that quest, I decided that the Birdcrunchers use the Devil's Platter as their hiding place, retreating to small caves there when the local humans get riled up. After all, they're the closest goblins to Sandpoint: It stands to reason that they are habitually targetted whenever goblins from any tribe stir up the townsfolk.

You can tell when you're approaching the lair of the Birdcrunchers, since they paint sticky "bird lime" on the branches of nearby trees, allowing them to easily capture the limed birds.

Burnt Offerings spoilers, not that you haven't seen the information in this thread already...

I've thrown in a few extra goblins for most fights, so they can run around doing "stoopid goblin tricks" and adding color while the party cleans the floor with their allies.

As any grognard could tell you, the gaming experience is just not complete without something to mock mercilessly.

The new online Dungeon/Dragon/D&D Insider has chosen to give us articles worthy of mockery. The fine people calling the shots at WOTC are providing grist for our humor mill with their bizarre "playtest reports" for 4.0.

Obviously, Paizo's editorial staff, unwilling to be left behind in this burgeoning absurdist gaming movement, have decided that elven ears were the way to go.

I applaud their bold decision.

I am extremely disappointed with those who childishly refer to the elven ears as "bunny ears". As you should be aware, the elves are a people of ancient magical tradition and their ears reflect their magical potential. Rabbits are not known as creatures of any great magical power.

There are, however, creatures known for their mysterious ties to the Faerie, more appropriate as the inspiration of the eldritch elvish ears...

Elves do not have "bunny ears": Those are HARE ears.

I hope this settles the matter.

Random rolls can produce characters with interesting quirks. One of my favorite characters was a 1st Edition paladin who had the bizarre good fortune to have an 18 Intelligence (Rolled on three dice, each assigned to one ability score, with a +2 bonus given to two primary stats). If I were assigning the characteristics, there's no way that I would have come up with a supergenius paladin, the points just aren't there.

Even a character with surprisingly low scores can be amusing. One of my favorite PCs ("Gek the Incompetent") had an Intelligence of 14: The rest of his ability scores were below average. He was still a blast to play.

"Would you like me to give you a carving?" the friendly old man whispered...

If you really want to creep out your players, envision a young boy whose bedroom window overlooked where one of the murders was done. He didn't see the murder itself, but he knows what happened.

He never let his parents find the little carved bird the man gave him: They'd have taken it away.

Now he's nine, and he found a little carving knife stuck in the sill of his window. He doesn't know where it came from, but it has a little bird design on the hilt.

Mother will be worried when he goes missing. After all, she knows that her child talked about Chopper's Island only the day before...

I had decided to drop the story into the Judges' Guild Wilderlands setting, so the party reflects the cultures and religions of that setting. We have a horde of elves:

Valiana, a virginal Elven priestess of Artemis. Beautiful and aloof, she is skeptical of the less-reputable members of the party.

Morfeo, a cadaverous Dark Elf. Clad in robes of midnight black (with ominous glyphs tackily picked out in rhinestones), he is a scythe-wielding necromancer.

Lash, another Dark Elf. His sorcerous powers are enhanced by his obvious draconic heritage.

Mira Lindelea, yet another Elven maiden. She hails from the Bright Courts of the Blessed Isle, where she trained as a bard. She serves as the party's "face", a role that is desperately needed.

Finally, there is Dryia Leaf, a (human!) druid with an affinity for wolves. She brings along her animal companion, a wolf imaginatively named Wolf, and her pet: A large and ill-tempered housecat named Urchin.

So far, Urchin has scored two kills on goblins. He is one mean cat.

I was curious about how the mills in Sandpoint are powered. Historically, waterwheels, tidal mills, and windmills are all realistic, and the mills are well positioned for tidal or other water power.

In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, conflicts between different mills were a common source of lawsuits and other conflicts. Mills that shared the same waterways would often dam off their water sources, causing the water level to rise (reducing the power of the mills upstream) or to fall (reducing the power of mills downstream).

It was also common to license mills at the time, limiting the problems caused by competing mills. Politics between the prominent local families may become an issue, as the Scarnettis try to control the available water power, while the other families oppose their ambitions.

Are the burnt ruins of these mills going to appear in future Pathfinders? If not, my PCs are visiting one as a side quest.

I just started visiting Paizo's boards a few days ago, so I didn't get the chance to jump into the competition. Is Paizo likely to offer anything similar in the near future?

I just started running Burnt Offerings, and the first game was quite successful. I run fairly short sessions, so I ran the first part up to the "Monster in the Closet".

In order to make that battle more dramatic, Amele found them in the middle of the night, as the PCs were returning from an evening at the Rusty Dragon (They are staying at the White Deer). I made the struggle against the goblin more of a cat-and-mouse hunt through the darkened home, with the small, stealthy creature using the crawlspace and a low-ceilinged attic as ways to strike and then retreat before the PCs could get to it. This made it a worthwhile climax to the evening's game.

I'm trying to retool these scenarios into the Judge's Guild Wilderlands setting. The Wilderlands' multiplicity of gods and pantheons makes the religious refitting easy, but trying to fit in the political setting is tougher. I'd appreciate any suggestions people have along those lines.

Aimiku Kaijitsu is unexpectedly emerging as a major character, as one of the PCs (a bard) has established a friendly rivalry with her. I'll be using her to deliver some of the "hooks" for future adventures.