Faces of the Tarnished Souk: An NPC Collection (PFRPG)

4.50/5 (based on 2 ratings)
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On an impossible island far across the Slumbering Sea, there churns a shadowy marketplace known as the Tarnished Souk. The motley faces of this bazaar of the bizarre include merchants, mages, and walking nightmares, each providing their own unique goods and services, each selling dreams, buying miracles, and trading lives as readily as coin. After entering the Souk's weird and winding aisles, the question for a dreamer is not whether they have what you want, but rather: are you willing to pay their price?

Faces of the Tarnished Souk provides:

  • A host of complex and unique NPCs that a GM can easily drop into nearly any campaign.
  • Each NPC features ingenious stat-blocks crafted using a staggering array of classes, templates, magic items, feats, and traits, including dozens of wild new elements and combinations, that will surprise and challenge nearly any PC.
  • Every entry includes game statistics for low, middle, and high challenge ratings, so that they are suitable for all levels of play.
  • Each comes with easy-to-use tactics, personal histories, motivations, lore DCs, secrets, and insights into each NPC's most carefully guarded dreams.
  • This product presents each NPC so that it can serve as either friend or foe, as well as providing a service or product so they always help to generate evocative encounters for anyone who steps up to see what they have to offer.

Author: Matt Banach & Justin Sluder
Cover Artist: Juan Diego Dianderes
Pages: 320, black & white softcover or PDF

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4.50/5 (based on 2 ratings)

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4/5

Faces of the Tarnished Souk is quite the bookful. It is a huge book with lots of pieces. When I first heard of it I was under the impression that it was pretty much an NPC codex but it’s a bit more than that making it a lot to take in and evaluate who would want this and what they would use it for.

Well for the most part it is mostly an NPC book but the NPCs are crazy. They’re all a mixture of third party classes, archetypes, templates, races and/or feats, making for characters that don’t really don’t really fit in most situations. They’re mostly NPCs that you would want as an endgame villain or the end of a chapter of an adventure path. To make them fit in a few slots other than the end of an adventure each of the NPCs come in high CR, mid-CR and low CR. That way if you encounter them early in your adventuring carreer you can meet them again later when they’ve leveled up too.

Each NPC has a few paragraphs about their personality and history along with how they appear in Coliseum Morpheuon and how to use them. Sometimes there is a lore chart to determine what kind of information you can get about them using knowledge checks. This is the point where I realized that while I’ve heard of the Coliseum Morpheuon I have no idea what that is, and I refuse to look it up for this review because really it can stand on its own and I think that’s important for my purposes.

There is a downside. Since there’s a lot of third party material used sometimes you’re left not knowing exactly what’s going on with a character. The races, feats, templates and traits are all covered because they mostly appear in the last ¼ of the book, (Which is actually pretty amazing, I didn’t know about some of these despite having a lot of third party products and some of those are really cool.) but you’re going to have to find some of the classes on your own. For the most part it isn’t that big of a problem but the psionic one, the Savants that make you need to really need to look at another product to figure out how the NPC works. Although the Artisan’s portfolio was confusing because I don’t know what it is. Luckily this doesn’t cost you money because all of the classes in the book appear on d20pfsrd.com except I can’t figure out if the Artisans in the book is a Drop Dead Studios Artisan or something else.

There are a few format glitches, like text that should be bolded, the Rite logo looking wonky and one bit where two paragraphs are in the wrong order but other than that I didn’t really notice anything wrong. As a whole I really like this book. These aren’t really NPCs that you throw in a game and more NPCs that you build a campaign around which says a lot for their creativity, vividness and uniqueness. The format is nice and easy to read, and the art brings some of the characters to life very well. I would give this product 4 stars. Its imaginative and useful but I feel like it makes me have to do almost as much work as it saves by pulling from such a variety of sources. I’m a bit okay because I have most of these options in other books I own but I can’t say the same for everyone.


An Endzeitgeist.com review

5/5

This massive book clocks in at no less than 323 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 2 pages of ToC, 4 pages of SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 314 pages of content, so let's take a look!

This review was moved ahead in my reviewing queue as a prioritized review at the request of my patreons.

Well, first of all, I will deviate from my usual take on detailed analysis of the individual pieces of content herein -why? Because that would take AGES and bloat this review beyond the page-count where this would have any semblance of help for anyone of my readers. Beyond that, there is another factor - I have written detailed reviews for each and every NPC (apart from the new one) sported in this massive compilation - combining them would result in more than 30 pages, so there you go. If you're interested in one particular NPC, you can have a detailed analysis of said build in my individual review of the respective pdfs. If you have read them, here's a general summation of what sets the NPCs apart.

Fluff-wise, the Tarnished Souk can be considered an interplanar nexus situated on the plane of dreams, right outside the legendary Coliseum Morpheuon, where the most powerful mortals and immortals duke it out under the auspice of the khan of nightmares, all hoping to gain the cusp of desires. Oh, and yes, the tarrasque is actually part of the competition's challenges, to give you an inkling of the level of expertise required in this competition. Dreams are a vaulable currency in Coliseum Morpheuon and thus, they actually carry relevance beyond the story's basic requirements for the characters in question. As such, they may actually be found by PCs and provide a level of background information one regularly does not expect. Dreams are more, though - they are power. While dreamburning rules from Coliseum Morpheuon are not required for this book, it does add a nice further dimension and honestly, Coliseum Morpheuon is the best high-level module available for Pathfinder, so you definitely should have that beast anyways.

So what is special about the NPCs herein? Well, regarding crunch they are special to me because they don't suck. There. I said it. Pathfinder's high-level gameplay and the general experience of many a DM that high-level gameplay comes apart, at least partially, is due to just about all published books simply having an impossible job at their hands: The directive is to create adversaries that a casual gaming group can vanquish and the more the levels pile up, the bigger the discrepancy becomes between people that exhibit a high degree of system mastery and those who don't. At high levels, this ultimately leads to whining I've seen on boards about ACs of 36 in high level-ranges where that is not an insurmountable defense. At the same time, posts complain about 1-round curb-stomping BBeGs, a problem exacerbated by the mythic rules, famously being quoted by Alexander Augunas as the Rocket-launcher-standoff.

In my main campaign, I run next to no unmodified published modules - why? Because, if I took Karzoug against half my group, they'd mop the floor with him. Yes, I'm talking about the enhanced Anniversary Edition. Playtesting published modules only VERY rarely results in any PC deaths at my table, even in Frog God Games killer beasts. And I'm not alone in this issue. While my group may be an extreme example, it is a trend that is exacerbated with each new release, with each slight power-creep. In 3.X that resulted in me wearing down my Advanced Bestiary and templating EVERYTHING. In PFRPG, I follow a similar modus operandi, though one supplemented with many, many base classes, archetypes etc. So that would be problem No.1.

Problem number 2 is a more pleasant one to have - ultimately, there are MANY awesome 3pp-products out there -glorious base-classes, exceedingly fun subsystems etc. - and yes, I'm using more 3pp material than Paizo material at this point. Alack and alas, there is no big 3pp NPC Codex and that means making A LOT of NPCs and monsters from scratch. Faces of the Tarnished Souk did something rather unique - it provides a vast array of templates,. both original and from the best of sources and combines them with unique classes - taskshapers and time thieves, malefactors - whatever your heart desires, there is a good chance you'll find some of the unmitigated stars within these pages. Add to that unique, custom-tailored magic items and you get an array of NPCs that is ACTUALLY CHALLENGING.

Now that would be awesome in and of itself, but it becomes even better when you take into account the vast imaginative potential that lies at the roots of the characters provided herein - you won't find "Human Paladin 20" herein - instead, you'll find, for example, Nameless Nil, the Beggar of Self. An imaginary friend turned killer turned beggar, whose wonderful class/template line reads "Bloody Maw Half-construct horrifically overpowered hungry nightmare unfettered eidolon savant 10." This is, as the back cover proudly proclaims, NOT your pappy's NPC book. Nameless Nil's prose and background story ranks among the best pieces of character writing I have seen in ANY roleplaying product, btw. - this guy is my favorite NPC for Pathfinder. Yes, I'm talking about all-out number 1 spot. Oh, and have I mentioned that, for example the legendary bulwark Ahnkar-Kosh has an AC of 64? This should put an end to the smirk on your level 20 min-maxers face...

But wait, before you put away this review - no, not all NPCs in this book exist only in the CR ~20-range - instead, each of the NPCs herein comes with a build for low levels, mid levels and high levels, allowing you to introduce the NPCs at any level you like and depict their progression to greatness- or utilize the statblocks of the lower iterations for servants, creatures or whatever you like. Another issue you may expect to face would lie in the aforementioned presence of a lot of 3pp-content utilized in the truly beautiful builds created herein. Well, approximately the last 100 pages of the book are used to provide all rules used in the builds of this massive cadre of glorious CHARACTERS. For, thanks to the interplay of glorious prose and superb crunch, the NPCs become more than the sum of their respective parts.

If you are not inspired by the glorious write-ups of the respective NPCs, many of which can spawn multiple adventures (or even campaigns!), boxes with pieces of advice further help using the NPCs and integrating them into the mythos of your campaign. Have I btw. mentioned Smiles-Under-teh-Bed, the legendary Cheshire cat that is pretty much a psychotic, playful killer that clocks in at CR 19 in its most powerful iteration? The eidolon that is the summoner that wants to be mortal? The goblin time thief convinced that things between the seconds are gearing up to tear time and reality asunder? If you have ANY joy contemplating high-stakes games, personal tragedies, captivating NPCs and a level of imagination I have not seen since the heyday of Planescape, and there only in its better products, then this compilation should be considered a ridiculously glorious must-buy.

How can this be further enhanced? well, the original pdfs sported some artwork which has since been used by other supplements as well - this has been expanded by new pieces that seamlessly fit with the respective character portrayals, with Juan Diego Dianderas and Kamil Jadczak delivering great pieces in the fitting b/w-standard this book offers and adding to the talents of illustrators that not only include master of the creepy Mark Hyzer, but also Tamás Baranya and Hugo Solis and many, many more. How can this be made better on a content-level, you ask? Well, what about adding a brand new NPC by none other than legendary, Ennie-award-winning design Ben McFarland? This would be Strai Tkossirk, the whispered word of dream. This would be, in his highest CR-iteration, a psychic (telekinetic) vrock oracle (aetherurgist) - and the level of imaginative potential of this NPC in no way falls back behind the ridiculously high standard of the series, utilizing for example a magical drug-addiction in the mid-level version. And yes, as per the tradition with this series, vivid prose, GM-advice and tactics combine to create a creature that is more than the sum of its myriad parts. On a nitpicky side - I think it would have made more sense to include him in the NPC-roster instead of in the appendix, but that is ultimately one design in a huge book....and remains the only true gripe I can muster against this tome.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are very good, especially for a massive tome of this size. Layout adheres to a printer-friendly two-column b/w-standard with elegant borders and the artworks provided, as mentioned above, are thematically fitting and, in many cases, awesome. The book comes fully bookmarked for your convenience.

I have all individual pdfs printed out. I want this book in dead-tree. This is not "an" NPC collection - to me, this is THE NPC collection. Faces of the Tarnished Souk epitomizes what made me a fan of Rite Publishing in the first place: The combination of awesome prose and imaginative fluff that goes one step further. I guarantee that the vast majority of characters herein, once encountered, will remain the talk of your gaming groups for years to come. Beyond the cool mechanics, this series has pretty much defined what I consider apex-level NPC-crafting and remains my point of reference for any such book. It should be noted that exactly ONE pdf can claim to adhere to this level of awesomeness beyond the series - LPJr Design's Cyrix. That's pretty much it.

When anyone asks me for challenging or simply evocative NPC builds, this book immediately comes to mind. When someone asks me for the spirit of truly uncommon fantasy, this book is what I think about. Whether as antagonists, allies or both, the characters herein pretty much define my campaigns in subtle ways - by the legends they have crafted, by the guidance they provide, by the growth my PCs can witness. Matt Banach, Justin Sluder, Steven D. Russell and Ben McFarland have quite simply created THE NPC collection for the discerning game-master, the remedy for players bored with standard builds and, via the builds herein, a great toolkit for GMs to use themselves.

Even if you never plan to run any of the characters herein and are not interested in Coliseum Morpheuon, this book provides so many iconic characters that it remains my honest belief that this book can serve as an inspiration for other settings as well. If my gushing diatribe before was not ample clue, I consider this quite frankly the best NPC collection out there, one distinguished by excellence in the beautiful statblocks AND the prose that draws vivid pictures of truly unique characters that deserve the moniker while epitomizing the key strengths of Rite Publishing as a publisher. This book, unsurprisingly, receives a final verdict of 5 stars + seal of approval as well as being a candidate for my Top Ten of 2015.

Endzeitgeist out.



I saw this in an email from Rite and I'm interested.

Is this book Hardcover or Softcover?


Per the description, I think it is s soft cover (also matches the POD offering over on DTRPG).


*facepalm*

I need to read more carefully before asking stupid questions.


Yep its a softcover.

I am with you Itchy I often wish they would put that next to the price point so you know exactly what you are buying.


I love these NPC collections.

Webstore Gninja Minion

Rite Publishing wrote:

Yep its a softcover.

I am with you Itchy I often wish they would put that next to the price point so you know exactly what you are buying.

You could just ask and I can change them on your products. :) (Like I just did for this one.)

The default assumption for the website is that every physical book is going to be a softcover—hardcovers are called out where appropriate.


Am I wrong or did the at-cost print copy link from Rite's Kickstarter say "Hardcover B&W Book" during check out?


The hardcover was exclusive to the Kickstarter Thanael.


Liz Courts wrote:


You could just ask and I can change them on your products. :) (Like I just did for this one.)

The default assumption for the website is that every physical book is going to be a softcover—hardcovers are called out where appropriate.

See I did not know you could do that!

Grand Lodge

Congrats Justin and Matt for this finally coming out!

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 16

Andrew Betts wrote:
Congrats Justin and Matt for this finally coming out!

Thankee kindly. We're very excited to see this collection in print, and the glorious additional artwork Steve commissioned is just beautiful icing on the cake.

Dark Archive

Ezekiel Shanoax, the Stormchild wrote:
Andrew Betts wrote:
Congrats Justin and Matt for this finally coming out!
Thankee kindly. We're very excited to see this collection in print, and the glorious additional artwork Steve commissioned is just beautiful icing on the cake.

Ditto. :)


Rite Publishing wrote:
The hardcover was exclusive to the Kickstarter Thanael.

Yay! *happydance*


Rite Publishing wrote:
The hardcover was exclusive to the Kickstarter Thanael.

I'm sad that I missed this Kickstarter. I didn't even know it was going on. :(

Obladee, Obladah, life goes on!


Look to eBay or the resellers (nobleknight) who sometimes back kickstarters for the HC.

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 16

Also, if you're interested in Faces of the Tarnished Souk and/or Coliseum Morpheuon, take a look at Lost In Dream, Rite Publishing's recently-published Faces of the Tarnished Souk novel.

Lost In Dream features several NPCs taken direct from the pages of Faces, including Magnus Thrax, Brynhild Eirensdottir, and Le Loup Solitaire, and further explores the wild and wooly plane of Dream.

Check it out!


Lost in Dream is on my shelf in list of books to read. I just have to get there...


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber

On my "must buy" list.


I have a question: What kind of classes are in here? Any third party classes? Do they range to APG classes?

Grand Lodge

Yes there are 3rd party classes and templates. Justin did a phenomenal job. Just got my HC copy a couple hours ago. It's beautiful.

Dark Archive

Someone just pointed out that Zara's Mr. Bear is missing... How?

Liberty's Edge

Andrew Betts wrote:
Yes there are 3rd party classes and templates. Justin did a phenomenal job. Just got my HC copy a couple hours ago. It's beautiful.

A run-down of what classes are covered would probably be a good idea ...

Dark Archive

Classes
Armiger (Rogue Genius Games)
Artisan (Rite Publishing)
Godling, Mighty (Rogue Genius Games)
Jotun Paragon (Rite Publishing)
Luckbringer (Rite Publishing)
Magister (Rogue Genius Games)
Malefactor (TPK Games
Psychic Warrior (Dreamscarred Press)
Savant (Kobold Press)
Shadow Assassin (Rogue Genius Games)
Taskshaper (Rite Publishing)
Time Thief (Rogue Genius Games)
White Necormancer (Kobold Press)

Prestige Classes
Metamind (Dreamscarred Press)
War Mind (Dreamscarred Press)

As for templates and archetypes, there's a lot of them.


Reviewed first on endzeitgeist.com, then submitted to Nerdtrek and GMS magazine and posted on Lou Agresta's RPGaggression and posted here, on OBS and d20pfsrd.com's shop.


I went ahead and did a review. Can anyone direct me to the Artisan class?


Malwing wrote:
I went ahead and did a review. Can anyone direct me to the Artisan class?

the Artisan

I like this class. After viewing it on d20pfsrd, I bought it.


Spiral_Ninja wrote:
Malwing wrote:
I went ahead and did a review. Can anyone direct me to the Artisan class?

the Artisan

I like this class. After viewing it on d20pfsrd, I bought it.

Is that the same one? It does not have a portfolio mechanic so I'm a bit confused.


Malwing wrote:
Spiral_Ninja wrote:
Malwing wrote:
I went ahead and did a review. Can anyone direct me to the Artisan class?

the Artisan

I like this class. After viewing it on d20pfsrd, I bought it.

Is that the same one? It does not have a portfolio mechanic so I'm a bit confused.

Oh. Sorry, I didn't realize what you meant. I don't know. Well, now I have a reason to buy this book... ;)


The artisan was created for Kahrvass, and introduced in this supplement. It was supposed to have been compiled in the FotTS: An NPC Collection, but I don't actually see the artisan base class in the book. So, it looks like to get the full base class, you need to buy the PDF with just Kahrvass separately. It's only $1, but that still seems like a bug (since this book is supposed to be a compilation of all the FotTS PDFs, but you still need to buy one separately).

Dark Archive

I'm pretty sure the reason my Artisan class wasn't included was due to space. Steve would know.


Justin Sluder wrote:
I'm pretty sure the reason my Artisan class wasn't included was due to space. Steve would know.

To be fair, you don't actually need the artisan class to use the statblocks in this book. I can accept that cutting things for space is something that happens in print books...

Maybe someone who can edit d20pfsrd.com should add the Artisan.

Dark Archive

Sources – Z.Z Grimshanks

Race: Goblin

Classes: Monk (Archetype: Martial Artist), Time Thief

Templates: Accelerated, Betrayer, Charming, Jaunting, Stealthy, Wounding

Feats: All Core Rules, except Time Reaver (see Chapter 3 of the Collection)

Traits: Dangerously Curious, Dream-Barren

Gear: assessor's goggles, belt of fate, continuum's edge, infiltrator's boots, infiltrator's gloves, ring of perfection, sliver (see Chapter 4 of the Collection). His remaining gear can be found in the PRD.

Anything lacking a link can be found in the PRD.

I'm in the slow process of working up a complete list of sources for this book, including links to rules not found in the PRD.

Dark Archive

Justin Sluder wrote:
I'm in the slow process of working up a complete list of sources for this book, including links to rules not found in the PRD.

Sorry, this won't be happening by my hand. :(


Faces of the Tarnished Souk has been discounted a whopping 70% on OBS in the lead-up to GM day!


I just realized that the "Summon the Dead" line of summoning spells are lacking the lists of monsters that they can summon. That's a pretty big omission (I'm assuming it was in earlier versions of the product and got cut in an editing error).

Dark Archive

1 person marked this as a favorite.
137ben wrote:
I just realized that the "Summon the Dead" line of summoning spells are lacking the lists of monsters that they can summon. That's a pretty big omission (I'm assuming it was in earlier versions of the product and got cut in an editing error).

It did. :(

Summon the Dead stuffs:
Summon the Dead I: Ghoul, Skeleton (2-3 HD), Skeleton (1 HD, 1d3), Zombie (3-4 HD), Zombie (2 HD or less, 1d3)
Summon the Dead II: Skeleton (4-5 HD), Zombie (5-6 HD)
Summon the Dead III: Ghast, Shadow, Skeleton (6-7 HD), Wight, Zombie (7-10 HD)
Summon the Dead IV: Skeleton (8-9 HD), Zombie (11-14 HD)
Summon the Dead V: Skeleton (10-11 HD, Wraith, Zombie (15-16 HD)
Summon the Dead VI: Skeleton (12-14 HD), Zombie (17-20 HD)
Summon the Dead VII: Skeleton (15-17 HD), Spectre
Summon the Dead VIII: Mohrg, Shadow, greater , Skeleton (18-20 HD)
Summon the Dead IX: Devourer, dread wraith

The summon the dead spells originated in the pages of Kobold Quarterly #7, where the spells are named Animate Dead I-IX, and include a little more information. They've probably been updated and included in another Kobold Press product, but I don't know.

Liberty's Edge

Justin Sluder wrote:
137ben wrote:
I just realized that the "Summon the Dead" line of summoning spells are lacking the lists of monsters that they can summon. That's a pretty big omission (I'm assuming it was in earlier versions of the product and got cut in an editing error).

It did. :(

** spoiler omitted **

The summon the dead spells originated in the pages of Kobold Quarterly #7, where the spells are named Animate Dead I-IX, and include a little more information. They've probably been updated and included in another Kobold Press product, but I don't know.

Just going from memory, but I think they are all in Deep Magic

Dark Archive

Marc Radle wrote:
Justin Sluder wrote:
137ben wrote:
I just realized that the "Summon the Dead" line of summoning spells are lacking the lists of monsters that they can summon. That's a pretty big omission (I'm assuming it was in earlier versions of the product and got cut in an editing error).

It did. :(

** spoiler omitted **

The summon the dead spells originated in the pages of Kobold Quarterly #7, where the spells are named Animate Dead I-IX, and include a little more information. They've probably been updated and included in another Kobold Press product, but I don't know.

Just going from memory, but I think they are all in Deep Magic

Not a surprise, you are correct. Thanks for pointing that out. :)

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