Thanks for getting this up and perfect Vic.
The Sexy our first Full Color Print Product in partnership with Cubicle 7 should be out in November, the final pdf is in proofing!
Our patrons are reviewing that proofing copy as I type this.
Snoopy Happy Dance of gaming geekness!
If you have any question I will be happy to answer them.
The Cover Image is Art by Jason Rainville, the layout is by Claudia "DarkHanna" Burgos
Great! I've been looking forward to this for quite a while.
Edited out patron-only question. Sorry Steve.
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Is this an extra planar gladiatorial adventure and setting? Any new classes/races/feats/magic/monsters?
Yes to the monsters.
Yes to New Player options in the form of Dreamburning and dreamburning traits.No new classes though.
It is a combined campaign setting/high level adventure meant to be easily customized for any high level campaign set in the Plane of Dreams. The adventure does take place in an arena setting during a high-level gladiatorial contest.
Just a reminder that if its a patron question there is the patron forums or the Compatiblity Forums. As this is the Paizo Store Forum and a patron sale is not one going through Paizo.
Thank you
Steve Russell
Rite Publishing
@Justin the Big
If you want new Races and Classes I suggest our pathfinder rpg pdfs.
You can find them HERE
@BenS its ok, its just alot of various obligations for me to juggle, to patrons (as my existing direct sale customers), to paizo (as the retailer and our Licencor), and to Cubicle 7 (as the print/distribution partner) who is also part of the sales in this forum.
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@Justin the Big
If you want new Races and Classes I suggest our pathfinder rpg pdfs.You can find them HERE
Yep! Got 'em already!
Looks like I'll pick up this product too!
@Justin the Big;
Well then, thank you for your support!
The PDF looks very nice, I can't wait to see it in glorious printed color.
@deionl; Thank you
Here is a preview of the Back Cover: Click Here
Illustration by Jason Rainville; Layout by Claudia "DarkHanna" Burgos
Is the PDF available via paizo?
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Is the PDF available via paizo?
Not yet, but it will be eventually. Patrons get it as soon as it is available but the PDF will be released to the general populace in conjunction with the print book, and if you order a print copy, the PDF, I believe, will be included in that price. We are looking at a November release.
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As it stands, if my players completed Rise of the Runelords and ** spoiler omitted **.
Would that be an opportunity to follow up with Coliseum Morpheuon?
You could certainly work it that way, though it would take some work on your part to make it segue smoothly, (but it certainly could be done).
The module portion of the adventure contains an introduction adventure in which the PCs, having come to the attention of the Powers running the Coliseum, recieve an invitation to participate in the games and instructions on how to get there.
While this sounds generic, the adventure also has a half dozen subplots to tailor to the skills and desires of your PCs to explain why they might want accept the invitation and who else, besides the Khan running the Coliseum, might invite them first. These plots include freeing a captive devil, setting slaves free, getting the bounty on a powerful efreet on the lam, and saving the soul of a fallen, now undead, lillend.
The default assumption of the adventure however, is that your PCs have just completed a major story arc, like an adventure path, and now they need something else to do with their time, so it is most certainly a viable follow up to Rise of the Rune Lords.
GeraintElberion I would have the PCs stumble across a ghost ship of Leng, that sails onto the Slumbering Sea toward the isle of the Colieseum (The PCs are not of leng so they can't pilot it correctly; aboard ship they find the invitation which was ment for someone else but the PCs can pose as that group!
@Zen79 Our patrons had early access but the PDF will be available November 1st for Retail customers we are working with our print/distribution partner Cubicle Seven to make the PDF available to customers who preorder the print copy, as soon as the finalized PDF is ready.
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GeraintElberion I would have the PCs stumble across a ghost ship of Leng, that sails onto the Slumbering Sea toward the isle of the Colieseum (The PCs are not of leng so they can't pilot it correctly; aboard ship they find the invitation which was ment for someone else but the PCs can pose as that group!
sweet!
OH just so folks know we are working on a Anthology Fiction book to go along with this.
GeraintElverion
No the Khan of Nightmares just planted the idea in your dreams to bring your PCs to him ;)
Would that be an opportunity to follow up with Coliseum Morpheuon?
Heck yeah. I'd have the portal swirl and strangely deposit them on the island's shore, near the Coliseum...watch hilarity ensue.
-Ben.
Such is the Will of the Khan of Nightmares!
I also need to sit down and talk about what we want to do a preview of.
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The PDF was released today to Patrons and I thought it was worth mentioning that as supplements to the adventure there are five PDF map packs and a pack of paper miniatures. The map packs, for those not familiar with Rite map packs, are put together in such a way as to allow DMs to print out, on stock, sections of the map and then put them together into one large battle map with one inch squares. Personally, I'm looking forward to using the maps in conjunction with the scenarios.
Paper minis and map packs will be separate retail releases. Patrons got them free as a bonus. But I am will be working with Vic this week to get a PDF bundle to those who preorder through paizo.
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Can you say how much of the book is devoted to information on the mini-setting and how much is the adventure itself? I don't really enjoy high level play so I'm not as interested in the adventure. But the setting sounds interesting, so I'm quite tempted to pick it up it if there's much detail about it. :)
Its about half and half (edit: 53 out of 123 pages so a little less than half). Admittedly, the NPCs statted in both the campaign setting and the adventure are all high level encounters (CR 15+), but there are adventure seeds in the setting information to help DMs who want to use the setting as a backdrop for lower levels of play and though the adventure itself takes place in the Chimeric Amphitheatre, the centerpiece of the Coliseum, there are other arenas in the Coliseum in which it is possible for fighters and competitors to work their way up the gladiatorial ladder (ie. low level adventurers don't go straight into the main arena, they have to build up a reputation first as participation in the Chimeric Amphitheatre is by invitation only).
The breakdown of the campaign setting part of the book is as follows: 1. An overview of the Plane of Dreams, 2. Rules on Dreamburning, a new subsystem which is sort of like action points but more personal to the dreamers, 3. A small selection of denizens of the dreaming plane (ie. new monsters) 4. An overview of the Island of the Coliseum, home of the Coliseum Morpheuon (this is the chapter that provides information allowing DMs to run adventures on the Island, including rumors of the Coliseum and adventure seeds for the Island), 5. A selection of NPCs populating the Island (16 high level NPC stat blocks and 1 monster)
@Sonic Legends I tried, they responed to my first email, then never got back to me with a quote for its cost. Sigh.
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Thanks for the breakdown Wicht, much appreciated! The split between setting and adventure information sounds fairly comparable to what's in a Paizo AP volume. I still find those interesting and useful even when I don't plan to run the adventure, so it sounds like there should be enough there to make this worth getting for me. :)
And you never know, you might actually find the adventure to be something you want to use too. :)
Oh and this preorder should be available with the PDF soon, as Vic was getting things set up earlier today, and now has the PDF file.
Chief Technical Officer
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Yep... should be ready in just a bit.Oh and this preorder should be available with the PDF soon, as Vic was getting things set up earlier today, and now has the PDF file.
It's up now, though it may take a few minutes before everyone can see it properly everywhere (especially in places like this discussion thread).
@Vic
Thanks so much
[Doing the Snoopy happy dance of joy]
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The opportunity to add a Table of Contents came up today and so I've put one together. For those interested here is the (unedited) Table of Contents for Coliseum Morpheuon:
Coliseum Morpheuon
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter One: The Plane of Dreams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 1
• Planar Traits • Morphic Subjective Gravity • Regions of the Dream Plane • Dream Messages •
Storms on the Slumbering Sea • Inhabitants of the Slumbering Sea • Entering the Plane of Dreams •
Chapter Two: Dreamburning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Page 5
• Character Preparation • Using Dreams • Story and Mechanics • Sacrificing a Dream •
Repairing a Dream • Dream Theft • Dreamburning Traits • Why Traits and not Feats •
Alternate Dreamburning • Designer's Notes: Why Use Dreamburning •
Chapter Three: Denizens of the Dream. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Page 10
• Overview of the Inhabitants of the Dream Plane • Chittering Dream Eater • Denizen of Leng •
Oneirobound • Oneirobound Lord • Qarnjthak •
Chapter Four: The Island of the Coliseum Morpheuon . . . . . . . . Page 17
• History • Society • The Voracious Visitor • The Great Coliseum • Beyond the Coliseum •
Rumors of the Coliseum Morpheuon • Adventure Seeds for the Coliseum Morpheuon •
Chapter Five: Denizens of the Coliseum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 25
• Overview of the Denizens of the Coliseum • Auberyon • Black Glass Spade • Deuce of Clubs •
The Dragon of the Ghostdance • Hounds of Ill-Prophecy • Ioanna Vipersshade • Jack of Diamonds •
Jig • The Khan of Nightmares • Khanbika Khongordzal • Khanzadeh Sukhbataar • Lady Puzzledeep •
Lai Elderon • Meabh Liadan • Munt Pan Nadish • The Pasha of Swirling Ashes •
Chapter Six: An Overview of the Epoch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Page 54
• The Background of the Damnation Epoch • The Cup of Desires • A Summary of the Damnation Epoch •
Adapting the Damnation Epoch • An Overview of the Contents of this Adventure •
Designer's Notes: To Kill the Khan or to Not Kill the Khan • The Benefactors • Rivals for the Cup •
The Khan of Nightmares and the Damnation Epoch •
Chapter Seven: An Invitation to Damnation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 60
• Synopsis for “An Invitation to Damnation” • Starting the Adventure •
How Much do They Know? • Reaching the Coliseum • Trial by Guardians • Trial by Inquisition •
Trial by Hindrance • Into the City of the Coliseum • Rumors in the Coliseum • Trial by Fire •
Trial by Peers • Handouts •
Chapter Eight: The Tests of the Coliseum Morpheuon . . . . . . . . . . . .Page 72
• Encounters 1 - 34 •
Chapter Nine: The Tests of the Damnation Epoch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 77
• The Chains of Guilt • Capture the Mast • Into the Fire • The Test of the Dragon Riders •
Chaotic Time • Black Stone on the Rocks • Rage against the Machine • When a Star Falls •
Race against the Beast • The Coming of the Voracious Visitor •
Chapter Ten: Secrets of the Coliseum Morpheuon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 98
• The Salvation Epoch • Destroying the Umbral Blot • The Pasha's Riches • The Dragon's Mate •
Sympathy for the Devil • Setting the Captives Free •
Appendixes
Appendix 1: The Dirges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Page 103
• Gallows • Fran Kindle • Mother • Pike • Winegrow Sop •
Appendix 2: The Grey Feathers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 112
• Drahka-Kuhl • Erzebeth Nostrayli • Koranger • Loren Desharn • Rainbow •
Appendix 3: Pregenerated Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Page 118
• Midnight Son • Patience • Ragnar Grimrson • Unfettered Sky Cirith •
Thanks for the ToC, Jonathan
Disclaimer:
I’ve been a part of this patronage project and have contributed some minor pieces to it. This review takes a look at the pdf version as the print version has not yet been released. If the print version is somewhat different from the pdf, I’m going to edit and expand my review accordingly.
The pdf is a whopping 127 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page back cover, 1 page editorial, 1page OGL. That leaves us with 123 pages.
A quick glance at the cover and interior shows you that CM is a full-color book, and a beautiful one at that – both the full-color artworks and the formatting is beautiful to behold and easy to read. That being said, let’s jump into the action.
The pdf kicks off with an informative introduction on the subject matter of the plane of dreams in literature and gaming that serves to provide both nice recommended readings as well as lead into the first chapter.
Chapter 1: The Plane of Dreams (4 pages) – This chapter has some information on the plane of dreams, e.g. how to temporarily change gravity, the altered effects of the dream spell as well as 5 sub-regions of the plane of dreams, all evocatively written and full of possible adventure seeds. I especially enjoyed some subtle nods to Lovecraft in “The Ghoulish Cliffs” and the disturbing nature of the “Idle Isles of Daydream”, where one may literally dream one’s life away.
Chapter 2: Dreamburning (5 pages, one of which is an artwork of the spell Dream Stealing in action) – Dreams are power in the plane and subsequently three levels of personal dreams are introduced: Hopes, Aspirations and Goals. These three are determined via 3 simple questions
if you don’t want to design tailor-made questions or need some guidance. Why use dreams, you ask? Well, you might burn dreams to gain all sorts of benefits and the practice of dream-burning is simply role-playing gold for any players. Players may even permanently sacrifice their dreams or lose them – as everyone knows who ever had one of his/her dreams squashed, a significant loss. Being presented mostly mechanically, we also get the influences of high-level magic like limited wish and Restoration on degraded and/or destroyed dreams. Plus, we get an interesting moral choice: Via the destruction of other people’s dreams, one may regain a lost dream – this being, of course, an evil act shoots close to home is a hard choice and somewhat reminiscent of the choices one may have to face throughout life. Furthermore, we get new dreamburning-related traits that might be converted to feats, Designer’s notes (with which I wholeheartedly agree) on the reason for using dreamburning and some additional pieces of advice on how to expand/change or eliminate parts of the rules.
Chapter 3: Denizens of Dream (7 pages) – This chapter kicks off with 2 pages on how the different kinds of creatures are represented on the plane of dreams, what can e.g. be encountered and so on. 4 new monsters are introduced, all of which are cool and have some nice twist or cool ability. Even one of my favorites, the Denizen of Leng, has been upgraded to PFRPG – very nice.
Chapter 4: The Island of the Coliseum Morpheuon (8 pages) – The Island in the plane of dreams that contains the Coliseum is detailed herein in Gazetteer-style and depth: We get notes on the strange society within, on the Pagodas of Patricide, Regicide and Deicide, the Voracious Visitor (a strange, black moon orbiting the Coliseum), adventure seeds for going beyond the Coliseum Morpheuon, more than one page of rumors and seeds to kick off whole campaigns centered on the Coliseum.
Chapter 5: Denizens of the Coliseum (28 pages) –If you’re looking for a high-level adversary, this chapter alone is worth the price. Some of the Evocative City Sites – pdfs by Rite Publishing featured extremely complex, cool stat-blocks. This chapter is chock-full with them. But you undoubtedly want some examples, so here you go: We get Auberyon (also known to the Warhammer-crowd as Oberon), master of the wild hunt. His bodyguard IS a part of the hunt, a hound-creature that can split up into smaller hounds. (This statblock also features 2 new weapon qualities). We also get adversaries/benefactors like “The Dragon of the Ghost-Dance”, “Lady Puzzledeep, the Witch of Stolen Hopes”, several others and also notably “The Pasha of the Swirling Ashes” whom you can take a look at in the free Rite Review- magazine.
Chapter 6: An Overview of the Epoch (6 pages) – The contest of the Damnation Epoch is given an overview for the DM here, including several possible reasons for the PCs to participate in the contest – each and every one sets a different tone for the epoch and thus greatly increasing the replayability of the scenario. We also get short comprehensive summaries of some of the potential benefactors. There are also some other teams of contenders for the DM to develop upon as well as information on how to roleplay the Khan of Nightmares.
After this chapter, we get to the adventure section of the book and thus MAJOR SPOILERS. PLAYERS, PLEASE STOP READING HERE:
Chapter 10: Secrets of the Coliseum Morpheuon (5 pages) – This chapter has 6 possible sample campaigns for different benefactors in the Coliseum Morpheuon, including different plot secrets and climaxes, further cementing the potential for several wildly different scenarios in CM.
Appendix 1: The Dirges (8 pages): This chapter contains the undead, evil team that is one of the opposing teams for the PCs.
Appendix 2: The Gray Feathers (5 pages): Written by yours truly, this is another team of adversaries, albeit not one as villainous.
Appendix 3: Pregenerated Characters(5 pages): This contains 4 pregens, 2 Ironborn, 1 Jotun Paragon and 1 Wyrd – all of which are cool races and make nice NSCs, too.
Conclusion:
If there has ever been a premium product, this is one. Formatting and editing is top-notch, wording is concise, I didn’t notice any typos or glitches, the full-color artwork is just beautiful and in some cases even on Paizo-level. The prose as well as the crunch is extremely imaginative, chockfull of brilliant ideas and the whole book just oozes creativity, originality and, most important, fun. The plane of dreams and its mutability are fully utilized to provide some awesome battlefields, cosmopolitan (or rather cosmoplanar) encounters, adversaries and allies.
Patrons also got a several map packs and paper minis for the opposing teams – I’m not entirely sure whether they are included in this deal or not.
The maximum amount of replayability and the sheer amount of potential ways the whole storyline can be portrayed by the DM with the information contained herein is another major plus for me.
I tried very hard to be nitpicky with this one, I really wanted to find some fault. The only possible criticisms I could offer is that some maps are used for more than one encounter and beyond that, (because I’m a sucker for those) that I’d love to have seen a fully written dinner-scene within, not just some guidelines and seeds and ideas for the DM to develop.
If you for example liked the adventure in Malhavoc Press’ “Hyperconscious”, you will LOVE this – it just goes one step further. If you are looking for a new way to carry your campaign beyond the AP-lvl 15-cap, this is a perfect way to do so. If you just want to play something completely different, this is for you. If you don’t want to stat x high-level villains, give this one a shot. And finally, if you just like scenarios that have not been done x times before, check this out. There are not that many modules featuring Lillend-liches, Solstice-Kings and so many more interesting characters. This is not only an excellent resource for DMs, but also a great module. What else is there left to say but “Buy this now?”
My final verdict is 5 stars. Not 4.5, not 4.75, but round 5 stars. One of the best modules/supplements out there.
I am looking forward to reading my copy when it gets here.
Major thanks End 5/5 snoopy happy dancing
oh and map packs and paper minis sold seperatly.