PaizoCon returns in 2011 bigger and better than ever! Officially sponsored and run by Paizo Publishing, LLC, PaizoCon 2011 brings together dozens of hobby gaming's veteran authors, artists, publishers, and designers and gives YOU the opportunity to meet, greet, and game with some of the best and brightest that the hobby gaming industry has to offer.

PaizoCon 2011 is three non-stop days of gaming, panels, workshops, banquets, and (most importantly) fun! Rub shoulders with your favorite Paizo Publishing employees and freelancers and game with your favorite people from the paizo.com online community.

Attendance is capped at 500 TICKETS; advance tickets are $35, and onsite tickets will be $40 (if still available), so don't delay—buy your tickets today!

The Coast Bellevue Hotel has graciously offered us a reduced room rate for Wednesday night through Monday morning (June 8–13) at just $99.00 per night for single or double occupancy. (This is $10 less per night than our room rate last year!) Each room can hold up to four occupants, though the Coast Bellevue Hotel does charge for each additional occupant beyond two (call Coast Bellevue Hotel for details).

Note that purchasing a ticket does not reserve you a room (or vice versa). You must book your reservation by May 25, 2011 in order to be guaranteed a hotel room—after that date, the room block is open to the public and you may not be able to guarantee yourself a room at the hotel. We encourage all of our attendees to stay at the Coast Bellevue Hotel in order to remain close to the daily gaming action! Please visit the Coast Bellevue Hotel website for additional details on the hotel's amenities, including free wi-fi throughout the entire hotel.

The Coast Bellevue Hotel is within 15 minutes of dozens of restaurants, the Bellevue Square Mall, Lincoln Center, a movie theater, a bowling alley, and is conveniently located just off I-405 at NE 8th Street exit in Bellevue.

We're also hosting a Paizo Preview Banquet to show off Ultimate Combat, the Jade Regent AP, and a Super Secret New Product to be revealed at the show. Banquet tickets must be purchased separately, and the event is limited to 200 attendees.

PaizoCon 2011 Guests of Honor

Paizo is proud to announce our Guest of Honor for Paizo Con 2011!

Ed Greenwood

PaizoCon 2011 Guest of Honor Ed Greenwood is a Canadian writer and editor and creator of the Forgotten Realms. He invented the Forgotten Realms as a child, as a fantasy world in which to set the stories he imagined, and later used this world as a campaign setting for his own personal D&D playing group. He began writing articles about the Forgotten Realms for Dragon magazine beginning in 1979, and he sold the rights to the setting to TSR in 1986. Ed has published over two hundred articles in Dragon magazine and Polyhedron, is a lifetime charter member of the Role Playing Game Associaton (RPGA) network, has written over thirty books and modules for various worlds and systems, and been Gen Con Game Fair guest of honor several times.

In addition to all these activities, Ed works as a library clerk and has edited over a dozen small press magazines. When not appearing at conventions, he lives in an old farmhouse in countryside of Ontario.

Tyler Walpole

Tyler Walpole is and award-winning artist with a decade of experience in both the comic book and hobby-gaming markets. His focus in recent years has been primarily on producing fantasy artwork for Wizards of the Coast, Blizzard, and the Pathfinder RPG. Lately he's been moving into doing cover art for various comics, including runs on Dungeons and Dragons for IDW, and Dean Koontz's Nevermore for Dynamite Entertainment. Stop by www.tylerwalpole.com to see more of his work.

PaizoCon 2011 Guests

In addition to our Guest of Honor, Paizo Con 2011 will be wall-to-wall industry professionals. Here's a list of confirmed guests for Paizo Con 2011.

Wolfgang Baur

Wolfgang Baur is the founder of Open Design and the publisher of Kobold Quarterly, a magazine of RPG goodness. Wolfgang is the author or contributor to dozens of RPG adventures and supplements, including Pathfinder #4: Fortress of the Stone Giants, Pathfinder Chronicles: Classic Monsters Revisited, The Book of Roguish Luck, Empire of the Ghouls, GameMastery Module J3: Crucible of Chaos, and the Dark*Matter campaign setting and the Kobold Guide to Game Design, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2.

Stan!

Stan! is the award-winning author of 2 novels, 15 short stories, more than 50 gaming products, and innumerable cartoons and comics. In his time, he has been an Associate Art Director for West End Games, an Editor and Game Designer for TSR, Inc., a Senior Designer and Creative Director for Wizards of the Coast, and a Creative Content Manager for Upper Deck Entertainment. Stan! is a founding member of both The Game Mechanics, Inc. and Super Genius Games. He also has done freelance writing and design for companies ranging from Green Ronin and Malhavoc Press to Viz Media and Harper Collins Children’s Books.

Stan! lives in Renton, WA, where he hopes one day to be the owner of a Sony Aibo robot dog. You can find him several places online including StoryTimeWithStan.com (where you find new and classic comics, cartoons, and fiction), Doodle-A-Day.com (where you find daily excerpts from Stan!’s sketchbooks), and Stannex.com (which remains the Home of All Things Stan!). You can also follow Stan! on Facebook and Twitter (@stannex) and email him at stan@supergeniusgames.com.

Jason Bulmahn

Jason Bulmahn is the Lead Designer of Paizo Publishing, LLC. After having coordinated Living Greyhawk, the world's largest D&D organized play campaign for the RPGA, Bulmahn joined Paizo Publishing as the Managing Editor of Dragon magazine in 2004. Since then, Jason has published dozens of articles and adventures in Dragon and Dungeon magazines. His RPG design credits include Dungeonscape, Elder Evils, Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk, Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer, Secrets of Xen'drik, and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. His work has earned an Origins Award and nine ENnie Awards.

Christopher Carey

Christopher Carey has been an editor at Paizo Publishing since 2008, working closely with all of the company's lines. He is the editor of three collections by science fiction Grand Master Philip José Farmer—The Other in the Mirror, Venus on the Half-Shell and Others, and Up from the Bottomless Pit and Other Stories—and the author of short stories and essays in various anthologies.

Ryan Dancey

Ryan is powered by the souls of vanquished Internet trolls. His mission here on earth cannot be disclosed but you would laugh if you knew it. His secret number is 15. He was born without a canine tooth. He was secretly elected to the Commission, but declined to serve due to his unwillingness to believe two impossible things in one day. He can read Linear A. He killed Netrunner, VTES (twice!), and TSR. You can learn a lot about him by searching for his name in Google, but not all that you read is true. His shadow is twice as dark as yours, but only on Wednesdays. He named his dog after a mad scientist and his daughter after a character in Ringworld. If you say his name aloud the DM will roll 3d6 and if the result is a 1 he will manifest and buy you a drink, give you a pony, or infect you with ringworm, at his option.

Hyrum Savage

Hyrum Savage was born in Long Beach, California and grew up in West Los Angeles and Santa Monica, surrounded by Hollywood celebrities. He’s worked for the Walt Disney Company, FreePC, eMachines and in 2001 started OtherWorld Creations (OWC) with a group of friends producing content for 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons. In 2004 he went to work for Upper Deck Entertainment as the Brand Manager for the Marvel and DC Comics TCG’s. In 2007 he was tasked with creating a Hobby Games division at Upper Deck but ultimately the company decided to go in other directions. He co-founded Super Genius Games with the goal of producing content for the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game published by Chaosium, Inc., Savage Worlds from Pinnacle Entertainment, and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game from Paizo Publishing. Currently he is the Marketing and Organized Play Manager for Paizo where he manages the Pathfinder Society, the largest organized play program in the world. He loves interacting with fans and can be found on various RPG related forums and on Facebook, and Twitter (@savageplanet).

James Jacobs

Paizo's Creative Director, James Jacobs: the man, the myth, the legend. Raised on the wild shores of Point Arena, CA, Jacobs was traumatized early on by the scaled and tentacled creatures of the deep, and has spent the last 30 years trying to expurgate these horrors from his subconscious via therapeutic game design. Something of a child prodigy, Jacobs published his first adventure in Dungeon at the age of 14 and later went on to become the magazine's Editor-in-Chief. Jacobs made major contributions to roleplaying with his many adventures (Red Hand of Doom, Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk, installments in the Shackled City, Age of Worms, Savage Tide, Rise of the Runelords, Council of Thieves, and Serpent's Skull Adventure Paths), sourcebooks (Dungeon Master's Guide II, Lords of Madness, Fiendish Codex I), article series (Demonomicon of Iggwilv), and countless pseudopoded monsters, as well as vast and incalculable additions to the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting. He's won numerous awards and accolades, from ENnies to Origins Awards, but just how many is unclear, as he's not really one to brag. (Note: This bio was written by Mr. Jacobs' adoring underlings without either his knowledge or consent.)

Kieran Yanner

A self taught artist born and raised in the Australian coastal city of Darwin. Kieran Yanner crossed the pacific ocean at the age of 20 to pursue his dreams in the land of opportunity—The United States of America. With some hard work and many a sleepless night he has amassed a broad client base from around the world and has produced creative works for a number of leading entertainment companies. Kieran currently works as a full time freelance artist for a variety of clientele at his studio in Seattle, Washington.

Craig J Spearing

Craig graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1992, and illustrated children's material from 1995 to 2008. He is currently doing digital science fiction/ fantasy illustration for clients like Paizo and Wizards of the Coast. He lives in Portland Oregon.

Rob McCreary

Rob McCreary is a Paizo Developer, and has recently taken over development of the Pathfinder Modules line. He was a Top 4 finalist in the inaugural RPG Superstar competition, which opened the door to freelancing for Paizo. His writing credits include the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting, Pathfinder Chronicles: Cities of Golarion, Pathfinder Chronicles: Classic Horrors Revisited, Pathfinder Chronicles: Dungeon Denizens Revisited, Pathfinder Adventure Path #24, The Final Wish, and Pathfinder Adventure Path #32: "'Rivers Run Red."' In October 2009, Rob moved from Prague, Czech Republic (where he'd eked out a living as an English teacher for four years) to the Seattle area to join Paizo's staff, where he spends his days toiling away in the darkness of the editorial pit.

Erik Mona

Erik Mona is the Publisher of Paizo Publishing, LLC. After a series of freelance writing and editing jobs for TSR, Mona joined Wizards of the Coast in 1999 as Global Publications Coordinator for the RPGA, a duty that saw him co-launch the largest organized play D&D campaign in history (Living Greyhawk), edit the RPGA's Polyhedron magazine, and launch the Living Greyhawk Journal. Erik joined Paizo Publishing in 2002 when Paizo took over publication of Wizards' magazines. At Paizo Erik became Editor-in-Chief of Dungeon and Dragon magazines, launched the Pathfinder brand, and created the Planet Stories fiction imprint. His RPG design credits include The Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, The Whispering Cairn, Fiendish Codex 1: Hordes of the Abyss, Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk, The Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer, and Howl of the Carrion King, the first adventure in the Legacy of Fire Adventure Path. His RPG industry work has garnered him two Origins Awards and a teetering pile of ENnies.

Owen K.C. Stephens

Owen Kirker Clifford Stephens was born in 1970 in Norman, Oklahoma. He was introduced to gaming by his uncle in 1979 (though his uncle now claims no memory of the event) and was instantly hooked. While attending the local high school and the University of Oklahoma, Owen became interested in creating novels and short stories and took every English and writing course he could.

Unsure how to break into writing, Owen was encouraged by his wife Lj to try to publish notes for his many house rules, campaign adventures and custom classes and organizations. His first efforts were accepted by magazines and publishers that went bust before his work could be published. In 1997 he attended a TSR Writer’s Workshop and shortly after had his first professional work published, an article on elven names in issue 251 of Dragon Magazine. More articles followed in both Dragon and Pyramid magazine, and Owen began to see a potential career. Owen moved to the Seattle area in 2000 after accepting a job as a Game Designer at Wizards of the Coast. While there, he worked on numerous Star Wars Roleplaying Game and other RPG projects. Fourteen months later, he returned to Oklahoma and picked up his freelance career with considerably greater skill and more contacts. He has written freelance for numerous companies, including Paizo, Green Ronin, White Wolf and Steve Jackson Games. His major credits include being co-author of the Saga Edition Star Wars Roleplaying Game, work on the Wheel of Time Roleplaying Game, The Black Company Campaign Setting, the Thieves’ World Roleplaying Game, numerous EverQuest RPG and D20 Modern books and authoriship of The Guide to Absalom and the Advanced Gamemaster’s Guide.

Owen now works out of an overcrowded office stuffed with books, maps, figures, an AT-AT, Great Cthulhu, a Wii, and up to three cats. He continues to freelance for major companies, in-between developing Pathfinder RPG compatible projects for Super Genius Games. Owen loves talking to and hearing from other gamers. You can follow him on Facebook , Twitter (@owen_stephens), and Livejournal (http://owen-stephens.livejournal.com/), or reach him at OStephens@aol.com

Sean K Reynolds

Paizo Developer Sean K Reynolds was born in a coastal town in southern California. A professional game designer since 1998, he's best known for his work on the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, Greyhawk, and the 3rd edition Monster Manual. He lives in Seattle with his four cats, and spends his free time reading, painting miniatures, and writing three-sentence biographies.

F. Wesley Schneider

What feels like not that long ago Paizo's Managing Editor, F. Wesley Schneider, was the new kid at Paizo Publishing, having moved from Baltimore, MD to work on Dragon magazine and freelance for a half-dozen other RPG companies. Unbelievably, that was more than five years ago. Now the managing editor of Pathfinder and various related projects, Schneider frequently writes for all of Paizo's lines, drives Pathfinder's developers and editors like slaves, preciously guards Golarion's various bestiaries, and seeks to assure a healthy dose of unnerving content in every product he touches. The last five years have greatly increased his knowledge of world mythology, horror fiction, and B movies, along with his alcohol tolerance and number of white hairs. He's even recently caught himself sounding like Sean, telling stories about the "'good ol' days"' (which are mostly going on right now).

Lisa Stevens

When Mark Rein•Hagen and Jonathan Tweet asked her if she was interested in helping out with a new company they were forming called Lion Rampant, she jumped at the chance to turn her lifelong love of gaming into a career and became the company's editor. Since then, she has been involved in all facets of game production, starting with design and editing credits for the critically acclaimed Ars Magica and Vampire: The Masquerade roleplaying games. Stevens has been an art director, graphic designer, typesetter, licensing manager, and a marketing and sales director. She was also instrumental in the merger between Lion Rampant and White Wolf in 1990. In 1991, she left White Wolf to help Peter Adkison start Wizards of the Coast. Her first job encompassed sales, marketing, and production. When Magic: The Gathering spurred the rapid growth of the company, Stevens settled into managing new business and licensing. In 1996, she became the vice president of event marketing and helped launch the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour. Later that year, she helped launch the Wizards of the Coast Game Center in Seattle. In 1997, she joined the TSR brand team as the brand manager for the Greyhawk campaign setting and the RPGA, the organized play program for RPGs. In 1998, Stevens went to the new strategic planning department, where she lent her immense industry knowledge to the TSR and miniatures divisions, including the launch of the 3rd edition of Dungeons & Dragons. In her final position at Wizards, she was the brand manager for Star Wars and launched the d20 version of the Star Wars RPG, in addition to acquiring the Official Star Wars Fan Club, and serving as the club's president for three years. In May of 2002, she formed Paizo Publishing, LLC. As the CEO of the company, she led the group which published Dragon and Dungeon, the official D&D magazines, and also published Star Wars Insider, Undefeated, and Amazing Stories. In 2004, she launched paizo.com, a gaming website that sells more than 20,000 different gaming products and PDF downloads, in addition to having an active messageboard community. Stevens received her MBA from the University of Washington. She has won numerous awards, including Origins Awards for the design of Ars Magica and Vampire: The Masquerade, as the Assistant Editor of White Wolf Magazine, and for the graphic design of Magic: The Gathering. In addition, she was honored by Advertising Age in 1995 as one of the Top 100 Marketers of the Year for her work on Magic: The Gathering. In addition to her work, Lisa loves to play the guitar and has an extensive collection of Star Wars memorabilia that threatens to engulf every room in her house. She lives in Seattle with her significant other, Vic, and her two cats, Juliet and Jake.

Bryan Stiltz

Bryan Stiltz has worked at Reaper Miniatures for over 7 years, and has been everything from the shipping monkey to production manager. He currently plays in several weekly RPGs, co-hosts the City of Doors podcast on the d20 radio network, and has forgotten the concept of 'spare time'. He has worked with Reaper on the development of Warlord, first and second edition, and has been involved in Reaper's product demo team for 5 years.

Shannon Stiltz

Shannon Stiltz is a freelance painter and has been with Reaper Miniatures on and off for 6 years. She has worked in nearly every aspect of the production floor, and even worked on the development of Warlord, CAV, and some consulting work for Master Series Paints. In her off time, she paints miniatures freelance. It's pretty much about the minis.

Mark Moreland

Mark Moreland has born and raised in Missouri and quickly abandoned the midwest for New York City at the age of 18. After earning a BFA in film and television production, Mark lasted a decade in the big, bad city before heading west to Seattle to develop Pathfinder material for Paizo Publishing in August 2010. Mark is a self-proclaimed canon-lawyer and gained notoriety as an administrator of the ENnie Award nominated PathfinderWiki, a project he still participates in whenever possible. His writing credits include Pathfinder Society Scenario #43: The Pallid Plague, Serpent's Skull Player's Guide, and Pathfinder Society Scenario #2-08: The Sarkorian Prophecy, among others. While Mark has his hand in many projects at Paizo, he spends the most time developing Pathfinder Society scenarios.

James Sutter

Paizo's Fiction Editor James Lafond Sutter is an award-winning author, game designer, and musician. In addition to his fiction and gaming projects for Paizo, his short fiction has appeared in such venues as Black Gate, Catastrophia (PS Publishing), Apex Magazine, and the #1 Amazon bestseller Machine of Death. Formerly the Assistant Editor of Dungeon, he now spends his days developing for the Pathfinder campaign setting and spearheading the Pathfinder Tales novel line. When not writing or performing, he serves on the board of directors for the youth charity The Power of Hope.

Pierce Watters

Pierce Watters is Paizo Publishing's Director of Sales and has done almost everything in publishing at one time or another except run the printing press. He was Assistant Librarian for Tuolumne County at the age of 16, was the buyer for a major book and magazine wholesaler, managed a bookstore, and was a sales and marketing rep for a number of publishers including Ace, Tor, Ballantine, Berkeley, and Warner. Watters attended Clarion East for six weeks in 1974 and his teachers included Robin Scott Wilson, Gordon R. Dickson, Harlan Ellison, Tom Disch, Damon Knight, and Kate Wilhelm. Watters entered game publishing as Editor-in-Chief of Dragon and Dungeon magazines at TSR and was the Executive Editor for both and Publisher at Wizards of the Coast and also served as the Executive Editor of Amazing Stories. Currently, Pierce writes book reviews for Kobold Quarterly magazine, the New York Review of Science Fiction, and Fantasy Book Spot. Watters has studied Internal Chinese Martial Arts for 25 years, serving as the Founding Editor of Internal Arts Magazine, teaching tai chi chuan in Seattle, and writing an occasional article for Kungfu magazine.

Bill Webb

Bill Webb is the owner of Frog God Games, and has been active in the game industry since the 1990s. Bill has over 70 books to his credit-writing, developing and directing the creation of over 100,000 pages of fantasy RPG material as the creative director and still half owner of Necromancer Games (with his old buddy Clark Peterson). His best known works include Rappan Athuk, Wilderlands of High Fantasy, Dungeon of Graves, Demons and Devils, the Crucible of Freya, and The Lost City of Barakus (with WDB Kenower). His works have won several ENnie Awards, including his pride and joy, the Golden Grognard award in 2007.

He has had the pleasure of working with some of the finest writers in industry, including Bob Bledsaw (Judges Guild), Gary Gygax (Necropolis), Greg Vaughan (Slumbering Tsar), Rob Kuntz (Maze of Zayene 1-3), Monte Cook, Stewart and Steve Wieck (White Wolf and Sword and Sorcery Studios, Multiple titles), Rob Schwalb (Trouble in Durbenford), WDB Kenower (Lost City of Barakus, Vault of Larin Karr), David Kenzer (multiple titles) and Troll Lord Games (multiple titles). His proudest publishing moment was when Necromancer games released Judges Guild books that he had used in his home campaign since 1977.

He currently lives on his farm in a remote area of Washington State with his dogs, guns, pickup truck, wife and two kids where he designs roads, bridges and parks in his spare time.

Neil Spicer

Born in the shadow of North Carolina's Blue Ridge mountains, Neil Spicer started gaming in the early '80s. His first attempts at RPG design began with fan-made material written for Alternity's Star*Drive and Dark Matter settings. He followed that up with a handful of D20 PDF products for third-party publishers and co-authored a softcover supplement called the Future Player's Companion for D20 Future through The Game Mechanics and Green Ronin. Neil survived Paizo's second RPG Superstar contest in 2009 and emerged with the prize of writing the Pathfinder adventure module, Realm of the Fellnight Queen. Since then, Neil has gone on to write for each ensuing Pathfinder Adventure Path (Kingmaker, Serpent's Skull, and Carrion Crown), the Pathfinder Society, the Guide to the River Kingdoms, and soon, Paizo's upcoming Rival Guide.

Dave Gross

Dave Gross has written a number of stories and novels for the Forgotten Realms and Pathfinder settings. His recent works include "Hell's Pawns" in the Council of Thieves Adventure Path; "The Lost Pathfinder," available at paizo.com and the iBook store, "A Taxonomy of Treachery" in Wayfinder #4; and the Pathfinder Tales novels Prince of Wolves, Master of Devils, and Winter Witch (with Elaine Cunningham). Dave lives in Alberta, Canada.

Stephen Radney-MacFarland

Stephen Radney-MacFarland is a game designer living large in the Seattle area. He was a developer for D&D 4th Edition, a content developer for 3rd Edition organized play, and he has taught game design for the past three years. Stephen currently works at Paizo Publishing as a designer for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, writes "Save My Game," for Dungeon magazine, and writes a blog at NeoGrognard.com. He also runs more games than his wife would prefer. 

Events

Check out the events page for a full listing of events at PaizoCon 2011!

PaizoCon Photography Policy

You are allowed to photograph or record video during PaizoCon. Please note, however, that any attendee may request that you not record or photograph their event (panel, seminar, private game, etc) and that you must comply with that request. Have fun taking pictures and recording the show, but be respectful of others when doing so.

PaizoCon Weapons Policy

It is the hotel's policy that no weapons whatsoever be allowed on the premises, and Paizo supports that policy. Additionally, items that appear to be weapons are also not allowed. This includes self-defense items such as pepper spray, tasers, and knives, but also extends to BB guns, cap guns, water guns, paintball guns, air-soft weapons, and so on. We do not allow any of these items at the show even if it is legal to carry them.