Hell Ain't a Bad Place

Thursday, February 11, 2016

Illustration by Bryan Sola

"The Hellfire Compact" kicks off the new Hell's Vengeance Adventure Path, Paizo's first Adventure Path for evil Player Characters! I had the honor (and deep cathartic pleasure) to write the first in the new series, wherein the forces of devil-influenced Cheliax strike back against a legion of noble invaders.

But lest you assume that this be six volumes of mustache-twirling, here's seven things you might not know about (or can look forward to in) "The Hellfire Compact!"

Illustration by Ekaterina Burmak

1. Small Evils So you're evil! But you're first level. That means you're probably the meanest fighter around... with a short sword, or the baddest wizard in town... with magic missile. Sure, you can still mess a few goody two-shoes up, but you're a ways off from indoctrination into the Hellknights or raising that army of the undead. So, part of my challenge with "The Hellfire Compact" was to highlight "small evils." While you'll find true devils and murderous monsters aplenty in the adventure, you'll also engage with wickedness rooted in simple greed, enviousness, resentment, alcoholism, bad parenting, and other all too familiar evils. You'll also be asked to commit evil acts, but slaying angels and good dragons aren't for you yet. Can you execute an innocent? Crush a town's faith? Murder a protective house spirit? Put an end to a pair of heroes' perfect retirement? Fight a puppy? Oh, there's still arrogant paladins and obnoxiously good outsiders to punish, but evil starts small and, as is often the case, might even be a little too familiar. If you're going to do this, you better think long and hard about why your character is hard as nails, because no one's Sauron at level one. So... do you have the stomach for evil?

2. Faux Western I was halfway through writing this adventure before I realized, "Whoa! This is a western!" And it sort of is! While it's not set in a dusty, one-horse town, it's got pretty much everything else. Sheriff? Check. Ranchers? Check. Evil landowner? Check. Hanging? Check. Mounted combat? Check. Mysterious, masked good guy? Check. Gang of baddies terrifying innocent locals? That's you! It wasn't entirely intentional, but once I realized it, I sort of embraced it for the first and second acts. For the third act, well... there aren't a lot of tree forts in westerns, but two out of three ain't bad.

3. Final Countdown There's revolution brewing in Longacre and you're in charge of stopping it. Your not being villains just to be villains, you're being villains to keep nastier villains in control. You have three weeks to bring the boot down on the burgeoning revolution and crush its sympathizers. You'll have to measure your deeds, making sure you're quelling the uprising and not driving more people to the rebel cause. If you do nothing, Longacre will be a revolutionary bastion in three weeks. If you act rashly, it might happen sooner. But if you measure ferocity and intimidation in the proper proportions, no one will ever step out of line in Longacre again.

4. Your Own Creepy Dream Home! You're going to be in Longacre for a while, so you better have a place to stay—and, trust me, the local innkeeper doesn't want you. Fortunately there's a whole, unused, slightly dilapidated, probably not haunted house right on the outskirts of town just waiting for new owners. So, if you've always dreamed of owning your own personal Crimson Peak, now you can!

5. Boy Dryads The number of boy dryads in official Pathfinder products rises to two—and this one wants to teach you all about clonal colonies. (For Pathfinder's first "guyad," check out the Pathfinder: Origins #5 comic.

6. @#$%-Up Some Leshys Take that, adorable plant-people!

7. Strange Aeons Foreshadow Six months from now, the Strange Aeons Adventure Path is going to start. I also wrote the first adventure for that AP. There's a single line in "The Hellfire Compact" that suggests a tragic event unfolding in Ustalav. Think you can guess what it is?

There's plenty more (and plenty worse) to come, but I'll let you read about it or play it yourself.

"The Hellfire Compact" comes out this month. And to help you prepare for the campaign, keep an eye out for the Hell's Vengeance Player's Guide later this month. Also, you might want to consider preordering Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Path of the Hellknight, another book I wrote all about playing characters who could fit perfectly into this campaign: Hellknights! (More details on that soon.)

So, if you've got the stomach for evil and more than just a thing for black armor, start your Hell's Vengeance campaign with "The Hellfire Compact." The road to Hell starts here and it surely is paved with good intentions...

...Those of the paladins and cherubs you're about to crush.

Good luck, villains!

F. Wesley Schneider
Editor-in-Chief