Are you ready for our 40th Paizo blog report across the past ten years?

As we approach the anniversary of our total party kill at the bottom of the Abomination Vaults, it’s time to make public what we sometimes call “Session Plus One.” While we’d love to sit around and chat after the final die roll is made, the end of a marathon is usually a frenzy: players are leaving for long rides or flights home, there is the cleanup after days of Pathfinder, a scramble to capture any material we can, and then finally much-needed sleep. The Abomination Arsenal ended with a 22-hour session, which compounded everything just mentioned. Typically, after things settle down, we get together (remotely if necessary) and chat about everything from our favorite moments of the project to the rooms we wish we had explored. Everyone brings questions for our GM about all the things we missed along the way, feedback about the project, and especially the “what if” scenarios that we just have to know the answer to. Suffice it to say, Adam is all about reflection, and weighs it evenly with the prep sessions before a launch.

We are fully recovered from our first marathon of Sky King’s Tomb and ready to tell the tale! If you didn’t catch the introduction to this project, we’re playing as a family of dwarves from Clan Firecask, complete with different generations to represent our players’ out-of-game ages. Each marathon of this project also features Order of the Amber Die members from decades past, and for our opening marathon we reached all the way back to the 1980s when our group first began. Before co-founding the Order with our GM, Andrew Woodworth and Adam went as Darth Vader and a stormtrooper for Halloween in 1985; they even have the same birthday and grew up as neighbors in New Jersey. Andy stayed active in the Order until the 2000s, and returned to the table for the first time in twenty years for this marathon – his debut playing Pathfinder!

The Inner Sea is home to a variety of fantastical regions with varying themes. Last month’s Lost Omens Shining Kingdoms gave us a chance to look at the classical fantasy found within the Shining Kingdoms region. From courtly intrigue to valiant knights to deadly beast, the Shining Kingdoms hold the potential for unlimited adventure. Of course, a region like the Shining Kingdoms doesn’t come to life without the help of the authors of this book! So, we’ve taken some time to let the wonderful authors of this book talk about themselves.

Order of the Amber Die here, still going strong as the years roll on! In case you aren't familiar with our work from past projects, we'll repeat the staccato version. We only play published adventures. We use the complete rules set. We've had the same GM since our founding: 1987. We like to push the envelope of tabletop roleplaying. We only play marathon sessions—days at a time. We play on location. Our GM isn't afraid to kill characters or TPK us; he'll do it in front of the community, too. Imagine us like a roleplaying team, complete with a Captain and Ref position to help the players. We revere one d20 above all others, and that is the Amber Die. It doesn’t roll more 20s than it should, but it chains them when it does, and doubters have always been converted. After more than 170 adventures, we've even gotten rid of RPG absolutes: yeah, we'll split the party.

On March 20th, a contingent of Paizo staff visited the Washington State Capitol to run some games for state legislators and their staff. Logan Bonner and I received an invitation to the Legislative Game Day from the office of Steve Hobbs, our Secretary of State. Steve is a big nerd and recognizes that Washington state is the tabletop game capital of the world. When it comes to industry in this state, most people think of aerospace or agriculture. While those two sectors drive much of our state’s economy, you’d be remiss to sleep on the games industry, as Washington has the highest concentration of game companies in the country.