Just Another Day in Riddleport

Monday, June 30, 2008

So, as you can see in the picture here, life in Riddleport can be tough. It might be a nice, balmy summer day, a perfect day for smuggling some loot. You've got word that the overlord's gendarmes have all been bribed and your boss' rivals have other problems that have them looking the other way—moving the latest catch from a fat Magnimarian merchant ship to the local fence should be a simple job. But if there's one mistake a Riddleport native can make—it's letting your guard down. The local wildlife (like reefclaws or swamp barracudas or sharks or even the cranky bunyip pictured here) can pose an even greater danger to the locals than the city's more conventional thugs and thieves.

Pathfinder's 3rd Adventure Path, Second Darkness, is a much more global campaign than the previous two—but it still starts in Varisia, in the dangerous and exciting city of Riddleport. this volume comes with a gazetteer of the City of Cyphers loaded with adventure hooks and hidden secrets for your PCs to discover, businesses to visit, rob, or even own, and exotic games of chance to take part in. And plenty of monsters and opportunity for peril, of course. Just keep one thing in mind—Riddleport is at its most dangerous when things seem calm. Oh, and don't feed the wildlife.

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Origins Game Fair: Day Two

Saturday, June 28, 2008

The second day of the Origins Game Fair is over and I'm happy to report that there are at least 23 people in the world outside of Paizo who have seen the final Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Beta. If you're not one of them, you won't have to wait long to join them. In August, you'll be among the countless thousands who will get to see it first hand. Let me tell you, both as a marketing professional for Paizo and as an avid gamer who is running Curse of the Crimson Throne via the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, the book looks gorgeous!

And now, pictures:

Joshua J. Frost
Director of Sales & Marketing

Origins Game Fair: Day One

Friday, June 27, 2008

Thursday was the first day of the Origins Game Fair and the first day of any con is generally the slowest. Despite the reputation, Paizo's booth was filled with many gamers asking about the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, the next Pathfinder Adventure Path, The Gamers: Dorkness Rising, and Yetisburg, Paizo's new release under the Titanic Games line.

Yetisburg left the crowd laughing and certainly saw a nice crowd of folks eager to demo the civil war comedy card game, but every once in a while someone from the historical miniatures part of Origins would walk by, hat and jacket resplendent with civil war flag pins, stare at the Yetisburg banner, sigh, shake his head, and move on. As the co-designer of Yetisburg I have to say that reaction rests warm in my heart.

Since the yetis of Yetisburg come from Canada, it was only fitting that Canada's finest team of demoers, the Shackleton Brothers, would travel down from the frigid north to teach Americans how the yetis did their deeds in Pennsylvania all those years ago.

And now, pictures:

Nick Logue sets up the Yetisburg demo table in the Paizo booth before the hall opens.

Paizo's Planet Stories line looking robust as it fills the shelves on the booth wall.

Two of the Shackleton Brothers lead a crew of brave heroes through the trenches of Yetisburg.

Joshua J. Frost
Director of Sales & Marketing

A Pathfinder is Born

Thursday, June 26, 2008

With Origins kicking off today, the clatter of dice is deafening. The roar of gaming swells in my heart. Thousands of like-minded gamers gather here in Columbus under one banner to draw steel, hurl eldritch might, call down the fury of the gods, and maybe pick a pocket or two.

And this is just the beginning. In only a few short weeks, Gen Con shall be upon us, as well as the inauguration of Season 0 of Pathfinder Society Organized Play. The torches of the Pathfinder Lodge Hall shall blaze to life and hundreds of heroes, scoundrels and vagabonds will gather to begin their epic adventures. Their legends may change the face of Golarion.

But first, they have to be born of your wild imaginations. Creating a character for Pathfinder Society is not much different from creating a PC for your regular home campaign, with a few minor alterations. Here's a quick preview of what you'll see in the Pathfinder Society's Player's Guide for Season 0:

Faction: Every Faction has its own unique history, culture, style and specialty. Each has their own modus operandi in the ongoing shadow war for control of Absalom, and each offers the Pathfinders in their service different boons. Choosing your Faction is as important as choosing your character class or race; it defines your character in the campaign, and ties your Pathfinder to one particular nation's destiny. Before you choose your Faction, peruse each carefully and pick the most exciting one. Once this choice is made, it cannot be changed until the end of Season 0 (after next year's Origins in June of 2009), so choose wisely.

Are you born and bred in Cheliax and a firm devotee to the cause of Asmodeus, or are you a former slave of the Chelish regime who escaped to Andoran and now you serve your adopted homeland in their struggle for freedom? You don't necessarily have to be from a nation to be a member of their faction (for example you may play an Ulfen barbarian from the Land of the Linnorm Kings in the service of Taldor's empire). The majority of loyal faction members are most likely patriots born and raised in their homeland with family ties and at least some sense of nationalism, but anything is possible.

Race and Class: All of the core races and classes in the PHB are available in Pathfinder Society Organized Play. Yes, even gnomes.

Abilities: In Pathfinder Society Organized Play, all characters are created equal. No dice are used to generate your Pathfinder. Instead, every character's ability scores are generated using a point-buy system similar to the one featured in the Pathfinder RPG Alpha Release. You shall tailor your PC's abilities to best suit your vision of who they are, and to best fulfill your favorite tactical combinations.

Skills: All of the skills in the PHB are available to your character—even the Craft and Profession skills.

Feats: All of the Feats in the PHB are available to your PC with one notable exception: Item creation does not exist in Pathfinder Society Organized Play, therefore the item creation feats are not available. In place of Scribe Scroll at first level, wizard PCs may choose Spell Focus instead.

In addition to the feats in the PHB, characters in Pathfinder Society Organized Play also have access to special Faction Feats that further tie them to their nation of choice and offer them unique abilities catering to the flavor of these diverse cultures.

Alignment: You cannot play an evil character in Pathfinder Society Organized Play. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 gp. All good and neutral alignments are allowed though (EXCEPT NEUTRAL EVIL... nice try, buddy).

Character Background, Physical Features, and Beliefs: Above we've crafted the mechanical skeleton of your character. Now it's time to flesh them out. Let's give your character some personality and some fun quirks to roleplay. Make them a real person with motivations, distinctive physical and emotional traits, and a unique and interesting personal history.

Items and Equipment: After completing all of the above, your Pathfinder is alive! He or she is a whole person dedicated to a faction hailing from a distinct racial background, with a chosen class, abilities, skills, and feats, not to mention a rich character background, distinctive physical traits and personal beliefs. The only thing missing is their clothes. That's right. Your character is naked right now! They are also completely unarmed and have no food.

Every character in Pathfinder Society Organized Play begins the campaign with 150 gp of spending cash. All the armor, weapons and equipment in Chapter Seven of the PHB are available for purchase as well as a bevy of items and special weapons from the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting hardcover. (Sorry, folks, no firearms for now.)

Is your appetite suitably whetted? Have any character ideas yet? If so, drop by the messageboards and tell us all about your Pathfinder. No, really, tell us about your character! I, for one, can't wait to meet them. See you at Gen Con. You bring the dice, I'll bring the Mountain Dew.

Nicolas Logue
Organized Play Coordinator

"There Are More Things In Heaven and Earth..."

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

In the past few weeks we've talked and teased a lot about what's in the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting hardcover. There have been mentions of peoples and races and countries and organizations, but what's beyond that? In fact, what's beyond Golarion? Does "campaign setting" have to mean just one land, one world, one planet? Or might it mean a whole reality?

The Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting tackles just that question. Personally, I've always been fascinated with planeswalking, and my favorite adventures usually take place in realms beyond the mortal world... and I think James wrote something about a demon once somewhere. It also turns out that the credits for this monster feature Todd Stewart, a modern expert and the go-to guy for fantasy cosmologies. So we got Todd to tackle a new take on the realms beyond the mortal plane. Welcome to the Great Beyond.

Chapter 3 of the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting delves into the realities beyond reality, the domains of the gods, and the organization of the spheres. Aside from deities both familiar and new, there are discussions of new races, non-godly powers fit for worship, musings on planar dragons, a complete map of the spheres, and details on more than a dozen planes (each an entire realm brimming with planar adventure). Looking through the chapter, a few tantalizing headers scroll by: "Norgorber: The Reaper of Reputation," "Sivanah: The Seventh Veil," "Thirteen Demon Lords," "Six Empyreal Lords," "The Whispering Way," "The Maelstrom"—the list goes on and on. In fact, for all you planeswalkers out there, here's a taste:

The Maelstrom/Limbo
Collectively referred to as the Maelstrom, vast swathes of uncharted, unclaimed terrain borders and surrounds each of the Outer Planes. Mysterious and dangerous wild lands untouched by the gods, these regions lack the cohesive stability present in all of the other planes; even the hellish depths of the Abyss possess a structure that the Maelstrom does not. Rather than some ever-changing sea of randomness, when viewed from the edge of another plane, the Maelstrom appears much like that of its adjacent neighbor. The differences grow more profound further away from the stabilizing anchor of the borderlands, eventually falling back into the mutable freedom of perpetual change. The Maelstrom defies the efforts of mapmakers, as its very character shifts and flows like the tide of an unseen ocean, to which the borderlands are but shores and calm shallows.

Crystalline forests melt like candle wax into shallow brine seas with jewel-like icebergs, and then sublimate to vast parched deserts, all within the stretch of days. Still, islands of stability do exist within the depths of the Maelstrom. These islands are ruled by petty gods, exiled fiends, and fallen celestials, and even the rare stronghold of a mortal wizard or priest-king can be found holding itself against the metaphysical lapping tide.

Creatures wandering in from the structured planes, long since grown native, populate the Maelstrom's borderlands, often possessing characteristics and behaviors at odds from their origins. Deeper still, chaos beasts, chaos incarna, and the mysterious serpentine proteans thrive within an environment of plastic potentiality. Claiming to be the first children of the Outer Planes, the keketar, imentesh, and naunet proteans worship godlike beings they refer to as the Speakers From the Depths, whom scholars speculate to be something akin to a pair of conjoined gods or a single dualistic entity.

The Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting hardcover and several infinities worth of new adventures hits shelves this August!

F. Wesley Schneider
Pathfinder Managing Editor

The Lost Gygax Novel

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Ever since we started, there's been a question as to whether or not Planet Stories would begin publishing original fiction—and if so, when. After all, one of the structural foundations of the line to date is that we publish not just great sci-fi and fantasy, but important sci-fi and fantasy. How can you possibly know ahead of time that a new work of fiction is going to be culturally significant?

Turns out, sometimes that question is easier to answer than you think. When we set out to create Planet Stories, some of the first books we signed were the three Setne Inhetep books by Gary Gygax, The Anubis Murders, The Samarkand Solution, and Death in Delhi. Publisher Erik Mona had always enjoyed Gygax's Gord the Rogue stories (one of which we've now republished in Worlds of Their Own), and we felt that it was important to kick things off with Gygax, considering that, after Tolkien, he's probably had the most pervasive effect on modern fantasy of any author. If you stop to think about it, that's an enormous claim, but it's true—how many books in the fantasy section of your bookstore (or on your shelf at home) have their roots in Dungeons & Dragons? Certainly it was Gygax's work that had the biggest influence on all of us, and that put us in a position to one day start a fiction line of our own. And as Gary's health declined and interests had of late turned away from writing fiction, we believed that Death in Delhi, the last Gygax book to be published, would be his final literary legacy.

That is, until a year ago, when Erik called Gygax to see if he might perhaps have some unpublished short fiction sitting around that we could slip into an anthology somewhere. Obligingly, Gary dug around in his files, then came back and said that he did indeed have a few short stories—but he'd also discovered a complete unpublished novel he'd forgotten about, set in the same world as the Setne Inhetep books but far from Ægypt and starring completely new characters. Apparently TSR had turned it down for being too similar to Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar books (despite the fact that Leiber's son saw no problem with the manuscript), and the whole experience so frustrated Gary that he mothballed the novel completely. Would we, he asked, perhaps be interested in publishing it?

Needless to say, we leapt on the opportunity. Called Infernal Sorceress and introducing the characters of Ferret and Raker, the book is Gygax at his finest, chock-full of swashbuckling action, intricate magic, and strange monsters. And unlike Setne Inhetep, whose razor-sharp mind generally sees him on top of any given situation, this book's protagonists are more like Gord—smart and capable, but never quite to the extent that they think they are, always running from the situations their quick blades and loose morals get them into.

Written just after Death in Delhi, Infernal Sorceress is the true last Gygax novel in every sense, making it both the culmination of a life's worth of writing and the final adventure from the man who taught the world not just how to make believe, but that it was okay to do so. That, in fact, we should never have stopped. And that, more than anything, makes it an honor to be publishing this book.

How do you know an original novel will become important to an entire genre?

Sometimes it just starts out that way.

James Sutter
Planet Stories Editor

Character Traits

Monday, June 23, 2008

In the first Pathfinder Companion, the Player's Guide to the Second Darkness Adventure Path, we introduce a new mechanic for tying your character's background and history into the gaming world as a whole. These are Character Traits, a concept we first introduced in the Curse of the Crimson Throne Player's Guide, where the trait you pick gives you not only a small bonus to your character, but ties him or her into the Adventure Path's storyline from the start. Starting with the Pathfinder Companions, we're solidifying this system into something you can use not only for Adventure Paths, but for any campaign.

At its core, a Character Trait is approximately equal in power to half a feat—in fact, at one point, we considered calling them "Half Feats" but abandoned that idea when we realized it implied a point-based system that didn't really exist (there's no such thing, for example, as a "Double Feat"). At the start of a new campaign, you can pick two traits for your character—in effect, gaining a bonus feat that you tailor from two different categories of options. Yet a Character Trait isn't just another kind of power you can add on to your character—it's a way to quantify (and encourage) building a character background that fits into the world of Golarion. Think of Character Traits as "story seeds" for your background; after you pick your two traits, you'll have a point of inspiration from which to build your character's personality and history. Alternatively, if you've already got a background in your head or written down for your character, you can view picking his traits as a way to quantify that background, just as picking race and class and ability scores quantifies his strengths and weaknesses.

At the start, there'll be 40 different basic traits to choose from (ten each, split over the categories of Combat Traits, Faith Traits, Magic Traits, and Social Traits), along with six Second Darkness specific traits (these'll be more like the traits we introduced at the start of Curse of the Crimson Throne), but that certainly won't be the end of the matter. The goal is to continue presenting additional traits in the Pathfinder Companions to come—traits based on your character's race, homeland, and religion. Eventually, the pool of traits you'll be able to choose from should cover just about any type of character background you'd ever want!

One more thing: Character Traits are for PCs. If a GM wants an NPC to have traits, that NPC will need to "buy" them with the Additional Traits feat. Player characters are special; they're the stars of the game, after all, and if they have an advantage over the NPCs of the world in this way, that kind of makes sense. The pregenerated characters presented in Pathfinder and the modules will not have bonus traits selected for them—we're leaving those choices to you if you wish to use one of them as a PC.

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Receive the Gift of Kobolds at Free RPG Day!

Friday, June 20, 2008

For those of you who don't know, tomorrow is the second annual Free RPG Day. Created and run by the good folks at Impressions Marketing, Free RPG Day works with hobby game retailers and RPG publishers to create in-store events that give away new RPG quick start rules and adventure modules. This year, the event is worldwide, meaning gamers in Canada, England, Germany, Scotland, Spain, Costa Rica, Chile, and the United States will be able to get their hands on a copy of Paizo's Free RPG Day module, D1.5: Revenge of the Kobold King.

It should have been the end. When the bloodthirsty adventurers burst into his throne room and mercilessly cut him down, the tale of Merlokrep, last king of the ill-fated Truescale Tribe, should have ended. But the fates weren't yet finished with the Kobold King, and now a dark power has brought him back from the beyond to wreak his vengeance upon those foolish adventurers who destroyed his tribe.

Revenge of the Kobold King is compatible with the 3.5 edition of the world's most popular roleplaying game and takes your heroes back beneath the haunted trees of Darkmoon Wood and into an ancient Azlanti crypt in search of the all-too-familiar monsters that are brutally murdering the people of Falcon's Hollow. This adventure returns to Darkmoon Vale, an area of the Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting visited in D1: Crown of the Kobold King and E1: Carnival of Tears, and further detailed in the soon-to-be-released Pathfinder Chronicles: Guide to Darkmoon Vale. Revenge of the Kobold King is a 5th level dungeon adventure written by Paizo's Organized Play Coordinator, Nicolas Logue.

Though you'll be able to download the module for free and purchase a copy from paizo.com starting this Monday, we highly recommend you attend your local Free RPG Day event to get a physical copy at no cost. Go out and tell the world about Paizo and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Get involved and run Revenge for hungry gamers right there at your local store. If your local store isn't participating, tell them about it. Make sure they're involved next year!

Paizo supports Free RPG Day and we want our readers, customers, and fans to do the same. Thanks for your support and we hope you'll like what Nick has in store for you deep beneath the Darkmoon Wood.

Joshua J. Frost
Director of Sales & Marketing

Exploring Paizo's Pathfinder Society Organized Play, Part 5

Thursday, June 19, 2008

We know that a pathfinder's loyalties are often split between the Society and the nation that birthed them. We ask only that you endeavor to keep your interests in discovery and exploration ahead of your country's interests.
—Venture Captain Alissa Moldreserva

In Part 1, we unveiled our first faction, Andoran, and spoke a little about the faction system we'll use in Pathfinder Society Organized Play. In Part 2, we announced our second faction, Cheliax, and we talked briefly about faction prestige, how it's earned, and what it means for the world of Golarion as well as what it means for you as a member of the Pathfinder Society. In Part 3, we revealed the third faction for Pathfinder Society Organized Play: Osirion, Land of the Pharaohs. In Part 4, we brought you the fourth faction: Qadira, desert frontier kingdom, gateway to the massive continent of Casmaron, and the westernmost satrap state of the Padishah Empire of Kelesh. For Part 5, we uncover the final faction: Taldor, Golarion's decadent, failing empire with its fingers still gripping hard on the shores of the Inner Sea.

TALDOR
Decadent Failing Empire

The sun of Taldor's empire has set. It is up to us to see it rise again in our time.
—Baron Jacquo Dalsine

Old Taldor once ruled the entire northern coast of the Inner Sea, from gold gilded Oppara to the wild frontier of Varisia. Now it's reduced to a quarter of its former glory. As Old Taldor's gaze turned ever inward, its vassals and conquered colonies slowly slipped away without a fight. Andoran and Cheliax broke off hundreds of years ago, and few in Taldor had either the desire or the motivation to go to war to stop it. Why bother dealing with petty trifles in the countryside when your own political destruction is taking place in the lime light of Taldorian high society?

It's easy to forget Taldor's former glory and dismiss the entire country as a band of narcissistic fools who spend more time preening their wigs than they do defending their borders or quelling the unrest roiling within their great cities. Little do most know that while the majority of Taldor's upper crust are more concerned with this season's fashions than the well being of their collapsing empire, a few of the world's most dangerous operatives are honed in the constant battleground of Oppara's feuds. Old enmities between ancient houses have engulfed the Gilded City in shadowy violence and assassinations for hundreds of years, and more than a fair share of skilled adventurers have come up surviving the feuds, either as hired muscle or scions of noble houses mixed up in these simmering cauldrons of bloodshed.

Taldorians are decadent bon vivants, favoring rich foods, ornate attire, and jeweled accoutrements for even the most minor of casual affairs. To a Taldorian, appearance is an expression of power, and a keen sense of fashion represents a keen mind. Their appreciation for the arts extends beyond fashion and painting, dabbling in sorcery, dueling, and the murky strategies of politics and war. A Taldorian mind, when raised to ire, is a dangerous thing, and the rest of the Inner Sea is about to receive a painful reminder of this timeless fact.

Goals: Get Back in the Game

Petty differences and ancient feuds have slowly ground Taldor down from a great polished stone to a whittled nub. The key to restoring the empire's sense of purpose lies in finding an enemy to galvanize Taldor's splintered factions, an endeavor worthy of rediscovering the nation's august past glory. Seizing the political reins of Absalom is the perfect medicine for the wasting disease deep in Taldor's bones.

Methodology: Wolf and Tiger

Our weakness must now be our strength: centuries of petty infighting have afforded us one weapon – surely there is no one who can claim as true a mastery of intrigue as we Taldorians!
—Baron Jacquo Dalsine

Taldor's strategy for seizing control of Absalom lies in turning its enemies against one another. Misdirection and psychological warfare are the orders of the day. Taldorian missions involve sparking old enmities between Qadira and Osirion, driving Cheliax and Andoran to rekindle their old war. "Sick the wolf on the tiger and the hunter's work is done" is an old Taldorian saying, and the mantra by which Taldor's agents create havoc around the Inner Sea.

Check back in a week to learn more about Pathfinder Society Organized Play. Don't forget to check the Pathfinder Society messageboards as well to learn about some awesome opportunities to help launch Paizo's organized play at this coming Gen Con!

Joshua J. Frost
Director of Sales & Marketing

Nicolas Logue
Organized Play Coordinator

Off to Press!

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

So now that we sent all our Gen Con releases off to the printer (thanks to some pretty crazy hours worked last week), things seem weirdly calm and relaxed here at Paizo. Which is dangerous! We don’t want to fall behind again so soon after we just got caught up!

For my part, much of the last month has been spent buried in Pathfinder’s Adventure Paths, so it was pretty exciting over the last week to finally come up for air (even if that was merely to jump into another deep pool of deadlines) to help prepare other projects for press. Like the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting hardcover.

Sweet Desna does this book look incredible! There’s all sorts of tidbits packed into its 256 pages, from writeups for dozens and dozens of nations and regions, to short essays on obscure facets of the world like psionics and technology (yes, including guns!), to all sorts of new deities ranging from minor gods like Besmara (the Pirate Queen) and Zyphus (a sort of grim-reaper type deity) to a nice healthy selection of demon lords, archdevils, the four horsemen, and even the angelic empyreal lords.

And while a lot of the book is pure flavor, usable for any game system, fans of the crunch won’t be disappointed either. Each region comes with at least one new feat, for example, and there’s a pretty extensive section on campaign-specific weapons, armor, and gear. There’s also five prestige classes—one of them isn’t new to readers of Pathfinder (the Red Mantis assassin appears in this book, complete with some errata that properly keys her spells to Charisma rather than Intelligence). The other four prestige classes are all new, and drip with Golarion flavor. Pictured here is the harrower, a spellcaster prestige class that draws power from the mystical Varisian deck of cards known as the Harrow. Among other powers, a harrower gains the ability to draw cards from her deck to power up her spells with metamagic-type effects, and as she gains levels, she gains a bit more control over how these effects are applied. As for what the other three prestige classes are in the book? Well... let’s just say fans of crusaders, chroniclers, and pirates won’t be disappointed!

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Master of the Pit

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Over the course of publishing the first two Kane of Old Mars novels, I've talked a lot on this blog about Michael Moorcock. About how he's won more awards than you can shake a stick at, and rightly so. How he was one of the pioneers of modern fantasy, and created or popularized such fantasy tropes as the weakling antihero warrior, the struggle between Law and Chaos, and the concept of the "multiverse." So this week, rather than prattling on, I thought I'd cut right to the chase and give you a preview of the third and final Michael Kane book, Masters of the Pit:

They came in a howling pack, bursting from the trees and running down the beach towards us; grotesque parodies of human beings, waving clubs and crudely hammered swords, covered in hair and completely naked.

I could not at first believe my eyes as I drew my own sword without thinking and prepared to face them.

Though they walked upright, they had the half-human faces of dogs—bloodhounds were the nearest species I could think of.

What was more, the noises they made were indistinguishable from the baying of hounds.

So bizarre was their appearance, so sudden was their assault, that I was almost off my guard when the first club-brandishing dog-man came in to the attack.

I blocked the blow with my blade and sheared off the creature's fingers, finishing him cleanly with a thrust at his heart.

Another took his place, and more besides. I saw that we were completely surrounded by the pack. Apart from Hool Haji, Rokin and myself, there were probably only two other barbarians in our party, and there were probably some fifty of the dog-men.

I swung my sword in an arc, and it bit deep into the necks of two of the dog-men, causing them to fall.

The hounds' faces were slobbering, and the large eyes held a maniacal hatred which I had only previously seen in the eyes of mad dogs. I had the impression that if they bit me I would be infected with rabies.

Three more fell before my blade as all the old teachings of M. Clarchet, my French fencing master since childhood, came back to me.

Once again I became cool.

Once again I became nothing more than a fighting machine, concentrating entirely on defending myself against this mad attack...

James Sutter
Planet Stories Editor

Exploring Paizo's Pathfinder Society Organized Play, Part 4

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

The life of a Pathfinder is filled with constant peril, but this I can promise: you won't see the shining spires of Alkenstar cloistered in some stuffy academy or manning the walls of Absalom in a guardsman's helm.
—Venture Captain Alissa Moldreserva

In Part 1, we unveiled our first faction, Andoran, and spoke a little about the faction system we'll use in Pathfinder Society Organized Play. In Part 2, we unveiled our second faction, Cheliax, and we talked briefly about faction prestige, how it's earned, and what it means for the world of Golarion as well as what it means for you as a member of the Pathfinder Society. In Part 3, we unveiled the third faction for Pathfinder Society Organized Play: Osirion, Land of the Pharaohs. For Part 4, we bring you the fourth faction: Qadira, desert frontier kingdom, gateway to the massive continent of Casmaron, and the westernmost satrap state of the Padishah Empire of Kelesh.

QADIRA
Desert Frontier Kingdom

Let them sit on their thrones and revel in their power. They still need spice for their meat, cloves for their breath, and incense for their barbaric stench. Let their taxes flow to our golden coffers as fast as we can collect them.
—Pasha Muhlia Al-Jakri

The westernmost satrap of the Padishah of Kelesh, Qadira is a kingdom with the power of the sprawling Casmaron empire at its back. Qadira is Kelesh's doorway to Avistan, and is perhaps the single most valuable piece of real estate on Golarion. Rivers of spice and gold flow through its capital of Katheer, and Xerbystes II, the Satrap of Qadira, boasts correctly that his kingdom holds the wealth of any other three on the Inner Sea.

Qadira has long been a power to be reckoned with. Taldor has felt the bite of their scimitars and nearly lost their entire empire in the struggle. Osirion bowed before them for over three thousand years. The war drums of Katheer have been silent for an age, but they never stopped waging their wars. Gold is their weapon now, spices are their shield, and their incredible trading power is their armor.

Qadirans value wealth above all else and they seek to make their fortunes abroad. The wealth of Absalom, and more importantly the trading opportunities proffered by control of the great city, has long drawn the gaze of the satrap's most powerful merchant princes. Many Qadirans are ready to leave their deserts behind for the promise of lustrous Absalom gold.

Goals: No Life without Trade

The world is small and gets smaller everyday. The key to power is trade. Qadira couldn't care less who sits on the Grand Council of Absalom, so long as the Qadiran trade fleet dominates the harbor. Qadira plans to rule the Inner Sea's trade and then bleed their enemies' coffers dry. Collecting debts and supplying the demands of other nations' peoples is how Qadira plans to rule. If their kingdoms slave to send gold east, the satrapy remains contented.

Methodology: All that Glitters is Power

You can always pay someone to murder your enemies.
—Pasha Muhlia Al-Jakri

The Qadiran faction seeks trade and economic advantage above all else. They seek to break their enemies' monopolies and enforce their own. They offer wares and goods no one else can supply and destroy competition with a ruthlessness that put the devil-bowing Chelish to shame. Qadiran missions involve a greater plan, usually embarrassing or defaming an economic rival, or ruining the business of another nation's trade companies.

Check the blog again on Thursday when we reveal the final faction for Pathfinder Society Organized Play.

Joshua J. Frost
Director of Sales & Marketing

Nicolas Logue
Organized Play Coordinator

Meet the NPCS: Allevrah of Kyonin

Monday, June 16, 2008

For the first twelve installments of Pathfinder, we introduced our twelve iconic adventurers. With Second Darkness, our third Adventure Path, we're switching tactics. Since there's only 11 core classes (we kind of cheated with Seltyiel a little, making him our "iconic multiclass" character), starting with Pathfinder #13 our cover characters are instead iconic NPCs from the current adventure path or campaign. Of course, that means that we'll be needing to walk a thin line between showing off our new characters and spoiling key plot points for the adventures themselves. Second Darkness is a good example, since the nature of the main bad guy race isn't obvious immediately in play, but by the end of the first adventure, it should be. It's a small spoiler to players who see the cover, but that's less important than having an eye-catching cover in the first place, really.

But there's a world of difference between showing off an illustration of a character and posting an extensive back story for that character. For the iconic heroes, this was never a problem since they don't actually appear in the adventures. Going forward, though, it's probably not a good idea to spell out exactly what an NPC's role in the adventure is. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that just because an NPC shows up on a cover doesn't mean that NPC is a bad guy. We'll be putting potential allies of the PCs up on the cover now and then as well.

Pictured here, for example, is an elven general named Allevrah. She's a pretty important member of Kyonin's military forces, and has certainly seen her share of battle (note her clipped ear—the result of a close call in a battle against a babau assassin—wound whose scar she wears with pride as a trophy). Her role in Second Darkness is pretty important—important enough that we chose to illustrate her on the Gen Con alternate cover to Pathfinder #13, but if you want to know what that role is, I'm afraid you'll have to play the adventure!

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

A Glimpse Into the Heart of the Beast!

Friday, June 13, 2008

The Pathfinder Campaign Setting Hardcover is soon upon us and the anticipation around here is palpable (tastes like pancakes, incidentally)! Getting to see, and be a part of, the flurry of activity here is a great part of the job! Allow me to foster and nurture some of that anticipation in you by sharing some of the fantastic art that is going into this beast of a book. Enjoy!

Jacob Burgess
Online Retail Coordinator

Exploring Paizo's Pathfinder Society Organized Play, Part 3

Thursday, June 12, 2008

As for your life and limb I make no promises, young novice. Rest assured that you shall never succumb to boredom and your exploits will be sung and scripted for the common folk to marvel.
—Venture Captain Alissa Moldreserva

In Part 1, we unveiled our first faction, Andoran, and spoke a little about the faction system we'll use in Pathfinder Society Organized Play. In Part 2, we unveiled our second faction, Cheliax, and we talked briefly about faction prestige, how it's earned, and what it means for the world of Golarion as well as what it means for you as a member of the Pathfinder Society. For Part 3, we unveil the third faction for Pathfinder Society Organized Play: Osirion, Land of the Pharaohs.

OSIRION
Land of the Pharaohs

We must find the strength of mountains buried in our past and bring it to bear on those fools who think we are nothing but dust in the wind.
—Amenopheus, the Sapphire Sage

Osirion was once the most glorious empire of Golarion. Pharaohs ruled as gods on earth, their monuments towered over even Thassilon's mightiest, and their armies could churn a kingdom to mud and blot out the sun on wings of death. Now, Osirion ages from millennia of foreign rule under the rulership of the youthful Ruby Prince Khemet III, who hearkens back to the ancient days of Osirion's glory. One year ago, Khemet opened the vast deserts of Osirion – long closed by the Keleshite overlords who held the nation as a satrapy of Qadira – to foreign exploration. Today the great treasures and arcane formulas of the living gods of ancient Osirion are unearthed for the entire world to see, and the ascendancy of the Land of Pharaohs is at hand. Most Inner Sea nations view Osirion as a relic from a bygone age. In truth, Osirion is a slumbering giant that, when awakened, could wash away all fledgling challengers with the power of its traditions. The Osirion are wise people who look deep into the past for answers to present troubles. Their sense of history gives them a unique perspective on the ebb and flow of power in the political landscape of the modern Inner Sea. Many folk of Osirion are of old Garundi blood, bronze—skinned, and gifted with the noble bearing of the ancient pharaohs. It would take a special brand of fool to ignore this semblance of power and dismiss the Osirion faction as less of a threat than any of the other four factions clamoring for control of Absalom.

Goals: Uncover the Power of the Past

In bygone ages, the pharaohs of Ancient Osirion created wonders beyond reason. They concocted potent arcane plagues to decimate their enemies and erected mighty monuments capable of entrapping the souls of deities. Let the other factions jockey for meager political fancy or table scraps like favorable economic sanctions. Osirion is interested in rediscovering the powerful artifacts of its heritage, and preventing their theft by aggressive powers such as Cheliax. Once these powers are returned to their rightful hands, no one shall dare breach Osirion's borders again.

Methodology: Hide Your Power, Lest the Enemy Seek to Take It from You

The grasping hands of petty thieves cannot take what they do not know you have.
—Amenopheus, the Sapphire Sage

For centuries now, the other powers of the Inner Sea have regarded Osirion as an impotent nation of conquered people. Osirion wouldn't have it any other way. Since the Ruby Prince ascended the ancestral throne a few decades past, Osirion has been gathering its power and preparing to make a bid for supremacy on the Inner Sea. Most of the Osirion faction's missions involve quietly undermining the power of their enemies. Osirion agents in Absalom plant the seeds of dissolution with a whisper or a poisonous draught, never with a naked blade, and never with a witness. Just as most of the Great Emerald Sphinx is buried beneath the sands of Osirion's deserts, so is the nation's power carefully hidden in secret brotherhoods and spies loyal to the pharaonic throne. When Absalom sits firmly in Osirion's grasp, then Khemet III shall declare himself Pharaoh in the tradition of his ancestors and Osirion's Second Golden Age shall follow.

Check the blog again on Tuesday for more information on Pathfinder Society Organized Play!

Joshua J. Frost
Director of Sales & Marketing

Nicolas Logue
Organized Play Coordinator

A Favorable Companion

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

We're finishing up a whole bunch of great products this week, all of which will be available at Gen Con in a couple months. As most of you are probably keenly aware, we launch a whole new Adventure Path in August with the first 96-page chapter of Second Darkness. In addition, we provide the most comprehensive look at Golarion and the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting with our expansive 256-page campaign setting hardcover. Not to be outdone, of course, is the Pathfinder RPG Beta release, a 400-page behemoth chock full of awesome.

Don't overlook, though, Paizo's release of the first of its new line of products that provide useful flavor and new rules for GMs and players alike: the 32-page Pathfinder Companion. Each Pathfinder Companion will cover some topic related to the campaign setting in great detail, presenting both flavorful information and new character options.

This first Pathfinder Companion fills the role of the Second Darkness player's guide, but goes so much further. In August's Companion, we introduce a structured and expansive traits section. We first introduced traits in the Curse of the Crimson Throne player's guide, but with this player's guide we set out more defined rules and a much greater variety of available traits. In each subsequent Pathfinder Companion, we'll introduce some more traits to give you an even greater selection to choose from.

In fact, to give you a little glimpse at what we've got coming your way, here's a short excerpt and a bit of art for you.

Character Trait Design Philosophy

At its core, a Character Trait is approximately equal in power to half a feat—in fact, at one point, we considered calling them "Half Feats" but abandoned that idea when we realized it implied a point-based system that didn't really exist (there's no such thing, for example, as a "Double Feat"). Yet a Character Trait isn't just another kind of power you can add on to your character—it's a way to quantify (and encourage) building a character background that fits into the world of Golarion. Think of Character Traits as "story seeds" for your background—after you pick your two traits, you'll have a point of inspiration to build your character's personality and history from. Alternately, if you've already got a background in your head or written down for your character, you can view picking his Traits as a way to quantify that background, just as picking race and class and ability scores quantifies his strengths and weaknesses.

One more thing—Character Traits are for PCs. If you want an NPC to have traits, that NPC will need to "buy" them with the Additional Traits feat. Player characters are special—they're the stars of the game, after all, and if they have an advantage over the NPCs of the world in this way, that kind of makes sense. The pregenerated characters presented in Pathfinder and the modules will not have bonus Traits selected for them—we're leaving those choices to you if you wish to use one of them as a PC.

Mike McArtor
Editor

All Hail Mobogo!

Monday, June 9, 2008

Pathfinder #12 is off to the printer, and with it a block of four more new monsters! Of those four, three have roles to play in this volume's adventure, "Crown of Fangs." So to avoid spoilers, let's check out the fourth one—the dread mobogo! We first mentioned these immense frog-like monsters way back in Pathfinder #2 in the boggard entry, and I knew then that sooner or later we'd be seeing these monstrous lords of the swamp. Check him out! Doesn't he look happy to be here?

Mobogos reside in the most primal swamps of Golarion, grotesque eldritch wildernesses unchanged for centuries. The crude religion of boggard-kind says that when the massive goddess Gogunta deposited her frogspawn in the muddy morass of Golarion's still-forming continents, the mobogo were among the first creatures to emerge. Ever since, these Swamp Kings have slept and fed, preying upon the beasts of their fetid meres, growing huge and lethargic, dreaming inscrutable amphibious dreams of their godly mother's return.

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief

Map Pack: Caverns

Friday, June 6, 2008

Water trickles across the floor and drips from the ceiling. Skittering sounds echo from somewhere up ahead and around a corner. The pungent stench of mildew emanates off the wet dungeon walls.

This art sample is but a whiff of what these map tiles may inspire you to tell your players about the dank, dark caverns that they will be traipsing through! The newest addition to the Map Packs line takes adventurers deep into the belly of the world with Map Pack: Caverns. Featuring twists, turns, and troubles for your group, this map pack is the perfect accessory for that delve you've been planning. Map Pack: Caverns will be in stores early July.

Jacob Burgess
Online Retail Coordinator

Exploring Paizo's Pathfinder Society Organized Play, Part 2

Thursday, June 5, 2008

No barfly at the local tavern who blusters on about his "adventures" shall ever know the heart-pounding rush of facing down the winds of Abendego on the prow of a pirate king's ship, or the majesty of the dawning sun cresting the Sphinx's brow at Sothis.
—Venture Captain Alissa Moldreserva

In Part 1, we unveiled our first faction, Andoran, and spoke a little about the factions system we'll use in Pathfinder Society Organized Play. In this segment, we'll talk briefly about faction prestige, how it's earned, and what it means for the world of Golarion as well as what it means for you as a member of the Pathfinder Society.

Missions and Prestige

You gain faction prestige by succeeding in specific missions. In a single scenario there will be one to three missions dedicated to your specific faction, all tasks that if completed give your faction an advantage in Absalom's shadow war. You might need to make sure a crime lord dies, protect an innocent merchant, save a kidnapped child, hand off an important missive, foil an assassination, or steal an important communiqué. Whatever the mission, a positive outcome earns you and your faction anywhere from one to three points of Faction Prestige. Every Pathfinder Society Scenario offers the same potential amount of Faction Prestige to each faction. It's up to you to make sure your faction scores higher than its competitors.

As you advance in Faction Prestige your faction rewards your excellent service. At the same time, the factions with greater prestige gain power and their star rises in the ongoing storyline of the season. Every month a Pathfinder Missive (our monthly newsletter) will let everyone know which factions are increasing in dominance over the city of Absalom and which factions are being nudged ever closer to ignominy and ineffectualness. At the season's conclusion, the faction scoring the most Faction Prestige rules Absalom from behind the scenes, while its enemies gnash their teeth and their kingdoms suffer the consequences. Having a Pathfinder in the winning faction gains that character access to rewards you wouldn't otherwise be able to obtain. (More on rewards later.) Every season ends in June at the Origins Game Fair in Columbus, OH. July is a "bridge" month between seasons during which the loosely connected storyline of the previous season comes to a close while foreshadowing the new season to come. Faction Prestige is reset in July, so that when the next season of Pathfinder Society Organized Play kicks off at Gen Con, every faction once again has the possibility to rule Absalom from the shadows.

And now a sneak peek at Cheliax, the Infernal Empire, and the second unveiled faction for Pathfinder Society Organized Play.

CHELIAX
Infernal Empire

Asmodeus himself smiles upon our endeavor and we shall not rest until the entire world trembles before Him.
—Paracountess Zarta Dralneen

When Aroden died, some say the soul of Cheliax perished with him. The once mighty empire tore itself apart, and only through the power of three noble Houses, each steeped in deviltry, was order restored. The empire runs on the backs of fiends now, a perfect machine of hellfire and blood, where morality surrenders to the needs of law and order. It's easy to curse Cheliax as a nation of devil-lovers, but few can argue with the results of their fiend-binding craft. House Thrune, the greatest of its diabolic noble families, has brought the empire under control once more. Cheliax rises like a dark star, as strong as ever, despite the recent losses of Galt and Andoran to rebellious forces.

Asmodeus proves as powerful a divine patron as Aroden ever did, shepherding his people toward glory and dominance of the Inner Sea. His plans reach eons into the future, and the minor setbacks of yesterday are all factored into the cost of doing a devil's business. The Chelish always plan for a long campaign, and never trifle over today's skirmishes. In the end all will burn in hellfire. It is only a matter of time and calculated conquest.

The pale-skinned Chelish believe themelves superior to all other peoples. Their compact with great devils gives them power beyond measure, and no other nation of the Inner Sea can compete with their summoners and warlocks when it comes to trafficking with dark forces. These devils require payment for their service, often offered up in the form of tender flesh and boiled blood. Slaves are an important resource of the Chelish as are artifacts of ancient power whose secrets are revealed to them by their timeless patrons. Even as Andoran revels in its newfound freedom, the tendrils of Cheliax's empire continue to expand. Arcadia lays open before them and Sargava is ready to fall under their hellish sway. The Inner Sea will fall with the rest as soon as Absalom rests firmly in the bloodied hands of House Thrune.

Goals: Hell on Golarion

The Chelish plan to spread the dark influence of Asmodeus across the face of Golarion. They bring order to chaos, quell the troublesome concepts of freedom and self-determination, and leave broken souls eager to accept the bondage of slavery in their wake. The world must come to terms with the order of things. Mortals serve at the knee of greater powers. The devils of the Nine Hells are Golarion's natural overlords and if the rabble gathered along the coast of the Inner Sea can't be made to understand this simple fact, then they will be purged in a torrent of fire.

Methodology: The Kiss and the Lash

A true corrupter can convince a man to hand over his soul, a blissful smile on his face.
—Paracountess Zarta Dralneen

The Chelish are masters of seduction as well as pain. They bring their enemies to heel with promises of aid, riches, and glory, but keep them in line with cruel lashes and hellfire. The Chelish faction wins others to its dark cause with temptation. Lust, power, riches, vanity, the Chelish offer all, and cater to the sinful nature in every man to bring him low. If a foe cannot be seduced, he must instead be scourged. Many missions of the Chelish faction involve tempting upright people into darkness and vice, and then threatening to expose their sins unless they aid the empire as dutiful agents. The tricks of devils have claimed men's souls since time immemorial and they serve the Chelish well in their quest for control of Absalom.

Check the blog again on Thursday for more information on Pathfinder Society Organized Play!

Joshua J. Frost
Director of Sales & Marketing

Nicolas Logue
Organized Play Coordinator

The Vale's Biology

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Numerous interesting plants and animals live in Golarion. The Guide to Darkmoon Vale offers looks at some of the vale's most iconic or infamous fauna and flora. First up here is a peek at the Fauna sidebar.

Darkmoon Vale Fauna

Most creatures in Darkmoon Vale are simply animals or vermin, with no darker agendas than mere survival. The following are some of the most common creatures of the region.
Firefoot Fennec: These red-footed foxes are common throughout northern Andoran and southern Isger. Their pelts are popular in Absalom and Molthune.
Dusk Spider: These foot-diameter spiders inhabit the Arthfell Forest in large communities that weave immense webs covering several acres. Dusk spider venom, when properly milked from a living creature, makes for a potent alcoholic additive.
Giant Mosquito: These pests are as large as small birds, but they tend to (thankfully) travel alone. Female giant mosquitoes (like their normal-sized cousins) drink the blood of warm-blooded animals.
Giant Moorsnake: These ophidian predators are active mostly at night. As constrictors, they prefer to sneak up on their victims while their potential meals are sleeping.
Mereswan: Unique to the Droskmere, mereswans are normal swans who can eat the mildly acidic popcarp within the lake and who only use a certain kind of volcanic rock for their gizzard stones. The combination of these two elements mean regurgitated gizzard stones of mereswans are smoothly polished semiprecious gems popular with dwarves.
Mountain Horses: Indigenous to the Aspodells, these long-haired, massive equines are popular with miners for their easy temperaments and flexible diets.
Popcarp: Mildly acidic flesh makes the popcarp of Droskmere an unpopular meal, except for the beautiful mereswans who live nearby. When threatened, a popcarp can explosively empty its gas bladder out its mouth to move quickly away, making a distinctive popping noise when it does so (hence its name).
Slurks: The slurk is the disgusting result of ill-advised dwarven efforts at breeding underground frogs. Kobolds prize the foul-smelling and slime-covered creatures as pets and mounts. Slurks live underground in damp caverns where the fungi and lichens they prefer to eat grow in abundance.
Zhen Worm: A smaller species of great worms roughly half the size of Qadira's famous alamien worms, the zhen worms of Andoran can survive in environs that would kill their larger cousins. Zhen worms thrive in warm, moist soil, and many of them migrate frequently to the areas around Darkmoon Vale's geysers, mud pots, and other geothermal features.

And not to be outdone, here's the Flora sidebar.

Darkmoon Vale Flora

Many varieties of unique and rare plants live in Darkmoon Vale. The following are those of greatest interest to residents and visitors of the region.
Appleleaf: These low-growing plants have leaves that grow in groups of four and taste of slightly bitter apples when eaten. Appleleaf grows all over within the forests of Darkmoon Vale and southern Isger.
Blackscour: A black-headed fungus that tastes hard, bitter, and sharp. It grows in the water and causes blackscour taint if any part of it, including its spores, are consumed (usually by drinking contaminated water). Blackscour is not native to the region and was only recently introduced to Darkmoon Vale.
Dowmberries: Although the plants that bear them contain massive thorns, dowmberries remain a popular desert treat when in season in late summer and early autumn. Dowmberries grow best in arid climates and grow all over the eastern side of the Aspodell Mountains and Wolfrun Hills.
Elderwood Moss: This semi-magical moss only grows on the oldest tree in a forest. As such, two known patches exist near Darkmoon Vale: one upon the forest elder in Darkmoon Wood and another on the Green Patriarch within Arthfell Forest. Elderwood moss, when prepared correctly, acts as a strong decongestant. Some people claim that, when prepared incorrectly, elderwood moss causes premature aging.
Glowmold: As its name implies, glowmold glows. Rather brightly, in fact. Glowmold grows very slowly on the undersides of igneous rocks, and the largest concentrations of this useful mold live for centuries under stones too large to easily flip or roll over. Smaller finds provide as much light as a torch. Regardless of the size of the moss colony, picked glowmold glows for 3 days once picked.
Ironbloom Mushrooms: These stunty fungi only grow in dark places thick with metal. The diets of Five Kings Mountains dwarves consist heavily of ironbloom mushrooms, mainly because the plants grow naturally in and around dwarven forges. Protein-rich ironbloom mushrooms bear a slight salty taste but otherwise contain no flavor of their own, making them excellent additions to many dwarven meals.
Pesh: This strong stimulant also has mild hallucinogenic properties, which together make its users easily agitated and randomly aggressive (and easily identified, with bloodshot eyes and frequent nosebleeds). Originally imported from Vudra, pesh cacti grow in warm, moist areas, like those around the vale's mudpots and hot springs. Wild pesh cacti threaten to choke out native species near the geothermal vents. Outside of Katapesh, Darkmoon Vale is the largest supplier of pesh to nations of Avistan.
Paueliel Trees: These silver-barked softwoods grow to immense heights, but never spread to more than a few feet in diameter. Lumberjacks claim paueliel trees are somehow connected with elves and give copses of them wide berth when logging.
Rat's Tail: When pickled, this exceedingly salty root acts as a mild analgesic. Used raw, rat's tail gives a strong salty flavor to whatever dish it is added to. Many of the poor residents in Darkmoon Vale use rat's tail to flavor their food, as salt remains out of the price range of most.

Mike McArtor
Editor

Exploring Paizo's Pathfinder Society Organized Play, Part 1

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Your life may very well be cut short, but your legend shall live forever. Strap on your blade, finish memorizing that spell and grab your pack. Your first journey awaits. The time to find your Path is at hand.
—Venture Captain Alissa Moldreserva

Pathfinder Society Organized Play centers on the sprawling city of Absalom, where five factions engage in a shadow war for control of the city's politics and economy. As you play, the outcome of your adventures, actions, and deeds affect events on a global scale, turning the tide of secret wars between some of Golarion's most powerful nations. The fate of the world is literally in your hands.

During the months of June, July, and August, Nicolas Logue and I will be writing a series of blog posts to peel back the curtain surrounding our plans for Pathfinder Society Organized Play. Premiering at Gen Con this August, Pathfinder Society is Paizo's first foray into the world of RPG organized play.

One piece unique to our RPG organized play system is factions. Every faction has its own unique history, culture, style and specialty. Each has its own modus operandi in the ongoing struggle for control of Absalom, and each offers the Pathfinders in their service different boons. Choosing your faction is as important as choosing your character class or race. It helps define your character in the campaign and ties your Pathfinder to one particular nation's destiny.

And now, a sneak peek at Andoran, birthplace of freedom, and the first unveiled faction for Pathfinder Society Organized Play.

ANDORAN
Birthplace of Freedom, Fledgling Democracy of the Inner Sea

The days of kings are long gone. We are the future of humanity, and of all peoples. Ruled by no crown or scepter, we instead rule ourselves.
—Captain Colson Mardris, Eagle Knight of Andoran

From humble beginnings as loggers and merchants, the Andorens proved themselves survivors on a hard frontier. Even before they won their independence they were an impressive people. Brave explorers and canny merchants, they were the first to sail the sea beyond the Arch of Aroden. They settled distant colonies, hewing a life from wild lands and an inhospitable coastline fraught with peril. The power of Old Taldor's navy rested on the shoulders of capable Andoren commanders whose skill at arms, fiery tenacity, and naval puissance was unrivaled in the empire's glory day.

Andoran shrugged off the auspices of Old Taldor when Qadira invaded the empire. Shortly thereafter they shattered Cheliax's diabolic chains. Now Andoran holds the reins of its own destiny in the strong hands of its people. They are the first government of the Inner Sea to entrust its power to its own citizens instead of dolloping it upon the crowned brow of a king. Their weapons are innovation, a stubborn dedication to idealism, and a firm belief in the potential of humanity. The Andorens are a hard people, dedicated to freedom for all, and unable to sit by and watch as the world around them submits to savagery and tyranny.

Goals: Common Rule for All

Andoran would see the tyrannic empires who once ruled them brought down. They would see slavery abolished and those who would buy and sell people punished in the extreme. They would bring the torch of freedom to the world's darkest places and banish mysticism, diabolism, and fear. Common Rule must be spread across each horizon.

Methodology: Light the Fires of Freedom

Our greatest weapon is the tyranny of our enemies.
—Captain Colson Maldris, Eagle Knight of Andoran

The Andoran faction attacks its enemies from within. They find dissidents, freedom fighters, and revolutionaries among the populations of their foes and offer them covert aid, equipment, intelligence and the funds they need to topple the tyrants. Missions assigned to Andoran faction members tend toward helping dissident groups within the other factions, though anything that shakes these tyrants' power is a worthy cause for an Andoren to lend himself to.

Joshua J. Frost
Director of Sales & Marketing

Nicolas Logue
Organized Play Coordinator

Visiting Belkzen

Monday, June 2, 2008

In Pathfinder #11, we journey into the hostile, orc-infested Hold of Belkzen. While the adventure “Skeletons of Scarwall” itself is primarily limited to one single ruin in this savage land, we also have a gazetteer of the Hold in case you want to do some sightseeing along the way. All manner of surprises and dangers await discovery therein—check out the following two sample locations excerpted from the article as examples!

The Brimstone Haruspex: Though highly independent, even proud orc chieftains sometimes seek advice. When this happens, most warlords send their seconds-in-command to the Brimstone Haruspex, the temple complex high in the caldera of a smoking volcano. Here a group of ancient and inbred orc monks offer guidance in exchange for massive tribute. In addition to maintaining the only supposedly complete record of orc history—a lengthy series of cave paintings stretching all the way back to the orcs’ initial emergence—the monks are also oracles, breathing in the vapors from the active fumaroles in order to spin weird and bloody prophecies. Unfortunately, the fumes that give them their insights are highly caustic, permanently scarring their faces and lungs. It is for this reason that most leaders choose to send their seconds-incommand with questions, as the cruel and prudent priests frequently opt to dangle petitioners in the sulfurous pits to gain the revelations firsthand.

The Skittermounds: These tall, sandy mounds stretch for miles across the foothills of the Mindspin Mountains, and are avoided by all but the truly desperate, as they represent the openings to a vast and complex series of ankheg nests. For the most part, the warring ankheg armies are content to battle each other in their leagues of underground tunnels, noticeable to those above only as a low buzzing, though foolhardy travelers might occasionally witness a colony raising a new mound entrance with frightening speed and efficiency. Every few years, however, runoff from intense storms in the mountains floods the plain, causing the colonies to erupt from their holes by the thousands and press eastward, consuming all in their path.

Sech Nevali: Also called the Hanging Monastery, Sech Nevali is a relic from Thassilonian times, a vast stone temple complex suspended over a mile-deep chasm by immense chains running between three high mountain peaks. Originally dedicated to the Peacock Spirit, the monastery is now inhabited by an order of secretive, isolationist monks who believe (correctly) that not even orcs would brave the most treacherous mountains in Belkzen in order to disturb their solitude. Yet what their ultimate purpose could be in such a remote and inhospitable place remains a mystery beyond Sech Nevali’s swaying walls.

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief