Bring on the Giants!

Thursday, January 29, 2015

In the next few weeks, subscribers will lead the charge in getting their hands on the first volume of the Giantslayer Adventure Path. To help get people ready for this exciting campaign, we’ve released the Giantslayer Player’s Guide. This free download provides a wealth of hints, tips, and advice to help players make the best decisions possible for their characters. In addition to this character advice, this guide includes information about the town of Trunau where the action begins, as well as a number of campaign traits perfectly suited to this Adventure Path.

Don't waste any time! Download the Giantslayer Player's Guide now! Grab your gear and get ready to take on some giants!

Adam Daigle
Developer

The Patch Man

by Adam Heine

Chapter Three: Human Problems

"Don't answer," Allyra hissed. "Where's the back entrance?"

Before Blit could reply, the worm-eaten door crashed open. An enormous green man with incisors the size of tent spikes ducked and stepped inside. Odim and two other Banshees walked in behind him. Gedrak carried nothing—he didn't really need to—but the other three held clubs and torches.

"Well." Gedrak looked over at Allyra with a frown. "That's unexpected."

"It's not what it looks like." Blit stepped forward, open hands pleading.

Gedrak glowered at him like he was a cockroach. "It looks like you're cheating me, Patch Man. I pay you to get rid of evidence, not take it home."

"She wasn't dead, Gedrak!" Blit clenched his fists. "I'm not paid to do your murders for you. If your men are too sloppy—"

Gedrak cut him off with one massive hand. "Save it, Blit. We're through with you anyway. Nothing personal. We're just tying up loose ends, and that includes patching up the Patch Man." He looked at Allyra, chuckling at his own stupid joke.

Allyra was already halfway to him, though, warhammer in the air. Gedrak's surprise lasted only a moment. He lurched into the attack, taking most of it on his leathery hide. Then he threw a fist like a battering ram into her stomach and knocked her down.

She coughed, a small amount of blood trickling down her chin. "Don't worry, Blit. I'll get us out of here."

"Are you kidding?" Blit said. "Just stay close and don't... don't do that again."

Gedrak snapped his fingers, and the other thugs rushed toward Blit. But you didn't live your whole life as a demonspawn without learning how to dodge a pitchfork (or club, in this case, but the principle was the same). Blit ducked and rolled. Then he snatched an extract, popped it open, and drank it one smooth motion.

Immediately, he felt a rush of speed in his legs. He grabbed Allyra and ran at superhuman speed toward the room's back door.

Odim cut him off. Blit shot a hand into his coat, but before he could decide which extract would help him, Allyra—who wasn't nearly as injured as she'd looked—slammed her hammer into Odim's chest, knocking the wind out of him.

Gedrak marched toward them, drawing his jagged blade. "Where you gonna run to? We'll just hunt you, you know. We have to clean up all our messes."

Blit laughed, snapping a fingerful of pine dust into a vial behind his back. "When have you ever cleaned up your own mess, Gedrak?" Then he tossed the vial at the half-orc's feet. It exploded in a burst of flame and light. Gedrak howled. Pieces of the wall cracked and crumbled, and the whole building groaned ominously.

Blit grabbed Allyra's hand and dashed past the wounded Odim. The other Banshees ran after them, but they were too slow to keep up now. The building's back entrance was locked, but Allyra smashed it open with no trouble. Then Blit whipped together another incendiary cocktail and, when they were well into the street, tossed it back into the building where it detonated on impact. The doorframe and most of the stones around it collapsed immediately.

They ran down the street, Blit tugging, half-dragging Allyra forward with his artificial speed, when suddenly the ground beneath them shook and the air rumbled. Blit turned around. The old townhouse—what had been his home for the past several months—collapsed into a gigantic pillar of smoke and rubble.

He stared, hardly able to breathe. The Puddles was his home; it was supposed to be his last home—really, who can't find a niche in the City at the Center of the World? Well, Blit couldn't. He was hunted now, dispossessed, just like in every other place he'd tried to live.

Something tugged his arm. It took him some time to realize it was Allyra. "Look," she said.

He blinked and tried to see past the disaster that was his last chance at a normal life. Nothing came out of the rubble, but in the dust he distinctly saw the shadow of a half-orc making his way around.

"Right." He swallowed. Then he took Allyra's hand again and led her at a jog (for him—for her it was more like a sprint) to Plashet Alley.

∗ ∗ ∗

Blit was completely out of extracts by the time they reached Plashet. He untied a string around one of the under-barbs on his leg, extracted a small key, and used it to unlock a door slapped together from old cargo pallets.

Allyra stumbled into the dark room and collapsed on the floor. Blit took a little more care to lock the door behind them and cover the gaps in it with a darkcloth. Then he fell onto the padding in the corner and fell asleep.

He woke first and lit a candle for Allyra's sake. The hideout was a small stone room, barely big enough for the desk in it and two people to stretch out on the floor. He sat down and began replenishing the extracts he'd used the night before. He had much to prepare if he was going to leave Absalom forever.

He didn't know what time it was when Allyra finally stirred. "What is this place?" she said groggily.

"Backup lab."

Gedrak only cares about the bottom line.

Allyra pulled herself up, looking in wonder at the chemicals, flasks, and other odd materials collected in various drawers on the desk. Of course, she hadn't seen what he'd had in the rowhouse. This was nothing. Still, it felt nice to impress her.

"Why do you have a backup lab?"

He snorted. "You think this is the first time I've been run out of my home? Look at me, Allyra. I'm an aberration. A beast."

"No, you're not! You're a—"

"What? Human?" He stared at his hands, his bulging gut. They were pretty much the only human parts about him. Then just inches down it all turned to hell. "Not hardly. Not ever. That's why I became an alchemist. I wanted to find something that would make me human permanently." He poked a vial of greenish fluid, eliciting a variety of angry, black swirls. "I've gotten nowhere. My greatest achievements are the disguise you saw me in and this damn mutagen, which does the opposite. It makes me more me—hideous and feral. That's the last thing I want."

"You're not the only fiend-blooded man in the world, you know. You're not even the only one I've met. It doesn't define you." She reached up a hand to touch him.

Blit batted it away. "You know why I came to the Puddles?" he barked. "Why I didn't set up shop in the Coins or the Foreign Quarter like a human alchemist? I've lived in a dozen villages. I helped people, you know? Love brews, healing potions, whatever they needed, if I knew how to make it.

"But no matter how helpful I was, no matter how long I lived in a place, I was never a part of the place. Nobody trusts the hellspawn. Something bad happens—crop fails, some gaffer bites it, a member of the city guard gets killed—guess who gets blamed? Doesn't matter that I saved their skins a hundred times, oh no! It's a worldview thing, see? Once you dehumanize someone, they become the source of every bad thing. Doesn't matter what you do, it's what you are, and eventually they always turn on you."

Allyra had the good sense to turn away when he said that. Good. He was afraid he'd been too subtle.

"I'm sorry, Blit. I—"

He waved it off. "Eh. I'm sorry I let my guard down. By now you'd think I'd know better than to trust anyone."

"What? But you can... God, for someone so nice, you're pretty self-absorbed, you know that? I like you, Blit."

That stopped him. After a moment, he remembered to close his mouth.

"I..." She tossed her hands into the air. "I was a swamp hag, okay? There's no excuse for how I used you. I mean, it was a greater good thing—you were our best source for most of the guilds—but that doesn't make it right. I'm truly sorry, and if I ever lie to you again, you have my permission to burn down my house after you take whatever looks good to you. Can we square that?"

He stared at her for a while, still caught on the words "I like you." Nobody had ever said that to him before—not even lying. Eventually, he nodded.

"Okay." She tucked a lock of hair behind one ear. "Okay. So can I tell you who I am? What I know? Because there are some really important things happening—I'm sorry, okay, I know it was your home and it was the latest tragedy in a tragic life—but even more important than that. People are in danger, and I'm not going back out there to face the bad guys unless I trust the person I'm with and he can trust me, okay?"

He nodded again, not because he knew what she was talking about, but mostly because he wanted the truth and she seemed more than willing to offer it.

She nodded, staring at a spot on the wall to her right. "So, we—most of the Puddleglut, I mean—aren't just Caydenites. We've been spying on the guilds in the Puddles for a long time now, passing our information on to Caydenite cells in the other districts so they can stop the worst of the guilds' activities.

"You were kind of my main source of info about the Banshees." She finally looked him in the eye. She had the good sense to look embarrassed. "We knew about Gedrak and Hollis already, and then I used—"

"Wait, who?"

"Hollis. The guard you found last week. He's a Token Guard from the Coins and a grit addict. I used what I knew to fill the gaps in your story, then did a little investigating of my own. Apparently, Hollis tried to blackmail Gedrak for some free grit, and Gedrak didn't take kindly to that."

Blit chuckled. He'd guessed right about that first meeting after all. "So what the hell happened last night? Gedrak met with someone important, I know that much. Was it about Hollis? The Puddleglut?"

Allyra took a deep breath. "Her name is Talish."

Her tone implied much. The question mark above Gedrak's name came to Blit's mind again.

"We didn't know enough about her. We thought she was just a middleman for the Banshees' smuggling operations, but apparently she's more important than that. I spied on them last night—alone, which I shouldn't have been—and heard enough. The watch is putting pressure on her because of the missing guard, so she ordered Gedrak to destroy it all, everything that could possibly tie their operations to her."

"Their loose ends," Blit said, remembering Gedrak's words.

Allyra nodded. "You. Me. The Puddleglut. They're folding up their whole operation, and leaving nothing to chance."

"That's good, though, right? The Banshees are done. No more smuggling. You and I just need to get out of Absalom."

She looked him in the eye, a pained expression on her face. "No, they're destroying everything, Blit. Grit, weapons, pesh... even the slaves."

It bothered Blit that Allyra knew more about his employers than he did, but that didn't change anything. "That's got nothing to do with me."

"Slaves, Blit! They're going to kill them! Stuff them in a warehouse and burn it down like the Puddleglut. We have to do something."

Blit laughed. "No, we definitely don't. We were nearly killed last night—you twice."

She sulked at that.

"Maybe you need to find out what happened to the other Caydenites, but I need to leave Absalom for good before Gedrak and his goons find out where I've gone. I can't risk my life for a bunch of slaves."

"They're people, Blit."

"So am I!"

Allyra did the last thing he expected then: she slapped him hard in his bony face. It hurt more than he cared to admit. "You just finished telling me how dehumanized you are, how outcast. Well think about this, Blit: they can't leave Absalom. They can't just go to another town or village and pretend everything's okay. They. Are. Slaves. However hard your life has been, you have your freedom. You're still alive."

Blit fell onto his stool (he wasn't sure when he'd stood up), and for a long time, neither of them said anything. He looked away and exhaled slowly. "I'm not saying I've got it worse," he said finally. "But we're all in danger here, and I can't... I can't help them. I'll be lucky if I can help myself."

Many minutes of silence stood between them. Eventually, Blit turned back to his work, eminently conscious of her gaze on his back, her staccato breaths.

"I was wrong, Blit," she finally said. "I would've sworn you were good underneath, too."

Blit winced when she slammed the door.

He pounded a fist into the desk. "Fine," he growled at no one. "Go and die!"

At least he would live. And if Allyra didn't, well, that's what she wanted, right? A worthy sacrifice for Cayden's glory. Either that or the slaves would be free. Everybody got what they wanted.

He looked over his makeshift lab, at the potions and mutagens he'd spent years perfecting, all in pursuit of the discovery that would make him permanently human. Then his personal hell would be over. He'd be like everyone else.

Except he wouldn't, would he? He'd still be Blit, no matter what he did to his body.

He dug his nails into his palms. Then he pounded the desk again once, twice, thrice. Beakers rattled. Jars fell over. He pounded and pounded until finally his hands flew to his cloak, tucked a dozen vials into the pockets, and he ran outside shouting, "Allyra! Wait!"

Coming Soon: Mopping up in the Puddles in Chapter Four of Adam Heine's "The Patch Man."

Adam Heine is the Design Lead for the computer RPG Torment: Tides of Numenéra. His fiction has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies and Thaumatrope. Find him online at adamheine.com.

Illustration by Kuba Witowski.

Shiver Me Timbers, It's Cold in Here!

Tuesday, January 27, 2014

Ahoy, me hearties! It's been a while since I've written something for you scabrous dogs... since last year in fact! (That's my stupid New Year's joke, which is something I will try to refrain from doing for the rest of this blog. No promises, though.) Anyway, I'm super stoked about what's in adventure deck five—it's the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: The Price of Infamy Adventure Deck—so there will be none of my usual blah blah blah at the beginning of this post because the less I write here, the sooner we get to the sweet stuff. Onward to the Obligatory Shark Section!

OSS (Obligatory Shark Section)

I have a confession to make. A long time ago, I told you there was a shark in every adventure. That was maybe not totally true. There is no shark here. However, there is something even better. Something so good it deserves its very own one-time super special deluxe section. Ready?

Do you want to build a Galvo?

I have another confession. I just saw Frozen. No really, not like you, who watched it last week for the fifteenth time. I just saw Frozen FOR THE FIRST TIME IN FOREVER. And by forever I mean, for the first time ever. EVER. So, there's gonna be a little bit of that going on in here. I'm sorry, but I won't stop. Honestly, I probably couldn't even if I wanted to because holy sea cucumber, those songs are catchy. So, on to the Galvo...

Question: Is anything greater than a mass of electric eels that forms a humanoid shape and works together to destroy things it doesn't like?
Answer: No.

The Galvo is my favorite thing in all of Skull & Shackles. Just like the Wendigo is my favorite from Rise of the Runelords (#teamwendigo4evs). But what makes the Galvo so great? Everything. My love of galvos began when I read this line from The Price of Infamy, "There is no true Galvo society." I mean, how do you not love that? Anyway, it just gets better from there. Baby galvos are called "tangles," which is stupid cute. I mean, seriously.

So, what about the actual card? Well, you've got that "before you act" check. Yeah, Galvos sometimes just spring out of the water and attack people, kind of like—SPOILERS!—Azog in the newest Hobbit. Seriously, if you didn't see that Jaws moment coming, well, I'm very disappointed. We have you make a Dexterity or Acrobatics check to see if you can dodge that, or you'll be taking a little bit of damage. ZAP! And of course, there's that swarm power. Galvos are nothing if not persistent. I think they get that from Malvo. Fargo on FX, anyone? (Watch it, seriously, so good. It's also got a Hobbit in it.)

I could talk about Galvos for probably an entire blog but I should move on to some of the other sweet stuff this adventure contains. Anyway, you'll know me at a convention if you see me wearing a Galvo Society shirt. But you can't join because there is no true Galvo Society. I'm the only member.

Other Sweet Stuff

There's a lot to love (and be afraid of) in this adventure. Here are a few more things you should keep your eye out for.

Albatrosses are better than people... just like reindeer!

The good news is, the Albatross allows you to defeat a non-villain bane. The bad news is, it flies away and you have to bury 1d4 cards from the top of your deck. If you don't get why the Albatross does you some harm, you should read "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" which honestly, you should read anyway, because it's amazing. You get 5 Cool Points if you've already read it, and 3 if you read it after reading this.

A man goes to a restaurant and orders albatross soup. He takes one bite and immediately kills himself. Why?

I have to confess, Mike and I really wanted this card in the game because we're really big into puzzles and riddles, not because there is some big part of the Skull & Shackles story centered around albatross soup. [Mike says: Click at your peril.] That doesn't mean this card is something you don't need to take seriously, though. You will banish or bury at least one card when dealing with this. Banishing one of your allies will make this go away, but banishing your friends isn't very nice. They're your friends, so why would you do that? Or, you could just bury the top card of your deck and really hope you don't blow it when you try to make the Constitution or Fortitude check and also hope that the card you bury isn't that one card that you need that would make everything totally groovy, if you had it. If you bury, roll, and lose, even more people will get to decide how they deal with this troubling soup.

Groot + cigar = Kapre. Sort of.

Kapres are basically the cigar-smoking tree-huggers of Skull & Shackles. No, literally, they can meld with trees, which is basically the ninja level of tree-hugging. These guys go around smoking cigars and defending nature. How badass is that? Very. Anyway, if you wander into some Kapre territory, they blow some cigar smoke at you and you get all confounded and wander away, leaving the nature natural. Plus, you can use your Charisma or Diplomacy to befriend the Kapre, but even though the Kapre likes you now, its cigar smoke is still enough to persuade you to just leave the location you're at. If you're not wise and just blunder around ruining the Kapre's territory, it's gonna deal you damage, and if you're smart, you'll get the heck outta Dodge after that. I like the Kapre, and I think you should not fight them and instead be their friends.

Scenario Info

There are some things that are just better when served cold. Ice cream, for one. I'll be honest with you, I pretty much like almost all leftovers cold and unheated. Spaghetti, pad thai, mattar paneer, pretty much anything goes. Unless it's supposed to be crispy, then you gotta heat that in the oven. There's one other thing that is also better cold: revenge. Why all this talk of serving things cold? Well, it just so happens that the name of the scenario I'll be telling you about today is called "Best Served Cold." And it's pretty bonkers.

You best get ready to buckle some swashes. There are some scary things ahead.

Replacing all the allies with monsters isn't really what you want. Less friends, more baddies? NO THANK YOU. Although, it does mean you have better chances of finding a Galvo, which I think is great. And after all I've told you about Galvos, don't you want to meet one? No? Well, you're wrong. Stop being wrong and get with the Galvo program.

We also have three named henchman plus the Erinyes Devils. Let's meet them now, shall we?

This is Luccaria and she doesn't like you.

Luccaria basically isn't interested in dealing with you until she has to. As in, unless there are basically no cards besides her in a location, she's going to do some damage to you and dip out until later. Once you manage to get her to pay attention long enough to fight you, she's going to be real unhappy about any of your Divine spell nonsense. Bury ‘em. And then beat Luccaria, so she goes away forever.

This guy gives me some serious heebie-jeebies.

Gilbrok's a bit of a fixer-upper. Nobody gave him etiquette lessons when he was a kid, so he doesn't know it's rude to stick his tongue out like that. Also, it's seriously icky. If you aren't Swashbuckling when you go after Gilbrok, you won't scare him with your piratical prowess, and you'll have to subtract 1 from each die you roll. Oofda. And then, when you don't defeat him because his freaky-deaky tongue throws you off your game, you'll get to encounter one of these curses.

Curse is pirate for "wah wah."

It's just better if you can beat Gilbrok, so he goes away forever.

This Kipper is very different from the dog in the children's cartoon. Very different.

There's a children's cartoon out there with a dog named Kipper, and it's about this sweet little dog and his friends. This Kipper is not sweet. And you've read about his friends—they're jerks. This Kipper shoots first and doesn't ask questions later. He's doesn't care who you are or where you are. When somebody runs into him, he's just gonna shoot someone. Not cool, dude. Plus, if you don't impress him with your swashbuckliness on your check to defeat, any damage he deals to you is going to be increased by 6. It's probably best for you to avoid Kipper if you can, or just pound him into the ground, so he's gone forever.

Bye bye, blessings!

When we were writing this game months and months ago, we needed to add another power to the Erinyes Devil, and I suggested that perhaps these Divine-hating ladies should banish any of your boons with the Divine trait. And now they do. Oops. #sorrynotsorry. I am sorry that I just used #sorrynotsorry, though. Anyway, watch out for the Erinyes Devils. Hopefully, you can fight them without needing help from your friends. By the way, if I was in your party, I probably wouldn't help you. Those are my blessings, and I worked hard to get them, and I'm not gonna banish them just cause you bumped into an Erinyes Devil. This game is more cooperative for some than it is for others. Anyway, smash the devil, and send her away forever.

You may have notice by now that there are lot of small confessions in this blog. Well, I have one more. When I told you that you should get rid of Luccaria, Gilbrok, Kipper, and the Erinyes Devils, I was maybe sort of not telling you everything. When I said they would go away forever, what I meant was "they will go in a henchman pile, and when you encounter Barnabas Harrigan, each character will have to summon and encounter one of them." That's pretty much the same thing, right?

Ring, ring, ring, ring Barnabasphone!

So, even though those henchman are really awful to fight, it's still probably better to deal with one of them than to have to deal with Barnabas. First, you're going to have to succeed at a Wisdom or Perception 14 check or the checks to defeat him are going to be increased by 6. And you've lost the opportunity to evade him. Then, before any check to defeat him—note: there are 2—you must recharge an armor or 1d4 other cards. And if you were dumb enough to think you could go barging up to Barnabas with a big group of friends, you have to discard those cards instead. Yipes. Then, when you're done with all that and you've made checks to defeat him—which, let's be honest, you probably failed—you have to knock some cards off the blessings deck. Or, if you're swashbuckly, just the top card. Yowza. Like I said earlier, lots to be excited about and lots to be afraid of.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this blog and have been enjoying the game. I know I did. I also have one last confession for you. Best Served Cold might be our revenge against all you who said the game was too easy.

Until next time, you salty sea dogs! I gotta go sing more botched Frozen lyrics to myself.

Gaby Weidling
Adventure Card Game Developer

[Mike says: Seriously, Gabs, let it go.]

Introducing the Core Campaign

Monday, January 26, 2015

Illustration by Grafit Studio

As the Pathfinder Society Organized Play campaign and the Pathfinder RPG itself has developed over the last several years, players have expressed increasing concerns about the availability of replay, new players being overwhelmed or overshadowed by over-optimized characters, Chronicle sheet rewards not having much meaning, and other concerns related to the sheer amount of information and options available to PFS players. With the help of our dedicated venture-captains, the team here at Paizo has developed a solution designed to solve all of these problems—and more. We call this solution the Core Campaign, a new mode of PFS play that utilizes all of the campaign's current scenarios and resources—only with a significantly lower barrier to entry. Here are some of the highlights:

• The current Pathfinder Society campaign remains unchanged with use of all of Additional Resources. It is still named Pathfinder Society Organized Play. The new option will be titled Pathfinder Society Core Campaign. Both campaign "modes" use the same scenarios, modules, and other sanctioned adventure resources.
• Every new and veteran player may participate in both the current and Core Campaign at the same time.
• For players participating in the Core Campaign, only the Core Rulebook, Character Traits Web Enhancement, and Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play may be utilized for character creation.
• At no time may any trait, feat, equipment, magic item, skill, animal companion, familiar, or any other character option come from a source beyond these three resources unless it appears on a Chronicle sheet. Race boons found on Chronicle sheets may not be used in the Core Campaign.
• If an item appears on a Chronicle sheet, a PC may purchase and use it regardless of the book it comes from, with the exception of a boon that opens up a different character race.
• Just like in the current campaign, a player may receive credit once for playing and once for GMing a scenario in the Core Campaign; this credit is independent of player and GM credit in the Pathfinder Society Organized Play campaign. This means a player can play once in each of the two campaigns and GM for credit once in each of the campaigns (four credits total, two per campaign), not including any limited replay opportunities established in the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play.
• At any point a player wants to transition their character from the Core Campaign to the existing campaign, they may do so. However, they may not bring that character back to the Core Campaign. As set forth in the current rules, a character may not have two of the same Chronicle sheet assigned to him, regardless of whether it was earned in the Core or existing campaign.

Illustration by
Jason Rainville
• GMs may utilize whatever books a scenario, module, quest, Adventure Path, or other sanctioned adventure utilizes.
• The Core Campaign offers limited replay opportunities for players who have already experienced an adventure in the standard campaign. There have been comments that veteran players have limited opportunities to play with new players and "show them the ropes." Opening up every adventure for replay an additional time allows for veteran players to play a scenario with a new player and still receive credit.
• This initative allows for an immediate influx of four new play opportunities every month—two new senarios playable in the existing campaign and the same two scenarios avalable for play in the Core Campaign.
• Game mechanics outside of the Core Rulebook, such as reposition and dirty trick, are not allowed unless a Chronicle sheet specifically opens it as a character option.
• Retraining may be utilized as the rules currently allow, but only when a PC retrains to take an option from one of the allowed Core Campaign resources.
• GMs will receive star credit for GMing a game, regardless of whether it was an existing campaign or Core Campaign game.
• If a Core Rulebook option advises that something found in the Core Rulebook is clarified in the Bestiary 1, then the player uses that specific option out of the Bestiary 1 to meet the requirement set forth in the Core Rulebook. That would include, but is not limited to, animal companions, special abilities, summon spells, etc... Only the Bestiary 1 is available for these extra options outside of the Core Rulebook.

The next question I think people will ask is: when we will be able to start playing games in the Core Campaign? We're planning to have this system publicly available and ready for you to use later this week! When creating a new event, the new system will allow you to select if a scenario is being run in the existing campaign, Core Campaign, or both (for multiple tables of the same adventure). Likewise, when reporting data from completed sessions, the system allows the person entering data to choose to report which campaign the session was run in.

We hope that this new initiative, along with the new faction journal cards highlighted in last week's blog, will bring an exciting new energy to the campaign on a global scale. I look forward to reading thoughts about the new Core Campaign and how it will help your local Pathfinder Society community.

Mike Brock
Global Organized Play Coordinator

Wrapping Up Iron Gods

Saturday, January 24, 2015

The Iron Gods Adventure Path wraps up this month with Pathfinder Adventure Path #90: The Divinity Drive and the Giantslayer Adventure Path is set to launch next month with Pathfinder Adventure Path #91: Battle of Bloodmarch Hill, so to tie things off we'd like to share a few pieces of the excellent artwork that appeared throughout Iron Gods. Enjoy!

Illustrations by Kari Christensen and J.P. Targete

Illustrations by Dmitry Burmak, Tatiana Vetrova, Brynn Metheney, and Miguel Regodón Harkness

Adam Daigle
Developer

You Guys, You Guys!!!

Friday, January 23, 2015

I just got out of the final paint master approval meeting for June's Dungeons Deep set of Pathfinder Battles prepainted plastic miniatures, and my jaw still hasn't come up from the floor.

We reviewed 28 figures today, including the breathtaking Gargantuan Red Dragon limited-edition "case incentive" figure, and I'm prepared to make the prediction that this will be our best set yet.

I've already extolled the virtues of WizKids's digital sculpting process for releases like Iconic Heroes Set #1, but this is the first time we've been able to implement the process within the context of a large set. All I can say, after handling and reviewing all those figures today, is that the difference is palpable and significant. Not only has the process allowed us tighter control during the sculpt approval phase, but it's also resulted in generally better-looking, more detailed figures across the board. I am SO EXCITED for this set I can't even handle it. I wanted to steal the paint masters and use them in my own games immediately, but somehow made my saving throw against abject greed.

Wow, wow, wow.

Let's start with the Frost Giant.

To be totally honest, this is the figure I was most worried about in this set. Conceptually, I love her. It's long been a personal goal to produce a male and female of every major giant race in the Pathfinder RPG, so the figure definitely hits the mark there. The original illustration—and even to some extent the digital sculpt shown of above—always struck me as a little top-heavy. I was, I must say, a little worried. Having just held the final miniature in my hand, I can say that all of my concerns evaporated. Some of the other members of our approval team (I won't name names, but it rhymes with Meesa Shmeevins) audibly gasped as the figure hit the table. So, so awesome. The Frost Giant is a Large, uncommon figure.

A few weeks back, I mentioned that Dungeons Deep contains a creature type that we have not yet done in previous Pathfinder Battles sets. I should have said "sub-type," really, but at last I can officially reveal that that creature type is GNOLLS. Here we have the first in the set, the Gnoll Warrior. I'm very, very happy with how this guy turned out. I'm also happy that he will have several gnoll brothers and sisters elsewhere in the set. The Gnoll Warrior is a Medium, common figure.

And because I am as giddy as a schoolgirl, I've decided to go ahead and reveal my absolute favorite piece of dungeon dressing that will be included in the set: the Sarcophagus. Oh. My. God, this thing is amazing. For starters, we're looking at a three-piece figure, here. Sarcophagus, lid, and an actual MUMMY that easily comes in and out of the tomb. Best of all, the mummy has entirely flat feet, so you can easily use him as a genuine figure. Bonus! There are six pieces of dungeon dressing in the set. They'll be randomly inserted into eight boosters in every case (so case subscribers can be sure to get a full set). Trust me, you do not want to miss this figure. It is one of the most amazing miniatures we've produced so far!

And lastly, before I leave you for this week, I'd like to make one more push for our Ongoing Case Subscription service. We'll deliver a factory-sealed case direct to you at a substantial discount over the full retail price. The sub also comes with other benefits like an across-the-board discount on singles and other Pathfinder Battles releases (like our forthcoming Iconic Heroes sets). We've seen a nice, steady increase in subscribers since the last set, but I'm hoping we can increase those numbers significantly. Retailers are getting increasingly choosy with the large number of prepainted fantasty miniatures on the market at the moment, and a healthy number of subscribers is the best way to ensure the line's future by providing a core group of customers who we can count on to support each release. If you appreciate what we're doing with Pathfinder Battles and want to help us continue well into the future, please consider setting up an Ongoing Case Subscription today. It really is the best thing you can do to keep the Pathfinder Battles miniatures goodness coming!

I'm on vacation (in Maui!) next Friday. I MAY pre-load a preview blog for next week if I can carve out the time early next week. Otherwise, I'll see you guys in February!

Erik Mona
Publisher

The Giants Are Coming!

Thursday, January 22, 2015

It's nearly February, which means it's almost time for the next Pathfinder Adventure Path, Giantslayer! And it all kicks off with Pathfinder Adventure Path #91: Battle of Bloodmarch Hill. Fans of the orc hold of Belkzen should get kick out of this first installment, which starts in the human town of Trunau in Belkzen, and while you'll see plenty of orcs at the beginning of this Adventure Path, we move into giantslaying territory pretty quickly. In fact, the PCs will have to face their first giant before the Battle of Bloodmarch Hill is finished!

The Giantslayer Adventure Path features an almost bewildering variety of Brobdingnagian foes for your PCs to battle and slay, from old favorites like hill giants, stone giants, frost giants, fire giants, cloud giants, and storm giants, to less common colossi like cave giants, marsh giants, slag giants, and ash giants, not to mention cyclopes, ettins, ogres, trolls, and more. We've even got a couple of all new giants—the mongrel giant and the tomb giant—making appearances in Giantslayer, so be sure to take a look at the bestiaries for this AP.

Illustration by Ekaterina Burmak

Illustrations by Dmitry Burmak, Miguel Regodon Harkness, Maichol Quinto

So get ready! In just a few short weeks, the Giantslayer Adventure Path arrives! And keep an eye on this blog for the Giantslayer Player's Guide, which will be here soon, featuring a gazetteer of the town of Trunau (previously featured in Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Towns of the Inner Sea) and all sorts of tips and tricks to make the best giantslaying character out there! Until then, check out some of the art that will appear in the Giantslayer Adventure Path.

Rob McCreary
Senior Developer

The Patch Man

by Adam Heine

Chapter Two: Trine Treachery

Blit crept toward the body, fingering two vials which, when mixed, would create an explosive powerful enough to separate a person from their more important appendages.

Just in case.

The body was a woman, unconscious but still very much alive. She must have gasped in pain and then passed out again. No wonder—her leather armor bore a gash the length of Blit's forearm. How had she survived at all? Blit leaned in to see the woman's face.

He nearly dropped his vials. Allyra! He could even smell the Puddleglut's "famous ale" on her skin.

She still breathed, but barely. A trickle of blood had dried at the corner of her mouth. Trying very hard not to think about how she'd gotten there (in leather armor? And was that her warhammer?), Blit unstrapped the armor to get at her wound.

She had a ragged cut from her left hip to her lower ribs on the right. A serrated blade, like the kind Gedrak typically carried. Blit grabbed some rags from his pack. He cleaned the wound as best he could and wrapped it tight until the bleeding stopped. She was still breathing when he finished, which was something, but she wasn't waking up, and for all of Blit's tricks, he had nothing that could wake her. Ironically, patching up people wasn't in his job description.

What the hell could he do? He should kill her and pretend he'd never seen her alive, or tell Odim and have him do the job. Just the thought of that made him sick, though. No, he had to finish his work and get her the hell out of there. Somehow.

That night may not have been his best work. Every two minutes, he looked back to make sure Allyra still breathed, and every other minute to make sure Odim or Kip hadn't come in early.

What had happened? From the mess, it was clear most of the Banshees had been present, Gedrak included. Blit found what looked like an adamantine ring from a mail shirt. Gedrak certainly didn't own anything like that, nor was Allyra wearing anything so expensive. So who else had been here? Someone from outside the Puddles, certainly—and not the watch either.

And where did Allyra come in? She was a damned waitress!

With two bodies to cart, he'd need more than his bronze liquid. He drank the bronze and then added another extract that tasted like leather. His muscles bulged with the added strength the second elixir gave him, and he put one body on each shoulder like they were rolls of carpet.

As he shifted Allyra's weight, she cried out again. Blit's breath caught in his throat. What would Odim and Kip do if they saw her alive? And bandaged! Cayden's breath, what was Blit thinking? At best, they'd kill her immediately. More likely, they'd kill Blit too.

What he wanted to do was run past the goons and disappear, but that would make them more suspicious, not less. He'd just have to hope they didn't notice her. He shifted Allyra to better hide her bandage and then stepped outside.

"Job's done," he muttered, facing the street rather than the goons so his head would block any view of Allyra's stomach.

Odim grunted and left to check on Blit's work. Kip remained outside. He still rubbed his arm. He winced whenever he moved it too much, but the bandage wasn't very bloody—a blunt wound.

"What are you looking at?" Kip growled.

Blit looked away. Allyra breathed raggedly against his ear. Even with his extra strength, he felt like her breaths were rocking his whole body. Gods, he needed to get out of there.

"Looks good," Odim said behind them.

"Great," Blit said, relieved. "I'm gone."

He was several steps away when Odim said, "Hold it!"

Blit turned around slowly, expecting knives out and an inevitable chase—one he would almost certainly lose, even with his vials. When he saw Odim holding only a coin pouch, he let out the breath he'd been holding.

"You're jumpy tonight, Patch Man."

Allyra's job at the Puddlegut is more complicated than it seems.

"Can you blame me?" Blit managed. "You two are spooked as hell."

Odim and Kip gave each other a look. "But why are you skittish? You don't know nothing about it. Do you?"

A hundred lies darted through Blit's head, each one worse than the last. Anything he said would make them question him more, make them doubt.

So he didn't say anything. He grabbed several vials, downed all of them at once, and then walked toward the goons.

Odim and Kip stepped back involuntarily. "What do you know, pinhead?" Odim said, a familiar look of disgust on his face. "Did you see something in there?"

"Nothing." The extracts began taking effect. He no longer walked toward them, but floated. Impressively, they stood their ground (though probably Blit was just less intimidating than he thought he was). He reached out for the coin pouch. As he touched it, the pouch melted into his hand and disappeared—the best kind of magic trick, what with it being actual magic.

Odim and Kip gasped and jumped back (finally—what did it take to frighten some people?).

Blit said, "Just doing my job," and before they could ask any more questions, he flew up over the rooftops and into the night.

∗ ∗ ∗

He was shaking when he got home. He'd dumped the Banshee corpse on Wallow Lane, then carried Allyra inside his crumbling hovel—all invisibly of course, but his nerves couldn't take much more of this. He was an alchemist, dammit. He shouldn't even have to spell "skullduggery."

The night was using up his extracts faster than most, and he wasn't finished yet. Allyra was still unconscious. He'd thought about taking her to the Puddleglut and leaving her there, but if they didn't already know about her secret life as a goon-hammer, then he might be betraying her. Besides, he was too low on extracts to get her there safely. Instead, he decided to go to the Puddleglut himself and ask for help.

He downed a vial that scratched his throat and filled his nose with the scent of lemongrass. In the mirror—a shattered, grubby thing that he kept only for this purpose—he watched as his hellish features disappeared. His horns sank into his head. His feet became smaller, with five pink toes, while his digitigrade heels sank to the ground and his scales became a pair of woolen breeches. His skin kept its amber cast (nothing's perfect), but he looked more human than most people. Good enough for what he needed to do, at least.

He walked to the Puddleglut—couldn't afford using his faster formulae, in case his night with the Banshees wasn't over yet. The pub door hung open as usual, but inside was dark and quiet. Blit sniffed the air detecting nothing unusual. He patted his cloak to reassure himself that he had vials to spare, and stepped inside.

Of course, the dark didn't hinder a hellspawn. To him, the bar looked exactly as it had when he'd been there last, sans people. No sign of a struggle even. Everyone was just... gone.

He searched behind the bar. Everything was there, even the cashbox and a half-empty bottle of Qadiran cider. The shrine to Cayden Cailean on the back wall smelled of melted paraffin, but the wicks were cool to the touch. They'd left some time ago, then—but why? And why in such a hurry that they didn't even close the door?

The door to the back room stood open a crack. Maybe he'd find some clues in there. He pushed his way inside and hissed through his teeth. He'd expected some kind of office, or a small bedroom for the barkeep. Instead he found a gods-damned Caydenite cleric revival tent. Much had been removed, but there were still stoles, tunics, and a single greave, most of which bore the religion's distinctive ale mug. No less than three Placards of Wisdom hung on the walls, two of them with texts Blit had never seen.

"Who the hell are these people?" The room had been emptied in a hurry, but there were loose pieces of paper lying around. Notes. Most made no sense, but a couple of them were enlightening. The first of these was a sketched-out organizational chart with Gedrak's name near the top, a question mark above him, and names Blit knew all too well beneath: Odim, Kip, Sidro, Alver, and half a dozen other Banshees.

The other note bore no names, but the dates and times on it matched Blit's visits to the Puddleglut exactly. If he had any doubts they were about him, the most recent date was the previous Starday—the last time he'd been there—and next to it the words: "Scared him off?"

He crushed the note in his hand. All this time, Allyra had used him. The Puddleglut was some kind of Caydenite spy house, and Blit was one of their sources. Gods, he was such a fool!

He patted his pockets, looking for something that would destroy the whole place, when he caught a whiff of oil and smoke and realized someone else had the same idea.

While he was still inside.

Blit bolted out of the back room, and a wave of heat blasted him in the face. Smoke poured into his lungs until he couldn't stop coughing.

In between coughs, he caught the scent of alchemist's fire mixed with the smoke. Whoever had done this wanted it done fast and right. There was no time. He ran to the back, a pair of vials already in his hands. He swallowed the extracts by the time the first explosion rocked the pub. He burst out of the door at supernatural speed, not caring whether anyone could see him or if the arsonists were still around. He guzzled his last invisibility extract and ran straight home.

∗ ∗ ∗

Blit slammed the door behind him and leaned against it. His hands wouldn't stop trembling. He felt like he couldn't get enough oxygen.

What the hell was happening? First the dead guard, then Allyra, now the whole Puddleglut had gone up in flames. The incidents were related—they had to be. Think, Blit, think!

The Banshees had killed a member of the city watch. But that hadn't scared them as much as whatever had happened with Allyra. Had they been meeting with their boss, the mysterious question mark above Gedrak's name on the Caydenites' notes? Had Allyra stumbled onto something?

And then who had burned down the Puddleglut? Were the Caydenites covering their tracks or the Banshees? Or someone else?

"Who the hell are you?" said a voice.

Blit squinted in a sudden glare. Allyra stood ten feet away from him, lantern in one hand and warhammer brandished in the other. "Where am I? Why am I here?"

Blit cocked his head to the side. "Allyra, it's me."

Her eyebrows knit in confusion. "I don't know you. How do you know my name?"

Right. His alchemical disguise was still in effect. "I'm Blit," he said, as he looked for a formula that would cancel the extract's effect.

"Blit?" She lowered the hammer and stepped forward. "You look... wrong."

That wasn't the word he would have used. "It's a disguise. Watch." He drank the vial he'd found. He knew it was working by the way her lips turned upward.

"Oh, thank the Drunk. How did you...?"

"Become more human?"

She nodded.

"Alchemy." He could tell by her expression that this surprised her, but only briefly. No doubt she was piecing together other clues she knew about him. Well, at least she didn't know everything. "Wait." He looked her up and down. "How are you okay? When I left, you were half dead."

She put a hand on her stomach. "I'm not great, but yeah, okay. Blit, I'm... not a waitress. I mean, I am, but I'm also a—"

"Caydenite." Blit snarled. Of course, she'd healed herself. All the revelations of the last hour came rushing back. "How long have you been using me to spy on the Banshees for you?"

Allyra's face turned to utter shock. "Blit, I haven't been using you!"

"Oh, no?" He marched toward her, taking joy in the fact that she seemed afraid of him. "What about the notes I found in the Puddleglut? ‘Scared him off?' one said. Was that your handwriting or did you dictate that one?"

"The Puddleglut? What were you...?" Her face became serious. "Blit, you don't understand."

"Ha! If there's one thing I understand, it's betrayal. It's my fault, really. Suspicion should be my normal response to someone actually wanting to listen to me, you know? I can't believe I bought your act."

"Gods, Blit, no!" She dropped the hammer with a crash and put her head to her hand. "I'm so sorry. That's not at all—"

"Really, I should thank whoever burned down the Puddleglut. It would've been a waste of materials for me to do it. You know, I—"

"Blit, shut up!" She put a hand on his cheek. The shock of human touch was the only reason he obeyed, really. "Someone torched the Puddleglut?"

He nodded. "While I was in it, no less."

She moved quickly, dousing the lantern and grabbing her hammer and a cloak. "We have to get out of here. Now!"

"What? Nobody knows you're here, and who would bother with me?" A quiet voice nagged that he'd been afraid of just that a short while ago, but he brushed it away. "I want to know how long you've been playing me."

"Blit, really, I—"

She was interrupted by a knock on the door. It was so heavy that paint chips leapt off the doorframe and dust fell from cracks in the wall.

"Patch man!" shouted a gruff and all-too-familiar voice. "It's Gedrak. Open up!"

Coming Soon: Tying up loose ends in Chapter Three of Adam Heine's "The Patch Man."

Adam Heine is the Design Lead for the computer RPG Torment: Tides of Numenéra. His fiction has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies and Thaumatrope. Find him online at adamheine.com.

Illustration by Kuba Witowski.

Top 32 Announced!

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

We are thrilled to announce the RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32 finalists! The community has cast thousands of votes for the submitted magic items in our Open Call round and helped our judges, Liz Courts, Mark Seifter and myself narrow down the final entries. They are, in alphabetical order:

RPG Superstar™ 2015 Top 32

Gabriel Almer Staff of the Prime Mover Charlie Bell Crook of Unseen Forces Charlie Brooks The Hero's Breath Russ Brown Ice Fang Christopher Donnangelo Staff of the Vanara King Brian Fruzen Pyrolastic Spike Mark Hart Venom's Kiss Jeff Heikkinen Flowing Fortress Armour David Higaki Earthcracker Dana Huber Ophidian Coil Taylor Hubler Fist of Havoc Ben Iglauer Fool's Scepter Jason Keeley Rod of Exorcism Jacob Kellogg Soulshifter Staff Patrick Kilcullen Swarm-strike Caster Scott LaBarge Keyhole Stiletto

John Laffan Staff of the Thieving Magpie Monica Marlowe Spectre Blight Matthew Morris Psychopomp's Crosier Kalervo Oikarinen Fate-binder Ben Parkin Magrim's Mountain Crusher Anthony Pennington Depth Charger Newton Philis Breach Barrier R Pickard Harvestweal Olivier Rayé-Lalonde Ring of the Investigator Justin Riddler Mountain Stance Armor Matt Roth Rimewinder Chris Shaeffer Hide of the Vibrant Frog Maria Smolina Shield of Stormwall Frankie Trombetta Interrogator's Ally Christopher Wasko Windstrider Mail Benjamin Wilkins Staff of the Trusted Phsyician

Alternates

Jeff Hazuka Fellbough Hookhammer R D Ramsey Tunnel Fighter's Ring

Allana Sliwinski Harlequin's Hurlbat Jensen Toperzer Rod of the Iron Rose

This contest is an important part of Paizo's efforts to find new talent and give fans the opportunity to prove they have what it takes to join our stable of freelance writers. Thank you to everyone who voted in the Open Call! And to our Top 32, good luck in Round 2!

Owen K. C. Stephens
Developer and RPG Superstar Host

Announcing PaizoCon 2015—May 22-25!

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Are you ready for PaizoCon? We are! Join us this year at PaizoCon 2015, where there will be 4 days of gaming, panels, workshops, costumes, and opportunities to be among the first to hear about future Paizo and Pathfinder projects. You'll be able to meet up with Paizo staff, community members and fans, as well as many authors, artists and designers from the gaming industry. This year we're also very proud to announce that our guests of honor will be Brandon Hodge and Jason A. Engle! You can learn more about them here.

One of the things you may have noticed that's changed this year is that PaizoCon is now a 4 day convention. This means a whole additional day that allows PaizoCon attendees more opportunities to see all that the show has to offer. If you missed out on one of our staple panels or had to juggle your schedule in previous years, an extra day offers more flexibility in your personal schedule to see and experience panels, third-party events, and organized play events.

We've also got a new venue for PaizoCon 2015: the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotels, Seattle Airport. This new location features more rooms for our events, more space for guests, and the hotel itself has a great atmosphere that we think will make it an ideal new home for the show. Attendees who choose to stay at the DoubleTree can also take advantage of the special PaizoCon rate.

So what about badges? This year we are selling three kinds of badge: the 4-Day Badge, 4-Day Kid's Badge (for children 10 and under), and a new option, the 4-Day Deluxe Badge. The new Deluxe Badge includes a ticket to the annual PaizoCon Preview Banquet and is available in limited quantity. Banquet tickets are still available separately, though due to space, will also be limited.

If you have any questions about the PaizoCon 2015 (including badges/tickets or hotel information), please check our FAQ or visit the PaizoCon forum.

We're so excited for PaizoCon 2015 to get here and will be updating you with more information as the convention gets closer. In the meantime: go get your PaizoCon 2015 badges now!

Chris Lambertz
Digital Products Assistant

Writing a New Entry for Factions

Monday, January 19, 2015

There are many central features of the Pathfinder Society Organized Play campaign that have changed little if at all over the better part of a decade since it began. The amount earned by a Day Job and the item value threshold unlocked by having a certain amount of Fame remain the same, and I don't believe a single word has changed in the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play's entries about alignment and how to calculate one's hit point total (with the exception of adding new classes to the list). Perhaps the most dramatic change over the years beyond the extraordinary growth in the list of venture-captains and venture-lieutenants is how the campaign has treated factions.

For a long time, five factions vied for control of Absalom and sent their respective agents one or two tasks to accomplish during each scenario. It was certainly nice to hear from one's faction leader regularly, and many found it reassuring that they could try to contribute in some small way to the faction's fortunes no matter where adventure took them. Things started getting pretty tricky when another five factions joined the scene at the start of Season 3. Not only was it unrealistic to provide a faction goal for every scenario for every faction (e.g. Does the Lantern Lodge really have an interest in this Azlanti observatory or Qadiran shipwreck?), but faction missions were becoming more of a burden at the table as GMs printed and distributed ten handouts. It became increasingly apparent that one could just complete his faction mission(s), fail the main task the Society had assigned, and get away with most of the rewards, which did not sit well with many. Were there some great faction missions? Absolutely. Without a doubt, though, many faction missions proved forgettable and inconsequential but for the reward they gave. I think many who participated in the campaign a few years ago remember the all-too-common chorus of "I search this room for a [minor MacGuffin]. Is there one in here? I take 20."

Something needed to change, and beginning in Season 5, faction leaders stopped distributing faction missions during every scenario. Faction leaders began sending letters several times over the course of the season to inform their agents what the faction's short-term goals were and if there were any special opportunities coming up. Each faction then had special opportunities—usually more involved than a typical faction mission from past seasons—in a handful of scenarios for that season, and accomplishing one of these earned the PC a special boon. Of course, this encountered its own problems. Distributing the letters in a way that was both reliable and not a burden on GMs was difficult. Introducing faction ties in some scenarios inadvertently pushed some players to play only members of that faction in those adventures, making it harder to muster tables. Not having something to do more often than not made factions feel less important. What's more, juggling which faction appeared how often, in what level ranges, and doing suitably flashy things made outlining and developing scenarios more difficult.

Every campaign change upsets players' expectations and forces participants to adapt to something new, and certainly after the fairly substantial changes that occurred at the beginning of Season 5, the Pathfinder Society team is cognizant of the effects of announcing another revision to operating procedure. On the other hand there are numerous issues that have developed gradually that need our attention, and we first announced those in a blog several months ago. If you have not taken the opportunity to read the Factions part of that blog, I encourage you to take a few minutes to do so.

All caught up? Let's take a look at a few of the Faction Journal card entries in the works, starting with several of the goals for the Silver Crusade. This faction is the iconic good-guy faction, so my aim is to ensure that the faction journal rewards the PC for doing things that make a lot of good-guy sense. Even where there are faction goals that might be a little strange, each card has a paragraph or two describing the faction's aims in more detail to provide the necessary context.

▢▢ Defeat an outsider that has the evil subtype and whose Challenge Rating is at least equal to your character level.
▢▢ Defeat an undead creature whose Challenge Rating is at least equal to your character level.

I think it's safe to say that both of these fit the good-guy trope, and both of these are common enough that many scenarios should give a Silver Crusade faction PC a fair opportunity to fulfill one or both of these. Of course, it's important to be aware that with few exceptions, a PC can only check one box per adventure—our way of stretching out the accomplishments over multiple scenarios and preventing someone from earning the maximum rewards before reaching 2nd-level. So why do these each have two checkboxes? Well, some faction goals are more common or easier to accomplish than others, and your faction is not suitably impressed by or improved by one such achievement. After all, killing your first demon might have been incidental or a fluke; killing a second one in a later adventure proves that you take fiend slaying seriously. Let's look at something without multiple checkboxes.

▢ Spend an amount of gold equal to at least 100 times your character level on spellcasting services used on spells with the healing descriptor for another PC. You may instead purchase and expend material components or a single-use magic item that costs the same amount for that PC.

Ah, now this is a little tougher in part because it requires the faction PC to pay out of pocket—for a good cause, admittedly. You shouldn't have to do that more than once in the name of boons, but giving your friend a potion of cure serious wounds in a time of need is something that makes Ollysta Zadrian smile. Of course there are bound to be occasional goals that don't come up often enough or that you'd rather not complete. For that, we have one special opportunity.

▢▢▢▢▢ When you are the GM for any event that grants 1 or more XP, you may check one of this boon's boxes. If you have multiple faction cards, you may only check a box on one of them each time you are the GM. Once all five boxes are checked, you receive faction rewards on this card as though you had completed two additional faction goals.

Aha, flexibility and a GM reward all rolled into one! So why are we doing this? What's the payoff? There are three tiers of reward, acquired when one completes two, five, and eight goals respectively. As I'm writing these, I'm aiming to have each reward reflect the flavor of the faction and make somebody from that faction feel that she's reaping the benefits of her affiliation—ideally during every scenario. For example, the Exchange faction's rewards make it easier to make money and easier to receive discounts on equipment; honestly, shouldn't the PCs belonging to the "money faction" have felt a little more wealthy all along? What's more, each top-tier reward grants benefits to the whole table, allowing a truly successful faction PC to flaunt her accomplishments and share the wealth. Let's see what the Silver Crusade has to offer.

Soldier of Peace (two goals): You reduce the penalty on attack rolls to deal nonlethal damage with lethal weapons by 2; if you already suffer no penalty on such an attack, you instead deal 1 additional point of nonlethal damage. Once per adventure before casting a spell, you may choose to replace half of the lethal damage dealt with an equal amount of nonlethal damage.

Anointed (five goals): You gain a +2 sacred bonus on Charisma-based checks made against good creatures and saving throws against spells and effects with the evil descriptor. Once per scenario as a swift action, you may grant a weapon you wield the benefits of bless weapon for one round.

Paragon (eight goals): When you or an ally spends Prestige Points to purchase the spellcasting service raise dead, resurrection, or true resurrection, reduce the Prestige Point cost by 25% (rounded up). When you cast any of these spells, you may reduce the cost of the material component by 25%. When activating either the Soldier of Peace or Anointed boon, you may choose to grant the benefit to one ally you can see instead of receiving it yourself.

Looking at these, the more Silver Crusade PCs act like good guys and vanquishers of evil, the better they become at being good guys and vanquishing evil. Most of the benefits are ones a PC might use in a typical adventure, and many of the goals are likely to appear even when randomly selecting which adventure to play next (even a module). Nice! The boons and goals above are still in the works and may have to change to fit on the Faction Journal card, but hopefully this gives you a good sense of where this project is going. We're aiming to have these out in the wild in early February.

Are there themes that you would like to see appear among your favorite faction's goals or rewards? Tell me about it here!

John Compton
Developer

Round 2 is Coming

Saturday, January 17, 2015

As I suggested I might, I'm going to give you the general guidelines for the mysterious "Create a Map" round the Top 32 will face starting Tuesday. This isn't official (the official rules will be posted Tuesday), but it's not a trick either—this is just a casual discussion of what we're looking for, and what we expect.

For Round 2, contestants will be asked to provide a full-page map, or a previously unmapped fantasy-themed location in Golarion. Submissions will need to be sent by email before the deadline. It needs to be 8.5" x 11", and approximately 150 dpi when submitted. Your map may be color, grayscale, or black and white, and may be hand-drawn or computer-generated.

The map itself is the entry, so it is important to make it interesting and creative. Above and beyond all the tips on making your map legible and having enough information for a cartographer to be able to create a publishable map from your entry, it's crucial you make sure you map something that really needs a map. If the map isn't needed to understanding what the area is like and how characters may move around in it, then it's a waste of space that could be used for something else. If the map is boring, no one will care about the location it represents.

No one needs a map of a 20-foot by 20-foot room with a door centered in the north and west walls, or of a forest that's six miles long and three miles deep with a single road and one town in the middle. Your map should be something that sparks the imagination, and leads to interesting encounters. It should also use the 8.5" x 11" space well. A map that clearly ignores half or more of the page will be disqualified.

Your submission need not be something that could be published, but it must be something that could be used by a GM to run a game set in the mapped location, and it must have all the information a cartographer needs to make the final map. Voters are asked to vote not on artistic talent, but on clarity, imagination, and usefulness.

Maps are incredibly important, and they are a skill we simply haven't emphasized enough in the past. A good map can get a GM or players excited about a location before they have read a single word, while a bad map wastes space and may even confuse people. Even very good adventure writers can produce maps that have to be entirely redrawn by our developers or (worse) be so incomprehensible we have to abandon them and rewrite an adventure to use a map we can create ourselves.

Freelancers able to create clear and imaginative maps that don't need us to do anything but send them to a cartographer have a huge advantage over those who can't (and may even get work to create sketches of maps we then hand to adventure writers).

It's a big challenge, but it's also part of what I was talking about when I said if you are a finalist this year, I want you to be confident you have the skills it takes to become a successful RPG freelance adventure writer.

Owen K. C. Stephens
Developer and RPG Superstar Host

Here There Be Dragon!

Friday, January 16, 2015

Last week I revealed the next big set for Pathfinder Battles: Dungeons Deep! The new set includes 51 figures, counting 6 pieces of "dungeon dressing" like the Bubbling Cauldron I revealed last week. That total also includes the amazing limited-edition case incentive figure for the set, the Gargantuan Red Dragon.

I've been eager to add a Gargantuan Red Dragon to the Pathfinder Battles line for a while, to help us fill out the ranks of the evil chromatic dragons. WizKids (using an illustration by the incomparable Ben Wootten) managed to create something truly beautiful and terrifying with their sculpt.

BEHOLD!

As usual, customers with an Ongoing Case Subscription and folks who preorder a full case of Dungeons Deep qualify to buy one Gargantuan Red Dragon per case ordered.

I love the way the dragon is screaming at the sky, and the way that his left paw is raised for a killing swipe. This is definitely a figure that will have your players vacating their bowels when it hits the table, so plan accordingly.

Here are some other cool figures from the Dungeons Deep set!

This lovely little fellow is the dreaded Chupacabra, the legendary goat-sucker of South American cryptozoology and star of Bestiary 2. We see here the Chupacabra in mid sneak, about to stick his teeth into some unwitting livestock. Or, more likely in the Pathfinder world, some unwitting player character. The Chupacabra is a Small, common figure.

It's been a long, long time since we've had a proper Dire Boar in prepainted plastic, so Dungeons Deep comes to the rescue with this grumpy guy. I really like this figure, and think he'll get a lot of utility at the game table. The Dire Boar is a Large, uncommon figure.

Last up this week is the Burning Brazier, one of the 6 "dungeon dressing" items in the set. This is a new type of figure for Pathfinder Battles, with a new kind of rarity and distribution model. One in four Dungeons Deep booster packs will contain a dungeon dressing figure, which will replace a regular figure's spot in that pack. That means customers can expect 2 pieces of dungeon dressing per brick, and 8 per case. As you can see, some dungeon dressing will not come on a standard base, to aid in the verisimilitude of the dungeon environments you create on your tabletop.

We'll be back next week with more previews from the Dungeons Deep set. Until then, keep on delving!

Erik Mona
Publisher

A Little Robotic Friend

Thursday, January 15, 2015

The final volume of the Iron Gods Adventure Path, Pathfinder #90: The Divinity Drive, is soon to depart the spaceport... I mean, our warehouse. In this volume, the adventure reaches its exciting conclusion, and it also marks the finale of Amber E. Scott's excellent story in the Pathfinder's Journal.

Not too long after working up the initial general plot for the Pathfinder's Journal with Amber, I got her first chapter in my email. I really enjoyed the two protagonists and how they worked together and wanted to see how she'd go on to develop their relationship. Then after the second chapter showed up in my inbox, I met a new favorite character—Tryg, the little robot that Eirian and Sidek rescue.

I liked Amber's description of the robot and I couldn't wait to see how Rodrigo Vega would draw it. When the first sketch came back I was delighted. He looked weird and cute at the same time, which is always a win for me. When the final art for that first illustration of Tryg came in I printed it out and pinned it to the wall of my cube. Like the protagonists in the story, I ended up falling in love with that little guy, so I figured I'd go ahead and stat him up since he's one of the few robots that we've illustrated in Iron Gods that doesn't have stats.

While I was working on the robot's stats, I took the chance to get Amber to talk a bit about her adorable robotic creation. She had this to say:

"What was most important to me was for Tryg to be more than just a mindless automaton. He had to have a personality and some free will; otherwise there would be no reason to care about his eventual fate. To me, Tryg was clever and curious and playful, too. He learns eventually that he's gonna get grabbed and tied up every night and first he tries to outsmart Sidek and later he's resigned to it." (My intent, even though I never said so explicitly, is because Tryg has a sense of what awaits him at the signal's source and he knows Sidek is trying to help him get there).

I also selected the name 'Tryg' as an alternate spelling of the Norwegian name ‘Trygg/Tryggr,' which means faithful/trusty, to reinforce the image of Tryg the robot as a loyal canine companion.”

Here's what this a lovable robot companion looks like in Pathfinder stats.

Tryg CR 1/2

XP 200
N Small construct (robot)
Init +0; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Perception +3

Defense

AC 13, touch 11, flat-footed 13 (+2 natural, +1 size)
hp 15 (1d10+10)
Fort +0, Ref +0, Will +1
Immune construct traits
Weaknesses vulnerable to critical hits and electricity

Offense

Speed 30 ft.
Melee 2 slams +0 (1d3–2) or integrated laser torch +0 touch (1d4 plus fire)
Special Attacks integrated laser torch

Statistics

Str 7, Dex 11, Con —, Int 8, Wis 12, Cha 1
Base Atk +1; CMB –2; CMD 8
Feats Alertness
Skills Climb +2, Disable Device +4, Knowledge (engineering) +3, Perception +3, Sense Motive +3; Racial Modifiers +4 Climb, +4 Knowledge (engineering)
Languages Androffan
SQ tools

Ecology

Environment any (Numeria)
Organization solitary or crew (2–5)
Treasure none

Special Abilities

Integrated Laser Torch (Ex) As part of its built-in toolkit, Tryg is outfitted with an integrated laser torch it can use to cut through minor barriers. When activated, the torch emits a beam of highly focused light, cutting and burning through surfaces up to 6 inches away. Attacks from a laser torch resolve as touch attacks and deal 1d4 points of fire damage. This damage is not modified further by Strength. Tryg's integrated laser torch is mounted inside one of its appendages. When the laser torch is used as a tool or as a weapon to sunder, its damage bypasses hardness up to 20 points, and damage is not halved (as is normally the case for energy damage applied to objects) unless the object is particularly fire-resistant. A laser torch's cutting beam passes through force fields and force effects without damaging the field. Invisible objects and creatures can't be harmed by a laser torch.

Tools (Ex) Tyrg has tools built into its body that can reconfigure themselves into nearly any cutting, grasping, or drilling device. Tryg is always considered to be using masterwork tools for any Craft or Disable Device checks.

Stay tuned next week for a wrap up of some of our favorite art from the Iron Gods Adventure Path!

Adam Daigle
Developer

Illustrations by Rodrigo Vega.

The Patch Man

by Adam Heine

Chapter One: Warm Bodies

Seven silvers and a copper. Pesh, grit, and other drugs tossed like bread flour. One dead body, bled out on the floor of the abandoned hostel. Blit sighed. The Banshees hadn't even tried to hide this mess. They relied on him too much lately. Blit set down his pack and got to work.

The disreputable knew Blit as the Patch Man—an ugly demonspawn with a gift for cleaning up after folks. The guilds of the Puddles hired him to patch up their problems and keep the city watch off their backs. Eighty percent of the time, that required only towels, soap, and a meticulous attention to detail (though to be fair, the criminals who made their home in the Puddles frequently lacked all three).

The rest of the time, though, even the most fastidious murderer needed someone with Blit's unique skills.

He pocketed the money (he considered it a tip) and swept the brown grit powder into a bag. The blood was more difficult, but Blit had devised a few formulae over the years for just this sort of work. He pulled a flask from his coat and sprinkled its contents on the floor where a gallon or two of blood had soaked into the wood. The dark stain bubbled and hissed until it became an oily, translucent substance, which Blit wiped up with an old rag.

What had happened here? It looked like a business transaction gone wrong. Probably the poor bastard on the floor couldn't pay up, or else he upset someone he shouldn't have. Gedrak, most likely; that son of an orc couldn't take an insult if you paid him, and his face was eminently insultable. Not that Blit was one to talk.

Regardless, it was unusually sloppy for the Banshees to leave all of this to Blit. He should be glad—sloppy guilds meant steady work for him—but every time they pulled him on a job, he was keenly aware of what would happen if he missed something. If it meant saving their own skins, nobody would hesitate to patch up the Patch Man.

Blit slid his hands underneath the corpse's arms and hefted the torso experimentally. It weighed about two hundred forty, maybe two hundred fifty pounds. Far more than Blit could carry. He reached into his coat again and fingered an array of vials. Dozens of them. His extracts. None of them were labeled, but even if Blit didn't have a strict organizational system, he could identify each one by color, smell, viscosity.

He selected a bronze liquid with the consistency (though hardly the flavor) of red wine. It went down his throat like axle grease, and within moments, he could feel the change within him. He put on his pack, which now felt as light as though it were empty. Then he grabbed the body by the armpits and hefted it onto his back. The arms fell across his chest and he held the wrists in front of him, so it looked like he carried a very large, sleeping child. It weighed him down, but with the bronze fluid in his system he could walk for miles before the burden even tired him.

Taking one last look at the scene—clean, but not so clean that it might raise suspicion—he turned and walked out of the hostel's double doors.

The goon outside sneered. They always sneered. It had become annoyingly predictable. "Patch Man."

"Odim," Blit said in return. He pointed his chin toward the doors. "Job's done."

Odim grunted and went inside. He probably thought he was performing a necessary task, checking up on Blit's work. But if that thug were capable of the necessary level of scrutiny to supervise Blit's work, then he would have pocketed the silvers before Blit had even gotten there. No, getting inspected by the Banshees wasn't what motivated Blit to do his job well.

Now getting killed by the Banshees...

Odim returned after a minute—not nearly long enough to determine whether Blit had done a good job. "Looks good," he said and handed Blit a small jingling pouch.

Blit knew without opening it that it wasn't enough. "I get ten. Twelve if there's a body." He shifted the corpse on his back to emphasize the point.

Odim shook his fat head. "Gedrak says eight. Says you're getting lazy. You missed something last week."

Lying ratsack. Blit never missed anything. "What, exactly, did he say I missed?"

Odim shrugged. "Ask him. I just do what I'm told."

Blit let out a weary sigh. If he'd missed something, then Odim was a wizard-in-training. But was Gedrak holding out on him or just Odim? "Tell you what. Give me two more, and I won't tell Gedrak you pocketed the rest."

Odim rubbed his chin between thumb and fat forefinger. "No dice, pinhead." He referred, of course, to the copious horns spiking out of Blit's skull. "No reason both of us need to be in trouble with the boss."

Not acting on his own, then. But he'd had to think about it, which meant he had the whole pay with him.

So, Gedrak was afraid of how the Patch Man would react to getting stiffed. "How's this?" Blit unfolded his legs to their full height, putting him eye to eye with the goon. He rested one of his toe claws ever so noticeably on Odim's boot and—just for that extra dramatic effect—hissed a phrase in the demonic tongue that turned the air around them pitch black. "You give me all the rest, and I let you—"

"Get off me, imp-cricket." Odim lifted his foot so suddenly that it threw Blit off balance. He stumbled back. Odim shoved him in the chest, knocking him the rest of the way down, causing the dead body to flop to the ground next to him.

Odim shivered and pulled up his jacket collar, though the night was warm enough. He turned his back on Blit and hustled up the cobbled alley without another word.

Disgusted, but not scared. Blit pushed himself off the ground and picked up the body. What an idiot he was—probably the only half-demon in all of Avistan who couldn't frighten anyone older than six. He still had a corpse to deal with. He produced two more vials from his inner pockets and downed them one at a time. Immediately, he disappeared (literally—that's the beauty of alchemy) and ran with inhuman speed to Wallow Lane.

Nobody came to Wallow Lane, so it didn't matter that his invisibility wore off by the time he got there. He climbed an old bridge, half of which had collapsed into the waves years ago. The ocean lapped at the pillars below. Even at low tide, the water was deeper here than anywhere else accessible by land. The perfect place to dump a corpse—or dozens of corpses, in Blit's case.

He lugged the body off his back and began tying loose rubble around its waist to weigh it down. All the while, he muttered ineffectual curses at Odim, at his boss, Gedrak, at all the damn Banshees. Those torble-pods needed him, certainly more than he needed them. Why did he play janitor for them and let them cheat him at the same time?

He knew the answer, of course. He'd tried the straight route, many times. It always ended in betrayal. At least the Banshees cheated him to his face.

He got ready to push the corpse off the bridge's broken edge when he caught a glint of something inside the man's jacket. Another tip, he thought. Maybe it would make up for what he'd lost.

He reached in, but instead of coins he found a silver crest. He hissed through his teeth. This man wasn't some grit addict who wouldn't pay up.

He was city watch.

∗ ∗ ∗

Odim doesn't need to be the Banshees' brains—just their muscle.

A couple hours later, Blit was face first in his third mug at a place called the Puddleglut. The beer tasted like rotten lemon juice, but at least the barkeep didn't sneer at him when he ordered, and the only other folks who were here at dawn weren't conscious enough to give him dirty looks.

The watch. What the hell was Gedrak thinking? The Banshees were more of a gang than a guild. They couldn't handle this kind of heat. They were good enough at what they did, although smuggling drugs and slaves through the Puddles wasn't exactly difficult (and considering how often they called upon Blit, maybe they weren't even very good at that). What would they do when twenty members of the city guard came through the district like drunken hill giants?

"No." Blit shook his head, aware that he was muttering aloud, but too fuzzed out to decide whether or not he should. "They can get themselves hanged all they want. Ain't my job to care."

Blit was inculpable, at least as much as anyone else in the Puddles. He just cleaned things up, didn't ask questions, didn't make trouble (not even when he tried to, apparently). If the watch came, he'd just hide out for a while and then work for the next guild to emerge from the depths.

Unless the Banshees scapegoated him. Shax's knives, that's exactly what they'd do.

"Blitterton!" said a cheerful voice behind him.

Blit groaned. "Would someone actually name their child that?"

"Well, I know Blit's short for something." Allyra took the stool next to Blit and leaned back against the bar. Her chestnut hair fell off bare, muscular shoulders and into a puddle of ale. She didn't seem to care. "Damn, Blit, you look worse than usual."

He grunted in annoyance. "Thanks."

She laughed. "You know what I mean, Blitskin."

"Not it either."

"Damn." She pounded the bar. "I'll figure it out eventually. So what the hell's wrong?"

Blit stared into his drink. He was going to tell her, of course. That's why he came here. Not for her looks, of course—human beauty was... odd. No, Blit talked to Allyra because he'd never met another soul in his life who would willingly start a conversation with him that didn't begin with: "Get out."

"Something happened at work tonight. I'm not sure what to do about it."

"Tell me." She refilled his mug as though she were the waitress—which she was, but you couldn't tell since Blit was the only customer with his head upright.

"It's that one gang."

She nodded. "The smugglers." Allyra knew about Blit's work—not the details, of course, but enough to know what kind of person Blit really was. He had started telling her to disgust her, honestly. To make her go away. She never did.

In a way, he felt like it absolved him—so long as Allyra listened to him, he couldn't be that bad.

"They're in over their heads, I think." And he told her as much of the story as he could get away with: about the drugs, the body, the argument he'd had with Odim. Always as vague as possible, never naming names and never saying the words "city watch."

Allyra listened intently, with compassion. "You're afraid someone's going to come after you."

"Maybe. I guess it's always a danger, but..."

She touched him lightly. Not on his human arm, but on his scaled leg. "I won't say you're safe, Blit, 'cause I don't know that. But it seems to me your gang has more to worry about than you right now. Maybe stay out of it for a while." She chuckled. "Besides, your boss will forget in a week. You know how short half-orc memories are."

Blit looked up sharply. He'd never told Allyra that Gedrak was a half-orc. Or had he? He couldn't remember now, and the drink wasn't helping. It didn't matter. If she knew that much, then Blit was in danger.

He slammed the mug onto the bar, splattering it. "I gotta go," he slurred and stumbled out into the dark predawn.

∗ ∗ ∗

He was so scared after that, he didn't leave his house for five days. ("House" was probably a strong term. It was essentially three and a half walls on the roof of a rowhouse whose neighbors had collapsed years ago.)

How much did Allyra know? Who had she told? Probably nobody. She was just a waitress, for Aroden's sake. Blit had probably just drunk too much and let slip something he shouldn't have.

Anyway, Allyra wasn't the real problem. It was Gedrak and the watch he was worried about. He should leave town, or at least move, but some naive, stupid part of him wouldn't let him until he knew he had no choice.

His corner of the Puddles stayed quiet until late that Oathday. Someone knocked on his door ("door" also being a strong term). He peeked over the lip of the flat roof to see Odim and another Banshee named Kip in the street. They were breathing heavily, as though they'd run halfway across town. Kip rubbed a bandaged wound on his arm.

"What do you want?"

"Patch Man?" Odim peered up at him, squinting. Humans couldn't see as clearly in the dark as Blit could. "We got... trouble," he said between breaths. "Need you... now."

Blit did nothing for a moment. Odim looked pale. He must have known about the dead guard, but that hadn't fazed him at all. Had something worse happened?

He sighed. He wouldn't refuse them. If he did, he'd have to run again, leaving Absalom for good. So long as there was a chance he could stay, he'd take it. "I'll be right down."

Odim and Kip led him a couple miles away, to an old wooden warehouse near the Foreign Quarter. They said nothing the whole way, walking faster than Blit would have liked.

Odim waved for him to go in and then sat down at the entrance like it was a normal job, like he and Kip hadn't shown up at his door with sheet-white faces.

"That's it?" Blit said. "What happened to you two?"

"Nothing. Just do your job," Odim said, pulling out a cigar. Blit turned away, and Odim grabbed his arm. "But do it fast, yeah? We don't know how much time we got."

Blit nodded and walked into the dark warehouse. Signs of struggle were everywhere. Fresh blood, shattered woodwork—recently shattered, as evidenced by the splinters dusting the floor and the warhammer near the dead body. There were two bodies this time, one of them Gedrak's goon. Blit set his pack down to work.

As soon as he did, he heard a faint cry. He stiffened. The noise had come from inside the warehouse, right next to him, in fact. He turned slowly.

It didn't take him long to find the source. One of the bodies was still alive.

Coming Soon: Deep trouble for Blit in Chapter Two of Adam Heine's "The Patch Man."

Adam Heine is the Design Lead for the computer RPG Torment: Tides of Numenéra. His fiction has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies and Thaumatrope. Find him online at adamheine.com.

Illustration by Kuba Witowski.

Pathfinder Society in Israel and Mexico

Monday, January 12, 2015

It's time to offer you a blog from two of our Pathfinder Society lodges in different parts the world. With the soon-to-be-released Hebrew and Spanish versions of the Pathfinder rulebooks, organized play should see growing activity in both regions. With that impending growth, I asked our venture-captains to write a short summary of Pathfinder Society play in their region.

First, I present Yehuda Halfon's report on Pathfinder Israel.

Hello all! My name's Yehuda Halfon, and I am the VC of Israel. This is the story of our local Pathfinder Society lodge.

About a year ago, I listened to Happy Jacks RPG Podcast, a podcast that talked about PFS. That's how I first learned that Pathfinder Society scenarios can also be played in stores and online, not just at a convention. I started looking for PFS games around my area, but I couldn't find any. After a short conversation with a friend, Eran Aviram (now the venture-lieutenant of London for the Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild), I decided to start a local lodge myself.

In April 2014, we participated in our big convention, Giborim ("Heroes" in Hebrew). We had 2 tables, where we ran Destiny of the Sands, parts 1 and 2. The feedback was amazing, everyone liked it, and asked for more. We did just that.

Since then we have had a presence in every convention in Israel, big or small. We started with two tables and have expanded to 18 tables at the most recent convention this past October at Icon, Israel's largest sci-fi and fantasy gathering. We also started forming regular groups in several stores around the country, such as the successful comic book store Comikaza 2.0. Thanks to my amazing VL and walking Pathfinder encyclopedia, Yotam "Defiler" Avni, we've expanded our reach beyond the center of the country, and we're running PFS games in the north as well.

In order to make PFS more approachable to the Hebrew-speaking crowd, Eran, Yotam and I are working as the translators of the Hebrew edition of Pathfinder for the local publisher, Monkey Time. We're using the new translated materials when updating our growing site, pathfinder.org.il.

We're working to gather all of the Israeli Pathfinder players and GMs together to form a big community for all Pathfinder games, including the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, and Pathfinder Society Organized Play. You can also check us out at our Facebook group!

What's next for us? Well, this April we're planning a huge launch event for the Hebrew edition of Pathfinder as part of Bigor, one of Israel's largest conventions. With the help of Monkey Time, we're going to celebrate the new RPG, along with our one-year anniversary of PFS in Israel!

Yehuda Halfon
Venture-Captain, Israel

Next, I present Miguel Rosales's report on Pathfinder Mexico.

Hi! I am Venture Captain Miguel Rosales from Tijuana, Mexico. Let me tell you all the awesomeness of the Pathfinder Society in Mexico, including the Tijuana RPG scene!

In Tijuana, we have a large community of really cool people called Tijuana RPG. We gather in a store, which also serves as the headquarters of all geeky stuff happening in town. With the help of my good friend and venture-lieutenant, Antonio Argueta, and with the help of many other friends, we have founded an excellent Pathfinder community.

We are still growing and currently have 60 players. We also have our own annual RPG convention, where Pathfinder is the highlighted event, on the border of the U.S. and Mexico. I invite everyone to join us and experience Pathfinder Society with the Mexican people. We are very excited of all the new things planned for our lodge in 2015.

This year will be our third convention in a row and we hope to reach 300 attendees this year. It is also completely free. Any player, gamemaster, venture-captain, or venture-lieutenant is welcome to play or run a table at our conventions. We would be honored to have visitors from the other side of the border join as both players and GMs.

Tabletop RPG's are not popular in this part of the world and that's where we come in. We are working hard to promote this game because we love it, have a lot of fun, and make new friends. With the new Spanish language rulebooks, we hope to see continued growth. This is our favorite sport, and we will make it grow. We also have plans to kickoff for the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game OP. We are looking for some volunteers to help run that, and if interested, please contact me.

I know there are people playing in others parts of Mexico. Unfortunately, I am not aware of any committed organized play happening in any other region. If anyone is interested in starting up Pathfinder Society where you live in Mexico, please contact me.

See ya around adventurers, and don't hesitate to come and visit us on this side of the border.

Miguel Rosales
Venture-Captain, Mexico

Thank you to all of the VCs and VLs for kickstartng awesome PFS Lodges in Isreal and Mexico. I look forward to the additions of new venture-captains and venture-lieutenants in other regions in both of these countries and watching their continued growth with Pathfinder Society Organized Play. Keep up the awesome work!

Mike Brock
Pathfinder Society Campaign Coordinator

New Year, New Set: Dungeons Deep!

Friday, January 9, 2015

Welcome back to the first 2015 installment of my weekly Publisher's Preview blog! As diligent readers know, I've been eager to share news of the next big Pathfinder Battles set with you, and I'm pleased to say that the day has finally arrived! The next full set of Pathfinder Battles figures will be Dungeons Deep, a 51-figure set inspired by the deadly dungeon dwellers of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game! The all-new set is expected to debut in June 2015.

Unlike previous sets, Dungeons Deep features six non-creature figures that we're calling "dungeon dressing," an experiment we plan to continue with future sets going forward. I'll have a lot more to say about dungeon dressing in the next few weeks. I am SUPER excited about this development, and WizKids has gone above and beyond to create some truly unique pieces I am sure you will all enjoy.

Let's take a look at three digital sculpts for the set!

Up first is one of my favorite figures from the set, the mighty Sasquatch! Sure, sasquatches are not known for living in dungeons, but I chose this guy to preview first because he's one of my favorites from the set and to illustrate that this theme is pretty loose—don't expect every single figure to be a literal dungeon dweller. Some stuff made it in simply because we thought it was cool! The Sasquatch is a Medium, uncommon figure.

This is the Dwarf Barbarian, one of several dwarf figures in this set. Dungeon denizens need heroes to slay, so we've included several in this set as well. The Dwarf Barbarian has a great pose, and is based on the illustration on page 10 of the NPC Codex. The Dwarf Barbarian is a Medium, uncommon figure.

Here is the first piece of dungeon dressing, the Bubbling Cauldron. The cauldron features clear plastic fire and clear plastic goo, and is a nice accompaniment to a witch or hag villain's lair, or a savage humanoid's kitchen! I'll go into more depth on the rarity of the dungeon dressing in a future post (because I've honestly forgotten how it will work), so please hold questions on that until next week. I know at the least that there will be at least one of each bit of dressing in a case, but I think there are more. I'll clarify next week when I show off another one.

So that's it for this week. While June is certainly a long time to wait for Dungeons Deep, WizKids plans to fill that time with monthly Iconic Heroes non-random sets, each of which features six premium-painted iconic heroes and exclusive Pathfinder Adventure Card Game cards to go with each one! Thanks to an overseas shipping delay, the series is set to kick off with Valeros, Seoni, Sajan, Seelah, Lini, and Droogami the Snow Leopard in February, and will continue with regular monthly releases from that point forward. I've got the final versions of the first set on my desk now, and they are gorgeous. They are going to blow you away with how awesome they look!

Glad to be back in the swing of things in 2015! We'll see you here next week for more reveals, more information, and more sweet minis!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Invasion of the Pawn People!

Wednesday, January 7, 2014

Beware! A few days from now, an invasion of over 200 of the most notable denizens of the Pathfinder Campaign Setting will be flooding into game stores and subscribers' mailboxes. Cleverly hidden inside the Inner Sea Pawn Box like a modern-day, miniature Trojan Horse, these characters are set to assault game tables the world over. Check out the full list of included pawns, as well as a preview of several of the new pieces of art ordered for the set!

Inner Sea Pawn Box Set List:

Small
Aspis Consortium Spy (2) Balazar, Summoner Bellflower Tiller* (2) Bellflower Tiller* (2) Bleachling Lunatic	Charau-Ka Warrior (5) Chuffy Lickwound Daggermark Poisoner (2) Eagle Knight Halfling Enora, Arcanist	Mogmurch Okeno Liberator Pathfinder Loreseeker Poog of Zarongel Priest of Desna	Priestess of Nethys Priestess of Norgorber Priestess of Zon-Kuthon Reta Bigbad Usaro Rebel (3)
Medium
Absalom Guard (6) Adowyn, Hunter Adril Hestram Alahazra, Oracle Alain, Cavalier Aldori Swordlord* Aldori Swordlord* Alkenstar Shieldmarshal (4) Anaphexia Assassin (4) Android Monk (2) Android Warrior (2) Arcanamirium Sorcerer (2) Arclord of Nex Aspis Consortium Commander Aspis Consortium Soldier (3) Aspis Consortium Thug (3) Averaka Giant Slayer (2) Belkzen Warchief (2) Blackfire Adept Summoner (3) Blackraven Scout (4) Bloatmage* Bloatmage* Blue Warder (3) Chernasardo Sniper (3) Crowe, Bloodrager Cyphermage* Cyphermage* Daggermark Poisoner (2) Damiel, Alchemist Decemvirate Member Drow Matron Duergar Slaver (3) Duskwarden (3) Eagle Knight Commander (2) Eagle Knight Soldier (4) Eando Kline Feiya, Witch Fierani Demon Hunter (4) Geb Blood Lord Gillman Warrior (3) Gillman Wave Rider (2) Grandmaster Torch Gray Gardener (4) Gray Maiden (4) Gray Maiden Commander Green Faith Druid (4) Green Faith High Druid Hakon, Skald Half-Orc Pit Fighter (2) Harbinger Disciple (3)	Harrower* Harrower* Hayato, Samurai Hellknight Armiger (4) Hellknight Signifer* Hellknight Signifer* House of Perfection Monk (3) Imrijka, Inquisitor Ironmaster Ytharia Vulane Iroran Champion Jinx Eater (2) Jirelle, Swashbuckler Keleshite Entertainer Kess, Brawler Kitharodian Academy Bard Kitharodian Academy Performer Knight of Ozem* (2) Knight of Ozem* (2) Knight of the Ioun Star Kortash Khain Korvosan Shingles Runner (3) Kuru Cannibal (4) Lantern Bearer (3) Lion Blade of Taldor (4) Lirianne, Gunslinger Low Templar (3) Magaambya Arcanist (3) Magaambya Instructor Maurya-Rahm Advisor Mendevian Crusader* (3) Mendevian Crusader* (3) Molthuni Soldier (4) Mushfens Cabalist (3) Night Herald Cultist (3) Old Ones Cultist (3) Old-Mage Jatembe Oloch, Warpriest Order of the Chain Hellknight (3) Order of the Gate Hellknight (3) Order of the Godclaw Hellknight (3) Order of the Nail Hellknight (3) Order of the Pyre Hellknight (3) Order of the Rack Hellknight (3) Order of the Scourge Hellknight (3) Pactmaster of Katapesh (3) Padrig Pain Taster (2) Pathfinder Braggart Pathfinder Chronicler Pathfinder Explorer	Pathfinder Hunter Pathfinder Priest Pathfinder Sneak Pathfinder Spellcaster Pathfinder Venture-Captain Pathfinder Wanderer Pathfinder Warrior Pirate Marauder (4) Priest of Abadar Priest of Asmodeus Priest of Calistria Priest of Cayden Cailean Priest of Erastil Priest of Gorum Priest of Gozreh Priest of Iomedae Priest of Irori Priest of Lamashtu Priest of Nethys Priest of Norgorber Priest of Pharasma Priest of Rovagug Priest of Sarenrae Priest of Shelyn Priest of Torag Priest of Urgathoa Priest of Zon-Kuthon Priestess of Abadar Priestess of Asmodeus Priestess of Calistria Priestess of Cayden Cailean Priestess of Desna Priestess of Erastil Priestess of Gorum Priestess of Gozreh Priestess of Iomedae Priestess of Irori Priestess of Lamashtu Priestess of Pharasma Priestess of Rovagug Priestess of Sarenrae Priestess of Shelyn Priestess of Torag Priestess of Urgathoa Prophet of Kalistrade* Prophet of Kalistrade* Puddles Peddler Pure Legionnaire (4) Pure Legionnaire Commander Quinn, Investigator	Razmiran Cultist (4) Razmiran Priest (2) Red Mantis Acolyte (2) Red Mantis Assassin (5) Red Mantis Elite (3) Red Mantis Leader Reiko, Ninja Riftwarden (4) Risen Guard* (3) Risen Guard* (3) River Kingdoms Brigand (4) Rough Rampager (3) Sable Company Marine (3) Sczarni Crime Boss Sczarni Mystic (2) Sczarni Thief (4) Seltyiel, Magus Shackles Pirate* (4) Shackles Pirate* (4) Shackles Pirate Captain* Shackles Pirate Captain* Shardra, Shaman Shoanti Gladiator (3) Silent Enforcer (4) Sister of the Golden Erinyes (4) Sleepless Detective (3) Sodden Scavenger (4) Strix Warrior (4) Strix Witch Taldan Noble* Taldan Noble* Technic League Spellcaster (2) Thrune Agent* (2) Thrune Agent* (2) Tian Monk* (2) Tian Monk* (2) Tian Sage Ulfen Guard Commander Ulfen Guard of Taldor (2) Ulfen Hunter (2) Ulfen Longboat Captain Ulfen Raider (5) Usij Cabalist (3) Uskwood Druid (2) Ustalavic Duelist Varisian Merchant (2) Varisian Wanderer (3) Way of the Kirin Agent White Witch (2) Zadim, Slayer
Large
Absalom Wave Rider (3) Alain on Donahan God Caller with Eidolon	Jarl Gnargorak Knight of Ozem, Mounted (4) Mistress of Blades Maidrayne Vox	Mounted Hellknight (4) Qadiran Horselord (4) Ruthazek the Gorilla King	Sable Company Marine, Mounted (3) Shoanti Burn Rider (3)

* Indicates box includes multiple images for this character type.

Illustrations by Konstantinos Skenteridis, Mariusz Gandzel, and Alberto Dal Lago

Illustrations by Konstantinos Skenteridis, Ramon Puasa Jr., Chenthooran Nambiarooran, and Subroto Bhaumik

Mark Moreland
Developer

I Got Some Cards. Wanna See 'Em?

Tuesday, January 6, 2014

Greetings, Pathfinders.

Today we'll talk about some cards that are exclusive to the new Iconic Heroes miniatures sets that hit stores at the end of this month, and a tasty new mechanic that comes along with them. Shiny!

Go on. Try and pet me.

So here's Lini's kitty pal Droogami. She's a snow leopard who does sneaky hunter things, as you might expect, and you can follow her keen nose to a new location and pounce on something. But there's something interesting on this card—do you see it?

Droogami's an ally with set indicator P that has only the Animal trait, so she can't start in a character's deck. Except her owner's, that is. Lini and Droogami have a special bond, so when Lini builds her starting deck, she can include Droogami as one of her allies. Anyone else who wants Droogami has to encounter her in play and succeed at that Wisdom or Survival 11 check.

The Owner mechanic is one you'll be seeing more of in upcoming sets (coughWrathoftheRighteouscough) and it's featured on every card in the Iconic Heroes miniatures line. Here's one for Seelah, also from the first set of miniatures:

This helmet's worth stealing.

The Iomedaean helmet that changed our young paladin's life is a sweet little piece of armor, and it too lacks the Basic trait. Revealing to reduce all kinds of damage by 2 ain't bad—maybe we should all consider taking up the paladin's mantle. Or helm.

One of the nice things about these cards from an organized play design perspective is that they're easy to integrate. If you're playing an iconic character and you have a promotional card from this line that's owned by that character, you can start with it. If you're not playing an iconic, don't despair—you might get an opportunity to unlock access to these cards through a scenario or some other special reward. Those of you playing Valeros might wish to pre-order Iconic Heroes Set #1 now.

My beer! She is empty!

That's it for this week. Until next time, Pathfinders!

Tanis O'Connor
Adventure Card Game Designer

Incremental Changes

Monday, January 5, 2014

Back in November, the Pathfinder Society team met for a marathon meeting to discuss campaign changes that would improve the organized play campaign by making it easier to prepare, run, and play scenarios. Rather than unleash a huge number of changes all at once, I have been introducing these changes gradually over the course of several months, and the recent December scenarios are a good way to check in and observe the progress toward these goals.

Lower Reference Count

The goal is to reduce the number of referenced hardcover books to four per scenario, including the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook. I definitely got close to that with Pathfinder Society Scenario #6-10: The Wounded Wisp, which had five listed sources; I admit having to exceed this metric here just because the replayable scenario has a much longer roster of monsters and therefore references three Bestiaries, though a GM can run the adventure using only one. Pathfinder Society Scenario #6-11: The Slave Master's Mirror also has five (upon further review, I cut the Pathfinder RPG NPC Codex reference), but in a way there are only four such books required. Why? Keep reading.

Bestiary References

Another goal is to provide an appendix that includes all Bestiary and NPC Codex stat blocks, making it less of a burden for a GM to bring all of the necessary references to a game and prepare the adventure. As always, The Wounded Wisp is a strange exception just because of the randomized encounter tables, so the adventure includes the necessary stat blocks for at least one option in each encounter. The Slave Master's Mirror includes full pages from the gnoll chapter of the Monster Codex, which is a fair representation of what we'll see in scenarios in the future.

Scenario Length

The third and final goal that I want to address is scenario length, which has gradually become longer and longer over time. We didn't publish any Tier 5-9 or 7-11 scenarios last month, so it's a little early to start counting encounters to see if I truly began reducing the number. Nonetheless, I paid special attention to The Slave Master's Mirror, a Tier 3-7 scenario, to ensure the types and number of encounters it contains were conducive to completing the adventure in around four hours. Next month we'll see the first Tier 7-11 adventure of 2015, and we'll put the revised scenario writing guidelines to the test.

John Compton
Developer