For the past few weeks, we’ve been looking at the myriad aliens and starships that make up the Starfinder Battles: Planets of Peril set of prepainted plastic miniatures from WizKids, coming out next month. Now, alas, our journey through the galaxy has come to an end, and we’re putting the landing gear down on our preview cruiser. But before we touch down planetside, let’s get one last look at the creatures in the set that hail from the Starfinder setting’s home system, the Pact Worlds.

First, from Aballon, we have two sizes of SRO (Small and Medium commons) as well as the eye-covered predator known as the Sharpwing (Large rare).

Next, hailing from Castrovel is the Formian Warrior (Medium uncommon), the plantlike people known as the Khizar (Medium uncommon), the three-legged laser-wolves known as Tashtari (Medium uncmmon), and the predatory Vracinea (Large rare). (The ksarik was among the first figures we revealed, so you’ve already seen that one!)

Skipping Absalom Station and moving straight on to the red planet of Akiton, we have the four-armed giant Shobhad (large uncommon). Hailing from the Diaspora asteroid belt is the winged Sarcesian Sniper (Large uncommon). We cruise past a few more planets since we’ve already seen the dragonkin, but we must stop at Liavara to glimpse the Bantrid (Small uncommon) who makes its home on the shepherd moon of Hibb. While Liavara itself is home to the entities known as dreamers, they’re physiologically identical to the barathus of neighboring Bretheda, and they showed up at the very beginning of this journey, so we’ll move on to the last stop on the trip: the mysterious planet of Aucturn, where the Orocoran (Medium rare) lives.

And that’s it for Starfinder Battles: Planets of Peril, releasing in just a few weeks and available for preoder now! While I’d love to go on and explore more amazing aliens in plastic form, right now I’m going to take a break. Lie down. Get some rest. The strangely melodious tinnitus that has accosted me since we left Aucturn is growing to an unbearable cacophony, and I must get sleep. While I slumber in dreams I’m sure will be nothing but pleasant, may you all enjoy your new Starfinder miniatures, friends, and stay safe!

Mark Moreland
Director of Brand Strategy

This month, we’re proud to release Starfinder Alien Character Cards, which serves as an easy reference when players want to know what racial traits a given alien species offers. While the Alien Archives provided the bulk of these species, we also took the opportunity to present five new-to-Starfinder species for eager players as well—gnolls, gripplis, kitsunes, kobolds, and samsarans.

It seems unfair to only let players take these classic fantasy species for a spin in the Pact Worlds, so here are some rules for GMs. Use these creature subtype grafts when crafting NPCs of the associated species. For more information on creature grafts, see page 133 of the Starfinder Alien Archive.

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Gnoll

This subtype is applied to gnolls and creatures related to gnolls.
Traits: Blindsense (scent) 30 ft., darkvision 60 ft.; if the NPC is of the gnoll race (see Starfinder Alien Character Cards), it also gains the natural weapons and rugged travel racial traits and Survival as a master skill.

Grippli

This subtype is applied to gripplis and creatures related to gripplis.
Traits: Darkvision 60 ft.; if the NPC is of the grippli race (see Starfinder Alien Character Cards), it also gains a climb speed of 20 ft.; the jumper, swamp stride, and weapon familiarity racial traits; and Stealth as a good skill.

Kitsune

This subtype is applied to kitsune and creatures related to kitsune.
Traits: Low-light vision; if the NPC is of the kitsune race (see Starfinder Alien Character Cards), it also gains the shapechanger subtype graft, the natural weapons racial trait, Acrobatics and Athletics as master skills, and can use the following spell as a spell-like ability: 3/day—dancing lights.

Illustration by Matthias Kenningkeit from Starfinder Alien Character Cards.

Kobold

This subtype is applied to kobolds and creatures related to kobolds.
Traits: Darkvision 60 ft.; if the NPC is of the kobold race (see Starfinder Alien Character Cards), it also gains the armored scales and dragon-scaled racial traits and Engineering, Perception, and Physical Science as master skills.

Samsaran

This subtype is applied to samsarans and creatures related to samsarans.
Traits: Low-light vision; if the NPC is of the samsaran race (see Starfinder Alien Character Cards), it also gains a +2 bonus to saving throws against death effects and can use the following spells as spell-like abilities: 1/day—comprehend languages, share memory (Starfinder Character Operations Manual 141), stabilize.

Last week, we shared a no-prep character, Urok, to give you a brief glimpse at the orderly aphorite versatile heritage. We have another NPC this week showcasing another unrevealed aspect from Lost Omens Ancestry Guide. This week we’re going to preview another new versatile heritage: beastkin! I’ll talk a bit more about beastkin after showing you the NPC, but for now, let’s look at our no-prep beastkin, Chea.

Chea, Student of Unfolding Wind

Born to a large family of werecrocodiles in the nation of Jalmeray, Chea was envied by her fellows for her strange lack of the werecreature's curse. Chea's mother assured the girl that her blessing proved she was meant for great things, though her bitter cousins mocked her for her soft heart and lack of killer instinct. One night when she was a teenager, she went out for a swim, sick of the insults and teasing from her peers. The beastkin accidentally stumbled across an adventurer, who was stargazing by the riverside. The strange woman didn't attack, however, instead introducing herself as Nisha and inviting Chea to come look at the stars. Nisha pointed out a glowing comet in the sky and told Chea that the star was actually an elemental lord named Ranginori, and that Nisha's fellow adventurers, the Pathfinders, were working to set Ranginori free. When Nisha left that evening, she gave her telescope to Chea. From then on, Chea spent her nights gazing up to the glowing star, whispering secret prayers in hope they might comfort the trapped god.

Chea saw the moment her bright star burst across the sky, freeing Ranginori from his uncounted years of imprisonment. Knowing the hard journey that Ranginori faced ahead of him, Chea was among one of the first to pledge her faith to the elemental lord. Encouraged by her mother, Chea approached the Monastery of Unfolding Wind in Jalmeray. Though she had to hide her true nature from her fellow acolytes, her determination saw her excel in her monk training. Yet when she returned to visit her family after her initial studies were complete, she found them decimated and scattered. The survivors gave confused, conflicted reports, but several of them claimed that Pathfinders had attacked them.

Though Chea knew her family weren't always saints, she found she couldn't let this go. The monk now searches for answers to what truly happened, and vengeance for those who killed her kin.

Art by Rashad Pozdnyakov

Chea — Creature 9

Unique, N, Medium, Beast, Beastkin, Humanoid
Female crocodilekin human Student of Perfection

Perception +18
Languages Common, Vudrani
Skills Acrobatics +20, Athletics +18, Occultism +13, Religion +16, Stealth +18, Warfare Lore +13
Str +3, Dex +4, Con +3, Int +0, Wis +2, Cha +0
Items +1 striking handwraps of mighty blows
AC 27; Fort +18, Ref +21, Will +15
HP 155

Animalistic Resistance Chea gains a +2 circumstance bonus to saves to resist diseases and poisons.

Quick Change [free-action] Trigger Chea rolls initiative; Effect Chea’s instincts kick in and she takes on an aggressive stance. Chea uses Change Shape to enter her hybrid form.

Speed 40 feet

Melee [one-action] fist +19 (agile, finesse, magical, nonlethal, unarmed), Damage 2d6+11 bludgeoning

Melee [one-action] jaws +19 (agile, finesse, magical, unarmed), Damage 2d4+11 piercing

Ranged [one-action] wind crash +19 (agile, nonlethal, propulsive, range 30 feet, unarmed), Damage 2d6+11 bludgeoning

Monk Focus Spells DC 25, attack +17; 5th (3 Focus Points) ki rush (Core Rulebook 401), ki strike (Core Rulebook 401), unfolding wind rush (Lost Omens World Guide 83) wild winds stance (Core Rulebook 402)

Change Shape [one-action] (concentrate, polymorph, primal, transmutation) Chea changes between her humanoid shape or hybrid shape. She gains a jaws unarmed Strike while in her hybrid shape.

Flurry of Blows [one-action] (flourish) Chea makes two unarmed Strikes. If both hit the same creature, combine their damage for the purpose of resistances and weaknesses.

Flying Kick [two-actions] Chea launches herself at a foe. She makes a Leap or attempts a High Jump or Long Jump. At the end of the jump, if she’s adjacent to a foe, she can immediately Strike that foe with an unarmed attack, even if the foe is in midair. She falls to the ground after the Strike. If the distance she falls is no more than the height of her jump, Chea lands upright and takes no damage.

Pack Tactics If an enemy is within reach of Chea and at least two of her allies, that enemy is flat-footed against Chea.

Powerful Fists Chea’s fist Strikes are treated as cold iron and silver and don’t take penalties when making lethal attacks.

Plot Hooks

Game Masters may consider the following plot hooks as a means of integrating Chea into any Pathfinder Second Edition game.

• Chea seeks out the heroes in hopes of learning a new fighting technique to give her a further edge in combat. She’s willing to share an aspect of her training in return.
• As the heroes leave a dungeon, some ruins, or another adventuring site, Chea makes her presence known. She challenges the heroes to a fight, believing them to be Pathfinders.
• A whisper on the wind guides the heroes to Chea. The monk notes that she’s received a message from her god about the whereabouts of a gem that holds another elemental lord. Chea believes it is her fate, and the heroes’, to rescue the trapped god.

About Beastkin

Beastkin is a blanket term for any person who has gained the ability to partially or fully transform into an animal through any number of means, while maintaining a balance with their humanoid side. Beastkin might have a lineage that traces directly to werecreature parents. Other beastkin might have received their abilities from a deity or even as a result of polymorph magic. Regardless of their origin, a beastkin is tied to a particular animal, such as bat, eagle, shark, spider, tyrannosaurus, wasp, or wolf. This animal is known as the beastkin’s inherent animal. Beastkin feats allow a beastkin to further tap into their animalistic connection and gain new senses, the ability to fly or swim like their inherent animal, or even fully transform into that animal in combat. Beastkin is a rare versatile heritage and you can learn all about it when Lost Omens Ancestry Guide releases on February 24th!

Eleanor Ferron
Developer

Luis Loza
Developer

Illustration by Wero Gallo

Starfinder:

This month we’re heading back to the false moon of Salvation’s End to explore yet another of its mysterious Vaults. Surely nothing weird will happen this time, right? This totally normal and routine exploration mission is detailed in Starfinder Society Scenario #3-17: Clone Batch Catastrophe by Christopher Wasko.

Closer to home, the Acquisitives faction is sending a group of trusted Starfinders to Idari on a very personal mission for their leader, Radaszam. Explore the kasathan world ship while investigating a mysterious murder in Starfinder Society Scenario #3-18: Secrets in Stillness by Joseph Blomquist.

Illustration by Michele Giorgi

Pathfinder:

For February we have an impressive slew of three scenarios on the release docket! First off, the PCs venture into the borders of Oprak to negotiate an agreement with the new hobgoblin nation in Pathfinder Society #2–12: Snakes in the Grass by Lysle Kapp. Then in Pathfinder Society #2–13: A Gilded Test by Kalervo Oikarinen, a group of Pathfinders gets to the bottom of a growing threat in the Taldan capital of Oppara. Finally in Pathfinder Society #2–14: Lost in Flames by Dennis Muldoon, the PCs continue to explore the depths of Iobaria in order to stop an ancient cyclops ritual that could spell disaster for the region!

Jenny Jarzabski
Starfinder Society Developer

Thurston Hillman
Pathfinder Society Developer

Starfinder Battles: Planets of Peril releases next month, and we’re well into our exploration of what strange aliens you can find in every booster box. Last week we looked at the set’s starships, including three vesk models, so let’s look at some of the creatures from the Veskarium you can find in the set.

The Pahtra Stalker we revealed two weeks ago makes its home on Vesk-6, while the helpful Skittermander (Small common) and the decidedly less helpful Stridermander (Medium uncommon) hail from Vesk-3. Skittermanders are known for their bright colors, and we knew we couldn’t get away with making just one. But the set only had so many slots and we didn’t want to take up too many of them with a single alien species, even one as popular as skittermanders. The solution, at least for now, is in alternate-paint promos, of which we made two. We’ll have more information in the future about how you can get your six hands on these little guys. In future sets, if we have alternate-paint figures built into the main set, skittermanders will likely make a reappearance there.

While the Veskarium was initially at odds with the peoples of the Pact Worlds, the two warring star systems had to put their differences aside to face an enemy that threatened both of them: the Swarm! Perfect for use in the Attack of the Swarm! Adventure Path, the three Swarm figures in Planets of Peril are sure to be the buzz of any playgroup. Check out the Swarm Corrovox (Medium common), Swarm Mindreaper (Medium rare), and Swarm Thresher Lord (Large rare)!

Since most of the remaining aliens in the set call the Pact Worlds home (and thus would make an excellent theme to explore next week), let’s look at some of the aliens from other parts of the galaxy you’ll find in Planets of Peril, as you might encounter them on a journey across the galaxy.

First is the Jinsul Warrior (Medium common), which Starfinder Society players should recognize immediately (and which I won’t say much more about to avoid spoilers for past Starfinder Society plots). And since you’re not likely to get to the jinsuls’ home without going through the Drift, how about a Garaggakal (Medium rare), an outsider native to the hyperspace plane? Along the way, you might need to deal with an infestation of Electrovores (Small common), for which you consult an Orashu Headteacher (Medium uncommon) for advice, and ultimately employ an Uplifted Bear (Large uncommon) to handle them with brute force. Sadly, when you emerge from the Drift, you find the wreckage of another starship, its crew exposed to the vacuum of space and now haunting the area as dread Nihili (Medium common).

Will you make it back to the Pact Worlds safely? What allies and enemies await you there? Find out next week in our final preview of Starfinder Battles: Planets of Peril, available for preorder now!

Mark Moreland
Director of Brand Strategy

Sixteen point five two eight… move the seven… Taihei tried to hold the quantities in his head, but they jittered and danced. No matter, he could manage. He dipped a brush into his inkstone and found a patch on the back of his right wrist where a cluster of silver dots raised in precise intervals against his golden skin, counted off ten dots, drew lines on either side, and covered seven dots with ink. Leaving three. Now… what was the trajectory coefficient again… he felt for a second like the answer was close, before the chirping of bell crickets pierced the tearoom-turned-study.

The remainders and decimals and factors scattered immediately. Taihei groaned, crumpled his sheet of paper, and threw it to join its fellows in the corner. As a distant chime rang, he retrieved a heavily notched metal rod from his writing case and made a small cut in it to mark the time before going to wash off in a basin by the door. Another hour, another year.

The entrance examination for the College of Celestial Study would come in a few months with the snows, and Taihei couldn’t come back empty-handed again—he’d failed six times already, and this was getting embarrassing. You wouldn’t even use half these formulas in the field, we have counting boards and number familiars for that. Taihei just wanted to peer within a star, to chart the comets as they flowed through the sky, but he’d be earthbound forever if he couldn’t get into the program first.

Taihei allowed himself a moment to find his favorite constellations before getting back to study, but he couldn’t see a thing through the neighbor’s persimmon trees, which seemed to almost be mocking him—they’d shot up sometime when he wasn’t looking, sealing off the courtyard in a riot of red leaves and orange fruit. It made for a picturesque sight at least: persimmons, courtyard, and harvest moon, even a small fox in frame near the koi pond. “Must be nice, to just be a fox. You don’t have to worry about trajectories or tests, do you?”

“I’ll have you know I have two degrees from the College myself, so I find I rarely have to worry anymore” the fox stated matter-of-factly.

He bowed to Taihei before striding forward on four legs, though only two remained by the time he reached the door as his form blurred and shifted to that of a wavy-haired elf man in a professor's robes and pleated trousers. “And once I’m done with you, you won’t have to either.”

“Taihei, remember to clean up before your new tutor arrives!” Taihei’s mother called from the house, unfortunately a hair too late to save him the embarrassment. Sheepishly, the student slid open the door and placed a cushion on the floor, but the man strode right past him, taking a seat on the edge of the table instead

“So, out with it, why can’t you seem to pass the exam? Shouldn’t you be able to just…” the professor appraised Taihei, noting a golden mote flickering off his arm,” I don’t know, aphorite this?”

Taihei seethed at the assumption that being born under the sign of Axis somehow granted immediate knowledge of trigonometry and calculus, though he remembered his manners and prevented the emotion from reaching his face. “I’m afraid that numbers are my weakest subject. I’m not sure how to understand what they all mean in the real world.”

“In that case,” the fox in elf shape coughed into a fist, and when he withdrew his hand, a curious crystal ball sat in it, glowing soft and blue, “we should simply hammer all possible test questions into you so thoroughly that you’ll pass the test even if you don’t understand.” He tapped the orb, which floated across the room to hover in front of Taihei. “Write down your answers to the following questions. Beginning immediately.” Before Taihei could voice his confusion at this novel teaching strategy, the orb began reciting:

• “List the seventeen most common alchemical components of an extraplanar being in reverse alphabetical order of closest-affinity celestial body, beginning from Aucturn”
• “Compute trajectory of this model of a transiting comet with a fey toroid structure and…”
• “What is the average density of a sixth-order star, assuming Positive Energy gateways have mass according to Gyoen’s Third Theorem of…”

Taihei was overwhelmed swiftly and ruthlessly. He began trying his best to answer the questions, but no sooner had he begun writing than his teacher cleared his throat. “Keep in mind that the exam is 258 questions, so you’ll need to average one question every 90 seconds.”

“Y-yes... of course, Professor.” Taihei desperately tried to rejoin his train of thought. The orb carried on:

• “Solve for X to yield the minimum possible amount of teleportation inaccuracy given a conjurer using …”
• “If ten human ganzi assistants and one brilliant kitsune professor are each holding a planar tuning fork, then…”

Wait, wha—

“You know,” the professor interrupted again, “What if you just found a way to visualize the problems? Or like a feeling or something. Why, I used to be terrible at changing forms, but look at me now!” The professor waggled his long elven ears as they shifted back into those of a fox. “I just think of a sensation I connect with being a kitsune, like the feeling of grass under paw, and it comes to me.”

“That…” Taihei struggled to find a polite way to tell his teacher to please shut up, missing a question about two ships leaving Sakakabe (one at noon, the other at midnight) in the process, “That’s very helpful.”

• “The aforementioned brilliant kitsune professor is planning a three-day planar expedition. How much fried tofu should his students gift him to ensure his rations are…”

Illustration by Vladislav Orlowski, from Pathfinder Lost Omens Ancestry Guide.

“Oh, this one’s very important!” the professor noted most unhelpfully, and Taihei looked up to see he had fully resumed fox form and was now pacing across the desk, stepping in Taihei’s inkstone each time.

“Professor, you’re tracking paw prints on my practice tests,” Taihei pleaded, on his very last nerve.

• “Solve for X, where X is the number of years an aphorite who can’t perform basic calculations without scribbling on his arms will attempt the entrance exam before…”

“Okay, that does it!” Taihei snatched the orb from the air and ran to the door. Looking out into the courtyard, he spied a nest under the eave of the neighbors’ estate, recently abandoned by migrating swallows. In that moment, he wanted nothing more than to throw the orb into the nest, but those blasted trees were in the way and he didn’t have a clear shot.

No matter. He could manage.

Taihei’s eyes darted around the courtyard, taking in angles and forces. He felt his mind… not expand, exactly—the opposite. Connect. Point to point. Intention joined result. He flung the orb, feeling its complete trajectory even before it had left his hand. It skipped twice off the surface of the pond. It spun as it struck the tiles of the courtyard wall and flew high into the sky. And it danced in the autumn night as a breeze adjusted its path ever so slightly to the left, before it fell perfectly between the branches of the trees to land in the abandoned nest.

No sooner had it touched down than something strange happened. The trees that Taihei had tried so hard to avoid shimmered in the night air, dissolving into ghostly blue flames, and when Taihei had finished rubbing his eyes, they were gone and the sky was visible once more. Rather than the blue sphere, a roasted chestnut sat perfectly in the swallows’ nest.

Huh. “The coefficient was zero point nine two,” Taihei said to himself, perfectly recalling the problem he had been working on earlier, every page in his textbook, and where he had forgotten one of his sandals that morning. The strange clarity left him as subtly as it arrived, but in its wake, he felt like he understood just a little bit more of the test than he had in years.

“Oh, very nice! It looks like you’re one of those students that learns better by doing. That’ll make the rest of this so much more fun.”

Taihei looked back at the desk to once more see an elf, eating from a bag of chestnuts. The professor flicked a wrist and the glowing orb reappeared in his hand, and as he absentmindedly tossed it into the air, nothing came back down. As he strode to the door and waved one of his tails from beneath his robes, illusory equations and vectors sprung into glowing existence around the courtyard, illuminating each phase of Taihei’s throw in precise and clear mathematical detail.

“I think,” Taihei said slowly, “you’re probably the worst teacher I’ve had.”

“You know, for some reason, I get that a lot,” the fox said in mock offense. He tossed a chestnut to Taihei before popping seven more in his mouth. “Now, do that again, and this time, let's go through the calculations, step by step.”

About the Author

James Case is a designer at Paizo, where he helps to create the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. In addition to his work writing and developing RPG products, James has also edited manuscripts for scientific researchers, translated songs for music labels, and blown bubbles for at least one birthday party. You can find him, and his thoughts on game design (and comma usage), on The Twitter at @toriariaria.

About Tales of Lost Omens

The Tales of Lost Omens series of web-based flash fiction provides an exciting glimpse into Pathfinder’s Age of Lost Omens setting. Written by some of the most celebrated authors in tie-in gaming fiction, including Paizo’s Pathfinder Tales line of novels and short fiction, the Tales of Lost Omens series promises to explore the characters, deities, history, locations, and organizations of the Pathfinder setting with engaging stories to inspire Game Masters and players alike.

February is Black History Month! Black voices, be they in the RPG industry or in other creative mediums, are helping create amazing stories and we’re proud to share some voices from our community, in their own words. Enjoy these profiles as well as some previews for art from the upcoming Lost Omens: The Mwangi Expanse!

Jahmal “Mad Jay” Brown (he/him)

Jahmal “Mad Jay” Brown is host of the Diceology podcast, Professional GM at IntoTheMadLands.com and freelance writer with credits including PRIME Supers for Cortex Prime, Pathfinder’s Mwangi Expanse and his own By Acer’s Light for Burning Wheel and Dungeon World. He likes games and stories about outsiders and underdogs. Jay games with his kids and loves his momma but she doesn’t game yet. He is easily found on Twitter @madjayzero or www.madjayzero.com.

Allie Bustion (she/her or they/them)

Allie Bustion is an independent and freelance narrative and tabletop game designer, working for Paizo on several upcoming and previous titles, Wizards of the Coast, Guildhall Studios, and Green Ronin as well as their own projects, HEIST and Misbehavin'. Away from the table, they play video games. Sometimes, even on Twitch. On Twitter, you can catch them talking about wrestling, storytelling, and their cat.

Devinne Caples (she/her)

My name is Devinne and I am the HR Generalist for Paizo. I am also a wife and mom to three children. I wear a lot of hats. I enjoy working in Human Resources and working at Paizo has given me the opportunity to work in a very diverse work environment. Working at Paizo has opened my eyes to the RPG world and how beneficial it can be to be part of such a community, especially during these uncertain times. These communities connect individuals and provide a means to still feel a part of something bigger than themselves while in isolation. I admire what we do here.

Art of an Alijae elf, by Mirco Paganessi (left) and the goddess Desna, by Sophie Medvedeva (right)

Travis “Rabbit” Lionel (he/him)

Travis, circa 1994. Writer, gamer, black guy. Growing up, I was always told I wasn’t black enough or I was trying too hard to “act white” due to my hobbies and interests. I always loved games like Final Fantasy and became invested into tabletop games such as Magic: The Gathering and Pathfinder 1st Edition by the beginning of high school. However, I never let these things stop me from loving my blackness, my history and my hobbies no matter how far removed. Okay, that’s partially true; I did have some identity issues. Now, I’m in a position to not only show that black people can participate in these hobbies, but centralize themselves into the hobby as well. I was blessed with the opportunity to work with Paizo on Lost Omens: The Mwangi Expanse in 2020. I wanted this to be a chance for an African inspired setting to have a black voice on it as often we have so few chances to make African settings anymore than mud huts. I also wanted to show little black children that tabletop games and other hobbies are not the exclusive domains of white people and that everyone is welcome.

I love love love, 2nd Edition Pathfinder and I hope to continue playing and working on it in the future. In addition, you can find me on Twitch (https://twitch.tv/eightbitrabbits) giving lots of opinions about games of both the tabletop and video variety here.

Erin Roberts (she/her)

I'm a new(ish) freelancer for Paizo, but I have been a writer for some time, telling stories of impossible magic, maybe-one-day technology, and all-too-real things that go bump in the night (feel free to check me out on Twitter at @nirele). I am also a child (and current resident) of East Coast cities like New York and DC, with roots in the Deep South and Panama, who grew up in a family that ensured that the lessons and pride and continued journey of Black history were a fundamental part of who I am.

One of the reasons that I enjoy writing so much is that I love to tell a good story, but also that I love to think about the story beneath the story, the iceberg that the tales we spin are only the very tip of. After all, even the silliest, most ridiculously fluffy pieces of creative work teach you a little something, from who gets to shape the world to what places make interesting backdrops to which stories are worth telling. Part of why I love my creative work is that I have the opportunity to bring who I am to the page, to add the people and places and stories that I know from my experience as a Black woman to the undercurrents of the collective tale we’re telling, and to lift up the power of community, the fight against injustice, the distinction between race, culture, and destiny, and the deep importance of collective joy.

Isis Wozniakowska (she/her)

I’m one of Paizo’s newer freelancers. I’ve written for the upcoming Secrets of Magic book and my first Starfinder scenario, #3-21: Frozen Ambitions: Renewal's Blight, was just announced. I’ve been involved with Organized Play off and on for five years, but I’ve really become a more active member within the past two. I also both play and GM Paizo APs and adventures regularly. You might have even heard me in the most recent Starfinder Society special voicing Luwazi Elsebo, a role which I’d be happy to reprise anytime (wink wink).

I’m the daughter of a Black woman and a Polish immigrant man. My mother is a Blues musician, and a former belly dancer, which ended up giving me a Black music and musical history education in my childhood. She has also always been a major science fiction and superhero movie nerd. She and her siblings loved watching Star Trek as kids and seeing a Black woman like Uhura on screen each week inspired all of them.

The first time I showed my mother a picture of a Black elf in one of my Pathfinder books she got so excited that she bought elf ears for herself for Halloween because she’d never seen a classic fantasy race that looked like her. I’ve gotten my passion for science fiction and fantasy from her, and I can only hope to recreate more moments like this for her and other Black people in the future through my time spent participating in Organized Play, and through further work in writing for RPGs.

Art of a glassworker and a gardener, by Katerina Kirillova

This year, we’d also like to highlight the following charities focused on Black authors and communities, which we encourage you to support as you are able.

Black Trans Advocacy Coalition Mission

Carl Brandon Society

Race Forward

PaizoCon Online returns Memorial Day weekend (May 28-31) with four days of amazing Paizo games and events, featuring:

• Easy-to-join online games for beginners and veterans
• Nightly live streamed Pathfinder & Starfinder celebrity games
• Pathfinder Beginner Box Games
• Three brand-new Starfinder Society scenarios and the kickoff for a new year
• Two brand-new Pathfinder Society scenarios
• Demo games starting every hour
• More than 70 games on offer between Starfinder and both Pathfinder editions
• Seminars and interviews featuring Paizo designers and creators
• Convention Discord hub to interact with other attendees
• Giveaways on the PaizoCon Discord channel
• Four days of games on a variety of VTTs
• And more!

PaizoCon Online 2021 begins Friday, May 28th and runs through Monday, May 31st. The event features live seminars and live-plays on Twitch, games scheduled via Warhorn and run on a variety of VTT platforms such as Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, Astral, and D20Pro, an official PaizoCon Online Discord server as a general hangout for con-goers, plus new product reveal blogs on paizo.com, and more! Additionally, PaizoCon Online 2021 will feature the launch of Starfinder Society Year 4 and a multi-table celebration event for the Pathfinder Adventure Card Society!

Badges for PaizoCon Online 2021 cost $25 for the weekend and are available through our Warhorn PaizoCon page! Badges go on sale 22 Feb 2021 and player game selection opens 1 April 2021.

We’ve partnered with the Organized Play Foundation for GM recruitment. GMs who run four or more games during PaizoCon receive a complimentary badge. For a full list of GM benefits as well as how to register to GM, visit the Organized Play Foundation website. GM registration opens 16 Feb 2021.

We are working on the schedules and a PaizoCon Online 2021 homepage and will update our community with more details as they become available. Meanwhile, attendees can create a paizo.com account, get an organized play number, join the Paizo Events discord server which will act as the PaizoCon convention hub, and volunteer to GM through the Organized Play Foundation. On 22 Feb, attendees can purchase their weekend badge via Warhorn.

Ticket holders for PaizoCon 2020 who rolled their tickets over to PaizoCon 2021 will have their tickets continue to roll over automatically. Attendees may request a refund by emailing customerservice@paizo.com.

For more information, email paizocononline@paizo.com.

-PaizoCon Online 2021 Team

Today we’re kicking off a new batch of No-Prep Character blogs, which feature a ready-to-run NPC for busy Game Masters. This time around, Eleanor and I worked together to showcase some of the as-of-yet unrevealed ancestries appearing in Lost Omens Ancestry Guide. Each of these NPCs uses one of the new ancestries or versatile heritages featured in that book, but feature all of the rules information you need to include them in your adventures right away! This week we showcase a new versatile heritage: aphorite! I’ll talk a bit more about aphorites after showing you the NPC, but for now, let’s look at our no-prep aphorite, Urok..

Urok, Kobold Infiltrator

When the Yioxat tribe of kobolds was subjugated by a local devil, its members feared that their children might be corrupted by their parents' unwilling agreements with Hell. Yet when Urok cracked open his shell, his caretakers were shocked to see the kobold hatchling had unique gold and silver scales, unlike even the scales of a metallic kobold. Though his soul was unclaimed by the forces of evil, Urok grew up arrogant and overbearing, enforcing the strict order that the devil imposed on his tribe. He was quick to realize that his fellows weren't carrying out their tasks as efficiently as they could be, and his efforts to organize his tribe more effectively always seemed to fail. It was only after investigating that he realized how much the Yioxats were deliberately undermining his efforts, as they despised their devil overlord, and despised Urok by association.

Though he was heavily tempted to double down on his attempts to control, Urok instead fled, hiding in the wilderness as he tried to make sense of his life until this point. It was there that a Yioxat dragon sorcerer found him. The sorcerer explained that the Yioxat tribe had warded Urok's egg against evil influence before he was born, to protect him from the risk of Hell claiming his soul. Realizing that he had repaid his people's kindness with oppression, Urok decided to serve the law by returning sovereignty to his tribe. Though he doesn't want to approach his fellows just yet, he keeps watch over them, looking for an opportunity to kill the devil and free his family. However, this has also resulted in Urok clashing with well-meaning adventurers who seek to destroy the Yioxat tribe without realizing the kobolds are unwilling servants.

Art by Gin Skalauskas

Urok — Creature 9

Unique, LN, Small, Aphorite, Humanoid, Kobold
Male aphorite kobold infiltrator

Perception +18; darkvision, low-light vision
Languages Aklo, Common, Draconic, Infernal, Undercommon, Utopian
Skills Acrobatics +20, Arcana +20, Athletics +13, Deception +16, Devil Lore +20, Diplomacy +16 Nature +16, Intimidation +16 Occultism +20, Religion +16, Society +20, Stealth +20, Survival +16, Thievery +20, Yioxat Tribe Lore +20
Str +0, Dex +4, Con +0, Int +4, Wis +2, Cha +2
Items +1 striking returning dagger
AC 27; Fort +15, Ref +21, Will +18
HP 140

Preemptive Reconfiguration [reaction] Frequency once per day; Trigger Urok would take bludgeoning piercing, or slashing damage; Effect Urok’s body anticipates the blow and the impact area briefly reorganizes into a strengthened tissue lattice that blunts the attack. He gains resistance 9 against the triggering damage type, which applies against the triggering damage

Urok can expend his daily use of Crystalline Dust when using this reaction. If he does, his daily use of Preemptive Reconfiguration isn’t expended and he can use it a second time.

Speed 25 feet

Melee [one-action] dagger +19 (agile, finesse, versatile S), Damage 2d4+8 piercing

Ranged [one-action] dagger +19 (agile, finesse, thrown 10 feet, versatile S), Damage 2d4+8 piercing

Crystalline Dust [two-actions] Frequency once per day; Effect Urok disperses the crystalline motes coating his body as a haze. He becomes concealed, though he can’t use this concealment to Hide or Sneak. The motes stay within an inch of his skin, move with you, and last for 4 rounds.

Draconic Exemplar green dragon

Kobold Breath [two-actions] (arcane, evocation, poison) Urok breathes a poisonous mist that deals 5d4 poison damage in a 15-foot cone (DC 25 basic Fortitude save). He can’t use Kobold Breath again for 1d4 rounds.

Mastermind If Urok successfully identifies a creature using Recall Knowledge, that creature is flat-footed against his attacks until the start of his next turn; if he critically succeeds, it’s flat-footed against his attacks for 1 minute.

Skirmish Strike [one-action] Frequency once per round; Effect Urok either Steps and then Strike, or Strikes and then Steps.

Sneak Attack Urok’s Strikes deal an additional 2d6 precision damage to flat‑footed creatures.

Plot Hooks

Game Masters may consider the following plot hooks as a means of integrating Urok into any Pathfinder Second Edition game.

• Urok arrives in the same town as the heroes. He is met with unwelcoming glances and even fear from the townsfolk. The pleading kobold asks anyone who will listen that he is in need of cold iron weapons to slay the devil that terrorizes his kin.
• A local noble tasks the heroes with clearing the Yioxat kobold tribe from the nearby wilderness. As they approach the tribe, Urok makes himself known and attempts to force the heroes away.
• A fleeing Urok runs into the heroes as they are travelling. He is holding a large egg and shoves it into the heroes’ hands. He explains the egg has been warded and needs to be kept away from evil eyes before he runs away.

About Aphorites

Aphorites were first forged by axiomites to serve as liaisons between their lawful progenitors and frustratingly unpredictable mortal allies. Over time, aphorites’ appearances and personalities grew to resemble their mortal comrades as they were increasingly born among mortals. Aphorites still exhibit Axis’s touch in their metallic skin coated in crystalline dust, aptitude for logic, strength in artisanship, and propensity for order and cooperation. Aphorite feats allow an aphorite to draw upon the power of their crystalline dust, analyze a situation on the battlefield to maximize effectiveness, and even call upon order to find success when catastrophic failure was all but absolute. Aphorite is an uncommon versatile heritage and you can learn all about it when Lost Omens Ancestry Guide releases on February 24th!

Luis Loza
Developer

January brought fourteen new Pathfinder- and Starfinder-compatible PDF products to paizo.com.

Drop Dead Studios

Wreckage to Deliverance (PFRPG) PDF

Wreckage to Deliverance is a perfect introduction to the campaign world of Skybourne and the Spheres of Power/Spheres of Might systems, as well as other fun 3rd party materials for Pathfinder 1st edition, and introduction to any campaign that will see itself delving the ruins of the desert seeking for gold and glory.

Compatible with Pathfinder First Edition.

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Wreckage to Deliverance: Player's Guide (PFRPG) PDF

In this, the player's guide, you will find all sorts of information designed to help both players and GMs make the most of this adventure, including character creation guidelines and sample characters, campaign traits, new equipment, and guidelines for the skill challenges that are found in the adventure itself.

Whether you are playing Wreckage to Deliverance or wanting to explore other desert-themed adventures, hopefully Wreckage to Deliverance: Player's Guide will have the information you need to help you make the most of your game.

Compatible with Pathfinder First Edition.

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Spheres Bestiary: Undead and the Immortal Forlorn (PFRPG) PDF

Spheres Bestiary: Undead and the Immortal Forlorn brings you a staggering variety of tools and bestiary content, including new stat blocks, monster variants, templates, template variants, incantations and artifacts, and talent packages.

This Spheres bestiary brings you a massive trove of undead-fueled content to make your Pathfinder 1st edition games using the Spheres of Power/Spheres of Might systems thematic and vibrant.

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The Gravecaller's Handbook (PFRPG) PDF

The bells toll, the dead walk again, and heroes and villains take on the mantle of the grave! The Gravecaller's Handbook is a player-oriented supplement for Pathfinder 1e using Ultimate Spheres of Power, as well as materials from Spheres of Might, Champions of the Spheres, and other Drop Dead Studio products, bringing you a revitalized Death sphere, new feats, archetypes, items, and talent

Compatible with Pathfinder First Edition.

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Everybody Games

Files for Everybody: Improved Familiars (PF2E) PDF

In this File, improved familiars! Predesigned for your convenience, these exciting new options allow your spellcasting characters to join forces with the likes of quasits, cassissians, nosoi, pipefoxes, and more!

Compatible with Pathfinder Second Edition.

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Legendary Games

Stellar Options #7: Mental Mysteries (SFRPG) PD

Get new options for your mystic to unleash the power of their mind in communion with the universe to wield supernatural powers beyond imagining. Cast your thoughts into the realms of pure thought with the etheric dreamer connection or sate your hunger for the hopes, dreams, and memories of others with the terrifying thoughtdrinker connection! Or let your witchwarper tap into the collective unconscious with the whispers from beyond paradigm shift!

Compatible with Starfinder.

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Legendary Hunters (PFRPG) PDF

Legendary Hunters is the latest volume in our series of class-focused player supplements for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, this time focused on the intertwined souls who use their connection to overcome challenges and hunt down threats, the hunter and their companion. These two use their skills in the wilderness, tandem tactics and training, and primal magic to protect their domains. Legendary Hunters completely redesigns the hunter class granting it more unique, diverse and iconic class abilities centered around their animal companion. Grab this amazing 50-page character class supplement for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game today and Make Your Game Legendary!

Compatible with Pathfinder First Edition.

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Treasury of the Crusade (PF2E) PDF

The Treasury of the Crusade brings you over 30 new magical items for Pathfinder Second Edition, each perfect to gear up for a righteous crusade where valorous guardians of the mortal realms stand in defiant resistance against the encroaching armies of the demon lords. Grab this 22-page Pathfinder Second Edition magic item supplement today and Make Your Game Legendary!

Compatible with Pathfinder Second Edition.

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Stellar Options #8: Advanced Gunnery (SFRPG) PDF

Get new options for breaking out the big guns with your Starfinder heroes with over a dozen character options, including the artillerist character theme with new abilities like traversing fire and component targeting. Plus unleash massive firepower with new spells like gravity bullet and new feats like Overwatch, Improved Suppressing Fire, and Unholstering Strike!

Compatible with Starfinder.

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Raging Swan Press

The Picaroon Peninsula (PFRPG) PDF

Set sail for adventure on the Picaroon Peninsula! Stretching from the isolated pirate stronghold of Deksport in the west with its three violent, feuding rulers, to the mysterious Forest of Gray Spires in the east, the Picaroon Peninsula is home to ruthless buccaneers, cannibal cults, crumbling tree-choked ruins and pirate curses.

The Picaroon Peninsula presents together for the first time the town of Deksport with the villages of Red Talon, Sea Bitch, Revenge and Black Wyvern, along with eight new coastal and wilderness adventure locations and an updated map by master cartographer Tommi Salama.

Compatible with Pathfinder First Edition.

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GM's Miscellany: Mini-Eventures I (PFRPG/PF2E) PDF

Even the smallest town has more locations than all but the most diligent and time-rich GM could ever hope to detail and design. To make matters even worse, when an adventuring party gets to a town or city, the characters often have the irritating habit of going off exploring. What's a GM to do? Designed specifically for you, the busy GM, the mini-eventures herein help you bring depth and flavour to your characters' next urban adventure. This compilation is designed for use with City Backdrop: Languard, but can be easily used in virtually any town or city.

Compatible with Pathfinder First and Second Editions.

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GM's Miscellany: Mini-Eventures I (PFRPG/PF2E) PDF

Village Backdrops are short, richly detailed supplements that each present a single village ready to insert into almost any home campaign. Perfect for use as a waystop on the road to adventure, as an adventure site themselves or as a PC's home, Village Backdrop present the details so the busy GM can focus on crafting exciting, compelling adventures.

Compatible with Pathfinder First and Second Editions.

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Rusted Iron Games

Classes of Tombstone: Inventor (PF2E) PDF

Classes of Tombstone presents the all-new Inventor class for your Pathfinder Second Edition games. Inventors are the purveyors of technological advancement and weird science in the weird wild west of Tombstone.

Compatible with Pathfinder Second Edition.

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Tombstone Gazetteer Preview (PF2E) PDF

Tombstone Gazetteer Preview is the first look into the world of Tombstone — our alternate history weird wild west campaign setting for Pathfinder Second Edition.

Compatible with Pathfinder Second Edition.

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Find thousands of Pathfinder-compatible and Starfinder-compatible products at the paizo.com store every day.

Adventures Ahead!

Aaron Shanks
Marketing and Media Manager

One of the biggest strengths of the organized play programs is the community it fosters. As with all hobbies, that community grows when we provide open and welcoming spaces and clear directions for getting involved. This week, we turned the keyboard over to the Organized Play Foundation’s Onboarding Task Force team and asked them to share an update on their project: welcoming new players to organized play.

Kia Ora from Aotearoa, the Land of the Long White Cloud, home of Hobbiton, Xena, and both of the Conchords, my home: New Zealand! I am Paul Trani, one of the Venture Captains of this exquisite place, and just like you, I have seen my role-playing game practice change dramatically this past year, in both how and why I game. With respect to the latter, I am so grateful for the Organized Play (OP) community, both in-person and virtual, for preserving (slightly) my sanity, and when the opportunity to give back came around, I critically failed my Will save. On purpose.

And so I find myself the chairperson of the Onboarding Task Force, a newly-created volunteer group of venture officers working to help new players discover the world of Pathfinder Society (PFS) and wow! am I both excited and humbled by the talented people that populate this group. The taskforce team is made up of Daniel Baker, Douglas Hahn, Katrina Hennessy, Kevin Baumann, Kristin Wilhite, Michael VonHasseln, Peter Nalepa, Nicole Heits, Kiela Butson, Kara Kramer-Rapp, Dustin Knight, and Joel Hager.

But Paul, you ask, doesn’t New Zealand have an official wizard? Yes, he lives in Christchurch - you can look it up, but I’d like to tell you about what the Onboarding Task Force has been doing in the course of the past four months

We started work with a specific request - reduce the barriers to entry for new players. In the current mostly-digital world, that translated to finding a way to transition the chronicle sheets to allow for treasure and scenario rewards to be tracked differently. We created a format that can be used either physically or electronically and we’re continuing to look at more ways that this can be tracked even more simply. You can find the tracking tools here.

Since that time, we’ve been asked to do a few more things. We’ve been working extra hard on helping you to take characters from that cool new Pathfinder Beginner Box that you or a loved one got for Christmas and played all the way through. We’re publishing a guide that will help transition characters built with Beginner Box rules into full-fledged Pathfinder Society Characters. You can find the guide here: Beginner Box conversion guide.

We’ve got lots more in the pipeline that we’re working on, which will post to the Organized Play Foundation website when finished. We’re really excited about our new projects and can’t wait to show them to you.

Our team is here to help the community get involved in organized play. Got a suggestion? We’re always open to new ideas. You can send them to me at we.be.dunedinpfs@gmail.com.

It’s a pleasure to be helping bring the new generation of Golarionites to the Starstone, as it were, and we on the Onboarding Team wish you all the natural 20s that are coming to you.

Cheers!

Paul Trani
Onboarding Task Force Chairperson

Update time! We uploaded sanctioning documents for Pathfinder Adventure: The Slithering.

Check back next week for the monthly scenario preview. With the backlog from January, we’ve got six new adventures waiting for you!

Until then, Explore! Report! Cooperate!

Tonya Woldridge
Organized Play Manager

Alex Speidel
Organized Play Associate

Join us in celebrating these staff additions and promotions since our last blog in April 2020! (Variations in the content are because employees were given the option to opt-in.)

New hires:

Raychael Allor, Customer Service (December 21) – Hi! I’m Raychael (she/her; pronounced like ‘Rachel’, thanks mom) and I’ve been playing TTRPGs regularly for about 5 years. I also spend a lot of free time either playing CRPGs and MMOs or reading horror fiction. My Twitter handle is @AnnonInGelydh and mostly contains retweets about mental health, cats (I have 3), and dice (I don’t have enough).

Alex Crain, Warehouse Associate

Rian Davenport, Customer Service

Addley C. Fannin, Editor – Greetings, internet. I’m Addley (they/them), a long-time gamer, forever GM, and font of useless information. I once lived in Alaska and wrote book reviews. Now I’m in Seattle, and couldn’t be more excited to help edit Pathfinder and Starfinder. My Twitter doesn’t have much yet but y’all can still follow @fannin_addleyc

Heather Fantasia, Customer Service (December 28th) – Hi everyone! I wear many hats, working at Paizo is the latest! I’m also a barista, vocal instructor, yoga enthusiast, yarn wrangler, mom, pet mom...

Keith Greer, Customer Service (October 2020), (he/him) – PNW Native+For Life; I’ve been playing RPG’s (analog and digital) since the 80s, and making dark and heavy music since the 90s; I spend my spare time playing World of Warcraft, watching horror movies, and raising my kids (to hopefully do the same).

Logan Harper, Customer Service – Hi! I’m Logan (she/her). I’m a bit of a hobbit who you can usually find curled up with my pups watching movies. Or if it's Sunday then I’m battling monsters with The Tribe in our online game. The rest of my downtime is spent recording voiceover auditions and episodes for The Barking Bard Podcast with my partner. Feel free to follow me on Twitter @LoganHarper_

Kyle Hunter, Art Director (November) (he/him) – After about 15 years, I’m back! I was part of the original WotC Periodicals crew that split off to form Paizo. Even stranger, I worked with Sarah and Sonja on Nintendo Power in the 1990s! Wrote and drew the comic Downer in the later days of Dungeon Magazine. In addition to designing the Paizo logo, I created the droid manufacturing logos for Star Wars.

Jenny Jarzabski, Starfinder Society Developer – Hi, I’m Jenny (she/her). I’m a long-time Paizo freelancer and gamer who’s thrilled to have officially joined the team. When I’m not playing games, I’m probably outside. I love the great outdoors—cycling, hiking, and rock climbing are some of my favorite activities. I sometimes ramble about various topics on Twitter, @jenjski. See you in space!

Mike Kimmel, Organized Play Developer (January 4) – Hello! I’m Mike Kimmel (he/him), the newest member of the Organized Play team. I’ve been a GM for 20+ years and I love teaching people how to play games. You can witness my Twitter shenanigans at @_MikeKimmel.

James Mafi, Warehouse Associate

Lee Rucker, Project Coordinator – Hello! I’m Lee (they/them). When I’m not wrangling projects, I mostly spend my time playing games (all kinds), hanging with friends (digitally these days), and reading. I hope to utilize my skills in organizing, process improvement, and planning to help make everyone’s lives less stressful here.

Levi Steadman, Tech – Hello, I’m Levi (he/him). I’m a Michigander who has been playing Pathfinder for half his life adjusting to my new life here in the PNW. I’ve joined the team to help with the QA process for the website and automated some of the monotonous QA tasks that tend to slow things down. When I’m not doing my day job or playing Pathfinder I’m almost always playing MMOs with my wife and our friends back in Michigan.

Title changes:

James Case (he/him): Pathfinder Society Developer to Designer. Twitter: @toriariaria

Adam Daigle (he/him): Managing Developer to Director of Game Development—As I mentioned in my teary blog this past summer, when Amanda left us for other ventures, I took over management of the Starfinder development team in addition to the Pathfinder development team. Now I have the duty and honor of managing the development of both of our games, and this new title represents that. It’s weird that I was a fan and freelancer posting on our messageboards less than ten years ago. I’ve been stoked to see so many awesome new people joining us and seeing other people rising through the ranks to well-deserved positions.

Leo Glass: Senior Editor to Managing Editor

Thurston Hillman: Starfinder Society Developer to Pathfinder Society Developer

Jenny Jarzabski: Organized Play Developer to Starfinder Society Developer

Scott Keim: Data Entry Clerk to Financial Operations Specialist

Avi Kool (they/them): Editor to Senior Editor
After working on Pathfinder Second Edition since the playtest, I have a huge amount of love for the system and the stories it empowers us to tell. I can’t wait to lead the Editing team on the Pathfinder line to further explore the way the game works as well as the world of Golarion and the people who inhabit it.

When I’m not editing, I enjoy learning about nature, cross-stitching, watching horror movies, and petting my dog. I am the company’s resident expert on bears, for which I have no certifications whatsoever. You can find me talking about bears and making tabletop RPGs queer on Twitter at @legalizegoblins.

Heather Payne: Warehouse Associate to Warehouse Distribution Lead

Lu Pellazar Editor to Senior Editor

Michael Sayre: Pathfinder Society Developer to Designer

Jeff Strand: Shipping Manager to Warehouse Manager

Kevin Underwood Warehouse Associate to Logistics Coordinator

Diego Valdez: Customer Service Representative to Customer Service Lead

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Most Paizo employees continue to work from home and we have no return date scheduled. Many of us have yet to meet face-to-face, but we have Happy Hours every other Friday hosted by Devinne Caples, our HR Generalist. This also means our Customer Service team is unable to take calls directly in the office they continue to work via email, the forums, and the main Paizo voicemail box. We thank you for your support, patience, and patronage.

The creature ripped out the man’s throat with its claws, blood spraying across the leaf-littered forest floor. Its furry bulk pinned the body to the ground. Lips pulled back from razor-sharp teeth as a low, ripsaw growl rumbled deep in the thing’s throat.

Leaning close, the lupine head sniffed at its victim’s pulsing neck. Then the beast threw back its head, spine arching. Its shrill howl split the chill, nighttime air.

“AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

“Archie? Archie, stop! Archibol Frigasson the Third!”

The creature’s howl stopped abruptly. It blinked, looking around in confusion.

“Goria... what?”

“Stop. There could be more bandits, you little twit. Calm down.”

Archie cleared his throat. “Ah. Of course. My apologies. I quite got carried away.”

Archibol rose carefully to his feet. He was not particularly tall, but his broad shoulders and thick arms gave him a hulking quality. His gray fur shone almost white in the light of the full moon. For a moment, he looked down on his blood-soaked hands with wonder, then blinked. He crouched and pulled at the dead man’s cloak, gathering enough fabric to start meticulously cleaning his claws and fur.

“Archie? We good?” Goria asked, her voice like gravel rolling around in a dry bucket. The blades of her daggers flashed as she twirled and pushed them into scabbards at her hips. Although the woman was both preternaturally quick and strong, she looked neither. Long, stitched scars zig-zagged everywhere across her flabby skin. It was as if someone had patched Goria together from dozens of long-dead, mismatched bodies.

Which, of course, is precisely what Archibol’s mad father had done, years before he had turned to polymorph experiments upon his only son. The two oddities had clung to each other ever since their escape.

“Of course, big sister, of course. Heh. Nothing to fear. Merely lost in the moment.”

Goria watched him with a milky, unblinking stare. An awkward moment of silence passed.

The wolf-man cleared his throat again. “Right. Everyone accounted for, then? Where’s our lovely oracle?”

“I’m here, Archibol!”

He could smell her before she emerged from the shadows, the scent of an open grave. Normally, Ashka Midnighter was a young, doe-eyed kayal—a shadow person—her pale skin and white hair seeming as if all color had drained from her and giving her an exotic beauty. Now, however, her cheeks were sunken, her perfect smooth skin marred by rot. She still moved gracefully, though, skipping gleefully through branches and leaves and hardly making a sound.

“Ah, splendid. I say, Ashka. Do these oracular powers of yours hurt you when they desiccate your body so?”

Her cracked lips split into a wide grin. “Of course not! Oh, I feel a bit tired, but I’m fine. Ready for more adventure!” She hopped on one foot and thrust a fist into the air.

“Hrmph. As my new ward, my dear, I must insist we do some investigation to determine any long-term negative effects from putting your body through such an ordeal.”

Ashka looked down at her exposed, decaying arms with glowing, white eyes. “It’s just the mystery of the bones, Archibol. I get glimpses into death, and death reaches back out to me. But it’s temporary, silly. Don’t worry.”

“Still, data is knowledge, eh? I would be comforted with some empiricism behind your changes. For now, though,” he grunted as he stood, hands cleaned. “We appear to have more pressing concerns.”

The three of them looked around the clearing, dappled by moonlight.

A dozen bodies lay scattered.

“What a simply preposterous disaster,” Archibol grunted. “Alright, let us begin with the facts.”

“Blast it, Archie...” Goria growled.

“How long have you known me? We must always begin with the facts.”

She rolled her patchwork eyes but did not argue.

“Now,” he began reciting, as if giving a university lecture, one clawed finger raised. “Nobleman Cammack Guthor’s caravan left Caliphas at dusk this evening, headed to a remote holiday estate. The nobleman traveled with,” Archibol’s eyes roamed the clearing. “Two servants, one carriage driver, and... let’s see, one, no, two armed guards. The carriage was led off the road to this clearing, where Guthor and his entire party were slain. Their rather impressive store of valuables has been gathered in sacks.”

Archibol began moving, stepping gingerly between corpses.

“When we arrived, we found four men and two women dressed in matching cloaks and leather armor, all armed, picking through the sacks. Each wore a red mask painted with the visage of...” he leaned down and fingered one of the wooden masks. Its bulbous nose and leering smile might have been comical in a different setting.

Ashka appeared silently at his shoulder. “Ooo! I know! Devil masks!” she clapped enthusiastically. “Like from a carnival.”

Archibol nodded once. “Devils, yes. Some fanciful conceit in pursuit of notoriety, I suppose. And calling themselves the Tricksters! As if they were some famous band of villains instead of a two-copper band of thugs.”

Goria nudged one of the bandits disdainfully with a boot. “Trying to sneak wearing red in a forest. Idiots.”

Archibol grunted. “Indeed. Alright, we have six dead victims, including our Ustalavic nobleman. However, thanks to us, we also have six dead Tricksters.” He scratched at his chin, lost for a moment in thought. “I say! How long do you suppose it would take to waylay the carriage, lead it here, kill everyone, and pick through their belongings?”

Goria shrugged one shoulder. “Hour?”

Archibol looked up to the full moon. “And yet it’s before midnight. Blast! The scroll we intercepted correctly identified Guthor as the target of the ambush, but why did the Tricksters strike early? We should have left one of the bandits alive for questioning.”

“Yes,” Goria frowned, the stitches on one cheek going taut. She looked at him pointedly. “We definitely should have.”

Archibol avoided her gaze. “Well, then. I propose we begin examining how the Tricksters arrived at the ambush point. Perhaps we can track them back to—”

Someone nearby groaned.

No sooner had Archibol’s wolf-like ears flicked at the sound, than he was bounding across the clearing to a low bush. Goria followed protectively close behind.

Both pairs of eyes looked down on an older, pale-skinned human man in an ornate breastplate, his legs tangled in the bush and the rest sprawled out of sight of the clearing. A dented helm lay nearby.

Illustration by Victor Manuel Leza Moreno from Pathfinder Lost Omens Ancestry Guide.

“Ho ho!” Archibol exclaimed. “We have ourselves a thirteenth! One of Guthor’s guardsmen, it seems. My dear fellow, it looks as if you’ve taken quite a blow to the head. Please allow me to help you up. We have a number of questions as we pursue those who waylaid you.”

The man groaned again and rolled onto his back. He blinked once, twice.

“Yeaargh!” the man squealed. “Werewolf!”

“Ah,” Archibol chuckled. “Honest mistake. Actually, you see, I am—”

The guard’s wild eyes swiveled to Goria. “M-monster!”

“Now listen here, good fellow. That’s hardly fair,” Archibol frowned. “I believe you’ve got the wrong—”

Ashka’s grave smell washed over them as she approached. The man yelped, “Zombie!” before fainting dead away.

“Bother,” Archibol sighed. “Not again.”

About the Author

Jay Moldenhauer-Salazar was a founding columnist for Magic: the Gathering’s official website, which he wrote weekly for five years (along with various other gaming columns). During that time, he also penned several Kamigawa block web stories for Wizards of the Coast. He is a lifelong tabletop roleplaying gamer, frequent GM, and loves Pathfinder 2nd Edition. He lives, games, and writes in Oakland, CA.

About Tales of Lost Omens

The Tales of Lost Omens series of web-based flash fiction provides an exciting glimpse into Pathfinder’s Age of Lost Omens setting. Written by some of the most celebrated authors in tie-in gaming fiction, including Paizo’s Pathfinder Tales line of novels and short fiction, the Tales of Lost Omens series promises to explore the characters, deities, history, locations, and organizations of the Pathfinder setting with engaging stories to inspire Game Masters and players alike.

As we close in on the completion of our campaign, we can't thank those who have already backed the Adventurer’s Curated Dice Collection enough and encourage those that are on the fence to grab these for when we (sooner than later) get back to gaming in person!

We have a stream this Friday (2/12) from 4:15 PM - 6 PM Eastern on our Twitch (twitch.tv/levelup_ttv) where Shawn, our Corporate Manager and one of the leads on this project, will be building out characters from all sorts of systems to show you how to build your character's dice set!

We wanted to also announce that for our final days we will be unlocking ALL color combinations and five more spell glyphic designs we had yet to unlock! We couldn't bring ourselves to keep them from you as you're all near and dear to us as our first group of backers and hope you'll follow us in our journey forward.

We have a huge announcement or three coming soon but let's focus on what we have at hand. At the completion of the campaign we must wait 14 days before the Backerkit can be opened to you. As soon as we can, we will have that available to you and we will be closing it 14 days after opening it. There is a possibility of extending if we have a significant number of backers that have yet to pledge, but we are trying to turn this around as fast as possible and are simply waiting for the orders to be processed to get started. Hopefully, all of this preparation amounts to everybody getting their dice much earlier than expected, but let's temper our expectations just in case of, you know, another worldwide pandemic or something happening.

We hope you have the best of times until we can all get together again at conventions and the like!

Adventurers Curated Dice Collection could be yours by clicking the link: http://ow.ly/Qmap50D5YVz

—Level Up Dice

The Pathfinder core rules contain 289 spells by our count. Savage World Adventure Edition includes 54 powers. When it came time to figure out how to translate the expansive, robust Pathfinder magic system to work in the smaller, dynamic Savage Worlds power system, we had to boil everything down to their core.

As designers, one of the most useful tools we have is constraining the problem. When you’re staring down the barrel of holding nearly three hundred spells in your head all at once to figure out how to combine and represent them, it’s too much for anyone to handle. But if we categorize these items and constrain them to a pre-defined structure, they’re much more manageable.

What do spells in Pathfinder accomplish? In general terms, we can assign all Pathfinder spells up to three of the following trait categories (in order of how core that trait is to the spell) and effectively summarize what they do:

• Deal Damage
• Deal Damage in an Area
• Heal
• Heal in an Area
• Buff an Ally
• Buff Allies in an Area
• Debuff an Enemy
• Debuff Enemies in an Area
• Remove an Effect
• Remove Effects in an Area
• Cause a Social Effect
• Cause Social Effects in an Area
• Mimic the Usage of a Skill
• An Impossible Effect

Now that we’ve got everything grouped, we can organize the spells into buckets. If we look at the spells that “Deal Damage” or “Deal Damage in an Area,” the list trims down to 31 spells:

That’s a lot less to think about all at once! We grouped both damage traits because we know that in Savage Worlds, our direct damage powers either damage everything in an area already (blast, burst, & damage field) or have a way to hit multiple targets at once (bolt). Our next step is to figure out which of those spells we can reproduce the effect of using our existing powers.

We need to understand our toolset to finish our work, so let us digress for a moment and describe how powers work in Savage Worlds. Instead of having spell slots of different levels, you have a pool of Power Points. Each power has a listed cost you spend when you successfully activate that power (a roll of four or greater on your arcane skill). In addition to the base cost, most powers also have Power Modifiers that increase the power’s cost to give it extra effects. They also have trappings: the narrative description of how the power functions that the player defines when they gain the power.

For example, the bread-and-butter direct damage power in Savage Worlds is bolt. It costs one Power Point, shoots out at range, and deals a base of 2d6 damage. It also has the Damage Power Modifier that increases our base damage by 1d6. Remember, we don’t have hit points in Savage Worlds, so doing an extra d6 damage at any point is a pretty good damage bump.

With trappings alone, we can use bolt to mimic call lightning, lightning bolt, magic missile, and scorching ray. Magic missile has many additional rules that tie into Pathfinder’s specific systems, but otherwise is just like bolt; it’s a ranged attack that hits a target to deal damage.

Scorching ray is more or less bolt with a fire trapping. Suppose we wanted to fire multiple rays in a single round. Instead of using the baked-in rays per four levels mechanic of Pathfinder, we’d leverage the Multi-Action economy of Savage Worlds to cast our fire-trapping bolt up to three times in a single round. And that’s before we use any new Power Modifiers from our work-in-progress Fantasy Companion. Like Onslaught, that lets us fire two bolts per activation. In the end, the list looked like this:

Cloudkill is an excellent example of how a mechanically complex spell can be re-created in Savage Worlds using our Power Modifiers and trappings. It’s based on damage field, which deals 2d4 damage to everyone adjacent to the caster by default. Well, to start, cloudkill automatically kills creatures below three hit dice, kills creatures from four to six hit dice on a failed save, and deals constitution damage to anything with more than six hit dice.

In Savage Worlds, 2d4 isn’t going to wipe out a lot of folks outright, so let’s up the damage to 3d6 Heavy Damage using the new exalted Power Modifier, Greater Damage Field. Against most Extras (minor NPCs like most goblins that tend to die quickly), that’s going to be vicious, while our Wild Cards (player characters and tougher creatures) will have a chance to get out unharmed.

The next piece of the puzzle is the size of cloudkill. It’s a 20-ft. radius, 20 ft. high cloud. The Radius modifier expands our damage field to a Small Blast Template (that’s a 4-yard diameter in Savage Worlds, about 12 feet across). Well, that’s smaller than its Pathfinder cousin, so we can pause a moment and consider if damage field needs an edited version of Radius that lets us use a Large Blast Template (12 yards diameter, or 36 feet across). Given that taking damage every round is much more lethal in Savage Worlds than Pathfinder, probably say not. Even Wild Cards will start to wither and die if they’re in a 3d6 Heavy Damage field for a few turns, so constraining our cloudkill to a smaller size works better for our game.

Next, we need to address how cloudkill can be placed anywhere within 100 ft. + 10ft./level in Pathfinder and moves away from the caster at 10 feet per round. First, we must accept a difference in the presumption of scales between our two games. In Savage Worlds, we generally assume you use your powers within the scope of an encounter instead of at long distances, limiting the ranges of our powers. That said, by using Mobile we can let the caster move their damage field up to their arcane skill on each of their turns. That means we take the maximum number from their arcane skill die (anywhere from a d4 to a d12+#), and the cloud moves that far. That’s between 8 and 24 yards (24 to 72 feet). We trade a higher range for the cloud’s starting location for the ability to move it to a specific spot on each of our turns. On average, the two balance out so we can move on.

As Mike Barbeau (the chief designer on the Rise of the Runelords conversion) pointed out, one of the things GMs love to do with cloudkill is block line of sight for their players. Taking damage in a cloud is one thing; not finding your way out is another level of pain. To that end, we can use the universal modifier (these are available to almost every power in Savage Worlds) Shroud to mimic this effect. It doesn’t completely block line of sight in the same way, but given that the Savage cloudkill is more lethal to our player characters, that’s preferred.

We describe our damage field as a noxious, yellow cloud to assign its trapping, and we have our Savage Worlds version of cloudkill ready to murder encounter player characters everywhere! Sometimes, however, our existing toolkit isn’t large enough to encompass everything we want a power to do in Pathfinder® for Savage Worlds. A great example of this is disintegrate! It’s an iconic spell with an effect that doesn’t have a strong translation in the existing powers, so we get to have some fun and create something new. If we look at the other effects of disintegrate, we can see it fits mostly under bolt, so we can get away with just adding a new Power Modifier that looks like this:

By building spells using our existing tools, we can exemplify the breadth of expression our powers system allows and capture the expanse of Pathfinder spells in our game. When we encounter spells outside of our usual portfolio or too cool to resist making anew in Savage Pathfinder, we follow the existing principles behind our system to expand our powers and their modifiers to capture the spell’s essence.

Without a doubt, the category that resulted in the most new powers was the “An Impossible Effect.” This was the catch-all category for spells that had effects you couldn’t replicate without the usage of magic.

We don’t want to give too much away, but we grouped these spells to inspire some of our new powers for Savage Pathfinder:

What new powers do you think we made?

We’ll be live on Twitch Thursday, February 11th, 2021 at 2:00 PM MST (4:00 PM EST) to talk more about converting spells into powers. If you want to watch your favorite Pathfinder spell turned into a Savage Worlds power or to hear more about the process, follow us here: https://ad.peginc.com/Twitch

Pathfinder® for Savage Worlds is on Kickstarter now!

Donald Schepis
Developer at Pinnacle Entertainment Group

Donald Schepis is a writer and game designer with a background in both digital and physical games. He’s worked on everything from kid-friendly, mobile side-scrollers to VR first-person shooters to narrative supplements for tabletop war games.
www.peginc.com
@DonaldSchepis

Coming soon to a Drift beacon near you, Starfinder Battles: Planets of Peril is the first full set of Starfinder miniatures from our partners at WizKids. The set offers 32 randomized figures in 3-figure boosters and includes not only a wide array of aliens (appropriate for both PCs from distant worlds to monsters threatening safe space), but also the first starships in the Starfinder Battles line. Each starship comes on a hexagonal base with a sturdy clear support column, making it a perfect fit for any starship battle using the Starfinder RPG.

A handful of starship miniatures were produced a few years ago by Ninja Division and players seemed to like being able to get multiple ships around a single theme—specifically the Eoxian Corpse Fleet and Pact Worlds fleet. So when it came time to pick the ships to include in Planets of Peril, we decided to do something similar, this time offering three Veskarium ship models. Here you can see the BMC Mauler, Norikama Dropship, and Vindicas Tyrant, which are uncommon, rare, and rare, respectively. (Note also that all starships, regardless of their size, are represented on a single hex, so they’re all on 1-inch bases.)

We had originally included only these three starships in the set, in part because we weren’t sure what ratio of creatures to ships was right for the set. We knew that we didn’t want common starships, as most of the time a combat is between the PCs and only a few other combatants. Most GMs, we figured, would need just one copy of any given model.

Fastforward a few months, to when WizKids approached us about pulling some figures out of the set to release earlier as the Galactic Heroes and Galactic Villains blister packs. We now had to replace those figures, and used that opportunity to not only add a dozen creatures that didn’t make the initial cut (for what was, at the time, a 30-figure set), but also to add another two starships at the uncommon rarity. These, we knew, needed to be something that would be useful to GMs and players both (given their uncommon status) and applicable to the most possible adventures. Thus, we landed upon including the Starfinder Society’s Drake and Pegasus. Each ship was presented at a variety of tiers and were, at the time, the only two ships available to every Starfinder Society party.

We hope folks find them useful and that we get the opportunity to include a Gorgon sometime down the road.

Next week, we’ll return to previews of the myriad aliens and monsters you’ll find in Planets of Peril, so strap on your jetpacks and recharge your laser rifles. Until then, Starfinders, be safe and roll 20s.

Mark Moreland
Director of Brand Strategy

PS - WizKids really went above and beyond with the promo images they provided to show off the set’s contents. These are final production models pulled from a retail case. Let us know in the comments what you think of these (compared to the renders we’ve shown in the past, or the photos of the miniatures on plain white backgrounds) and we’ll work with WizKids to perfect future blogs. Thanks for your feedback thus far, and we look forward to continue working with the community to best promote Pathfinder and Starfinder Battles.

The following starship encounter takes place in the atmosphere of Castrovel, and can be incorporated into any Starfinder campaign with little to no alteration. For more information on starship combat in atmospheres, check out the Starship Operations Manual. While the encounter was designed with Starfinder Flip-Mat: Planetary Atmosphere in mind, you can use any hex grid to run it.

This encounter is Average difficulty for a group of PCs flying a tier-4 starship, but your PCs may be higher or lower in level. “False Flags over Castrovel” is an Easy encounter for 5th-level PCs, Challenging for 3rd-level PCs, Hard for 2nd-level PCs, and Epic for 1st-level PCs.

False Flags over Castrovel — CR 2

The player characters have just arrived in their starship at Castrovel and are on course to their landing destination when they receive a message over their ship’s comms

---

“This is Blue Talon 1, ordering you to stand down. Repeat, this is the Blue Talon 1. Land for inspection. You must comply immediately.”

---

The Blue Talon 1 comes into view on the PCs’ sensors, along with an identical ship; they are single-seat interceptors. They transmit codes identifying the craft as the Blue Talon 1 and Blue Talon 2 and indicating they are a patrol squadron for the Pact Worlds defensive fleet. A PC who succeeds at a DC 19 Sense Motive check can tell that the interceptors are moving to attack. A PC who succeeds at a DC 21 Computers or Profession (bounty hunter or smuggler) check recognizes that the codes are fake. A PC who succeeds by 5 or more notices the codes were altered to conceal that the ships are flagged as “AWOL.”

The Blue Talons aim to make the PCs hesitate long enough for the interceptors to close in before the PCs understand their hostile intentions. The pilots do not respond to any attempts to communicate and fight until the PCs’ ship is disabled.

Starship Combat: The PCs’ starship begins three hexes away from a short edge of the map. The Blue Talons enter the map from the long edge. In battle, the Blue Talons use their fast speed to harry the PCs with hit-and-run tactics. When the PCs move to pursue one ship, the other moves to attack from another direction.

Hazard: This combat occurs in the third-highest layer of Castrovel’s atmosphere. Castrovel has a normal atmosphere, so a starship can move up to 3 hexes without taking damage each round. A starship takes Hull Point damage to its forward quadrant equal to the starship’s tier × 2 for every hex moved each round beyond 3. If a Blue Talon has 50% or more Hull Points remaining, its pilot accepts this damage if they can gain an advantageous position. Furthermore, a storm coming in over the ocean is a moderate obfuscation hazard for any ship flying over the water. This imposes a –2 penalty on gunnery and Piloting checks, as well as Computers checks that use a starship’s sensors.

KC K-51 Sky Fisher, illustrated by Trevor Brown

KC K-51 Sky Fishers (2) — Tier 1/2

Tiny interceptor
Speed 11; Maneuverability perfect (turn 0)
AC 14; TL 14
HP 30; DT —; CT 6

Shields basic 10 (forward 3, port 3, starboard 3, aft 1)

Attack (Forward) light laser cannon (2d4; 5 hexes), light torpedo launcher (2d8; 20 hexes)

Power Core Arcus Light (75 PCU); Drift Engine none; Systems basic computer, budget long-range sensors, horacalcum thrusters (Starship Operations Manual 22), mk 1 defenses; Expansion Bays none

Modifiers +3 Piloting; Complement 1 (minimum 1, maximum 1)

CREW

Pilot Computers +5 (1 rank), gunnery +3 (1st level), Piloting +12 (1 rank)

Development: If either ship is disabled or destroyed, the other attempts to flee. It is also possible the fighters disable the PCs’ starship. What happens next is up to you! Did someone pay some unscrupulous pilots to attack the PCs? Is this a ruse by the Pact Worlds fleet to take out the PCs without taking the blame? The possibilities are endless!

XP: Use the table on page 390 of the Starfinder Core Rulebook to determine the appropriate XP for this encounter, based on the encounter’s difficulty.

Mike Kimmel
Developer

OPM Musings

Wow, the month flew by. Activity the last few weeks focused on getting January scenarios out of the door, working on future scenarios, planning for our new seasons, and ramping up for convention season. We’re putting some finishing touches on our plans and will share them with everyone in a few weeks.

It’s been satisfying to have some of our longer-term projects come to fruition. Over the next few months, we hope to bring a few more projects across the finish line. I’ll leave it to Alex to reveal our latest project.

New FAQ Pages

We’re glad there was such a positive response to the new Pathfinder Society Character Options page last week because we’ve got another new set of pages for you: FAQ pages for Paizo Organized Play have now been updated! We’ve got areas for general organized play questions, as well as areas for program-specific questions. Just like the Character Options page, this update both refreshes the look of the pages and will make it easier for the Organized Play team to publish content. We’re still tweaking these pages, so you may see some changes in how the content is organized, but if you have feedback, let us know! We’ve kept the Pathfinder Society (first edition) pages in the legacy format.

Eagle-eyed players will notice that the Pathfinder Society FAQ page currently contains the full text of a number of boons. You’ve been asking for a place to view the full text of boons before buying them, and now we’ve got one! Any boon that is more complicated than its short description will have its text published on this page. Boons that unlock ancestries or similarly self-evident boons will not have their text published.

The FAQ page also contains the full text of our Year 2 Chronicle Boons. As we discussed in last week’s blog, there is an issue where GMs cannot download these boons after running the game, so we’re pleased to offer this workaround. Any GM with a chronicle sheet for running a Year 2 scenario with a boon attached can use the full text as published on the FAQ page instead of downloading the boon. Once the bug is fixed, these boons will be removed from the FAQ page to avoid spoilers.

Fame

Last week, we updated the community regarding our Pathfinder Society digitization efforts. At this point, Fame is no longer a spendable currency and we are not tracking it in any way. Reputation still exists and unlocks benefits for characters via the Achievement Point system on your “My Organized Play” page. You can see your current Reputation with the factions (note, it is called Fame on the webpage in a holdover from Pathfinder Society (first edition), which is something we have queued to fix.)

Sanctioning

We caught up on some of the outstanding tasks, as well as kept up with our goal of day one sanctioning. Last month, we finished up Troubles in Otari and added the character options from the The Threefold Conspiracy to the Starfinder Society Additional Resource document. By the end of this month, we hope to have The Slithering and another update to Starfinder Society Additional Resouces. We also are on target to have Lost Omens: Ancestry Guide ready on release day (February 24th). We haven’t forgotten the Pathfinder (first edition) outstanding items, but we haven’t had the capacity to dip back into that system yet.

GM Achievements

Whether stars, novas, or glyphs, achieving a 5 ranking in any program involves a substantial amount of time. To achieve the 5th milestone, a GM must run 150 games, of which at least 50 must be unique scenarios and 10 special scenarios, as well as run between one and three games for venture-captains (program dependant). A conservative estimate of the time needed to reach the 5th milestone is 650 hours!

We had one GM earn their 5th star this month. No GMs earned their fifth Nova or Glyph.

5th Star: Dawn Upson

Congratulations on your achievement, Dawn!

Conventions

Convention season is just around the corner, and we’re starting to kick up planning for our major conventions. We hope to have information on how to volunteer soon! In the meantime, there are plenty of local events offering Paizo Organized Play. If you don’t see a convention on the list that you think should be there, contact the event organizer and ask them to register their event for organized play support.

Convention	Location	Start Date	Status	Interactive Events	Staff Attendance
COTN 2021	Plymouth, MN	2/12/2021	Online	None
Orccon 2021	Los Angeles, CA	2/12/2021	Online	SFS 3-00 The Last Bite
OutPost IV: Roll Them Bones	Online	2/16/2021	Online	PFS2 2-00 The King in Thorns
Total Con 35	Marlborough, MA	2/18/2021	Online	PFS2 2-00 The King in Thorns, SFS 3-00 The Last Bite
George WashingCon 2021	Bloomington, IN	2/19/2021	Online	None
Hamburg Society Con online	Hamburg, Germany	2/26/2021	Online	PFS2 2-00 The King in Thorns
Reaper Virtual Expo	Denton, TX	3/5/2021	Online	None	Alex
COS VCON	Butler, PA	3/19/2021	Online	SFS 3-00 The Last Bite

Come back next week for a very special guest blog from the Organized Play Foundation!

Until next time: Explore! Report! Cooperate!

Tonya Woldridge
Organized Play Manager

Alex Speidel
Organized Play Associate

Flowers. Puh.

Teph grumbled as he trudged over the uneven ground. The tended dirt path was long gone by now, and his boots felt every bump of root and pinch of pebble. In the distance, well past the canopy and out of sight, thunder growled. The boy pulled his jacket tighter, hoping the storm would miss them tonight; he still had one more task before he could return home.

Gathering splitheart flowers.

The spiky, red flowers were a favorite of Mom’s, and they had just started to burst, revealing their perfect, crimson seeds. The seeds fight off mosquitos. The leaves you boil for fevers.

Also, Teph noted, Mom liked to turn the petals into a paste to deepen the shade of her lips. He’d even tried it once himself, but found it altogether unpleasant; it smelled funny and he didn’t like how dark it made his mouth. He liked his lips just fine the way they were, thank you. Why did girls even like lip-color?

He arrived at the patch of splitheart and drew out his gathering pouch. Selecting only the ripest of the prickly flowers, he gathered each with a pinch of his fingers and a quiet word of thanks to the earth.

He arrived at the patch of splitheart and drew out his gathering pouch. Selecting only the ripest of the prickly flowers, he gathered each with a pinch of his fingers and a quiet word of thanks to the earth.

Flower picking. Teph rolled his eyes. This was not what heroes did.

The thought lingered as Teph wound his way back home. Real heroes got to solve mysteries, fight evil creatures, and save the day. Some day, he’d be a hero, like the ones in his favorite book, The Grand Adventures of the Golden Wayfarers. He’d be fast like Celadir Wind-Blown, dancing from rooftop to rooftop, his arrows always finding their mark. He’d be strong like Ukhul the Just, defending the helpless with a swing of his mighty sword. And he’d be wise and magical, like Zuridani Sunborn, summoning the elements themselves to help him win the day.

Teph painted his fingernails silver so they glittered when he moved his hands—just like Zuridani’s hands sparkled when he cast his spells. He even knew what his familiar would be: a fae dragon with one of its insectile wings blue and the other green—just like its eyes would be. Just like Teph’s were.

With his heroic heart and brave soul, he’d solve the world’s mysteries and save the day, and everyone would finally welcome him in the city instead of stare, distrusting. He wouldn’t have to keep a low profile or avoid the city at all; instead, they’d build him a tower of his own right in the middle of town, and his dad would never have to leave home again!

He’d make them welcome his mom, too, and make everyone apologize to them—for everything. For the ugly names they called him. For the horrible accusations they leveled at her.

The air grew colder, as did the boy’s mood; Teph knew in his stomach that the storm would arrive before dawn. Best not to dawdle. He skipped his usual extra stop at the eldest annon tree, and instead retraced his steps to the dirt path that led home.

The cottage just within the woods’ edge had been carefully built between the trees, with wild grasses and long stalks of cultivated herbs bending lazily in the chilling wind. The area was thick with the smell of herbs, intermingled with the sharp, stinging scent of the coming rains. It was usually a comfort. Usually a feeling of safety.

Right now, though, it was...off.

The heavy front door was halfway open, and no light could be seen from within. The decorative wreath and spiraling horn they kept on the door had been knocked off and lay, unloved, in the dirt. The comfort of being home disappeared, sinking heavily into his stomach with the weight of fear. What happened? Where was Mom? Did she need help?

The butterflies in his stomach warred with the excitement pounding in his chest. This was his moment. The first of many. He could be a hero, if he could just push back his fear.

Steeling himself, Teph crouched low, like Celadir might. Moving slowly, carefully, he approached the cracked door, senses alert for anything off.

One step. Another. And then he was at his door.

What would Celadir do? Right. Check for traps. Trip-wires. Sounds of monsters past the doors.

…There was nothing.

Silence lay in wait just beyond, a stillness that made him hold his breath to quiet his own heartbeat. Fear was okay. Even Dad had said so. Fear was okay as long as it didn’t stop you completely.

He reached for the spiraling horn, the only potential weapon nearby, and his fingertips winked silver at him. His “magic,” there with him. It seemed to settle his heart and bring additional resolve; he knew this place inside and out. He would be okay. He would find whatever had broken into his home and bring it to justice.

One day I will save everyone. Let it start with this.

His fingers tightened around the curled horn, and with a mighty roar to make Ukhul the Just proud, Teph knocked the door completely open and charged inside, ready to fight.

The burst of sound startled the large figure shadowed in the corner, and it jumped to attention. Drawing itself to its full, massive height and towering over the boy, the shadows rolled off of a bent, pockmarked hide. The wrinkled, gnarled face loomed large, glowing, green eyes placed low on the face and emphasizing a hunched back and strong muscles. Magic gathered at two gnarled, meaty fists, and mighty Teph…screamed a high-pitch scream.

So did the figure.

The book the figure held flared as an illumination spell revealed the craggy, lined face of the green hag made plain. Teph barked out a surprised yelp and launched himself at it, dropping the curved horn and winding his arms tight around her.

The hag’s arms matched the boy’s, wrapping him up tightly. With the shock melting from her face, she squeezed him. “Sprout! You scared me.”

“Mom,” gasped Teph. “I saw the door and it wasn’t closed right and the wreath and knocker were on the ground and—”

Mom chuckled softly at the stream of words flowing from Teph’s mouth. “There, there, Sprout. All is well; I was just resting a bit. Catch probably just knocked the wreath loose trying to get in.” She looked around, her vivid, emerald eyes landing on her familiar. The spindly monkey drew the edge of the tablecloth around himself and chittered guiltily.

“See, there you go,” Mom said. “Did you bring the splitheart? Your father’s sure to be home soon.”

Teph nodded, handing over his collecting pouch and immediately starting for the bookshelf. He was safe, Mom was safe, and The Grand Adventures of the Golden Wayfarers called to him.

“Ah-ah,” Mom croaked, re-lighting the room’s mirrored lantern and letting her illumination spell fade. “Bath first. Story time later.”

“Mooooom,” whined Teph, giving up the path to the bookshelf even as he complained.

Several scrubbings later, after a change into fresh clothes, Father was home and the family basked in the glow of an over-full dinner table and a warm fire in the hearth.

Mom always made fantastic dinners, but they especially shone when Dad came home. The flatbreads were rolled tight and sliced extra-thin. She’d roasted peppers and tomatoes, skewering them between perfect, tender squares of meat. Roast honey-squash sweetened the air and lent a mouth-watering contrast to the sharp spice of the peppered rice. And for dessert? Hot cassava cakes with cold custard.

It almost made it worth the icky stuff.

Teph knew he should be happy; not everyone had parents who loved each other so much. Not everyone even had parents. And especially someone like him, a callow may with a human father and a hag mother; the relationship that birthed the changeling was something special. Something genuine.

Illustration by Rashad Pozdnyakovfrom Pathfinder Lost Omens Ancestry Guide.

That didn’t stop him from being grossed out every time Dad came home, all lovey-dovey kissy-sissy. Tonight, it had been flowers and a poem.

“From seven bright meadows I gathered you flowers,
From seven great trees I gathered the dew,
And long have I been gone, just counting the hours
And following my heart’s Call here, home to you.”

Eww.

After clearing the food from the table, Teph grabbed The Grand Adventures of the Golden Wayfarers and high-tailed it into the garden. The rain hadn’t started yet; he could still get a few stories in before they called him for bedtime. He lit his lantern and settled onto the cracked stone bench near the weeper tree.

Partway through the second story, the trees groaned suddenly, snapping the boy’s attention as something at the edge of the garden erupted from the ground. Twisting, sharp, and half-hidden by the shadows, the thing creaked and crackled, sinews twisting in the dim light of the boy’s lantern.

And then it was silent again. Still. And not for the first time today, Teph’s heart raced as he faced down a potential danger. Hiding in the weeper tree’s folds, he carefully aimed his lantern in the direction of the thing, and paused as he tried to understand the sight.

It was…a tree, but not. Spiraling grains of branches twisted about themselves over and over, like a strange series of veins making one large, tall structure. The wood looked old and petrified, as though it hadn’t just been born from nothing.

Was it….a tooth? It couldn’t be; it was definitely wood. He knew that much at first glance. A giant, petrified wooden tooth, swirling and vein-like.

No, something in his mind insisted. Not just a tooth. Something far better! A mystery!

Real heroes solve mysteries, fight evil, and save the day. Let it start with this.

Eyes wide, heart pounding excitedly, Teph stepped toward the tree.

About the Author

Rachael Cruz is an award-winning writer / game designer. Her TRPG work can be found in numerous properties, including but not limited to Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed-Of, Corvus Belli’s Infinity RPG, Dune: Adventures in the Imperium, Fantasy Age, RuneQuest, and Star Trek Adventures. She has been helping people play pretend before it was cool. She also believes in you. Yes, you. Follow her on Twitter at @Witchwater!

About Tales of Lost Omens

The Tales of Lost Omens series of web-based flash fiction provides an exciting glimpse into Pathfinder’s Age of Lost Omens setting. Written by some of the most celebrated authors in tie-in gaming fiction, including Paizo’s Pathfinder Tales line of novels and short fiction, the Tales of Lost Omens series promises to explore the characters, deities, history, locations, and organizations of the Pathfinder setting with engaging stories to inspire Game Masters and players alike.

Ahoy, Starfinders! Today we’ll take our first look at the premier set of Starfinder Battles prepainted plastic miniatures from our friends at WizKids! This 32-figure set is currently slated for an early March release, so we’re going to have to really gun the thrusters in order to make it in before release. I hope to be able to show off photos of actual minis, just as you’ll receive them when opening a booster, but may have to resort to a few renders, as I don’t currently have all the figured photographed. Needless to say, I’ve heard the feedback about these preview blogs and am working to provide better quality content for our most loyal customers.

In Starfinder AP #1, the first iconic encounter takes place at a loading dock on Absalom Station, so it’s only fitting that our first premium set of Starfinder Battles miniatures is also a docking bay. This piece features a two-person cargo transport vehicle with detachable trailer, a bench for waiting passengers or resting crew, and a variety of cargo containers in several size, shape, and color configurations. These are perfect for providing cover for any battles that might break out while your party is loading or unloading their starship, and work well as accents with any number of Starfinder Flip Mats and Flip-Tiles.

No docking bay would be complete without aliens and starfarers to inhabit it. In two of the above scenes you can see the Pahtra Stalker (Medium Uncommon) and Cybernetic Golem (Large Uncommon), either of which you could find in a docking bay. Heck, since there are player character rules for the pahtra, you could even be one of them meeting the other one! The possibilities are endless.

Some aliens are less likely to be found in a docking bay (although, in the Pact Worlds or Veskarium, who knows?!) like the Barathu, Dragonkin, and Ksarik (all Large Uncommon figures).

That’s it for this week, but we’ll have more previews of Starfinder Battles: Planets of Peril soon!

Mark Moreland
Director of Brand Strategy