Cleric Class Preview

Monday, April 23, 2018

Clerics are the first spellcasters to get a preview, so you might want to look at the blog about spells before you proceed! We have a lot to say about this class, so let's cut to the chase!

Cleric Features

Clerics' key ability score is Wisdom. This means that they get an ability boost to Wisdom at 1st level, increasing their Wisdom score by 2. They also use this key ability to determine the DC of their spells. Like other things in the Playtest, spells are also affected by your proficiency. Clerics are trained in divine spells, so they add 10 + their level + their Wisdom modifier for their spell DC. They use this same proficiency for touch attacks of their spells and for spell rolls.

At 1st level, clerics get several class features, including their deity and domain, anathema, channel energy, and of course, divine spellcasting (which we'll talk more about in a bit). Your deity has a major impact on your character, and you'll see a lot of similarities to Pathfinder First Edition, such as being trained in your deity's favored weapon and getting access to one of their domains. (Come back on Friday for a ton of detail about those parts of your character!) Your choice of domain gives you a unique domain power. Powers are a special type of spell that come only from your class, and are cast with Spell Points—think of things from Pathfinder First Edition like domain powers or a wizard's school powers. Powers are stronger than cantrips, but not as strong as your best spells. A cleric's initial power costs 1 Spell Point to cast. She gets a starting pool of Spell Points equal to her Wisdom, and can increase this by taking feats later on. If she gets other ways to cast powers of a different type, she combines all her Spell Points into one pool.

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

A cleric's deity also imposes some restrictions on her, collectively called anathema, representing acts that go against her deity's will and teachings or violate their alignment requirements. Though we give some examples of anathemic acts for the various gods and goddesses—like how it's anathema for a cleric of Sarenrae, goddess of honesty, to cast a spell that would help her lie better—we wanted to leave this broad enough that the GM and player can make the final say in how these work in their games. Many other classes that follow similar restrictions have their own anathema. Care to guess which ones those might be?

As you go up in level, you'll increase your proficiency rank with divine spells to expert at 12th level, master at 16th level, and legendary at 19th level.

Divine Spellcasting

Of course, the cleric's main feature is her divine spellcasting! At 1st level, you can cast two 1st-level spells each day, which you prepare from the selections on the divine spell list. Every time you gain an even level, you get one more spell slot per day of your highest level of spells (so at 2nd level, a cleric has three 1st-level spells per day). At every odd level, you get access to a new level of spells. You'll always be able to cast two or three spells of your highest level and three spells of every lower level, plus your cantrips and powers. Like your other spells, your 9th-level spells cap out at three spells, so at 19th level you become legendary in spellcasting instead. So what about your 10th-level spells? We'll talk about those in a future blog!

We made your number of spells more straightforward by eliminating Pathfinder First Edition's bonus spells granted for having a high ability score. Your Wisdom still matters greatly for your spell DC and other things important to clerics, but giving it slightly less weight makes it more practical now for you to play a cleric of Gorum who focuses on Strength and uses spells that don't involve your spell DC or that have decent effects even if your enemy succeeds at its save.

Now, it's not quite true to say those are all the spells you get. Remember channel energy from earlier? This feature lets you cast heal or harm an additional number of times per day equal to 3 + your Charisma modifier! Moreover, these spells are heightened to the highest level of spell you cast, so as soon as you hit 3rd level, all those heal or harm spells become 2nd-level spells. This replaces the Pathfinder First Edition cleric's spontaneous healing, which required her to sacrifice her prepared spells to make room for a heal spell. Now, you can use your channel energy to cast these extra heal spells, and if you think you'll need more healing than this provides, you can always prepare more heal spells using your normal spell slots (in fact, this can be a good use of some of your lower-level slots as you go up in level). Your choice of deity determines which spell you can cast with channel energy. Pharasma lets you cast heal, Rovagug makes you cast harm, and someone like Abadar or Lamashtu lets you choose your path at 1st level.

Cleric Feats

As we've mentioned before, we always wanted Pathfinder Second Edition to provide all classes with a sizeable number of options for customization. The cleric was one of the classes that had the most to gain, since a cleric got a bunch of class features at 1st level, then crickets for the rest of her career. The cleric's new class feats give her all sorts of new flexibility, so let's look at some of those!

At 1st level, you might pick Communal healing so when you cast heal to tend to a creature other than yourself, you regain some Hit Points too, or you might take Turn Undead, which forces undead that critically fail their saves against your heal spells to flee from you. (This works great with the 3-action version of heal!) You could also pick Expanded Domain to explore your deity's domains further, gaining the initial power from a different domain than the first one you chose. You can select this feat twice, letting you delve into a maximum of three domains!

At higher levels, you gain new cleric feats at every even level, except levels 12 and 16, when you increase your spell DCs instead. At 4th level, you might pick up Advanced Domain to gain the advanced power from one of your domains. At 8th level, if you channel positive energy, you could take the Channeled Succor feat so you can cast remove curse, remove disease, remove paralysis, or restoration with your channeled energy spells instead of just heal.

Let's take a look at a category of feats clerics have plenty of: metamagic! You can activate a metamagic feat when you cast a spell. This increases the number of actions required to cast the spell and modifies the spell in some way. At 1st level, for example, you could select Reach Spell to let you add a Somatic Casting action to a spell and increase its range by 30 feet (or to make a touch spell into a ranged touch spell with a 30-foot range). This is a metamagic feat lots of spellcasters can take, but the cleric gets some others that are more specific to her as well. Command Undead, a 4th-level feat, lets you change the effects of any harm spell you cast to instead take control of an undead creature. Heroic Recovery, an 8th-level feat, adds a powerful buff to heal spells: you can target one creature at range using 3 actions (the 2-action version of heal, plus another action to activate the metamagic) to heal them for a solid number of hit points and also give them a bonus to attack and damage rolls and a 5-foot increase to its speed for 1 round. And if you use a lot of metamagic, the 20th-level cleric feat Metamagic Channeler is a great choice—it lets you apply a metamagic feat to a harm or heal spell without adding an action to its casting!

So what are your favorite parts of the new cleric? Any builds you're itching to try out? How about concepts you made in Pathfinder First Edition you'd like to take another shot at?

Logan Bonner
Designer

Meet the Villains—Lazzero Dalvera

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

The countdown to the Hell's Vengeance Adventure Path begins today, as we reveal the first of six iconic villains that will appear in Paizo's first Adventure Path for evil characters! We start with the iconic evil cleric, Lazzero Dalvera. Check out Pathfinder Adventure Path #103: The Hellfire Compact for Lazzero's full stat block, and keep an eye out for the upcoming Hell's Vengeance Player's Guide, which will contain all of the new iconic villains for use as pregenerated characters!

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Lazzero Dalvera, the eldest child of an officer in the Molthuni army and a priest of Abadar, was born under an auspicious moon with a full head of bright red hair. Everyone assumed he would earn respect and fame as an army officer like his mother. His training began as soon as he could walk, and he attended the best military academies to which his parents' money and connections could win him entrance.

But the boy was not a strong child, and he lacked the temperament to hone his martial skills. Instead, bullies perfected their own abilities at his expense, both in formal sparring matches and between classes. Rather than retaliate with violence, Lazzero kept tabs on the children who picked on him, recording their secret transgressions—cheating, lying, petty theft, and other such behaviors common among privileged youth. When he had amassed a sufficient amount of dirt on his rivals, he ensured his teachers found it—anonymously of course—and laughed to himself as the bullies got their just rewards for their wrongdoings.

Despite his skill at countering his rivals, Lazzero still didn't excel in his martial studies, and by the age of 12 had washed out of every military academy in which his parents had placed him. With their hopes in their son dashed, they sent Lazzero to be trained by the Abadaran clergy, who counted his father among their number; if he couldn't fulfill his destiny as a military commander, he would do so in service to the Master of the First Vault.

In this endeavor Lazzero finally succeeded, for he found prayer and contemplation came naturally to him. Now among the top initiates in the Abadaran monastery, Lazzero took on the role of bully and tormentor. He didn't need to study as much as his less studious peers did, and could use the time not spent poring over religious texts making life harder for those weaker than himself. In addition to overt hazing, Lazzero maintained even more thorough records of his enemies' activities, which he took pride in turning over to his superiors—publicly this time—so that they would receive punishment for their transgressions.

While he couldn't ensure that justice was served, Lazzero believed he was doing Abadar's work. How, he asked, could his peers expect to teach Abadar's ways if they couldn't themselves follow his laws? Was he not complicit in their wrongdoing if he allowed their crimes to go unpunished? With such justifications, Lazzero convinced himself that what he did was right, that it would set him apart from his so-called equals in the eyes of his teachers and Abadar. He didn't recognize, however, that he had started down a slippery slope that would ultimately lead to his fall from grace—for Lazzero had begun to twist the law to meet his needs. The law was now a weapon he used to keep those he didn't like beneath him.

By graduation, Lazzero had distinguished himself as one of the most gifted acolytes, though he had made no friends and garnered his share of enemies, many of his teachers among them. For his apprenticeship, Lazzero traveled from Canorate to Cettigne—an inglorious posting not befitting his high marks and honors. Lazzero was to serve as the acolyte at the local temple along with a fellow graduate, a woman named Laureth. The pair were highly competitive, each aspiring to rise in the ranks of the church quickly and find a permanent placement in a more prestigious temple than Cettigne's.

Although Lazzero was the more talented cleric, Laureth was more favored, receiving a prominent position within the temple and taking on greater responsibilities. Unwilling to accept a position beneath his rival, Lazzero began plotting and spying on Laureth in the hope of catching her falling short of the high standards expected of Abadar's clergy. Laureth provided him no opportunities, however, behaving as a paragon whom all faithful of Abadar should aspire to emulate.

Frustrated and bitter, Lazzero prayed for a means of turning the law against Laureth, but Abadar provided no guidance. Rather, a different voice echoed in the recesses of Lazzero's mind, offering honeyed promises of providing all Lazzero could imagine and more. It spoke of deceptions and lies as a means to an end, of the weak serving the strong, and of always having the upper hand. Lazzero liked these words, and though he knew he would no longer be true to Abadar if he were to follow them, he did so anyway. He would see Laureth humiliated, no matter the cost.

Prompted by his mysterious new divine patron, Lazzero began committing minor crimes himself and staging evidence to point toward Laureth. Fabricated trade records for transactions under her jurisdiction, false testimony written in her hand, and unbalanced ledgers month after month with no explanation into the shortfall all built a case against his rival. Through subterfuge and sabotage, Lazzero ensured that Laureth could never be solvent in the eyes of Abadar's code. Best of all, he brought about her ruin through the very laws and regulations that had for so long kept him from achieving his own lofty goals.

When Laureth was convicted and sentenced to a life of servitude rather than clerical service, Lazzero said a prayer of thanks to the Keeper of the First Vault, asking for a blessing from his patron. Asmodeus answered in his stead, revealing himself to have been the orchestrator of Lazzero's revenge upon Laureth. In that moment, Lazzero knew that the path to his prophesied glory lay not in continuing in his father's footsteps in the temple of Abadar. The Prince of Lies had shown him the power of deceit and the means through which he could always ensure the law worked in his favor.

That night, Lazzero left Cettigne, his vestments and holy symbol left folded neatly on his modest cot, and headed south to Cheliax. He forsook all his Abadaran vows and proclaimed his faith in Asmodeus, and sought a church of his new patron. No longer did Lazzero worry that he would not achieve greatness. He was content to enter an Asmodean temple as a lowly adept with faith that his dedication would quickly raise him to the upper echelons of the church. Thus did Lazzero begin his true journey—a quest for power and glory achieved by following the Prince of Darkness.

Stay tuned over the coming months as we reveal more of the villains you'll see in the pages of our first evil Adventure Path, Hell's Vengeance!

Mark Moreland
Developer

Kyra's Helmet

Saturday, June 8, 2013

At the conclusion of every costume production course at UWM, students are assigned a choice project that will fully illustrate the variety of techniques that they have learned throughout the semester, and explore techniques that they have not yet learned about in order to create a project that is uniquely tied to their interests. My interest in costuming is directly tied to my love of gaming and fantasy, so naturally I decided to build Kyra’s helmet.

Building the helm was a trial and error process, as I was trying to replicate a metal object using plastic, fabric, and acrylic paints. We had three weeks to work on the project, and I used every last second. The final process involved shaping foss-shape over a clay covered head block to provide the foundation (with some changes to the shape, as I liked the longer Persian helms better), painting several dozen layers of gesso and sculpt-or-coat, creating the headpiece by sculpting and casting it (with a couple of failed casts!), painting the helm after sanding it fairly smooth, and wrapping a dipped-down fabric filled with battering to make the turban.

While the result looks far more weathered than I originally planned, it was a favorite among my classmates and my teacher, so it was a huge success for me!

...Now I just have to make Kyra’s robes and I can show up to PaizoCon as everyone’s favorite cleric!

Levi Miles
Contributor

Ultimate Campaign: WAR! What is it Good For?

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Sometime in the next week or so, Ultimate Campaign will be shipping out to a game store or mailbox near you. In anticipation of the release of this 256-page hardcover, we are taking a look at what you can expect to find inside. In the past three weeks, we have looked at character backgrounds, the downtime system, and rules for the GM to add to their campaign. This week, we are looking at the final chapter of the book, Kingdoms and War!

Built from the popular rules found in the Kingmaker Adventure Path, this chapter takes those rules to the next level, giving you new options to allow your PCs to conquer any part of the world (or at the very least, declare war on the parts they cannot conquer). First up are rules for building and expanding a kingdom. These rules are a refined version from those in Kingmaker, but if you used those rules, these will be very familiar to you. The big thing we added here was a variety of new rules and options for your kingdom. We expanded just about everything from rulership types to buildings that you can construct in your cities. Here are just a few examples.

Bank 28 BP, 1 Lot
Kingdom Economy +4
Special Base value +2,000 gp
A secure building for storing valuables and granting loans.

Palace 108 BP, 4 Lots
Kingdom Economy +2, Loyalty +6, Stability +2; Fame +1
Discount Mansion, Mint, Noble Villa
Special Base value +1,000 gp; you may make two special edicts per turn (see page 229), but take a -2 penalty on kingdom checks associated with each special edict
Settlement Law +2
A grand edifice and walled grounds demonstrating one's wealth, power, and authority to the world.

What good is a kingdom if you can't declare war on your neighbors? To that end, we added the war rules from Kingmaker and expanded upon them. This system is not a tactical war simulation, but it works perfectly in a narrative game, with quick and simple resolution with meaningful results. We greatly expanded the sample units and armies in this section of the book as well. Take a look at a few of these stat blocks!

Illustration by Jim Nelson

Drow Army XP 400
CE Medium army of drow (warrior 3)
hp 3; ACR 1
DV 11; OM +3, ranged
Tactics dirty fighters, false retreat, sniper support, spellbreaker
Special darkvision, light sensitivity, poison, spell resistance
Speed 2; Consumption 1
Note +2 OM due to spell-like abilities

Tarrasque XP 102,400
N Fine army of one tarrasque
hp 93; ACR 17
DV 27; OM +21, ranged
Tactics defensive wall, relentless brutality, siegebreaker, spellbreaker, withdraw
Special cannibalize; fear; grab; immune to ability damage, bleed, disease, energy drain, fear, paralysis, petrification, and poison; low-light vision; regeneration 40; scent; significant defense; spell resistance
Speed 2; Consumption 8
Note +4 OM due to feats and monster special abilities

Well, that about wraps up our look at Ultimate Campaign. You should be able to find this book in stores very soon. Pick it up and expand your campaign!

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

Beginner Box Sneak Preview

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Learning to play the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game is about to get easier than ever before, as in just a few short weeks the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Beginner Box hits the shelves of a game store near you! With the imminent release of this mighty boxed set—filled to bursting with easy-to-master rules, multiple adventures, creature tokens, dice, a Flip-Mat play surface, pregenerated character sheets, tons of tools to start building your own campaign, and much, much more—here's the first of several previews to whet your appetite for innovative new ways to tell the stories you've always wanted to tell and bring the adventure of tabletop roleplaying to whole new audiences.

To start things off, check out a few pages from the Bestiary chapter of the new Game Master's Guide, or one of the four pregenerated character sheets included in the set, this one detailing everything you'll need to play the dauntless cleric Kyra.

Game Master's Guide Bestiary Preview: From the heart of the Beginner Box's 94-page Game Master's Guide, here are eight fearsome and familiar foes, exhibiting just a hint of their streamlined rules, and proving that easy to use doesn't mean any less deadly. Download the PDF preview (1.6 MB zip/pdf)

Cleric Pregenerated Character Sheet Preview: What good is a pregenerated character if you don't know how to use it? Check out a complete Beginner Box pregenerated character sheet, designed to not only allow players to dive into the action immediately, but also explain each key ability and character feature at a glance, making sure players are spending their time adventuring, not looking up rules. This sample sheet is only one of four included in the Beginner Box. Download the PDF preview (1.8 MB zip/pdf)

The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Beginner Box releases this October, but be sure to check back right here in the coming weeks for more details, discussions, and exciting revelations about the newest and most exciting way to learn and play the Pathfinder RPG!

Wes Schneider
Managing Editor

Gen Con Facebook Roundup

Friday, August 5, 2011

In addition to the live blog coverage of Gen Con, our intrepid staff has been posting photos to the official Paizo Facebook page to the delight of fans everywhere (as well as those of us stuck back at the office!)

We've rounded up some of their pictures from the show (so far) to show off for today's blog.

Mark Moreland and the Pathfinder Society Venture-Captains dine at the aptly-named "Pope Table."	Dave Gross signs copies of the new Pathfinder Tales novel Master of Devils at the Paizo Booth.

Of course, they haven't just been sharing snapshots from Gen Con, they've been showing off samples of Pathfinder Battles miniatures from WizKids:

Unpainted sample miniature for the Black Dragon promo miniature for Heroes and Monsters (for more information on Heroes and Monsters or future Pathfinder Battles releases, see our press release).

Painted samples of the Beginner Box Heroes minis.	Ezren and Merisiel face off against the Black Dragon in a recreation of the Beginner Box cover art.

As you can see, we're as excited about Pathfinder Battles as all of you are.

Ross Byers
Assistant Software Developer

Magic Archetypes

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

For the next month or so, every Tuesday we are going to be digging into some of the new rules and options you will find in Ultimate Magic, which is due to release in May. This week, we'll take a look at some of the new archetypes that take up a full 32 pages of this 256 page tome.

One of the first things you will notice about this book is that the new classes from the Advanced Player's Guide receive archetypes in this book (except the cavalier, who does not use magic). Here is an example of a new alchemist archetype, the vivisectionist.

Vivisectionist (Archetype)
A vivisectionist studies bodies to better understand their function. Unlike a chirurgeon, a vivisectionist's goals are not related to healing, but rather to experimentation and knowledge that most people would consider evil. A vivisectionist has the following class features.
Sneak Attack: At 1st level, a vivisectionist gains the sneak attack ability as a rogue of the same level. If a character already has sneak attack from another class, the levels from the classes that grant sneak attack stack to determine the effective rogue level for the sneak attack's extra damage dice (so an alchemist 1/rogue 1 has a +1d6 sneak attack like a 2nd-level rogue, an alchemist 2/rogue 1 has a +2d6 sneak attack like a 3rd-level rogue, and so on). This ability replaces bomb.
Torturer's Eye: At 2nd level, a vivisectionist adds deathwatch to his formula book as a 1st-level extract.
Cruel Anatomist: At 3rd level, a vivisectionist may use his Knowledge (nature) skill bonus in place of his Heal skill bonus.
Torturous Transformation: At 7th level, a vivisectionist adds anthropomorphic animal to his formula book as a 2nd-level extract. When he uses this extract, he injects it into an animal as part of a 2-hour surgical procedure. By using multiple doses of this extract as part of the surgery, he multiplies the duration by the number of extracts used.
At 9th level, a vivisectionist adds awaken and baleful polymorph to his formula book as 3rd-level extracts. When he uses the awaken and baleful polymorph extract, he injects it into the target (not a plant) as part of a 24-hour surgical procedure. He can make anthropomorphic animal permanent on a creature by spending 7,500 gp.
At 15th level, a vivisectionist adds regenerate to his formula book as a 5th-level extract.
Bleeding Attack: A vivisectionist may select the bleeding attack rogue talent in place of a discovery.
Crippling Strike: At 10th level or later, a vivisectionist may select the crippling strike rogue talent in place of a discovery.
Discoveries: The following discoveries complement the vivisectionist archetype: alchemical simulacrum*, concentrate poison, doppelganger simulacrum*, feral mutagen, parasitic twin*, plague bomb*, poison bomb, preserve organs*, sticky bomb, tentacle*, tumor familiar*, vestigial arm*, and wings*.

Of course, the classes from the Core Rulebook receive a number of new archetypes as well. Take a look at the Undead Lord archetype for the cleric.

	Illustration by Eric Belisle

Undead Lord (Archetype)
An undead lord is a cleric focused on using necromancy to control undead. Her flock is the walking dead and her choir the keening spirits of the damned. This unliving congregation is the manifestation of her unceasing love affair with death.
A cleric cannot take the undead lord archetype unless her deity's portfolio includes the Death domain or a similar domain that promotes undeath. An undead lord has the following class features.
Death Magic: An undead lord must select the Death domain (and the Undead subdomain from the Advanced Player's Guide, if available in the campaign). She does not gain a second domain. In all other respects, this works like and replaces the standard cleric's domain ability.
Corpse Companion (Su): With a ritual requiring 8 hours, an undead lord can animate a single skeleton or zombie whose Hit Dice do not exceed her cleric level. This corpse companion automatically follows her commands and does not need to be controlled by her. She cannot have more than one corpse companion at a time. It does not count against the number of Hit Dice of undead controlled by other methods. She can use this ability to create a variant skeleton such as a bloody or burning skeleton, but its Hit Dice cannot exceed half her cleric level. She can dismiss her companion as a standard action, which destroys it.
Bonus Feats: All undead lords gain Command Undead as a bonus feat. In addition, at 10th level, she may select one of the following as a bonus feat: Channel Smite, Extra Channel, Improved Channel, Quick Channel, Skeleton Summoner*, Undead Master*.
Unlife Healer (Su): At 8th level, the undead lord's spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities used to heal undead heal an extra 50% damage. At 16th level, these effects automatically heal the maximum possible damage for the effect + the extra 50%. This does not stack with abilities or feats such as Empower Spell or Maximize Spell.

Well, that about wraps up this week. Next week, we will take a look at the magus. Before I go, here is one last bit to get you excited for this book. A complete list of all the archtypes found in Ultimate Magic (except for those sneaky magus archetypes, I'll save those for next week). Each one of these classes has other rules bits associated with them as well, but we will talk about those in a future blog. Enjoy.

Class Archetypes
Alchemist: The chirurgeon, clone master, internal alchemist, mindchemist, preservationist, psychonaut, reanimator, and vivisectionist archetypes.
Bard: The animal speaker, celebrity, demagogue, dirge bard, geisha, songhealer, and sound striker archetypes.
Cleric: The cloistered cleric, separatist, theologian, and undead lord cleric archetypes.
Druid: The dragon shaman, menhir savant, mooncaller, pack lord, reincarnated druid, saurian shaman, shark shaman, and storm druid archetypes.
Inquisitor: The exorcist, heretic, infiltrator, preacher, and sin eater archetypes.
Monk: The high-fantasy qinggong monk archetype.
Oracle: The dual-cursed oracle, enlightened philosopher, planar oracle, possessed oracle, seer, and stargazer archetypes.
Paladin: This section presents the oathbound paladin archetype.
Ranger: The magic trap using trapper archetype.
Sorcerer: The crossblooded and wildblooded archetypes.
Summoner: The broodmaster, evolutionist, master summoner, and synthesist archetypes.
Witch: The beast-bonded, gravewalker, hedge witch, and sea witch archetypes.
Wizard: The metal elementalist and wood elementalist wizard schools and the scrollmaster wizard archetype.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

Golarion Day: Subdomains for Everyone!

Thursday, February 17, 2010

The Advanced Player's Guide introduced a new concept for clerics—subdomains. It then went on to list subdomains available for the core 20 deities. Which is fine and good, if you happen to worship one of those deities. But what if you worship Besmara? Or Zura? Or the Lost Prince? Or Ymeri?

This post answers those questions. Listed below are the subdomains available for all of the other deities who are mentioned by name in the upcoming Inner Sea World Guide. Keen-eyed scholars of Golarion lore will note that there are even more deities beyond the ones I'm listing below, but in an attempt to keep this blog post from getting too huge, I'm limiting it to JUST the additional deities we mention in The Inner Sea World Guide. That way this post also serves as a sort of stealth preview for that book! If there's another deity from another book who you JUST HAVE to know the subdomains for, post a request in this blog's messageboard section below and I'll answer them as I get the chance.

Other Deities

Achaekek: Blood, Deception, Devil, Murder, Tactics, Thievery

Apsu: Archon, Construct, Dragon, Exploration, Toil, Trade

Besmara: Deception, Oceans, Protean, Tactics, Thievery, Storms

Dahak: Catastrophe, Deception, Demon, Dragon, Rage, Thievery

Ghlaunder: Catastrophe, Cloud, Demon, Fur, Rage, Wind

Groetus: Catastrophe, Insanity, Loss, Night, Protean, Stars

Gyronna: Demon, Insanity, Nightmare, Rage

Hanspur: Exploration, Murder, Protean, Trade

Kurgess: Agathion, Family, Fate, Home, Resolve, Trade

Milani: Azata, Defense, Freedom, Purity, Restoration, Revolution

Sivanah: Deception, Insanity, Memory, Protean, Thought, Wards

Zyphus: Blood, Catastrophe, Daemon, Decay, Murder, Undead

Archdevils

Baalzebul: Devil, Murder, Undead, Wind

Barbatos: Arcane, Devil, Divine, Trade

Belial: Catastrophe, Devil, Lust, Rage

Dispater: Deception, Devil, Leadership, Thievery

Geryon: Devil, Ferocity, Oceans, Resolve

Mammon: Construct, Devil, Metal, Toil

Mephistopheles: Devil, Language, Memory, Thought

Moloch: Ash, Devil, Smoke, Tactics

Demon Lords

Abraxas: Arcane, Demon, Memory, Thought

Angazhan: Decay, Demon, Fur, Growth

Baphomet: Demon, Ferocity, Fur, Resolve

Cyth-V'sug: Caves, Decay, Demon, Growth

Dagon: Catastrophe, Demon, Oceans, Rage

Deskari: Blood, Catastrophe, Demon, Tactics

Gogunta: Demon, Murder, Undead, Oceans

Kostchtchie: Demon, Ferocity, Ice*, Tactics

Nocticula: Demon, Loss, Lust, Night

Orcus: Demon, Divine, Murder, Undead

Pazuzu: Cloud, Deception, Demon, Wind

Shax: Demon, Leadership, Martyr, Rage

Socothbenoth: Demon, Exploration, Trade Lust

Zura: Blood*, Demon, Murder, Undead

The Eldest

Count Ranalc: Exploration, Loss, Martyr, Night

Green Mother: Caves, Decay, Growth, Lust

Imbrex: Family, Home, Metal, Resolve

Lantern King: Deception, Love, Lust, Thievery

Lost Prince: Ancestors, Insanity, Martyr, Memory

Magdh: Curse, Fate, Thought, Wards

Ng: Exploration, Seasons, Thought, Trade

Ragadahn: Ancestors*, Dragon, Oceans, Saurian

Shyka: Arcane, Catastrophe, Divine, Insanity

Elemental Lords

Ayrzul: Caves, Metal

Hshurha: Clouds, Wind

Kelizandri: Ice, Oceans

Ymeri: Ash, Smoke

Empyreal Lords

Andoletta: Archon, Defense, Memory, Purity

Arshea: Agathion, Freedom, Love, Lust

Korada: Agathion, Purity, Restoration, Resurrection

Ragathiel: Archon, Leadership, Martyr, Rage

Sinashakti: Azata, Exploration, Fate, Trade

Valani: Azata, Growth*, Seasons, Storms

Horsemen

Apollyon: Catastrophe, Daemon, Loss, Night

Charon: Daemon, Ice, Memory, Undead

Szuriel: Blood, Daemon, Ferocity, Tactics

Trelmarixian: Daemon, Decay*, Insanity, Seasons

The Fallen, False, and Forgotten

Aroden: None

Great Old Ones: Dark Tapestry, Insanity, Language, Memory, Nightmare, Stars

Lissala: Devil, Language, Leadership, Memory, Thought, Wards

Peacock Spirit: None

Razmir: None

Ydersius: Demon, Leadership, Martyr, Saurian, Tactics

*Although this subdomain would normally not be available to worshipers of this deity, in this case an exception is made due to the deity's close association with this theme.

Oh... hmm. Art. Yeah. Ummm... since this blog post is something of a preview of The Inner Sea World Guide, and since she was once a demigod herself (although not anymore; she lost that status when she died and got turned into a lich), here's Arazni, the Harlot Queen of Geb!

Illustration by Carolina Eade

James Jacobs
Creative Director

Iconic Love

Monday, February 14, 2011

For some of us, Valentine's Day is just another day. We go to work, come home, maybe hang out with our significant others a bit or send the kids off to the sitter for a rare night out. For other people, however, Valentine's Day carries more significance, and flat-out demands acknowledgement. They see it as an excuse to truly cut loose, to go all-out with the romance and treat it like a real holiday.

And then, apparently, there's a third type of person: the type for whom Valentine's Day means a chance to go totally insane. Such appears to be the case with Pathfinder Tales author Kevin Andrew Murphy. How else can you explain the fact that he chose the occasion to, without any prompting or warning, write us an entire heroic crown of sonnets immortalizing the iconic characters' backgrounds in prose. (For those of you who've forgotten your 400-level literature classes, a "heroic crown of sonnets" is a specialized form of poetry in which you have 14 sonnets, each linked by their first and last lines, plus a fifteenth which is made up exclusively of the previous sonnets' linking lines, in order. Needless to say, it's incredibly difficult to do well.)

I'd say more, but I'm still processing the whole thing, so I think it's better to just post the sonnets in their entirety. Happy Valentine's Day!

The Fifteen Loves of Golarion

A Heroic Crown of Sonnets for Valentine's Day 2011
by Kevin Andrew Murphy

1. Alain, the Cavalier, "For Love of Glory"
I am the one who lives to tell the tale.
The victor is the braggart of his fame,
The first to know the glory of his name
But not the last. The bards now all regale
The common folk with ballads of my deeds,
The battles won by force of my prowess,
The ransomed kings who've bowed to my duress,
And Donahan, the noblest of steeds.
Sometimes I think he is my only friend.
The men I ride with? Those I can replace.
The maids I bed? Each just a pretty face.
Yet Donahan is mine till journey's end.
If he falls first, then part of me is dead.
I've said the words that needed to be said.

2. Alahazra, the Oracle, "For Love of Truth"
I've said the words that needed to be said,
For Truth is blind, and I am blind in truth.
My clouded eyes see little but forsooth
My inner eye sees clearly. I have read
The fates of men with but the barest glance.
I know the future as I know the past,
Which seeds will sprout and which of them will last,
For Destiny leaves nothing up to Chance.
It was not Chance that burned me with its fire.
The simoom's breath is but the Wind of Fate
That claimed me with its Flame. I now relate
The Fate of Love, if that is your desire:
All present loves become in days ahead
Mementos kept in memory of the dead.

3. Seelah, the Paladin, "For Love of Those Now Gone"
Mementos kept in memory of the dead,
Reminders of what nothing can restore.
The wingéd helm that dead Acemi wore
Now hides my face and my unworthy head.
I feel its weight: part guilt, part gift, part theft.
Part love. She saw and yet forgave her thief,
The child who stole her helm. Ergo, my grief.
Acemi is still dead and I am left.
I have no words to say in my defense.
I know my deeds. I must have faith in grace
So now I wear her helm and take her place.
What Iomedae learned: Inheritance,
A gift of trust from those you must not fail
Now silent in the realm beyond the pale.

4. Harsk, the Ranger, "For Love of Solitude"
Now silent in the realm beyond the pale,
My brother lies–and those who took his life.
I ended theirs with crossbow quarrel and knife.
The giants dead, now I alone prevail.
My kin who dwell below with bended backs
To toil at the forge or in the mines,
Or worshiping our gods at dwarven shrines,
Have my regard, and yet my brother's axe
Is all I bear away from whence I hail.
A hunter's life is love of solitude.
A Spartan camp, a pot of tea fresh-brewed
Will keep him more alert than mugs of ale.
My quarry's tracks are runes left for the sage.
I know the letters written on this page.

5. Ezren, the Wizard, "For Love of Scholarship"
I know the letters written on this page,
My father charged with some impiety
Against our god, some awful blasphemy
Too dire for words, and nothing can assuage
The gossips' tongues, for rumor needs no proof.
And Abadar? The merchant god cares not
Who prospers or who fails nor what is bought.
The Golden One stays in his Vault, aloof.
I spent my youth to clear my father's name,
In quest to save the business that he built,
But in the end I only proved his guilt.
Now scholarship's the only love I claim.
Yet law for arcane law can be exchanged.
Old orders sometimes must be rearranged.

6. Sajan, the Monk, "For Love of a Sister"
"Old orders sometimes must be rearranged."
So said the monks when taking twin from twin.
My sister Sajni's gone. I should begin
Describing how we came to be estranged.
We were conceived. Our lives were intertwined
Like threads of web and woof strung on a loom,
So were our limbs locked in our mother's womb.
Though born as two, we're more when we're combined.
We trained with temple swords and so time passed
Till at twelve years we each were sent away
And battle woes lost her to Jalmeray.
I left, deserting all I knew, my caste,
To seek my sister. Far too far I've ranged.
I've changed some facts which never should be changed.

7. Damiel, the Alchemist, "For Love of Change"
I've changed some facts which never should be changed
And yet that is the goal of alchemy:
Quicksilver shifting, mutability.
The philosophic art just seems deranged
To those too dull to grasp aetheric heights
Or dream of fixing one's perfected form,
Not living with the dull and banal norm.
You reach out when the stars are in your sights,
Yet what you grasp may be the fulgent dark
For nightmares ride as well between the stars.
Like Shelyn's smile can hide Zon-Kuthon's scars,
The bright quicksilver sea conceals a shark,
And from the left the villain steps onstage
To let men feel the battle fury's rage.

8. Amiri, the Barbarian, "For Love of Oneself"
To let men feel the battle fury's rage,
The Six Bears tribesmen donned the skins of bears
They'd taken from our totems in their lairs.
Each boy was sent to do it at an age.
We girls were told to sit inside and spin,
Awaiting a barbarian's return.
This never was a name that women earn.
I brought a she-bear's hide back to my kin.
The time came that a warband of my clan
All dared me to bring back a giant's blade.
When I returned, they mocked me as a maid.
The blood rage came. I slew them to a man.
That bastard blade I bear with me. Beware
To taste the kiss of malice and despair.

9. Seltyiel, the Magus, "For Lack of Love"
To taste the kiss of malice and despair,
One needn't know the touch of love or hope–
At very least, not of an equal scope–
And pain is seldom more than one can bear,
And when it is? Well, there is always death.
My mother died the moment I was born.
My sister's cries, those spared my life that morn.
I often think she should have saved her breath.
Sioria, oh how could you divine
The babe you saved would still be here alive
Or on a feast of wormwood one could thrive.
I'll kill your father once I first kill mine.
Foul Lairsaph was a fool to teach his spawn
To walk the road with weapons sheathed or drawn....

10. Valeros, the Fighter, "For Love of Adventure"
To walk the road with weapons sheathed or drawn
Is how a sellsword passes most his days.
That much at least is truthful in bards' lays.
The rest? Well yes, there is a need for brawn–
The same goes for an ox that pulls a plow–
But when your sword-arm makes some villain yield,
That's better than some plowshare in a field.
At least it's more exciting anyhow.
One day I may retire to a farm,
Grow beans and beets or brew a bit of beer,
But now I love my freedom and I hear
A distant village sounding the alarm.
If there's adventure calling, I'll be gone
To greet the hope that rises with the dawn.

11. Kyra, the Cleric, "For Love of Hope"
To greet the hope that rises with the dawn,
The Crown of Our Beloved Sarenrae
Who cast the Beast below to Asmodae,
Is how a priestess prays for I'm Her pawn.
Whate'er the Dawnflower wishes I will do.
When bandits burned my village and Her shrine,
That's when I saw the face of the divine.
Through streaming tears the sun shone and I knew
The Everlight had filled me with Her power
To heal the sick and ailing with Her light
And cleanse those past redemption of their blight
By scimitar, like Dawn's Eternal Flower.
One day I'll join my goddess in the air
To live a life of joy and forswear care.

12. Merisiel, the Rogue, "For Love of Freedom"
To live a life of joy and forswear care
Is what I always felt the world should be.
See something that you like? Then take it. Free!
If you don't like your lot, then folk should share.
They call it thievery, who gives a fig?
My knives can teach their tongues to be polite,
And while some think I could be more contrite
It's not like they're not working the same gig.
This knife I got from some Azlanti queen.
This one? From Galt. Belonged to some coquette
And these? From Geb. But most I just forget.
I only care if I can keep them keen.
You make life up like some bard's folderol.
I sing the songs that rise up from my soul.

13. Seoni, the Sorcerer, "For Love of Magic"
I sing the songs that rise up from my soul
And write the runes appearing in my dreams.
The ones I walk with talk about my "schemes,"
If schemes they are, or just an unknown goal.
I'd like to say I like just who I am,
Yet who can say just who they are? Not I.
Or what I am, or how I am, or why.
That statement just might be my epigram.
I only know when spells wish to be wrought,
The way they say that love pulls at the heart.
Just so I feel the call of arcane art.
It springs to mind like any other thought.
I'd work alone, but I lack that control
For love and friendship are what make one whole.

14. Lini, the Druid, "For Love of a True Companion"
"For love and friendship are what make one whole."
So spake the norn who whispered in the wood.
She vanished but her fey advice is good
And with it I can talk to mouse or mole.
The purest love is love you get from beasts.
My friend Droogami taught me this is true.
It's something though that I already knew.
I never bought the nonsense from the priests
About the love of gods as the most pure.
Who can believe a love you never see?
My love is for the leopard next to me
And she for me and that's what shall endure.
She's great and strong where I am small and frail.
I am the one who lives to tell the tale.

15. Lem, the Bard, "For Love of Happy Endings"
I am the one who lives to tell the tale.
I've said the words that needed to be said,
Mementos kept in memory of the dead
Now silent in the realm beyond the pale.
I know the letters written on this page.
Old orders sometimes must be rearranged.
I've changed some facts which never should be changed
To let men feel the battle fury's rage,
To taste the kiss of malice and despair,
To walk the road with weapons sheathed or drawn,
To greet the hope that rises with the dawn,
To live a life of joy and forswear care.
I sing the songs that rise up from my soul
For love and friendship are what make one whole.

James Sutter
Fiction Editor