Revealing Secrets

Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Illustration by Valeria Lutfullina

This month, Pathfinder fans can get their hands on the adventure that kicks off the Return of the Runelords Adventure Path—Secrets of Roderic's Cove! I asked on Twitter what folks would like to see in a blog about this adventure, and a number of people wanted to know more about the writing process and more behind the scenes things. So, here y'all go!

After working on various parts of the Adventure Path line for over 6 years, I finally got my name on the front cover! I'd been given the option before, but it seemed like every time the opportunity came up the timing just wasn't right. I didn't want to take on a big project and not be able to deliver on time. I still had plenty on my plate, but kicking off an Adventure Path was too tempting to refuse. I also enjoy writing low-level adventures, so that was another factor that led me to jump on this.

James had some basic ideas of what he wanted this adventure to accomplish, and rather than us using the usual outlining process, we pretty much just talked things through, and I kept him updated on where the story was going, getting feedback and bouncing ideas off of him.

Writing Adventure Path adventures is tough. While I've written plenty of things since I first started freelancing, this adventure is the longest single project I've ever written. I stressed trying to pull it all together and hit my deadline (which I didn't), and at the end of it all I had overwritten by more than 7,000 words. Trimming it down was easier than I expected, though. I had another level in a dungeon that was a little more than 5,000 words by itself and it wasn't 100% necessary to the plot, so... yoink! To the floor with you! The rest was just cleaning up some things, connecting the dots, and trimming down a few encounters.

Illustration by Ekaterina Burmak

Illustration by Nikolai Ostertag

I enjoyed getting to flesh out the town of Roderic's Cove, as well. There were only a few sentences on the place, so I got to really breathe some life into it. I like making small towns and their inhabitants, and really enjoy linking everyone together to make a place seem realistic and dynamic all while giving PCs fun characters to interact with.

This adventure is somewhat of a sandbox, and it provides a wide range of encounters and places to explore. Not every challenge is best dealt with through violence, so the PCs can find different solutions to their problems. While the adventure kicks off the bigger plot of the campaign, it is also self-contained and could easily serve as a standalone adventure with minimal work on the GM's part.

I hope that everyone who reads or plays Secrets of Roderic's Cove enjoys themselves. Get ready to take down those runelords!

Adam Daigle
Managing Developer

Nidal, Where the Gloom Never Recedes

Thursday, April 19, 2018

In the realm shackled to Zon-Kuthon, god of darkness and pain, shadows are more than pools of gloom tucked away from the light of day—they're living embodiments of the Midnight Lord's power.

And in Nidal, the sun never fully shines.

In the forthcoming book Nidal, Land of Shadows, we take a deep dive into this nation, where the evil Kuthite religion is mandated on pain of slow, tortuous death. The book's authors have done an incredible job breathing creepy, nuanced life into this dismal land, as we mentioned before. On display are innumerable adventure hooks for intrepid adventures as well as details about the perils that stretch across the land. The writing in this book is, to put it succinctly, beautiful.

And so is this book's art.

From its cover to its chain-adorned page border to its chapter-opening pieces to its interior art, everything about this book just looks gorgeous in the best, most gothic-inspired way.

But don't take my word for it. Check out these interior pieces for yourself!

Illustrations by Raph Lomotan and Nikolai Ostertag

Amanda Hamon Kunz
Managing Developer

Art of the Wild

Friday, November 17, 2017

Now that Ultimate Wilderness is out in the wild, there have been plenty of discussions about what's in the book. Since words only go so far, I wanted to take this opportunity to show off some of the book's art. Feast your eyes on the bounties of nature.

Illustration by Kiki Moch Rizky

Illustration by Valeria Lutfullina

Illustration by Alexandre Chaudret

Illustration by Nikolai Ostertag and Brynn Methany

Adam Daigle

Managing Developer

Mythological Monsters of Bestiary 6

Thursday, April 20, 2017

Now that Bestiary 6 is making the rounds and folks have had a chance to get over the shock of seeing archdevils and kaiju and qlippoth lords and the Horsemen of the Apocalypse and empyreal lords and all sorts of other powerful creatures like the ones we spoke of last week, I'd like to thank humanity as a whole for being such an endless font of inspiration. We've been creating monsters to fill our stories and myths since we first started telling stories and weaving myths, and over the thousands and thousands of years humanity's been around, well, that's a lot of time to create a lot of monsters!

While there's always been a core collection of monsters drawn from mythology in fantasy RPGs, the ones that have appeared in print only scratch the surface. Whenever we start gearing up for a new Bestiary, one of the first places we go to is real-world myth and legend. Bestiary 6 is no exception. From the very first monster in the book, the blood-drinking alp, we drew from mythology to populate the book with a diverse array of critters. As the book came together, I was amused to see a few unintentional themes develop among these mythological monsters—I think my favorite is the "creepy monster with one eye." The ghole, the mapinguari, and the psoglav all come from myth or cryptozoology, and it was a fun challenge for me to make sure that, while all three are similar in theme (vaguely human-shaped one-eyed menaces), they all fit different roles in the game.

Another theme that I was delighted to finally explore in a Bestiary was no accident at all. The Wild Hunt was one of the initial monsters I had in mind for the book, and for some time was my go-to in house when folks would ask me "Are there any monsters in this book that I've heard of that aren't in print yet?" or its variant, "Are there any monsters in the book that I'll be surprised HAVEN'T been put in one of our products already?" The Wild Hunt, which expanded from a single entry into several, is a prime example—a well-known entire category of mythological monster that we've done nothing with, until now. I love what Linda Zayas-Palmer did with these things, and how the art ended up making them all look of a kind even when they include such diverse shapes as horse, hound, or humanoid.

Of course, not all of the monsters inspired by myth had one eye or were part of the Wild Hunt. Check out the following three examples as proof! And I'm eager to see if folks can pick out all of the other mythological monsters from the book in the comments below!

Illustrations by Nikolai Ostertag, Rafael Rivera, and Florian Stitz

James Jacobs
Creative Director

Powerful Monsters

Saturday, April 15, 2017

Bestiary 6 is slithering out into the world, but even though the book is out there, I've still got a few more things to chat about the contents. Going forward, we'll continue to sow off some art from the book but these posts will be more "behind the scenes" than "monster previews."

Which brings us to today's theme—powerful monsters. For some time now I've wanted us to produce a Bestiary whose challenges skew higher than traditional. While it's true that more games are run at lower level, and thus there's a need for a lot of low and mid tier monsters, we've published a lot of those already in prior Bestiaries. One of the problems facing GMs and adventure writers of high-level content is a lack of monsters to fill the role of threat. As a result, high-level adventures tend to have lots of creatures with class levels, templates, advanced Hit Dice, or sometimes two or even three of these categories in play.

With Bestiary 6, I wanted to give us all more toys to play with for adventures that take place above 10th level, be they powerful creatures to fight again and again or unique foes to serve as a long quest's final boss or as the theme for an entire campaign. I also wanted to populate some niches of monsters that have long been denied higher CR representation—usually, the high CR monsters are outsiders or dragons or giants. In preparing for Bestiary 6, I realized that we'd done a shockingly few number of monstrous humanoids and plants above CR 10, for example, so those two categories were ones I immediately looked to address. I spoke about oozes a few weeks back with the blights, of course, but when you get your copy of Bestiary 6, I think you'll be delighted by the number of new options of monsters to throw at your players, particularly powerful monsters that aren't overly huge and can fit into areas as small as the player characters themselves!

Three of my favorite high CR additions to the game include the kaiju (including the most powerful one of them all—Lord Varklops), the apocalypse horse (which came about as a natural result of the decision to include the Horsemen of the Apocalypse and then realizing these high CR demigods needed something more significant than an advanced nightmare to ride around on), and the ouroboros (a monster I've wanted to get into an RPG for well over a decade). Ranging from CR 21 (the ouroboros) to CR 25 (the apocalypse horses) to CR 30 (Lord Varklops), these three make a perfect cross-section of the variety of powerful foes in Bestiary 6!

Illustrations by Joshua Wright, Ben Wootten, and Nikolai Ostertag

James Jacobs
Creative Director

Illustration by Nikolai Ostertag

First World Preview—The Places

Thursday, December 8, 2016

Last week, I showed off one of the Eldest write-ups from our upcoming campaign setting book, The First World, Realm of the Fey. This week, I thought I'd give you a taste of some of the bizarre adventure locations you'll find inside.

My philosophy with gazetteers has always been to squeeze as many ideas into an article (or in this case, book) as possible: give GMs just enough fun details to get their minds spinning, then go off in an entirely different direction and leave them (or future adventures) to fill in the rest. These short shotgun blasts of ideas are also one of my favorite thing to write, and thus I try to carve them out as much space in my books as possible! As a result, this book has a heaping helping of encounter locations, ranging in size from a mere paragraph for random adventure sites to an entire page for the Eldest's seats of power or cities in need of maps. Presented below is just one of these locations, plus its awesome illustration!

Cobyslarni: The gleaming domes and steeples of this magical academy would be impressive anywhere, yet instead of standing atop a mountaintop or in some bustling city, the Traveling Academy of Cobyslarni roams the plains of the First World, riding like a howdah atop an enormous, three-eyed elephantine beast. The university's charter holds that its founder, Cobyslarni, decided the best way to foster independent thought was to be constantly moving, never able to be claimed by any given Eldest or city government. In the academy's halls, some of the greatest arcane and occult scholars of the First World gather to teach promising students, peruse the school's extradimensional libraries, or debate the finer points of occult theory upon floating disks in the school's open-air auditoriums. Overseeing the day-to-day running of the school is Headmistress Bofika Nemesan (NG female human wizard 11/occultist 6), chosen from among her peers by the school's illustrious founder. As for Cobyslarni himself, any student or traveler may ask him questions, yet he rarely deigns to answer these days, busy as he is contemplating the mysteries of the multiverse and carrying the school upon his vast back.

For dozens more locations like these, please check out Pathfinder Campaign Setting: The First World, Realm of the Fey, coming later this month!

James L. Sutter
Creative Director

Faces of Korvosa

Thursday, October 27, 2016

Now that the hardcover edition of Curse of the Crimson Throne is out, countless groups of adventures are going to have the chance to meet the vast cast of NPCs featured in this campaign. The images in this blog post serve to highlight several, but not all, of the individuals you will be encountering or at least hearing a bout during the Adventure Path. For the player, consider the following information as common knowledge to anyone who's spent a few years living in Korvosa, while for the GM, the accompanying illustrations are great play aids to show during the game when the PCs are interacting with the NPC in question!

Those familiar with Curse of the Crimson Throne will doubtless note that certain key and important NPCs are missing from the following list, and that others might not have a significant role to play at all in the adventure—remember, this is a list of notable faces of Korvosa, and NPCs who only rise to prominence or arrive in the city after the campaign begins simply aren't logical choices to include here. Also, the presence of a few famous Korvosans on this list who don't play significant roles in the campaign should help to obscure for the new player exactly which NPCs have significant roles and are destined to play key parts! And of course, many of the NPCs presented below have secrets, hidden agendas, or surprises in store. In order to solve these mysteries, though, you'll need to play the game! (Or in the case of the GM, read the book—if you're having trouble finding an NPC in the text, don't forget the index of primary NPCs that appears on pages 438-439 of the book!)

King Eodred Arabasti II, ruler of Korvosa, is rumored to be in ill health.	Queen Ileosa Arabasti's popularity in Korvosa among the commonfolk has never been strong—many see her as a petulant spoiled young woman.	Ausio Carowyn is one of Korvosa's many nobles—an aristocracy increasingly out of touch with the commonfolk.
Boule is a successful businessman, but has long been rumored to be the leader of Korvosa's thieves' guild, the Cerulean Society.	Captain Cressida Kroft is the leader of the Korvosan Guard.	Archbanker Darb Tuttle is the leader of the faith of Abadar in Korvosa.
Darvayne Gios Amprei is one of many Chelish ambassadors who dwell in the city.	High priestess of the Cathedral of Pharasma, mysterious Keppira d'Bear is one of Korvosa's most powerful clerics.	Marcus Endrin is the leader of the Sable Company—Korvosa's elite hippogriff-mounted defenders.
Ruan Mirukova is a talented musician who finds his skills in rising demand for aristocratic galas.	Thousand Bones is a Shoanti shaman who has recently become a spokesperson for his people in Korvosa.	Toff Ornelos is the headmaster of Korvosa's world-renowned magical university, the Acadamae.
Trinia Sabor is a young but talented artist who's recent commission to paint the king's portrait has brought her increased fame.	Zellara Esmeranda is a talented Varisian fortune teller.	Arbiter Zenobia Zenderholm, known locally as the “Hanging Judge,” is well known among Korvosa's citizens for her harsh stance on criminal activity.

Illustrations by Kremena Chipilova, Julie Dillion, Andrew Hou, Irina Kuzmina, Nikolai Ostertag, and Imaginary Friends Studios

James Jacobs
Creative Director

Embrace Elemental Might!

Thursday, September 15, 2016

From the Jade Regent Adventure Path and Dragon Empires Gazetteer that drove the Year of the Ruby Phoenix to the Iron Gods Adventure Path and Technology Guide that inspired the Year of the Sky Key, the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild has borrowed heavily from upcoming Pathfinder literature when designing a new season's setting and feel. About two years ago, the organized play program set a course for storylines independent of the ongoing Adventure Paths, and the elemental planes were always that under-appreciated portion of the campaign setting's cosmology where the Pathfinder Society could make its mark. We're making that happen in the new Year of the Stolen Storm!

Illustrations by Nikolai Ostertag

The trouble is that by divesting our metaplot from the Adventure Paths, we'd entered fairly undocumented territory. The Great Beyond provides valuable information upon which Blood of the Elements built, but we had still written fewer words about these nigh-infinite planes than we had about most countries in the Inner Sea region! This time, rather than react to and incorporate other product lines, the Pathfinder Society team pitched Planes of Power, secured it a spot on the schedule, and outlined it so that players, GMs, and authors alike could learn more about the elemental planes we're featuring over the next year.

Planes of Power also provided us with an opportunity to make the elemental planes stand out as the truly bizarre, wondrous, and primal places that they are. We aimed much higher than simply describing the Plane of Fire as a place that's hot or the Plane of Air as a floating realm. Rather, the nuances of each plane are lovingly detailed in 10-page chapters, which describe the realms' unique histories, inhabitants, places of interest, political intrigues, and more. Each chapter also includes a section of ground-level details about a planar metropolis.

Rounding out the book are chapters full of planar beasts and character options, including tools to help PCs explore the elemental planes and wield elemental energies no matter the setting. We're excited to say that Planes of Power also provides a look at the elemental lords, including the unholy symbols for the evil lords shown above.

Aside from this breadth of information, the book flat out looks gorgeous. From its dynamic cover to its thematic page elements to its beautiful illustrations, we hope that Planes of Power's visuals inspire readers with infinite ideas for planar characters and adventures.

Illustrations by Tomasz Chistowski, Helge C. Balzer, Roberto Pitturru, and Jorge Fares

Take a look at the illustrations above for a taste of what we mean!

John Compton and Amanda Hamon Kunz
Developers

"Spooky? Do You Think I'm Spooky?" The Year in Review

Thursday, December 31, 2015

Another year is in the bag, and with it, thousands of pages of Pathfinder Roleplaying Game content, ranging from new a whole new range of psychic classes in Occult Adventures to facing off against the demons of the Abyss in Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Wrath of the Righteous! Here's a few highlights from 2015.

Pathfinder Adventure Path

Yes, I was attracted in my younger years to the occult.
Illustration by Emiliano Petrozzi

Deep within the Mindspin Mountains, a big problem stirred, kicking off the Giantslayer Adventure Path with "Battle of Bloodmarch Hill"! As you might surmise from the title, you face a whole lotta giants in this AP, from hill to storm and pretty much all kinds in-between. The Order of the Amber Die ran the entire Giantslayer Adventure Path in six sessions, one per volume, and we shared their exploits on the blog previously. This year also saw the start of the 17th Adventure Path with Hell's Rebels, which included the milestone 100th volume, "A Song of Silver"!

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game

Jefe, what is a plethora? Four hardcover Pathfinder Roleplaying Game books, that's what. The Strategy Guide, Pathfinder Unchained, Occult Adventures, and Bestiary 5 all made its way out to fans everywhere this year, bringing a host of advice, new rules options, psychic characters, and critters a-plenty for everybody's game. The wyrmwraith proved pretty popular, winning our Bestiary 5 Battle Royale contest!

Pathfinder Campaign Setting

Pairing nicely along with Occult Adventures is setting-specific releases of Occult Realms and Occult Bestiary! Esoteric horrors and secrets await in those tomes, but there's also Inner Sea Races, a hardcover compilation expanding upon the many members (and possible player characters) of the Inner Sea! The Inner Sea Monster Codex gives a heapin' helpin' of new options for the game master as well (along with the return of the Pathfinder Flip-Mat Classics and a redesigned Combat Pad).

Pathfinder Module

Don't rest your head.
Illustration by Dave Allsop

You may not be aware of this...but we kinda like adventure 'round these parts! "Daughters of Fury" was penned by RPG Superstar 2014 winner Victoria Jaczko, while Nicolas Logue returned with "Feast of Dust", and Master of Mysticism Brandon Hodge penned "The House of Hook Street" (which just might make you afraid to close your eyes at night). If you're looking for something level- or region-specific, don't miss out on the Pathfinder Adventure Finder, which includes hundreds of adventures from Paizo and third-party Pathfinder publishers!

Pathfinder Player Companion

There were quite a few fan-favorite releases for players this year, including (but certainly not limited to) Cohorts & Companions, Melee Tactics Toolbox, and Weapon Master's Handbook! Players picking up a copy of Occult Adventures might also want to grab Occult Origins, which provides new spells, feats, and rituals that tie into some of Golarion's history.

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game

The world-changing events of the Wrath of the Righteous Adventure Path made for an epic conversion to the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, and the Season of the Righteous brought the Wrath of the Righteous Adventure Card Game to organized play. From lowly mortals dabbling in affairs beyond their ken to challenging demon lords in their home realms, Wrath of the Righteous is not for the faint-hearted heroes!

And in conclusion, here's some more art from this year's releases!

Illustrations by Nikolai Ostertag, Géraude Soulié, Tom Babbey, Donald Crank, Jaime Martinez, and Kiki Moch Rozky

May your next crit confirm—and if you're looking for more hidden gems, check out Know Direction where hosts Alex Augunas and Ryan Costello interview our Project Manager Jessica Price for things you might have missed this year!

Liz Courts
Community Manager

A Last Look at the Art of Inner Sea Races

Friday, October 2, 2015

Inner Sea Races just released this week! I've picked some of my favorite illustrations for this preview, and a wallpaper for you to download!

Download Standard | Download Widescreen | Download Mobile

Illustration by Romanov Pavel

Illustrations by Mariusz Gandzel, Aleksey Bayura, Damien Mammoliti, Fabio Gorla, Firat Solhan, and Nikolai Ostertag

Sarah Robinson
Managing Art Director